Anchor and Rose | Dramione

Twenty-Five.

Hermione woke still laying on the bed inside of Regulus's bedroom.

The room was rather warm and the soft pungent smell of vanilla continued to trickle from the candle on the dresser beside the bed. Her head was fuzzy with the reminiscences of sleep, but she was aware that the bed, that had been completely bare, was now draped in soft blankets and fluffy pillows. She could feel the warming charm, that she had not cast, buzzing through the room to contain her goosebumps.

She hated knowing that Draco had screamed at her and then covered her in blankets to keep her warm. She hated the fact it made her somewhat happy, filling her chest with the feeling of safety and beatitude. Because it was not normal, it was not what Draco should've been doing-If he was going to tell her he wished she would stop caring, shouldn't he stop caring too?

Hermione began to make her way downstairs, finding it rather strange she didn't wake up on the sofa by the fire. It felt as if she had broken the routines, the rules and regulations silently set by her and Draco when they arrived here three months ago. She told herself to not fall asleep up there again.

The door to Narcissa's old room was shut tight, and Hermione knew Draco was most likely curled into a ball on her bed, hugging one of her dusty pillows. As she crossed it, she almost felt tempted to open the door and comfort him. To hug him, kiss him and tell him everything was fine, but it wasn't, so why should she bother to lie.

Hermione knew the way he had treated her the night previously was cruel and simply malicious. And besides, wouldn't it look like she cared too much if she waltzed into the room to swattle him?

Hermione scoffed and huffed all the way down into the kitchen, cursing under her breath as she put her wand on the table and poured herself a glass of water, sipping it while she peered out of the window.

February had extinguished itself with a rush of cold winds and one last downpour of sleet and March arrived, bringing fluffy clouds and bright flowers along with it.

Hermione was almost glad to bid farewell to the sub-zero temperatures, for once. Winter had always been her favourite season, but she relished in the idea of the cold departing, along with all the horrid memories it had created in its rampage.

Silence rang through Hermione's surroundings as she stared at the blooming daffodils at the base of the window. Until, she heard a soft hoot coming from the kitchen table and turned to see Molack sitting prettily on the edge of the chair, her soft white feathers consumed by the yellow rays of the spring sun gleaming in through the window.

Hermione had been so busy worrying about Draco's issues, that she had forgotten to pay any mind to her response to Harry and Ron. Did they even deserve a response? She thought that maybe they didn't. Hermione felt torn whether she should continue to care about them in a way they clearly did not care about her. However, she was Hermione Granger and the memories of her friendship with Harry and Ron slipped inside of her mind, and she quickly scrambled to write a letter before Draco woke up and tried to stop her.

She wrote it with slightly shaky hands and watched as Moclack flew out of the window happily, disappearing into the sky until she was just a small dot amongst the fluffy clouds and turn on her heels, sinking into the chair on the dining table.

Like clockwork, her fingers plucked up her wand. She twirled it in her fingers, enjoying the way the Locket-part of the wand, which she previously believed to be a jewel, glimmered beneath the yellow light. The pads of her fingers ran across the black elm-wood and she suddenly thought about how it had darkened in colour after being subjected to the Drink of Despair inside the cave.

She had tried to block out any memory of Regulus' death to avoid feeling responsible for it.

Yet, her mind suddenly dropped into a casualty of different ideologies and queries, the main question poising her mind; what charms did the Drink of Despair actually create, other than the blazing fire that led to Regulus' death?