Irresistible Poison DRARRY

Irresistible Potion - Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen: Dust and Ashes

Who so loves, believes the impossible.

"Do you believe in fate, Hermione?"

The cool evening wind ruffled Harry's dark, unruly hair; he didn't bother to push away the fringe that fanned across his eyes. He stared out across the lake, tranquil like a mirror of liquid glass, as ripples of troubled thoughts rose in his mind.

"Do you?" Hermione asked simply.

Harry shrugged, his gaze fixed across the waters. He liked how they remained calm even as gentle winds swirled over the surface. There was a dense, balanced quality about the lake that was infinitely calming.

But even after the storm was calmed, the damage still remained.

When Harry didn't answer, Hermione seemed on the brink of saying something, but she held back. Harry was quiet for a while, casting for the right words to express things he didn't quite understand.

"I don't know," he finally said, the frustration and hopelessness shining through his voice, glistening like unshed tears. "Is there any other way that'll make this easier to accept?"

Hermione's expression softened. She reached out, and touched Harry's arm.

"It's not your fault," she said quietly, "and neither is it Malfoy's. Sometimes things just turn out very differently from what you expect."

"Like the way he was the one who drank the love potion, but I'm the one finding it hard to let him go?" Harry blurted out bitterly; then he caught himself, and said quickly, "To let go, I mean."

Hermione took a deep breath, and sighed.

"You can't let go of what was never yours in the first place." She looked intently at Harry; her tone was meaningful. "You never really had him, Harry. You have to try to remember that it was the love potion influencing him, and any affection, or... or, love, as it might've seemed — none of it was real."

The stark truth fractured Harry's fragile veneer of composure — raw emotion flashed through him like a whip of lightning, and Harry closed his eyes. There was nothing left to see, nothing to hold on to.

None of it was real.

"This seems like a convenient time to blame it on fate, don't you think?" he said wearily. "It was all so wrong to begin with — I find it hard to believe this wasn't written in the stars of a very dark night." His voice quavered. "The night I went to the Forbidden Forest."

"So you think that you and Malfoy were meant to meet each other there?" Hermione asked pensively, a small frown etching her brow.

"I can't explain it any other way," Harry answered. "I wasn't supposed to be out of bed. Somehow I got it in my head that I had to sneak out to send an owl to Sirius in the middle of the night, even without my Cloak. And that same night Malfoy was in the Forbidden Forest, at precisely the time I went past. Do you think the bizarre crossing of our paths was just a coincidence?"

Hermione looked thoughtful for a long moment. Her eyes were bright and alert, as if her mind was running through everything which had transpired since that night in the Forbidden Forest — whether it was fate, fortune, or something else altogether.

"I don't think it was meant to happen," Hermione said finally. "It just did." She paused, then added softly, "And in the most unlikely place, you and Malfoy found each other."

* * * * *

Draco sat on his bed, his arms crossed, a frown on his face and a scowl on his lips.