She woke up, eyes heavy from crying the night before. She looked to her right to find that he had already gotten up from bed.

She got up and absently tried to pull a brush through her bushy brown hair, but she gave it up as a bad job and put it up in a ponytail. She grabbed a bra, put on some jeans, and threw on a relatively clean smelling t-shirt.

She left the room and walked down the hall to the grand staircase. She had always felt like a princess walking down those stairs.

She walked into the kitchen, and found him sitting in his usual spot drinking some coffee and reading the Daily Prophet.

“Good morning,” she said, and she smiled despite the fact that she didn’t feel much like smiling.

He had always been good at making her smile.

He looked up at her.

“Morning,” he said. He got up from his chair and walked over to her. “Hermione, about last night…”

*~*

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Out,” he said curtly.

She watched him gather his things.

“Draco, where are you going?”

He turned from the door, anger flashing slightly in his eyes.

“I don’t have to tell you where I’m going. This is my house, I can come and go as I please.”

“I just would like to know, that way I don’t stay up worrying about you.”

“Hermione, I’m just going out. I’ll be back late.”

He then walked out the door without further explanation.

A tear rolled slowly down her face.

They had been rocky for a while now. Draco never was one to open up to anyone. She knew this. It had all started so well but now she felt like he was closing back up; he was pushing her out.

*~*

“…I’m sorry about the way I reacted. I know you were just concerned about me.” Draco pulled her close to him and kissed her lightly on the lips.

“I know I can be a nag sometimes,” she said. “I just feel like we don’t talk as much as we used to.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s my fault. I’m going to work on it, I promise.”

He kissed her again, and then left the kitchen to head to work at the Ministry.

*~*~*~

That evening found her sitting in the living room, waiting for him to get home from work.

They had been together for nearly three years now. It had been rough, but they had made it work up until now.

She heard the front doors open, and she had to fight the tears that were already threatening to fall.

“Hermione,” came his voice from the foyer. “Hermione,” he said as he peeked into the living room. “What’s going on? There are bags by the door, is everything alright?”

She looked at him for a few long seconds, then slowly stood to face him.

“Draco,” she said, and she had to pause because her voice was catching in the back of her throat. “What are we doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean us, what are we doing?”

He stood there and looked at her, she could see some of the color begin to leave his face.

“Hermione,” he began. “We’re working on it. I know its been hard, but we’re trying…I’m trying.”

She smiled at him, as the tears welled up behind her eyelashes.

“I know you are, I know,” she said in a strained voice. “But we’re forcing it now.”

“No,” he said.

She nodded her head. “We are, you know we are. We had something…we have something, but its slipped away from us.”

“No it hasn’t,” he persisted. “It hasn’t, Hermione, we just have to try harder, I’ll try harder I swear to you, I will.”

“No, Draco, I can’t…I can’t do this anymore. We can’t fix it, we’ve tried, its just not supposed to happen,” she said, and she walked around him out of the living room towards her bags.

Standing at the backdoor, she tried to make it fast.
One tear hit the hardwood, it fell like broken glass.
She said sometimes love slips away, and you just can’t get it back.
Lets face it.

“Hermione, wait!”

For one split second, she almost turned around.
But that would be like pouring raindrops back into a cloud.
So she took another step, and said I see the way out,
And I’m gunna take it.

She stopped but didn’t turn around to look at him.

“Hermione, we can make this work,” he was pleading now. “We can do this…I love you.”

Another tear rolled down the side of her face as she took out her wand and pointed it at her bags, which shrank to a small enough size to fit into her pocket.

“I love you too, but we’ve tried, and now its time to go on,” she said, and walked out the door.

I don’t want to spend my life jaded, waiting,
To wake up one day and find
That I let all these years go by,
Wasted.

*~*~*~*

For two months he had tried. He tried writing to her, tried running into her at work, tried anything he could think of to get her back.

He loved her, and he knew he had been the one to push her away.

“More whiskey sir?” his house elf asked.

“Yes, thank you,” he said holding out his glass. He downed it immediately, and held out his glass again for the house elf to fill. He downed the second one, and put his head back in his chair looking up at the ceiling.

A voice was there, in the back of his head, telling him that it was over and done with, and that he needed to move on.

For the past two months he had been ignoring this voice, hoping it would go away, because when he thought about it, he knew the voice was right.

“More, sir?”

“No, thank you, just leave the bottle.”

The house elf bowed, left the bottle and exited the kitchen.

Draco poured himself another glass. He held it in his hands, staring at his reflection in the liquid.

He shook his head, and downed this glass as well, pouring himself another when he was finished.

He thought about her smile, how he always tried to do things that would make her smile.

Then he heard it for the thousandth time. He heard the words she had said to him.

“We’ve tried, its just not supposed to happen.”

He looked down at the whiskey in his hands. He sat there staring at it for several minutes, replaying the things she had said to him in his mind. Then he got up.

Another glass of whiskey, but it still don’t kill the pain.
So he stumbles to the sink, and pours it down the drain.
He said, its time to be a man and stop living for yesterday.
Gotta face it.

Watching the whiskey spiral down the drain, he finally came to accept that she had been right. They had been forcing it. They had tried, but it didn’t work. It would never work. And now he had to move on.

‘Cause I don’t want to spend my life jaded, waiting,
To wake up one day and find
That I let all these years go by,
Wasted.

*~*~*~*

“Oh, excuse me, I’m so…Draco!” she said, and hugged him tightly.

“How have you been, Hermione?” he asked, smiling.

“I’ve been good, you?”

“I’m good, starting a new job with the Department of Mysteries, so I’ll probably be leaving soon.”

She smiled at him. “I’m so happy that you’re doing well.”

“Me too, for you,” he said, smiling.

“I have to go, but I’ll see you around when you aren’t busy,” she said, and she left Florish and Blotts still smiling.

She kept driving along,
Till the moon and the sun were floating side by side.

Draco Apparated home. This had been the first time they had seen each other in public outside of work since the day she ended it. He looked at the mirror that was hanging in the hall, and he couldn’t keep the smile from spreading across his face.

He looked in the mirror and his eyes were clear,
For the first time in a while.

Oh, I don’t wanna keep on wishing, missing,
The still of the morning, the color of the night.

I ain’t spending no more time,
Wasted