Much Ado at Nott's

Night 3

He found her in the garden, crouched by the lacrimosa. Crying into it. He knelt beside her, rubbing her back. Clasping her hands in his.

It was so rare to see this.

"How long have you been crying, love," he murmured.

"I don't know. But I will cry as long as I like if I feel like it," she said, her hands tightening on his.

Draco looked at the bush. The flowers that had coaxed forth one of his favorite moments with her. New buds were already sprouting, the stems growing long. Tears of happiness.

He felt tears prick his own eyes. "If you cry much more over it, it'll grow out of control. Will you at least cry into this?" He offered her a handkerchief.

Then, surprising himself: "I don't want to see you cry."

"I do it freely," she said, turning away from the bush, where the newborn flowers were now spreading, turning their faces to the moon.

Then he lifted her to her feet, tilted her face up to his, and let all of the words he'd prepared slip from his brain.

Everything in him that was ever hard or fearful softened, then opened like the petals of the lacrimosa.

"I do love nothing in the world so well as you," he said in a low voice. "Is that not strange?"

"Not so strange," she said back, hesitantly. "It might be that I love nothing so well as you — "

His heart pounded as he waited for her next words.

"But with everything that's happened," she continued, "maybe you shouldn't believe me."

His skin tingled thinking about everything that had happened. Her feet tangled in his. His body under hers. Her hair spilling across his chest. Three nights he could believe in, enough to want to see what happened next.

She pressed on, "But I'm not lying; I confess nothing. I deny nothing..."

He eased his wand from his sleeve and nudged her to look down at it with her.

"By this fucking hawthorn wand, Hermione, you love me," he said, and his voice was a little smug because he knew it was true.

She laughed through her tears. "Don't swear and eat it."

He released streams of Chromos from the wand, an ethereal painting in the air. He felt a little maudlin, so he traced hearts in different colors, melting into the shapes of different flowers.

"I will swear by this wand that you love me," he said sternly, his breath stirring her curls, "and whoever says I don't will eat his words."

"What if you have to eat your own words," she said, tracing the colors and shapes with her finger. They swam and separated under her touch like ink spreading on the surface of water.

"There isn't a sauce that can make me choke them down. I love you," he said fiercely, putting away the wand and tilting her face to his.

"I love you too," she said, "with all my heart."

And then she took him straight to heaven: "I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest."

She really is a better writer than I am, he thought.

Even if her pottery leaves something to be desired.

She pulled his mouth down to hers as she had the first night, and once again he murmured Oh my god. And as they kissed, gently and gratefully, the lacrimosa lily slowly descended and retracted to its original size.