inyourdreams...

If only she knew.

Draco wondered if Granger knew the elation he felt when she wielded a weapon, her dark eyes as fiery as her temper; curly hair crackling around her as if by magic.

It had been one year since he'd witnessed her fury, her fire, firsthand.

Since he’d seen her.

“Do you yield, Malfoy?” Granger currently had a silver blade, carved with white marble at the hilt prodding at his neck rather menacingly. It was, he realised, the sword he had gifted her before the final battle with Lord Voldemort.

Draco much preferred the memory of her delivering the final blow to their enemy than the new one she was making as she brandished the long sword at him.

“That depends entirely on your definition of yielding,” he said.

She scoffed. “The purpose of a yield is to give surrender to the winner.”

“Seeing as I have your full attention, I’d say I’m the winner here.”

She rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “No one informed me that you were going to show up.”

“It’s been a long time, yes. But, you and I need to talk. Potter’s told me you barely leave the grounds unless it’s for your healing work in the village.”

And I missed you, he thought privately.

“Nice to know you’ve been able to stay in contact with Harry but not with me,” she said icily.

“Put the sword down, Granger,” he said.

She stepped forward, and her blade cut into his skin, but he didn’t relent. “Hermione.”

She lowered her hand hesitantly, but still brandished the sword defensively at her side. “You left me here,” she said curtly, but he could see the strained expression around her mouth and the way her eyes glistened with unshed tears in the moonlight.

He was having a difficult time swallowing. “You weren’t mine to take—“

Her eyes flashed. “You said I was yours! You said that I was yours and that you were mine. For as long as we wanted each other. What was that? Was it all a lie?!” She made to take a step forward then apparently thought better of it, choosing to glare up at him with narrowed eyes, instead. “Are you lying now?”

If he could just reach her, be closer to her. The distance between them made it more difficult to say everything he wanted—needed to. He had to say something.

“Weasley loved you—”

“Yes, but I loved you!”

Draco’s chest tightened.

He was frozen. He couldn’t breathe. Surely he had just been a distraction for her, something heady and secret when they were fighting for their lives every day. He had always expected her to go back to Weasley after the war; he’d heard the redhead boast about proposing to her once the dust of the war settled, more times than he could count.

Draco was just someone who had switched sides out of fear. He wasn’t one of them. He wasn’t good, least of all not for her.

A rueful smile took her lips and she shook her head, exasperated. “You’re such a bloody idiot if you didn’t know that.”

“Granger—“

“He did ask me to marry him.” His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Ron,” she clarified, “but I said no. It was the easiest decision of my life, as I’m sure, the way you decided to leave without even saying goodbye must have been the easiest for you.”

She turned to walk away but he took two long strides, his own sword dropping to the ground, each bounce and subsequent scrape of metal on the stone floor punctuated by the steps he took towards her. He caught her wrist, gripping her tightly. “Please”, he said.

She tried tugging free, not looking at him. “Let me go,” she said harshly, glaring at where his fingers wrapped around and overlapped on her wrist.

He grabbed her shoulders instead, squeezing them in desperation as he crowded her against one of the pillars.

“I didn’t want to leave,” he said between clenched teeth, “but I had to. You deserved more than what I could give you. You still do.”

She smacked his chest once, then twice, then again before he caught her wrists. “Don’t presume to know what’s best for me. I wanted you, you overgrown pillock!”

He could burn to a pile of ash beneath her fiery gaze. “I came back.”

She looked up at him, large brown eyes prodding and dissecting the very heart of him.

“Why?”

It was such a simple question. Why? Why couldn’t he stay away from her when he knew she deserved more. When she was the sun and he was merely a shadow, dimming her brightness.

“Because I’m selfish.”

She stared at him.

“And because I love you,” he said, taking a curl that had fallen over her face and brushing it over and behind the curve of her ear. He felt her shiver under his touch.

He watched her eyes widen, her slim throat bob as she gulped tightly, and the hands that had come to his elbows squeezed around his sleeves at his words.

There was a long silence in which he could feel his heart spasming, readying itself to be rejected by this beautiful, brilliant girl he didn’t deserve.

She reached up suddenly and took hold of his chin, making him meet her eyes.

“You love me?” she asked.

“With all that I am.”

Before he could interpret her silence Hermione flung herself at him, arms around his neck as she kissed him with a fierceness that would surely leave his lips bruised. Wrapping his arms around her short frame he lifted her into his arms, and as he held her up bodily, over the pounding of his heart, he heard the dull thud of her sword hitting the ground.

As he kissed her back he thought of all those years together, and all the agonising months apart, and he knew then that she knew he spoke the truth.

She always knew.

Love!!! 😍💚