August 1 st , 2004
Clack, clack.
Draco looks up from his lunch to see her settling in the bench across from him.
"Yes?"
"What." It's more of a statement than a question.
"Well, this isn't exactly normal for you, Granger. Don't you usually sit with Potter and Weasley?"
Dammit. Why can't he say anything nicely?
"Sometimes we all need a change of scenery, you know? And no one told me you were back, by the way. I had to learn it from Lavender who heard it from Parvati who heard it from Padma who heard it from Susan who heard it from Hannah who heard it from Ernie who heard it from Anthony who heard it from Kingsley."
"That's quite a list."
"You got that right."
"I went to see you my first morning back. But you were occupied," he says with a (he hopes) casual shrug.
She looks thoughtful, as if trying to think back to that exact moment in time, and her face flushes as she realises what exactly he's referring to.
"Oh."
He nods at his salad.
"Look, Malfoy, I'm sorry if—at your flat I... I honestly had no idea what I was doing, it's just—"
"Don't worry, Granger," he says, taking hold of his tray and rising from the table. "I would have pitied me, too."
And he hopes she understands. He hopes she understands that he is willing to write of the kiss off (chaste and meaningless as it seemed) as a pity gesture, a simple action taken only to comfort a maybe-possibly-probably(-oh-God-he-hoped-so) friend.
He hopes she understands that he doesn't need it to mean anything more than that—or anything at all.
But also, in some remote, reluctant corner of him, he hopes she realises that he wants it to mean more than that—he wants it to mean everything.
But he leaves, and she doesn't stop him.
YOU ARE READING
Eyes Open by: orphan_account
Fanfiction[ COMPLETE] Granger corners him one last time, pulling that bloody envelope from her robes. He lets it fall into his open palm. "You know the rules, don't you?" "Only for when I'm at my lowest point," he says. "And after I open it, I go straight to...
