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We could just stay here, thought Draco. He pulled the girl in his lap tighter into his arms. They sat curled up together under a large oak tree just before dawn. He buried his face into her hair. Me and her and this cabin, he repeated over and over again in his head, like a mantra. Me and her and this cabin. We could just stay here.
When he’d first come to this place, he was a newly-orphaned prat with no plans for the future. He’d been angry, and depressed, and numb. And then Granger and her stupid amber eyes sanded down his edges, smoothed him out, and forced her way into his life until all he thought about was her.
She became his plan; his one and only plan was to spend the rest of his life with Hermione Granger.
But she had other plans. She had a time turner and a book of spells and a drive to end the war once and for all. She had made these plans long before Draco even arrived at the cliffside cabin that was the Order’s safehouse. So what exactly was a man to do when his only driving force on this Earth had devoted her life to changing the world?
He joined her crusade, that’s what.
They spent hours, days, weeks, and months pouring over every single spell, potion, and artifact that involved the concept of time in some way. The goal— Hermione’s goal— was to travel back to 1995, before The Dark Lord regained his body, and stop his reign before it even had a chance to begin. It was a ludicrous goal, but one she was adamant about reaching; and Draco loved her, so he worked just as hard as she did to figure it all out.
He shouldn’t have.
He should have just left it well-enough alone.
“I leave tomorrow,” she said… she stated… she apologized.
Draco hugged her so tightly, he was pretty sure he was cutting off her oxygen supply. He nuzzled his face further into the curve of her neck. He didn’t dare say anything. He couldn’t.
Could he?
What if he voiced his thoughts aloud? Would she stay then? Would she even consider it?
She ran her fingers lightly over his bare arms, the ones encircling her from behind. Her touch was so gentle, yet so firm. In the quiet dawn, there was only Hermione Granger. This girl was sanding Draco down, even now, smoothing down his jagged edges until he resembled a polished gem. He relaxed his embrace and she turned in his arms until they were facing each other. She cradled his head in her hands, waiting for him to open his eyes and look at her.
Of course, he did.
The sun was just about to set behind her and the effect it created was one of pure divinity. Her beauty was ethereal, like that of the most perfect diamond. It made him feel like a tiny, dull river rock in comparison.
She was there though; she was always there to smooth and shine away the darkness. Her thumbs traced the lines of his cheekbones, the cut of his chin, the worry lines around his eyes. He couldn’t help but melt, his lips forming a smile despite the circumstances of tomorrow’s departure.
Hermione dipped her head and captured his lips with her own. The kiss was soft, yet solid, and everything he’d ever wanted.
Damn the war. Damn it all.
Draco grabbed under Hermione’s thighs and pulled the love of his life further onto his lap. They came together like puzzle pieces, like they were cut that way to fit each other perfectly. Draco leaned forward and deepened the kiss until there was no space between them, until they blurred together into one single being against the world.
When he next remembered to breathe, dawn had come and gone. It was night. The only light came from the moon and the fireflies… and Hermione’s eyes, which sparkled like torchlight.
We could just stay here, came that annoying thought for the thousandth time.
“Do you want to say it?” she asked him… she questioned… she proposed.
He did. He wanted to suggest that they stay— that she stay with him. He wanted to live out the rest of his life with her. It was his one and only plan. Her and him and this cabin.
He wanted to say it.
“Would it make a difference?” he asked instead.
Hermione blinked, really thinking about the question and the truth of her answer. She took a long time perched in Draco’s lap as she considered everything. She took a very long time, and they didn’t have much time left. But Draco waited anyway. Because this was important.
“Yes,” came her answer, the word seeming to have been pulled from her lips by an unseen force. Her eyes welled up with tears, but not a singer drop ever fell.
Draco reached up with one hand and moved a strand of curly hair out of her face and behind her ear. “You, with your sad eyes,” Draco whispered, the words coming to him like poetry. “Don’t be discouraged. I won’t say it, okay? I won’t say it.”
He pulled her gently in for another kiss and neither of them hesitated to deepen it. It was their last night together. They had to make it matter.
Hermione had handed Draco all the power with that single admission. If he’d said it, she would have stayed. He knew it now.
But instead, he’d given that power right back.
Because it was the right thing to do.
It was the thing that Hermione Granger would do. Because she was good.
And after years of him and her and this cabin, of being sanded down and mended and polished by the hands of Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy was beginning to realize that maybe he was good too.
Plans change.
People change.
It would all be okay.
***
Hermione closed her eyes on June 3rd, 2004 and opened her eyes on December 25th, 1994.
She was in periwinkle blue and her arm was intertwined with Viktor Krum’s.
She had a thousand things to do now that her insane plan had come to fruition. There was hugging Harry and Ron, and saving Cedric, and introducing herself to Luna. There was gathering the Order members, and enacting a coup on the Ministry, and demoting Umbridge. There was hunting horcruxes, and confiding in Dumbledore, and eating every last bowl of porridge she could get hands on.
There was so, so much to do.
But first on her to-do list was and always would be: smile at Draco Malfoy.
He looked very confused standing at the bottom of the staircase next to Pansy Parkinson, clad in dark green dress robes and looking so, so young. But he didn’t sneer or berate her as she strode past him, a loving grin permanently stretching her face just because she was in his presence. Their gazes didn’t drift from the other’s until Hermione rounded the corner into the Great Hall and she could no longer see him.
It was fine though. She had time to scrub him clean of the darkness so that he could shine like he was always meant to do.
That boy back there didn’t know it, but he just saved the world.
And one day, if she had it her way, Draco would become the love of her life.
She hoped… she expected… she knew.