Say You Love Me

{17}

"I'm going absolutely insane, Luna."

Luna made a discontented sound across from her in the office, but let her continue anyways.

"I feel like a dunce for leaving him. Of course, I haven't talked to Severus at all because I feel so ashamed, and I just feel like I need to be moving on with my life, despite the fact that I don't really have a life to move on with, do I?"

Hermione breathed in deeply, the puffskein in her hand wiggling about as her petting had gotten too aggressive apparently. Ungrateful little animal.

"I still don't quite understand why you think you need to keep yourself from everyday normality when you say you so desperately crave that exact thing," Luna wondered openly.

"I don't. I merely think that letting people get more attached to me than they already are is just cruel. Besides, I want to know why I was frustrated with him."

Luna sighed, "Well, that's why you're here, isn't it?"

Hermione frowned.

"Yeah."

"How is Severus handling it? Have you heard from anyone?"

Hermione grunted, "Isn't this appointment about me?"

"He affects your health," Luna determined quickly.

Taking a deep breath, Hermione wished it not true. She wished Severus didn't affect how she felt during the day, and she certainly wished that her breathing wasn't only better where he lived.

"No one's owls have been answered, not even Draco's."

"Oh."

Hermione wished she would say more.

"What should I do, Luna? I don't have any idea."

"Why not go there? It's not like it's an imposition to you, considering what it does for your physical comfort."

"So just... show up and hope he lets me apologize?"

Luna grinned, "Precisely!"

Supposing it was the only way, Hermione decided that she would.

"But then why did I get so irritated and come back immediately regretting it? It's like these bloody flowers have made me irrationally moody."

"Well, let's think. They are flowers in a normal sense, and we know love will cease if you remove them... so maybe something there is hindering their growth and affecting your emotions simultaneously?"

Having never thought of that before, Hermione began to wonder what at the beach could possibly stifle the flowers in her chest. Not that she didn't want to get rid of them, but if her love was going to dwindle with them, then she needed to nurture them instead of kill them off.

"Plants are adverse to many things, but the climate isn't awful right now, and as far as I know that shouldn't affect the disease considering my internal body temperature. Considering they are in my lungs, maybe it's something in the air-"

"Saltwater!" Luna interrupted, seemingly getting excited about the whole thing, but then she immediately came back down to a serious, healer's nature, "Saltwater isn't good for plants, and since you're so close to the sea all the time, and I'm sure you probably swim in it, the flowers are reacting adversely to it, slowly dying, if you will."

"Are you saying I can't go back to Severus's house? Not that he wants me there right now anyways, but..." Hermione trailed off. She didn't know how to feel about unknowingly killing the flowers.