Breaking, Harry Potter, DMGW / HPGW

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series or any of the characters, plot devices, etc. therein. Any similarities to existing works is completely unintentional.

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She tells me that she feels like she's breaking.

She's falling apart, she says, and she's torn. Because, on the one hand, she has a chance at a perfect life with an amazing family, wonderful friends and a hero fiance. And, on the other, there's a life with nothing and no one but just one person – just me. And she doesn't know which to choose.

I don't know what to say to that, because I'm the entire reason for her internal dilemma. If she could just be rid of me, then she could be the Golden Girl who she was supposed to be. But here I am, and I'll be damned if I'm going to leave her to that.

Xx0xX

She's at a party, and so am I. Usually, we have better planning than this – we compare schedules so that we never, ever show up at the same place.

Except that here I am, and here she is, and she's looking at me and I'm looking at her and neither of us is turning away. But then comes Potter. He looks at me, and so do all her friends (Longbottom and Loony, who looks at me knowingly, and assorted Weasleys, and is that the Mudblood with the Weasel? Parkinson would have a field day). She feeds them some cock and bull story about how I was glaring at her, and I think – but I could be wrong – that a little part of me dies.

Xx0xX

I've been trying to figure out how a happily engaged woman can happily cheat on her fiance.

I ask her, and she smiles, albeit sadly. “I'm happy with both of you,” she says. “It's selfish of me, but it's true. And I'm very practised in the art of forgetting the other when I'm around one of you.”

She forgets me when she's with him. I try not to scream.

Xx0xX

“It's not going to work out if you marry him.”

I'm bluffing, and she knows it. I know she knows, and she knows I know she knows, and neither of us does or says anything about it.

“If that's what you want,” she says coolly, turning away from me.

Three weeks later, she marries him. Two days after that, she comes to me to forget.

Xx0xX

It's been going on for so long – so long, and I don't think I can take it anymore.

“The jealousy is killing me,” I tell her.

Her face contorts, and for a second I think she might cry. “I'm sorry, Draco – for everything. This is so unfair to you.”

Yes, it is, I don't say, because her voice is so filled with harsh self-hatred that I think she knows what I'm thinking already.

Xx0xX

The rain is everywhere and her coat's overlarge and she looks rather like a drowned rat. “I love you.”

“Well,” I drawl. “You've never said that before,” and my heart jumps out of my chest.

“I thought that maybe I should,” she responds, and for once in her life she seems almost unsure.

There is a pause. “You love him, too.”

Painstakingly, slowly, she nods.

“You don't love him more than you love me,” I continue, attempting confidence.

Slowly, unsurely again, she shakes her head.

“But you don't love him less,” I whisper.

“No,” she chokes out, tears streaming down her cheeks. “And I'm not sorry.”

“No,” I murmur in return. “No, I didn't expect that you would be.”

Xx0xX

“Harry knows.”

And I nod, because I knew this day would come. “How?” I ask.

“Luna told him.”

I nod again. Always thought there was something oddly observant about Lovegood. “Is he going to kill me?” I laugh darkly when I see her look pained at the words, and my impending demise suddenly doesn't seem as awful a thing.

“Maybe,” she responds, perfectly serious. “That is, if my brothers don't get to you first.”

And... “I love you, Draco.”

It's then that I explode. “Well, isn't that just fan-bloody-tastic! Doesn't that just make ever thing all better,” I'm hissing and snarling, because I'm angry as Merlin and why couldn't she just choose?

“You're angry,” she says, wincing at my outburst.

“Yes,” I manage through gritted teeth. Wasn't that obvious?

“At me?” Like she's expecting a different answer than the one she knows I'm going to give; a better answer, one that would make sunshine and rainbows out of a world that she's painted black with hatred and despair.

“Well, aren't we little Miss Observant today?”

“I'm sorry.” She's crying again. So my shoulders slump and I laugh, because it's just so damnably funny.

She's sorry – which has never fixed anything before – and I somehow manage to forgive her. Like I always do.

FIN

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A/N: There we go! Again, I'm not exactly sure about the end. Tell me what you think!

ALSKDJWNFIGMGS. That was intense. D:
I guess the consistent cut-offs/really short scenes should bother me -- which they usually do -- but you pull them off nicely.
I have to go to bed now.
But it's okay, because I don't have any harsh crit for you.

ROCK ON.

I JUST NOTICED THIS COMM, fail on my part.

Tyvm. I do well with short stories and short scenes, because it takes me a really long time to finish novels.

ROCK ON YOURSELF.

That sounds dirty. >.>

YAY for committment issues!