When We Were Beasts

Cinnamon Girl

The storm ripped at her hair and skin, but Hermione refused to move.

Theo warned her it was coming, but it still took everything in her to fight this overwhelming urge to walk into the river and never come out.

A week and a half later, and she had fought through most of the pain, but the anger refused to abandon her.

Hermione was so angry that no matter how much she scrubbed at her skin, she could still smell him.

Hermione was livid that she still felt Bellatrix's claws in her, even in her sleep. That her scar had worsened and bore more words.

Hermione was angry that everyone, except Theo, looked at her like she was made of glass.

She wasn't sure she really wanted to kill herself, but she just wanted to feel the fight to live again. Hermione hadn't felt it since she conjured that Patronus.

She was waist deep in the water when two arms pulled her out.

"Let me go!" Hermione thrashed.

He threw her down in the mud, and Hermione turned as she stood and pointed her wand at him. Before she could move he gripped her hand and disarmed her, pocketing her wand.

"How dare you-"

"No!" Malfoy exploded. "How dare you. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I just wanted to feel something again!"

"And your answer to that was swimming in the river at midnight during a storm?" Even in the shadows she could see the cold fury on his face. "You thought dying would make you feel alive?"

"I don't know what I was thinking." She confessed as her chest heaved. Everything from the waist down was numb from the cold. "I just..."

"Did you think I wouldn't follow you?"

She knew he would. She knew he'd save her, again and again, and she trusted that he'd show up before it all went too far.

She felt crazy, now that she was standing here, covered in rain, mud and Malfoy's desperate judgement.

"Granger, did you think I wouldn't come and stop you?"

"You'd have come for anyone, Malfoy. I'm not special."

The rain continued to drum all around them, a reflection of Hermione's very emotions.

"You're not as brilliant as I thought you were if you really think that." His chest heaved. "Do you think I care about them the way I care about you?" His rain soaked fingers gripped her face. "They're my family, yes, and I would kill for them. I would save them. But you're the only one I would die for." The way he looked at her when he said it nearly sent her to her knees. "If you asked me to run away tomorrow, I would. If you wanted me to carry you through the rest of this fucking game, I would! I would lay down my own life so you could be the one to leave if I knew you'd be safer that way. Because I-" and he choked on it, before he said it. Like water that had not run out of a faucet in so long, his throat needed a moment before it could properly say it... "I...I love you."

Hermione swore even the rain halted for a moment.

I love you.

"You love me?" The question was her holding her heart out. Waiting to see if he'd pull a blade out and gut it. "You really love me?"

No pause. No hesitation. "There has never been anything else I've felt with more assurance, Hermione."

It was her name, said with such care and ferocious devotion, that made her close the distance and kiss him with everything she had.