Pride and Polyjuice Potion

Epilogue

There comes a time when we are expected to confess our shortcomings. After having delayed this as much as possible, I come to a point where it cannot wait any longer.

You don't have to read on if you don't want to. It's okay, really. I lie to myself too. It's comforting. Please, be my guest. A lot of people tend to skip epilogues. You won't be alone.

What you've read so far - it's what should have happened, anyway. Not what actually did happen, of course.

Are you shocked? But, reader, I left you clues all the way along!

Not many, of course, I had to make sure it was just about believable enough to lull you into a nice and comforting false sense of security. If you couldn't tell, I am about as Slytherin as it gets.

And because of that, I think you'll find that this story is written entirely out of cowardice. It's me annotating the past, making it the way it should have always been. Do you remember me saying that to her, reader?

Well I didn't of course.

Because the truth is, I never met Hermione Granger in Wiltshire. I never danced with her. I never told her that I loved her. I never kissed her. I never touched her.

There are some pieces here and there that are true; I couldn't make it all a silly cartoon. It had to resemble real life, even if it couldn't replicate it.

That's also why I couldn't make their relationship perfect, you see. It had to be somewhat realistic. I had to give the smooth skin of my fantasy some pores.

Let me make it quite explicitly clear: Hermione and Draco did not end up together because miracles are entirely fictional. Happiness is fictional.

Screw 'didn't end up together' - they didn't have anything at all. I could have been satisfied with her running off and marrying the Weasel as long as she and I had had our chance. As long as we had had something. 

But, reader, how can a person say goodbye to someone they have never even said hello to? How is one even to imagine it?

I didn't go too far. I didn't write them a future or anything. Just a short period in their lives. Just a quick snapshot in time. Just that they had something.

I'm telling you, I know it, I just know that we could have been everything. Maybe we were everything. Oh shut up, Draco, who the fuck are you fooling anymore?

Love doesn't exist for me outside of stories. Outside the shield of my quill and parchment, I am all alone. So lonely.

What else should I tell you, reader?

That you ought to feel ashamed of yourselves for having been so notoriously gulled by a couple thousand words? No, I won't blame you for something I set out to do to you from the start. Perhaps, I have relished in the prospect of destroying you as much as I have in destroying myself.

But did you really not know? At times, I found myself laughing at how obvious it all was. I spelt it out for you in big, embossed letters on a leather-bound pad of parchment.

Come on, reader, I even told you that you'd be surprised at how easy it is to lose something that had always been there.

I even threw in the deception card and the reversed lovers card in Divination, for fuck's sake.

I even said that I would write her a whole book convincing her that she existed for me. Surely you knew then?

Have I made you feel stupid, angry, sad? Join the club, my friend.

There's plenty more I could point out to you, but I won't torture you further. You can go back and find them, if you please. Or you can forget this epilogue even exists. Your choice. I won't judge you.