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Red Summer of 19	By : bk11 Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 2142 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Red Summer of 19
- 2-part 2
- 3-part 3
- 4-part 4
- 5-part 5
- 6-part 6
- 7-part 7
- 8-part 8
- 9-part 9
- 5
- 6
- 7
Disclaimer: Don't own them. J. K. Rowling does.

Title: Red Summer of 19

Email: bkeleven11[at]yahoo[dot]com

Rating: R

Spoilers: Anything. Everything.

Summary: Boy meets Girl again during the summer of twenty-three. And they remember the summer of nineteen.
Notes: The reviews rocked, guys. Though I sometimes get confused over whether you�re bashing me or not (shout out to mesmer!). We should work out a Gladiator thing where y�all go *thumbs up* or *thumbs down* (Mmm, Creepy-Joaquin) so this smarty doesn�t get all confused again. Anyways, just want to toss out a �hiya, friend!� to bipolarquirks for making my jaw drop with her words, and mesmer--for just killing me with her review. Smooches to the rest of you lovely people.

The real notes: The last section of this chapter and every subsequent that even mentions the word �Rubicon� is inspired by a bud�s story. (Without spaces) www. fanfiction . net/ s/ 186430/1/

It�s not Harry Potter, but that�s where that comes from. Snaps for Ms Starlight for letting me play with it.

Beta: Meggie.

- - - - -

Part 6

- - - - -

She grips the white napkin:

His house is the ugliest green she had ever seen. It's probably a white that had gotten green (mold? fungus? rain?) on it over the years.

The first time she had ever gotten marks (perfect marks), she was five years old. Though, the one blemish on the piece of paper (or so she thought when she showed Mummy and Daddy) was the brief comment written under the smilie face. �Hermione is wonderfully bright and inquisitive. Maybe too inquisitive.� Her five-year-old mind cursed out Ms. Johnson before she even knew how to curse.

Though, standing at there at the puke house she can�t help but think that maybe Ms. Johnson was right.

Here�s her ideal:

She would run fast. Then she would slam face-first into the door, and her powers would be super-human enough so that the pathetic door would just jump out of her way, in fright. And then her eyes would search out his--shocked, stupid, maybe scandalized. Double points if, when she scares the door off its hinges, she caught him in flagrante delicto.

Ha.

Ha-ha, Draco Malfoy.

And after that the plan is to take her iron fist and pummel his ferrety face for all the times he had wronged her, wronged her friends, wronged the human race.

Call it penance, or something.

Retribution?

Good ol� fashioned ass-kicking, she decides.

But the second she imagines it all, she knew it had to be a daydream. Somewhere along the line, she became known as the advocator of all things, �Peace, Not War� and �Lover, Not a Fighter.�

Damn.

Her future dreams are foiled by an unwanted past. Typical.

In reality:

She walks slowly, lacking purpose. Unsteady, as if drunk. And then warm palms splay against a rough wooden door. Aching feet and blistered lips.

And then she knocks.

A man answers. (Man? Since when?)

Her eyes finds his feet. Bare tan feet in brown leather sandals. Then his legs. Up his khaki pants, and then the loose blue shirt. Finally, gray eyes.

"Hi," she cries out, unexpectedly. She hadn't wanted to.

He looks at her questioningly, as if he doesn't know her.

Warm salty tears mingle with sweat, and then evaporates into thick air.

"Hey."

- - - - -

The day before, she tensed up:

Cold water sprayed against her shoulder blades. Weeks of accumulated sweat going down the drain with motel soap and hard water.

Crying under the smokescreen of shower droplets.

How utterly stupid.

Earlier, at the restaurant, after she finished inventory, she was washing dishes. It was an act that she had mastered years ago, hands moving with expertise and grace as plates and silverware became clean.

It wasn�t a freaking ballet, though.

It was grace rooted in the desire to not lose money by having broken dishes docked out of her pay. It wasn�t art. It was necessity.

Welcome to your Life, Hermione Granger.

Except in this kitchen, all she had to do was load the machine. There was no real skill in loading machines.

Nevertheless, when the soiled plate accidentally slipped from her fingers and crashed against the floor, she jumped, not expecting the sudden cacophony. Ceramic pieces skittered across the ground in a perfect symmetry. Beautiful. And it was almost art. But hell, all she could seem to muster up was the energy to care about the fact that she was suddenly out of an hour and a half�s worth of work.

And she sank to the ground and started crying. Over a broken dish.

Might as well have been spilt milk.

When Cassie walked in and asked what was wrong, Sally got up hastily and blushed, embarrassed more than anything else.

The entire walk back to her motel, it never occurred to her, the oddity of crying over something as insignificant as a dish.

She turned off the showerhead. She sniffled a little and wiped her eyes on a white towel.

- - - - -

They sit on her beige sofa:

They are staring at her busted coffee table. Ask them who they are, and you'd get many answers. Pretend you had found them at the local pub, or in the comedy section of a video store. Pretend you had gone up to the pair and introduced yourself. And then you ask who they are. The dark haired fellow might give you a small ironic grin and tell you he is the "Boy Who Lives." If you were to turn to his friend, the one with the red hair, and ask him the same question, he might shrug guilelessly and tell you he's the "Sidekick of the Boy Who Lives."

But now, they are sitting on the beige sofa, and if you were to ask them who they were, they'd both give you the exact same answer. "We're Hermione Granger's best friends. And we miss her."

And you ask them who is Hermione Granger. One of them might say, "She's the smartest girl in the world, you know. You think I�m joking, but I�m really not. This girl knows everything. She�s annoying about it sometimes, but her heart�s always in the right place. She has a lovely smile and she is crazily optimistic. Or at least she was."

"Yeah. Here, look at this stain, Harry. Remember when I spilled the pumpkin juice? She was positively livid! She kicked me out of her flat, she did. Girl�s got a wicked temper on her, you know. And a violent streak. Strong as an ox. Physically. Mentally, she�s as strong as . . . er . . . something a lot stronger than an ox, you got me? Huh, I wonder why she ended up keeping this orange spot.�

"Maybe it reminded her of you."

The red-haired fellow might laugh a little. And you wonder whether he only laughs because he doesn't know what else to do. You ask about the battered coffee table, surely it is rather odd, having a broken coffee table in the middle of a room. The fellow with the scar might shrug, and look towards his friend for an answer, because neither of them had been around when their best friend, Hermione Granger, smashed the glass with a heavy vase and stabbed the wood with a cleaver. Her mother had given her the table when she first moved into her flat, you see.

So you ask the two fellows why they hadn't cleaned up the mess yet.

"Her dad wanted to take it away, but Harry and I, we convinced him that maybe later on, she might want it again. The glass part is replaceable, and it only has little scratches on the wood. Maybe one day, she might want to sand it down and re-stain it." It doesn't occur to either of them that Hermione Granger might not be coming back.

You ask them where she is.

"Merlin knows. Honestly! No calls, no letters. She doesn't owl, anymore, you know. I even think she took an . . . what was it Harry?"

"An airplane."

"Right. An airplane. I think she might've taken one of those to some far location instead of Apparating. I heard those things are terribly expensive."

Why doesn't she use magic?

Both of the fellows wear matching frowns. "It actually isn't all that uncommon. There have been instances in the past, during wars and the like, where wizards or witches give up magic because of trauma." The fellow with the glasses takes them off and rubs his eyes, maybe he thinking that he's not saying it right, or that he sounds insensitive. Or that he's a complete ass. "I mean, after the War, I didn't touch my wand for a month. But then after that, I got lazy about making my own freaking bed that I just picked the damn thing up. Ha-ha-ha. Yeah. That�s me--lazy.�

�Harry--"

�Though it�s nothing compared to what Hermione went through, but I don't know. I stared at it for hours on end, and I'd remember things that I didn't want to remember. And--"

"It's okay, mate. We understand, okay? No need to go on."

- - - - -

She broke her hair tie:

Sally looked down at the offensive thin blue band and blinked in disbelief. As if she was thinking that this was the most recent in a long string of disappointments throughout her short life.

"You're being melodramatic, doll."

"Me?"

Sally looked at Pete, staring at her through the partition that separated stove area from the prep area. Sweat glistened on his forehead. His skin was tinged a heated pink and she saw sweat stains underneath his armpits. His graying hair curled under the edge of his white hat and he smiled at her crookedly. The right side of his mouth more open than the left.

Sally thought he could be one of the most beautiful creatures on the whole damned planet.

Think about it. A man who worked twelve hours every single day of his adult life--to live out his dream. Not the dream of working for one�s self, not another. Not the dream of providing a service to the world. Not the dream of owning a joint on the corner of Robinson and 135th.

No, sir. It was the dream of seeing his kid wake up every single weekday morning, at seven AM, with a book bag slung over his shoulder. His kid caught the 850 metro every single weekday, to get to the institution that would later give him a piece of paper that would say that he was the sort of man that wouldn�t have to work twelve hours every single day, serving unappreciative people, just to get a bit of life. Pete�s kid really wanted to help out his pop on Saturdays and Sundays (and they would fight over this), but Pete was the vicious kind of bastard, who didn�t go around hiring some uneducated kid off the streets. So Pete�s kid slummed around the house on weekends, maybe saw friends, maybe he did a bit of studying.

One day, someday, maybe, maybe.

I�ll be able to--I'll be able to--give him a little bit of what he deserves. Not everything, y�know. That kid deserves the whole fucking world on a silver platter--I can�t give him that. Unfortunately. But one day, someday--maybe--I can be the kind of man that could give him a taste of what could be.

Pete said he wanted to be able to buy his kid a car. Not something shiny and new--but maybe something that would move a little. Maybe a project to fix up.

Pete�s dad never gave him a car.

Pete�s dad gave him scars.

No. With his pit stains and uneven smile, Sally looked at him and absolute knew that Pete was the most beautiful creature to have ever existed on the whole damned planet.

"Yes, you,� Pete said, in response to her palpable melodrama. �You're lookin' at that hair thing as if it had just ate your baby."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course it didn't eat my baby. What baby? What is this baby you speak of?"

"I can give you a haircut, if you want, Sal. Your hair is really long."

Sally smiled at Cassie. Cassie pulled a pink tie off of her wrist and flung it playfully at Sally.

"I might take you up on that."

- - - - -

He kicked the bumper:

One more dent on his goddamn car wouldn't make much of a difference. One dent among seas, valleys, and mountain ranges. Or maybe, he�d make the mother of all dents. A dent to rule them all.

He saw his reflection against the windshield. Flushed skin, dirty unwashed hair, sweaty. Disgusting little shit.

Look at yourself, Malfoy. Just look at yourself.

He kicked that bloody bumper again.

And then he was smart enough to bang his fist on his trunk. He immediately felt remorseful, not for the stupid damned car though. He only regretted hitting it (like it deserved) because it made his hand throb hotly. And his hand was already hot from the humid sun. It was doubly hot. Hot squared. Fuck it.

It was HOTT.

Two �T�s. Take note.

He over-thought it. While he over-thought it, he misplaced his hand on the metal hood. Again. "Fuck!" He spared another glance at his reflection before walking around to the driver's side and wrenching open the door. He ran his hand erratically over the dash before it settled and flicked on the heat setting to �high� to possibly divert heat from the engine. Though Joe told him that it was a crapshoot �cause that only worked if it was the fan belt that was busted.

Didn�t work.

Well, crap.

His hands blindly groped at the ignition for the keys and when his fingers touched metal, he yanked them out viciously. Keys that deserved a brimstone death for being attached to the piece of shit that ate up his HOTT hand. Fucking keys.

Then he DROPPED the FUCKING keys (in the dirt--the dirt--never again--never again, Mummy)!

He groaned a bit as he bent down and swiped the keys off of a mound of dust-fine sand. And he stood back up and mentally bitch-slapped vertigo (and he blamed it all on his fucking keys and his messed up head that was so fucking weak that it couldn�t take the heat).

Can�t take the heat. Don�t play the game.

Dumbass.

He circled back to the trunk and popped it open. Six gallons of unpurified Australian water sat innocently on top of a dark brown blanket, staring at him. Mocking him.

Ha.

Ha ha.

Loser.

Ha.

Los-er.

Ha ha ha.

DAMN YOOOOU!!

In his head, or outloud, did it matter? If little Drakey screamed in the middle of the desert, and there was NO ONE around to hear him, did he make the slightest bit of difference?

He chucked his keys into the folds of the blankets and grabbed two plastic jugs of water, carrying them to the front where the hood was already popped.

"Piece of shit car," he muttered, hating himself really badly. Really, really badly. Only the purest kind of idiot who rode around on a stick for most of his life would backtrack and blow countless months� pay for a two-ton clunker that didn�t even have the decency to die at night, and then resurrect itself in the morning--like the fucking sun. The fucking SUN had more decency than his traitorous piece-of-shit clunker!

The thought saddened him much more than it really should have.

His hair was in his eyes and he saw red. He saw red and felt heat and wetness, and he really wanted to scratch his own eyes out, or pull out his bloody hair by its roots.

"Piece of shit car, piece of shit sun . . . piece of shit fucking hair!"

He moved with familiarity in relation to the blue Corolla. He knew exactly where the latch to his trunk was, and he knew that he had to jab it with the pen in his pocket, not his fleshy finger. This was another thought that saddened him much more than it should have, because one really shouldn�t have to get used to an unreliable piece-of-shit car.

Ahem. Joe told him this while Joe was patiently (saintly) trying to teach some petulant blond idiot how to maneuver a two-ton clunker:

�Engine overheating is a symptom of another problem--Listen, here, Drake--stop dicking around with the radio. This might come in handy. Problem could be low coolant level caused by a leak, a thermostat that's stuck closed . . . mebbe an inoperative cooling fan or a clogged radiator. The most important thing is to turn off the car before the overheating does any damage.�

Draco paid attention, here. He did! As evidenced by the new dent in the dead car.

He looked at his cute little dirty radiator cap. Every single time this happened, he has looked at the cute little dirty radiator cap, like a complete moron.

�Okay, pay attention. This is important--Draco--for the love of shit, can you look at me when I�m talking to you? Look at this cap, you see it? Never ever ever open it when it�s hot. It could explode on ya, and hot coolant will burn.�

A few wisps of fucking hair dug against his eyelids and he clawed his blunt nails up his forehead. His other hand, forgotten, started wandering for something to bear his weight on . . . and landed on the hot manifold. He immediately snatched his hand back.

"Aw, shit!"

He stared at his reddened hand in disbelief. There were blisters, opaque skin over a water bubble.

He must�ve been the dumbest creature to ever walk the earth. Surely.

"Taught me lesson, you did,� he muttered to his car.

He lethargically circled back and crawled across the front seat to grab his discarded t-shirt. Draco seriously doubted that it would help, but he wetted the t-shirt with his unpurified Australian tap water and wrapped it around his wounded hand anyways. It was too fucking HOTT to sit in the fucking car so he sunk down into the thin orange sand and leaned against the car, waiting for the engine to cool so he could finally flick open the cute little cap and dump some water in his radiator, waiting for night to resurrect the beast.

He lightly hit his head against the aluminum side, and then did so again, harder. He winced because it hurt a bit, and he absently wondered if his masochistic side just kicked the ass of his self-preserving nature. In the last half hour, he had bruised his foot, burned his hand, poured dirty water over his hand, thought about slicing open his blisters after his hand stop hurting so damn much, and he was pretty sure that sitting in the sun for a few hours would leave him with another one of those killer headaches . . . and sunburnt. And dehydrated.

And then he'd have to drink the water.

And then he'd die from itty-bitty bacteria eating his immune system alive.

And then life would be sweet.

No, no, no, stupid Draco. After you're dead, there is no life.

He wiggled around a bit to get comfortable in the lumpy dirt. He thought it was kinda funny, how a person changed with time. He waxed poetics about how, three years ago, he'd never thought he'd ever voluntarily skip showers or roll shirtless around in the dirt. He never thought he'd have a love-hate relationship with a blue Toyota Corolla. He�d never thought he�d have a dog. He never thought the car and the dog would be the best relationships of his life.

Ha, Father. I am not a delinquent. I am a productive member of Australian society. I have a job. I have transportation. I have a home. I have a car-friend. I have a pet. I am not an idiot. I'm not.

Oh, fuck you.

Draco banged his head against aluminum again, to break up the monotony of the dull ache in the back of his head, and laughed to himself. There was something horribly funny about a stupid little boy, who still wanted to please his daddy so badly.

Scratch that.

Pathetic little boy.

"Mr. Sandman . . . bring me a dream."

- - - - -

She ate the leftovers from the diner:

Hey. Free food.

She was at the countertop, alone and closing the place up again. She told Pete that he should go home to his kid--salvage a little bit of Saturday. Pete, with his dumb little notion of morality and chivalry and honor (or something like that) told her that he was the BOSS (heh) and he would fire her insubordinate ass LIKE THAT (snap!) if she didn�t toddle on home to her beau (he had sorely been misled by Cassie, who told him a fabricated story about a cute blond guy, who had a crush--not the story about the cruel blond bastard, who used to break her little idealistic glass world over his knee, easy-peasy-pie).

Eventually, Pete gave in, because Sally had a shrieking sort of mouth on her, and toddled on home to the kid, in front of the cable box, with an opened macroeconomics textbook propped on his lap.

Sally sort of regretted sending Pete home. She was bored. And when she was done shoveling food in her mouth, she ran to the bathroom. Still a little bored. Shaky palms grasped porcelain toilet bowls, and the sound of her retching echoed against tiled walls. Maybe not so bored, anymore.

Dumbledore gave her a name to connect to the face, later. But she instantly forgot because it didn't matter.

And she couldn't tell her dad . . . so she made Harry do it.

She flushed the toilet and crouched on top of the seat, ignoring the spasms of the overhead fan, and made sure her skinny butt didn�t accidentally slip right into the bowl.

In permanent ink on the closed door of the stall, black against yellowed white, she saw a rough sketch, stick figures with daggers, one with a crown, and the word "anarchy" neatly printed on top. To her left, she saw seven digits and in messy cursive, "looking for luv." She quivered, and then . . . the dam that had been holding back oceans and oceans . . . she finally gave out.

You fucking moron, she wanted to say, don't you know that it doesn't come that easy! You can't just fucking ask for it and get it! It's never that easy! It's too hard, and it's ultimately never worth it! There is no such thing!

She wanted to scream.

No such thing.

Dead.

- - - - -

And now, she sits in Draco Malfoy�s living room:

There had been questions. Lots of unasked ones. Why are you here, Granger? Why did you cross half of the earth to find me? How did you know I was here, Granger? What made you come? Why are you so quiet, Granger? What happened to you?

She stares blankly into him, brown eyes earnest and liquid.

He shivers, despite the contradictory droplet of sweat that slides down his spine. He sits in his chair, his calloused feet bare and one of them hanging off the arm of his chair. And he watches her. And he wonders, how did we get here? What did I do to get here?

And then she finally breaks the uncomfortable silence by timidly saying, �So, I was wondering why you gave me your address.�

He shrugs. �Seemed right. Just in case you ever wanted to see an old face, I�m here.� He shrugs again. Truth is that he gave it to her because it didn�t seem right to just . . . leave it at that. Pretend neither ever existed in each other�s respective spheres. Pretend he never called her the bad words, and she never slapped him (hard) for it.

�So, how are you?�

He coughs. �Good. Good . . . I think. Yourself?�

�I�m good, too.�

And then she stares down at her twitching fingers. She sighs quietly, he saw it better than he heard it, and nervously, she opens her mouth to whisper, �So why did you do it?�

�Do what?� he says defensively. Ah, familiar old patterns are hard to give up.

�Why did you switch sides?� she says plainly, staring at him unblinkingly. Scaring him a little bit, because he wonders . . . he wonders if she KNOWS. She knows everything, or she had the ability to know everything. Maybe . . .

She knows the REASON.

He chokes on his own spit because it shocks him. And it scared the shit out of him.

boom

And then he agitatedly rakes his hand through his messy hair. He drops his foot onto the floor loudly and it scares his poor yellow dog a bit. And, she notes with a vague sort of disgust, he doesn�t even care that he frightened his pet.

�I don�t know,� he finally says.

I don�t want to tell you.

�Malfoy,� she says tiredly, �You�re one of the most self-aware people I�ve ever known. You do know.�

You can�t know.

He makes a face. �You going to sit there and tell me what I do and don�t know? Still got nerves of steel.�

�Nerves of something, alright,� she mutters darkly.

He takes a moment to cough--a wet cough. His eyes flicker to her face briefly, and then he shakes his head and digs his palms against his temples for a moment. He�s acting as if his head is splitting open, or something.

Still the same little wolf-crier, she thinks.

�You�re still very annoying, you know that?� he mutters, with his face turned down, and his fists compressing his head.

�Malfoy--"

�Granger,� he says, �Here�s my advice: Get. Over. It.� He chuckles tonelessly. �What does it matter? It was four years ago.� She opens her mouth to speak, but he spontaneously drops his hands and stands up, crossing the room. �While you�re sitting on that, I�m taking a leak.�

Her mouth drops open. �Hey!�

�Be right back.�

She sits on his sofa quietly, sort of half humming because a part of her is irrationally afraid that she might (somehow!) sense something. Malfoy had somehow been built up in her mind as some two-dimensional genie creature . . . and perhaps if she had to face the fact that he was the kind of creature that had the same base biological needs as everyone else, then he�d stop being that two-dimensional genie creature.

And 3D-Malfoy kinda gave her the heebie-jeebies.

It was easier to hate a figment. Hate the archetype. Hate the representation.

And she should. She should hate him for that very first moment when he stood here, staring at her angrily, with nothing but evil in his eyes. When he first said it (to her face--to her face--she sometimes wonders how many times he said it behind her back). Mudblood.

He just . . . stood . . . there. And he just said it. As if it didn�t mean anything to him, but knew that it meant everything to her. And . . . what a fucker.

But then she remembers another moment. Sitting on a different patio, once a week, with him. And one of those weeks, he has a massive bruise spanning across the left planes of his face. She never bothered asking him where he got them, but she does remember asking him if he knew anything about the mating rituals of elephants. �Regular elephants?� he had asked, a bit confused. �They�re a matriarchal group,� she had said, �I just wonder about it . . . sometimes.� And that day, when their plates came, she reached for hers and he beat her to it by pushing it forward with a napkin, crumpled in his fingers. �Don�t you listen?� he had said, �She said it was hot. You don�t go touching everything like some stupid child. You could�ve gotten burned. And then where would you be, Granger?�

And . . . and it was hard to hate a real person.

"Granger? Why are you humming In the Hall of the Mountain King?"

Eyes blinking, and then concentrating on him. He is looking at her as if she is some sort of nutter.

�Doesn�t matter,� he says, �I get to ask a question now. Why did you run away?� And he sort of grins down at her with a familiar expression in his eyes.

�Run away?� she asks dumbly.

His grin widens. �That�s what this is, isn�t it? I can recognize the tell-tale signs.�

�You didn�t even answer mine!� she says petulantly.

He rolls his eyes. �I switched to the winning side. Yeah? Make sense? Satisfied?�

She�s already incredibly sick of him. She wants to stand up and point her finger right in his face and spell out LIAR! in big fat loopy letters (before she smashed his face in with her fist). Instead, she says, "Too cold. Yeah? Make sense? Satisfied?"

"Pardon?" Though he doesn�t look confused at all. Just . . . annoyed.

Hermione reaches out to Malfoy�s wandering dog. He was a beautiful fat thing with baby eyes and soft downy fur. The dog licks her hand.

�Sir Larry.�

�Huh?�

�That�s his name.�

�Oh.�

She leans down to pout her lips for Larry to kiss before she sheepishly wipes away dog drool with the back of her hand. Malfoy watches all this with a vague sort of interest, though she could tell he�s getting frustrated.

"I told him--my father--that I was going on a mini-break." A reflexive hiccup sneaks out and she giggles nervously. "And then I came here. And I don't want to go back. I rather like the anonymity here. There�s nobody that knows who I am. I�m not obligated to answer calls and go out to dinner with friends. And that�s it." So much finality. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

"I don't quite understand," he says carefully.

"Yeah. Neither do I sometimes." Her expression grows agitated. "There were problems even long before these last months. I don't know, maybe there have always been problems but--maybe you just need to physically leave the reminders." She grimaces. "Right. God. I don't even know why I picked the one city on the one continent that you happened to be on. I don't even know why I'm here."

He laughs humorlessly. "Probably the same reason I gave you my address. Fate, I think."

"Or it's the kick in the ass that keeps on going."

"Or bad Karma."

"Or my Yin is outta whack with your Yang . . . or in whack?" She leans forward, elbows on knees, a bit confused. �Anyways, your curiosity sated, yet? Now, why did you switch sides?�

He stares blankly at her, and she stubbornly stares back, half wondering why it mattered so much to her.

"Granger," he begins slowly after the uncomfortable pause, "I'm sorry."

She hadn�t expected that. "Sorry?" Her voice cracks. "You didn't do anything." He winces, and she takes a bit of pleasure from that.

"Um, if you ever need anything--"

She cuts him off, "I appreciate the offer, but probably not going to take you up on it any time soon.� Seeing that the whole thing was stupid and futile, she stands up and that makes Sir Larry take a small step back. �I should go. I don't feel quite right, being here, in the first place."

"Granger," he says impatiently. "You just got here."

"I know. I have things to do." Her eyes swing to his doorknob. There's a hard push in her body. One shoving at the heels of her feet and the small of her back, panicky and nervous. She wants to run so badly, just give in to the flight instinct and run far away.

"What things? You work and then you disappear behind a motel door."

"You've been spying on me?" she says incredulously.

"Yes." He doesn't see any point in refuting it. "Old habits die hard."

She blinks, "Right." She sniffs the thick air, and then stiffly stands up. "Right," she repeats. She crosses the short distance between the coffee table and the front door. "Well, why am I even here, then? You'll just follow me and learn it all." The palm of her hand reaches up to rub away her shiny eyes.

"Granger--"

"You're not Harry."

His eyes narrow--so angry--and it makes her think that nothing has changed. "You really do love playing that card."

She waves her arm at him. "Yeah, whatever," she says. The door opens a hairline crack, a sliver of pure gold slips through, and she shields her eyes from the bright afternoon sun. "Bye, Malfoy. Sure was nice while it lasted." She waves to him again.

"I'm sorry!"

"You keep saying that!� she yells. �What are you sorry for?"

"For the spying . . . and . . . and I'm sorry I was an insufferable prat. I'm sorry about your mother. I'm sorry for the fact that you're so--" he searches for the right word.

�Messed up?� she whispers.

He sighs, running a ragged hand through his hair. "I'm sorry that you feel you needed to run away."

You�re not allowed to talk about my mother.

"Bye."

"You don't have to leave. We can sit here, and just talk."

"No, thanks," she spat out. "You don't get to atone for your past sins through me. I don't need your pity. Pity from a Malfoy. The horror."

His eyes darken. "You were the one who came here. And it's not my fault that I actually gave a flying shit for once."

She turns around fully, doorknob still grasped in her hand. "I came for some sort of explanation. Maybe for some closure. You�re not giving it to me, you bastard. But thanks a lot for giving me some thought. That can be your good deed for the decade. And thanks even more for shoving your so-called pity in my face. You're stupid. Don't you get that there is no fault to be sorry for here? There is no wrong or right or black or white or whatever shit is out there. It just is. I'd think that years' worth of soul-searching would've made you smarter. But you are still as stupid as the day you ran away."

Don't you get it?

How can I make you realize this?

"Bye," he says dully.

And she leaves.

- - - - -

This is the reason:

REMEMBER THIS:

Four years ago, he stood at his Rubicon. It was dark. Inky blackness with cold walls. The world around him had exploded in red chaos and he stood in the eye of it, silent and frozen.

- - - - -

(09-03-04)

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Red Summer of 19