“It’s not about the Quidditch Cup. It’s not really about school at all — well, tangentially, maybe, it’s about something at school, but not really part of school. I mean —“
“I think perhaps you should slow down,” said the Headmaster, looking amused, “and tell me exactly what it is you want. Who knows—? I might even give it to you.”
The sets of French doors at the far end of the ballroom each opened on to a small marble balcony that overlooked the gardens. They were supremely romantic spots, and Harry had already interrupted several couples mid-snog — including Aidan Lynch and an unidentified buxom female in a robust pink corset — before he found Hermione.
The doors were already propped open, so she didn’t hear him as he stepped out onto the balcony. She was leaning against the balustrade, her hand at her throat, worrying at something that hung around her neck on a fine chain. Her blue and white dress was simple, plain and Empire-styled without lace or ribbons to distract from its clean lines. Her riotous curly hair was knotted up at the back of her head, though much of it had already sprung free and haloed her face with a coronet of dark curls.
Through the blue satin band that held her hair back, she had thrust one of the black silk roses from the ballroom. Harry had always thought of Hermione’s looks as timeless, as if she might be at home in any era — she might not be conventionally pretty but her face had the strong clean lines that spoke of inner grace and strength. With those bones, she would be lovely to him even when she was older, and Harry had always thought that he would be there, to see her grow more beautiful as she aged, and now realizing that perhaps that would never happen, he felt a keen pain just above his ribs as if he’d run too far and fast without catching his breath.
He said her name, and she turned, dropping her hand from her throat and looking at him in astonishment. Whatever it was she had been holding glittered blue against her skin. “Harry?” she said.
He shut the French doors behind him, tapping the knob with his hand as he did so and whispering a locking charm under his breath.He heard the click as the doors fastened shut. When he turned back to Hermione she was still staring at him, wide-eyed. “I…didn’t think you would want…”
“Would want what?” Harry tried to keep his voice as even as possible.
“To see me again.” She bit her lip.
“Ever?” He was surprised at the light evenness of his own tone. He would never have predicted he’d be able to hold his own emotions in check like this — and then he realized who he sounded like. Malfoy. It wasn’t as if Draco’s ability to conceal whatever he felt hadn’t annoyed Harry keenly in the past, but he embraced it now with relief. Shouting at Hermione would accomplish nothing but making them both more miserable; that he could talk to her at all made him grateful for that part of Draco he had absorbed into his own personality. “I wouldn’t want that,” he said, moving away from the doors. She stiffened as he approached, but he only leaned against the balustrade and looked at her from a distance of a few feet.
“We can’t let our friendship be destroyed over this.”
“No, I…” He had expected her to look relieved, but instead she only looked even more distressed. “I wouldn’t want that either,” she finished.
“I’m glad to hear that.” Harry could see distant figures on the other balconies, mostly couples, and felt a sharp pang of jealousy — he might have learned how to conceal his emotions, he thought, but there seemed no way around having them in the first place. “So, is that what you want?
To be friends?” Hermione looked away quickly, as if hiding the expression on her face, and Harry said, “If that’s all you want, tell me now and I’ll never bring it up again.”
Hermione’s voice sounded muffled. “Don’t be stupid, Harry.”
“Stupid?” The flat edge of his tone was beginning to fray; apparently there was only so far even Malfoy cool could get you. “I thought we were going to be together for the rest of our lives and you just told me that that’s not the case. Don’t you think I deserve at least a straight answer as to why? Or what it is you want from me? How do you expect me to be around you if I don’t even know how you think of me —“
“You don’t have to be around me,” Hermione said, her voice still muffled.
He wished he could see her face. “I’ve accepted a place in Cornwall at the Institute for Medical Wizardry. I want to be a mediwizard, Harry. I don’t ever want to have to sit by again while someone I love is injured or dying and know that there’s nothing I can do.” She took a deep breath. “The place starts next week and lasts a year. After that I would go on to an apprenticeship in London—”
“A year? Is that what this is about? Hermione, I can wait a year. We could get married when you come back, move to London —“
“That’s not what this is about!” she flared, and turned back to him; he could see that her eyes were shining with tears. “This isn’t about me, it’s about you.”
Somewhere in the back of Harry’s head, a voice said dryly, That’s certainly a reversal of the old ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line. Points for originality. So now he was thinking like Draco. Harry shoved the voice to the back of his mind and said, “What about me? Do you think I wouldn’t want you to go? I would miss you, but of course I know how important your studies are to you, and —“
“No, no, it’s not that either,” Hermione said in despair. “Don’t you—“
“I could come with you, we could get a house and you could pursue your work — it would save you money on accomodations, and I —“
“Harry, try to understand, please—“
The anger finally broke through his calm. “I think it’s pretty clear that I don’t understand!”
“And I don’t know how to explain it to you, it’s just that —“ she took a shuddering breath —“ever since I’ve met you, Harry, all the time I’ve known you, your life has been about one thing. Killing Voldemort. And I always thought it was sad, that your life could never really be about you or what you wanted, that all of what you could accomplish was narrowed down to that one thing. But I understood it. It was life or death for you.
For all of us. The problem is, though, Harry, that you never learned to live any other way. Since Voldemort’s been dead, I’ve watched you trying to make your life about something else — and now you want to make your life about me, and I won’t let you. If I loved you less, maybe I would let you. Maybe I’d be glad I had a boyfriend who showed me such devotion.
But I love you too much to let you go on never knowing what you really want or who you really are.”
He stared at her, his mouth half-open. “That’s not true.”
