NUMB WITHOUT YOU | Draco Malfoy

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Hermione Granger was quick on her feet when she didn't want to be followed. I lost her the moment she ran out the door of the ballroom. It was a good thing it wouldn't take a genius like her to know the first place she would go to seek comfort would be a room full of books. I walked straight to the library and found her crying into a first edition copy of Hogwarts: A History.

"Hermione, there you are!" I said as I walked into the room. She looked up and wiped away her tears.

"Oh, Rory. Hi. I was just catching up on some light reading." She sniffled and held up the oversized book. I wouldn't tell Malfoy that she was getting tears all over the pristine pages.

I walked over and sat down on the arm of the oversized chair she was curled up in. "You don't have to pretend with me, you know. Do you want to talk about it?"

Hermione slammed the book shut and looked at me. Her eyes were still glassy from the tears that had stained her face, "I am so mad at Ronald right now. He's acting like he doesn't trust me, which is absolutely ridiculous. Viktor and I are just friends, and we're not even that close anymore quite frankly." She sighed heavily, "I'm just worried that there's a rift forming between the two of us. Every night since Viktor came back we've just been fighting non-stop. I'm sick of it!"

"Ron is just insecure." I assured her, "It's got nothing to do with you and everything to do with him. He's a guy. He will get over it eventually. In the meantime you will just suffer until it's out of his system. You've found yourself a very moody boyfriend, there's no doubt about it."

"I thought he was going to propose soon." Hermione sniffled and her face turned red with embarrassment as she admitted it out loud, "Now I just think he's going to reconsider."

"Definitely not! There is no Ron Weasley without Hermione Granger." I gasped, "You two have basically been a couple since we were kids. Don't try and argue with me on that. I see your face right now." I cracked a smile as Hermione opened her mouth to protest and abruptly shut it.

"You know, I could say the same for you and Draco." It was Hermione's turn to smirk while she sniffled. "Do you think he would propose to you?"

"Merlin, I don't think I'm ready for that sort of thing. We're not like you and Ron." I laughed, "We just got back together. I would like everything in my life to be a bit more stable before I worry about the intricacies of settling down, don't you think?"

"Crazier things have happened." Hermione laughed.

"Weren't you the one saying we couldn't be together?" I scowled at her, "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"I was never opposed if you two were doing more than hooking up." Hermione explained, "I just didn't want your history to cause problems within the program. You two were our grand experiment to see if this would be viable at all. And in all honesty, I was just enforcing rules that the ministry imposed upon me and all of my future sponsors/sponsees. You know how I like following rules. It all made sense in a contractual way, but signatures on paper don't exactly rule the heart."

Before I could respond to her waxing poetic, we were interrupted by a loud popping noise and the sound of a wailing house elf.

"WAAAAHHHHH!" Dipsy cried as she fell onto the floor in a heap. She sounded like a cross between a dying cat and a muggle car alarm.