"Beautiful Disaster"

Hermione watches from across the hall as the once strong Slytherin now sat alone at the end of the table, silently picking at his dinner. She had been watching him for the past year now and she had noticed all of the changes that he had gone through since the war began to really get harsh. He had seemed to turn into a walking shell of his former self and she couldn't help but let her heart go out to her former enemy. They were Head boy and girl that year, their final year at Hogwarts and they shared a dormitory. She had watched his changes, not physical changes really, but there was something definitely different in the blonde Slytherin. She knew from hearing outside his door one night towards the beginning of term that he was supposed to be receiving the Mark just after graduation when he would be 17. She could also tell that though it was something that almost everyone at Hogwarts expected to happen, it wasn't really something it seemed Draco himself wanted. Ever since that day, she had made it her mission to get closer to Draco, to find out exactly what was going on with him. She even found herself, from time to time, sneaking into his room after she was sure he was asleep and just watching him sleep because it was the one time she seemed to really see him.

He drowns in his dreams, an exquisite extreme I know
He's as damned as he seems and more heaven than a heart could hold
And if I try to save him, my whole world could cave in
It just ain't enough…

Lord it just ain't enough…

It was only a few short weeks ago when , one night after returning from the rounds, Draco had pulled her to him and kissed her gently on the lips. He hadn't said much about it since, except that he wanted to do it so he did. Hermione still couldn't figure out what to think about the situation the two were now in. There were two totally different sides of Draco Malfoy… one was the cold-hearted, egotistical, Death Eater-wanna be, prat, that she'd known for the past six years and the other, well it was hard to describe the other side.

He's magic and myth, as strong as what I believe
A tragedy with more damage than a soul should see
And do I try to change him? So hard not to blame him
Hold me tight
Baby, hold me tight

As their final year went on, Hermione could sense him becoming more and more detached and distant from everything. She tried so hard to get him to open up to her but he was still completely closed off. They had grown closer since that first kiss, but it never really gone past that. But lately, after they had returned from their Christmas holidays, Draco had become very dependant on her at times. He would even go as far as to practically beg her to sleep in his bed just so he could hold her and she would run her fingers through his hair until he fell asleep. It was on nights like these that she would lie awake for hours, Draco's arms wrapped around her tightly, as if he was afraid to let go, that she would let her mind drift off and think about things. Like what was happening between them and what it really meant, what she really meant to him.

I'm longing for love and the logical
But he's only happy hysterical
I'm waiting for some kind of miracle
Waited so long
So long

It was late in the year when things started getting more intimate between them and the closer they got the more and more she became frightened of what lie ahead for them. She wanted desperately to believe that the person she saw when they were alone was Draco's true self but she was terrified to wake up one day and find that it was all a dream. In reality, she was falling in love with Draco Malfoy and she had no idea how he felt towards her. It was one night that she finally chanced it and asked him how he felt. His only response was to press his lips to hers passionately, pulling her as close to him as possible. It was that night that she gave her virginity to the man she had despised and hated for six long years. Lying together that night, long after Draco had fallen asleep, his arms wrapped around her as they always were, that Hermione broke down and cried silently into the pillow…still not having heard the three words that she so desperately was hoping for.

He's soft to the touch
But frayed at the end he breaks
He's never enough
And still he's more than I can take

Since that night she had distanced herself from him, eventually putting so much distance between them that he no longer came to her in the night and no longer looked her way. She was left with an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach and a longing to make things right that caused her to watch him from afar, never letting on how much she missed him. It was that night that finally led her to that place, alone and tired and just completely heartbroken. She was standing by the ledge, crying softly to herself as she heard the voice that she had longed to hear from behind her.

"Hermione."

She twirled around and saw him, standing there in the pale glow of the moonlight that drifted through the Astronomy Tower that night. He looked like an angel as the moonlight shined off his pale blonde hair, his pale blue eyes sparkling. He moved towards her quickly, though to her it felt like it was going in slow motion.

Oh and I don't know…I don't know what is after
But he's so beautiful, Such a beautiful disaster

He didn't move towards her, but simply stayed in that one spot, across the tower from her and told her the words that she'd longed to hear for so long.

"I love you, Hermione."

Her eyes watered instantly at the sound of those words, the words she had been waiting so desperately to hear but before she could speak he was pouring out his soul to her, his fears about why he was so distant to her. He told her that it was going to be hard but that he was willing to work things out and be with her if she would only have him. All she could do was stand there and listen to him as she let the silent tears slide down her cheeks. He finished his speech and they stood there in silence, staring at each other as her heart raced in her chest and she felt like there was no one else in the entire world but the two of them on that tower.

And if I could hold on through the tears and the laughter
Would it be beautiful?

Or just a beautiful disaster

Smiling slowly at him as the words registered through her mind, he returned the smile and she rushed across the tower and practically leapt into his arms, all thoughts of the rough road they had ahead of them fading from her mind as her lips met his and the held each other in the moonlight of the tower.

He's beautiful