Say Something

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The next day, Draco brought Hermione three new books. All of them their old Hogwarts textbook. He watched Hermione as she examined each and every one of them with a curious expression. "So...um...is there any reason why you would bring me all out old textbooks?"

"I thought you liked them."

"I do, it's just....they're all textbooks."

"I can bring them back if you want."

"No!" she replied quickly, "No, I like them. I really do."

"Good. We're finally getting somewhere. I learned that you like really boring books!" Draco joked.

"They aren't boring! They're just a bit outdated, but they contain plenty of information!"

"Like I said, Granger," Draco said as he sat on her bed, "Boring."

Hermione eyed him skeptically and asked, "As long as we're learning things about each other, why don't you tell me something about yourself?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Come on! Please!" Hermione begged, absentmindly tugging his arm. Draco watched where she touched him with sudden curiousity, but shook it off when she let go. "Alright," he said in a defeated tone, "What would you like to know?"

"Why did you become a Healer?"

"That's easy. I wanted to help the people. After seeing so much destruction in batte, I knew I wanted to help them, not kill them."

"And how did you a Special Cases Healer?"

"I handle specific situations well."

"Like...this one?"

"Yes...like this one," he said, not able to look her in the eyes.

"Have you ever had anyone....die in one of your cases?" He didn't want to answer that question, but he felt her prolonged gaze on his figure for the longest time before he replied, "No, I haven't."

"So...I'm your first..."

"We don't need to talk about this," he rushed.

"No, it's okay. The sooner I accept it, the better. It's fine, really," she reassured. The two were quiet for the longest time. Draco wasn't sure what to do if this topic ever came up again. She had a point, the sooner she accepted her untimely death, the better. But it seemed that she had already accepted that quite some time ago. She just had a hard time coming to that conclusion every time it was brought up.

"Favorite color?" he asked, unsure of what else to do. And just like that, her frown had vanished followed by the smallest of smiles.

....

For the rest of the day and into the late afternoon, Draco spent it with her asking the most pointless questions and recieving the most useless answers. It didn't matter to him, because for a second - a fraction of a second - he saw something in Hermione's eyes change. He couldn't identify it at first, but as he flooed home, he realized that what he saw in her eyes was...forget.

He learned many new things about her as well during their time together. He learned that her favorite color is blue, as he guessed. He learned that her favorite class at Hogwarts was Arithmancy - a boring subject, really - and also that her favorite dessert was in fact, Cauldron Cakes.

As he sat down with his wife for dinner, he stared at her, eyes full of thought, fork twirling around in his hand. She could feel his eyes on her and had begun to feel uncomfortable under his gaze.

"What?!" she snapped at him.

"What's your favorite color?"

"...I'm sorry: What?!"

"What is your favorite color? It's a simple question, Astoria."

"But what does that have to do with anything?"

"I just thought that...well, we don't really know much about each other, do we? I mean you don't even know my favorite color."

"Of course I do! It's...black, right?"

Merlin, she was dumber than he thought, "It's green, Astoria," he said with the sternest of looks, "I wear it everyday, we're from Slytherin house, Hell, every room in this house is a different shade of green!"

"But that doesn't matter!" she exclaimed, dropping her fork on the table, "Who cares about colors or clothings and what not?"

"That's not the point. The point is that we know nothing about each other, which is why I insist we spend more time together. Like on the weekends."

Astoria chuckled softly, "You know I spend the weekends with my sister."

"She has that ball on Saturday! Surely you could miss you for just one day."

Astoria shook her head, "Draco, I want to spend time with my sister, like we do every Saturday! Besides the ball is at night and she's going to need my help getting ready."

"But, I-"

"Now, now Draco. We can do something next week but for now, I have plans," she said getting up from her chair, walking over to Draco and kissing him on the cheek. She then strutted out of the dining room leaving an increasingly frustrated husband.