The Day After Tomorrow

WITHDRAWRAL SYMPTOMS

25 - WITHDRAWRAL SYMPTOMS

DRACO wondered if it was possible to both dread and dream of a single moment in equal measure as much as he was when it came to seeing Hermione Granger.

He had never imagined that his Christmas was going to be enjoyable, but he had never imagined it to be life changing. There had been his fathers will, Astoria and the tonnes of baggage that came with her and then there had been Blaise. When he'd left the manor, part of Draco had stayed awake worrying and stressing that he'd done everything wrong, handled it all badly.

Now there was going to be Granger. Or no Granger if things went as he expected them to, which was not well.

He'd held the Christmas present from her to his chest that night, not having read a single word but knowing that he loved it immediately, it had been the candle in the darkness of the drama. Not because it was probably the most personal and mundane present anyone had ever gifted him but because it was from her.

She'd have scanned through her cramped bookshelves for a while and chosen the book, picked out a pen from that vast collection of stationary he imagined she had stowed away at her desk, taken precious moments to formulate the message, and even wrap the parcel in paper, and she'd done all of it while thinking of him.

That's what made what he was going to do now all the harder, all the more impossible. Draco wasn't sure if hearing the news from him would hurt more or less, but surely seeing it stamped on the front cover of the Daily Prophet would be infinitely worse.

The Greengrass's had made it clear that they expected it to a public engagement because what was the point of all the fuss if the entire wizarding world didn't know, Draco thought with a frown. Not for the first time he felt the panic seize him because that engagement was more than an announcement of a union between two pureblood families, but a pronouncement of the end of the little happiness he'd found for himself. It was the end of borrowed books, secret scar pacts, late nights awake talking. It was the end of Draco and it was the end of Hermione.

He'd somehow managed to avoid her at Kings Cross just like he'd forced himself to avoid all contact with her after the Diagon Alley attack. He could still recall that nauseous feeling that had come with the news and it soothed something in him to see her alive and unharmed.

He didn't quite know how he'd managed to avoid her for so long because he could see her, standing with a small travelling bag, her shoulders hunched against the wind and rain and her unruly hair stuffed under a woollen hat. From where he stood, if he squinted he could see the fading bruises and healing cuts. He'd dared to hope she'd be alright, dared to hope that she would weather the storm but Draco knew that if their places had been reversed, he'd be collapsed on the floor, a figurative and literal mess.

And if he had been trying to wean himself off the drug that was Hermione Granger, he wasn't doing very well. He was an addict and every moment spent thinking of her only brought him closer to the knowledge that she was going to leave, or he would be forced to leave her and then it wouldn't matter if he was addicted or not.

He could tell she was looking, looking for him and he watched from a distance, imagining her eyebrows furrow and mouth purse because he wasn't there, and he felt guilty. There was some magnetic pull within him that he had to force down with an unknown power.

They'd made too many promises to each other, too many promises to never leave, to always understand and never let each other down that now with the sole task of breaking them all he felt a stabbing sense of panic.

Now that they were on the train he knew it was time to rip of the band-aid, there was no point prolonging the anxiety, no point pretending that the longer he postponed it the better the outcome could be.