Innocent

c h a p t e r t w e n t y f o u r

"WHY DID YOU COME? How-"

Her voice was muffled in his collar. She tried to pry away, but his grasp lingered on her hips. Her heart fluttered through her skin and into his jacket, under his shirt, onto his warm skin. 

"Are you okay? Try to hold it together so we can make that quidditch session tonight." He joked, but his voice was genuinely nervous. 

"Draco, this isn't necessary-"

"We need to talk." The sky shone in his blue eyes and she swallowed the rock in her throat. 

"Here, Draco, we can move to Snape's room. Draco! They will see you, with me. You have to go. I can't-"

"It doesn't matter, Hermione. The Slytherins could care less who I hug."

He glanced around indecisively as if he had been hit by a rod, his whole face froze. The smile dissolved off his face in a second. She turned around, only to be met by Ginny and Lavender. Ginny had a weird look plastered on her face, and Lavenders' hand dangled over her mouth like an animated figurine. 

Her blood ran cold. 

"I can explain-"

"Paradon us, I'm borrowing her for a minute." Draco pulled her up from the ground gave a short bow. Ginny's eyes brimmed with tears- possibly stress or confusion, but Hermione allowed herself to be selfish and follow his lead. 

His hand shook lightly in her grasp as if he would break. His whole face was ashen. Then it clicked, like the swaying of the grass, and the tingling in her arms- he was afraid. 

She pulled him to a stop, and let out a chuckle. 

"You're shaking."

"No, I'm," he looked in the distance for a moment, "Just come with me."

"You're terrifi-"

Her voice was ripped through her throat as he yanked her harder behind rocks and aimless twigs. 

"I'm perfectly fine, I don't know what you're talking about."

The sounds of voices and cries were lost in the wind, and Draco breathed a sigh of relief.

"See, I told you."

"Yes, whatever. There's no need to point out everything."

"I just have never seen you, well I have but. Like I didn't think you got anxiety around Ginny."

"The last person I would be scared of is Weaslette."

"Or Ron."

"Yeah, Weasel."

Hermione adjusted herself against the rock and noticed how grimy she looked. She tried fiddling with her looks, but Draco would always outshine her. 

"How, how did you find me?" She was winded by words. 

"I mean, you were screaming and clawing. I think anyone would have seen you."

She chewed angrily on her nails- so it really had been that awful. She probably looked like an idiot. Correction: she did. By the way, Draco was softly grinning at her, she'd been nothing less than amusing. 

"Really?"

"I was the only one outside, so you're probably in the clear, Ms..."

"Excuse me?"

"What, oh nothing."

He picked at a stick, peeling off the thick bark. 

"I was supposed to marry Astoria."

"Astoria Greengrass?"

She couldn't remember much of the girl but a trace of rose in her cheeks like they'd been pinched, and her slender face. 

"And why are you telling me this?" The words came out too bitter. Maybe because she already knew her moments with Draco were ruined by the sins and stupidy of the world. 

"I said I was going to marry her. Not that I will." He sighed. "I don't know, Gra- Hermione."

"You can call me Granger."

He eyed her uncertainly. 

"Are you... going to be-"

"You can call me Granger. Just in that voice."

"What voice?"

"Like how you just said it."

"What like, Granger?" He smirked at the soft smile she shot him.

"It's okay now. I'm getting a little better with it all. When it's joking. When it's... you saying it."

"Are you sure?"

"Are you doubting me?"

He smirked again. "Well, as I was saying I was going to, and how do I put this... I don't like her."

A withering rose in her heart swelled heavily with hope. 

"How do you know?"

"Well, Grang...er, I thought you would be excited to hear that."

"And why, would I be excited?"

"I don't know. I just can't bring myself to love her."

"Why? I mean, she's beautiful. Rich, probably."

"She is."

"Rich, pretty, probably kind, and respectable."

The stick snapped under his grip. 

"I tried picturing myself with her, and I almost lost in."

"Draco, that's personal. You don't have to tell me."

"It's stupid for the two of us to throw our lives away for some agreement." He paused as if waiting for reassurance. 

"Yeah. That's how it felt with Ron."

"Why?"

"I mean you just don't love them anymore."

"Or ever."

She chuckled but it was forced. It was as if he was on the edge of revealing something, but he was waiting for her to ask him about it.

"Why?"

"What?" She asked.

"I don't get it, Granger."

"Why is it you?"

"What do you mean, 'always me' you need to state your question more clear so I can understand." She scratched the back of her head, somehow already knowing what his answer was. 

"Everything returns to you. I can't..." He looked away. 

She noticed his nails were bitten to the beds, and he was thumping his leg up and down worriedly. 

"Draco, do you like me? As a person?"

"Of course, you are interesting." He paused and cleared his throat. "Whatever, it's fine, Granger."

"Is that all I am?"

"No, no," he gestured vaguely, "No, Granger you are amazing in your own way. You give me a reason to exist."

She squeezed her eyes shut as if to freeze time at this moment where everything was easy and hard, perfect, and strange at the same time. 

"Don't tell me my words made you cry."

"Yeah right."

His words lingered in her mind. 

You give me a reason to exist. 

It was lawless and ignorant, yet youthful and beautiful. Though their relationship had no definition, without him she was missing half of her universe.