to be foolish bravery.
"Oh, so now your five year absence is my fault, is it?"
"I did what I had to do to enable me to come back to you. I couldn' t have stayed before. It simply wouldn't have worked."
"You don't know that!" she said to him, letting the full measure of hurt back into her voice. "We could have been happy."
He shook his head, emphatic. Hair fell over his eyes and he impatiently pushed it back with his fingers. "No, we wouldn't have been. I couldn't have been with you the way I can now."
Honestly, she could have just stared at him. She could have sat there and soaked up the sight of him alive and well. That summed up the depth of her feelings for him. The relief to know he'd survived whatever he'd put himself through was making a rather belated arrival. It was like getting punched in the stomach.
Oh no. She was really was going to cry now. At this point, her hand, as it had on so many other occasions in the past, decided to mutiny. It reached up and laid her palm against his cheek. He flinched as if she'd branded him.
His breathing became staggered. Apparently satisfied with whatever it was that she'd discovered, her hand returned once more to her side.
Her mouth, on the other hand, was still firmly in league with her brain. Maturity gave a sharper edge to her tone.
"So that's what you have to say to me, then? That was it? Are we done now, Draco?"
His eyes had turned shiny. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned away and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Yes, I guess we're done."
Five years ago, she would have given her right arm to have him look at her with such raw, unguarded emotion as he had done just now, but time had hardened her. She felt triumph and a small amount of justice in the knowledge that there probably wasn' t another person on the planet at the moment who could hurt Draco Malfoy as much as she was hurting him now.
And rightly so. There was power in this knowledge. It helped to ease her own hurt.
There was nothing more to say. By now, Nick would be wondering where she was. Hermione turned and started walking back towards the ballroom, towards the party with its smiling, people.
The distance between then increased with every step she took. She knew that he remained where he was, watching her leave. He didn' t come after her. There were no angry footsteps. He didn't grab her arm to spin her around so he could sneer at her and call her a dirty rotten liar. He didn't kiss her to manipulate her or to punish and scare her.
He was doing exactly as she had asked. He was leaving her alone.
And what was the result of her outburst? She had imagined their inevitable encounter hundreds of times over the past eight weeks.
Funny, she thought she would be able to get some closure. But the pain just kept on burning.
She was reaching out a hand to the open the French doors to enter the ballroom when it happened.
There was a whoosh of displaced air and then an invisible force pushed her backwards, the heels of her booted feet scraping along the floor. Someone was casting a powerful barrier spell from inside the ballroom, sealing it off.
When the spell connected with the French doors, the force of it blew out the glass. There was a static charge zinging through the air.
She hit the ground, her hands instinctively covering her head when the shower of glass rained over her. Her ears were ringing. She tried to stand up, but then realized that someone was partially covering her. She didn't need to actually look to know that it was Draco. His hands were over her head. Hermione scrambled for her wand.
The shower of glass was over but now dust was pluming upwards. She started coughing. It was impossible to see anything. Her knees hurt where they were scraping against the debris on the floor.
"Are you alright?" Draco asked her. Her ears were still recovering apparently because his voice sounded muffled.
"Yes," she gasped. "What happened?"
"We're under attack," he replied, and then pulled her swiftly to her feet.
All enmity between them was swiftly put aside. Why did it always seem to take death, danger and tragedy to bring them together, however tentatively, Hermione lamented.
Still keeping low to the ground, they sprinted