Saturday, December 18th, 2004 – 7p.m.

Hermione strode down the street, the heels of her knee-high boots clattering against the slippery pavement. The sky was a deep, velvety blue even though it was only seven o'clock, but the many city lights chased the winter darkness and bathed the streets in a warm, orangey light. She would often walk home instead of using the Floo network simply to enjoy the liveliness of London streets and the Christmas lights that had sprouted throughout the city in the span of a few days. The young woman turned a corner and headed for number 76: the three-storey, white-stone Victorian house looked more elegant than ever with the snow covering its slanting slate roof and the marble handrails of its stoop. Smiling dreamily at some inner musings, Hermione ascended the front steps and opened the door.

A delicious heat washed over her frozen limbs when she entered the bright entrance hall lit by a crystal chandelier overhead. Quickly slipping out of her boots, Hermione took off her scarf and coat and hung them on the coat rack with her purse, before crossing the hall to the curved marble stairs, passing the kitchen, dining- and living rooms doors on her way. She went up the steps, smiling as she felt her toes sink in the soft, dark burgundy carpet through the fabric of her tights. The darkness in the hallway of the first floor was broken by the golden light streaming through an open door halfway down the corridor. Her grin turning somewhat mischievous, Hermione tiptoed to Draco's study and stopped right at the edge of the well of light, staying in the shadows as she watched the blond man oblivious of her presence.

Sitting behind his massive wooden desk, Draco was engrossed in reading a long scroll of parchment he was levitating in front of him with his wand he twirled lazily between his fingers. His left hand was resting on the desk, his fingertips tapping irritably against the polished surface. The sleeves of his anthracite gray shirt were rolled up to his elbows and his white-blond hair was all messy – sign that he had been running his hand through it more than often throughout the evening. His face – which looked already stern because of his sharp, aristocratic features – was taut, and there was a crease between his eyebrows.

Hermione's smile faded. That crease had settled there almost permanently a little more than a week before; she dated it back to the day Daphne had definitively ran away with her lover and Draco had come home from a long afternoon he had spent comforting his best friend. She wasn't however entirely sure it had to do with Blaise; the tottering piles of official-looking papers and the stacks of files on his desk were certainly a good enough reason, as could be something entirely else. But the fact was she wanted to erase that frown, and it just happened she had an idea as to how to do that. A smile returning to her face – this time curiously shy yet glowing with anticipation – Hermione stepped into the light.

"I'm home!"

Draco looked up as she entered the study, and for a fleeting second, she thought she saw a flash of anger in his eyes, before his face became unreadable again. She stopped two feet away from his desk and bit the inside of her cheeks, watching him tentatively. She felt an irrepressible smile tug at the corners of her mouth. Draco's eyes ranged over her blankly for a moment, and he eventually flicked his wand, sending the scroll of parchment he had been reading onto one of the stacks on his desk.

"I have something to tell you…" started Hermione.

Her voice broke off as her smile widened, and she shifted.

"I wanted to wait a little, but you look a bit down lately, and I thought-…"

She trailed off again. Draco was still watching her without saying a word. Hermione rounded the desk and put her hands on his shoulders to turn him on his leather swivel chair so he would face her. She felt his shoulders tense under her touch, but he moved his legs from under the desk nonetheless, and dismissing her odd sense of foreboding, Hermione sat across his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Hey, Mister Broody… Care to hear what I want to tell you?" she chuckled, leaning into his chest and burying her face in the crook of his neck.

Her lips found the bare skin above the collar of his shirt and brushed softly against it. As Draco remained unresponsive, Hermione pulled away to see that his lips had tightened into a thin line. His gray eyes were steely, and this time, there was definitely something nasty in his gaze. Puzzled, Hermione was about to speak, when his hands suddenly grabbed her waist and roughly pushed her off his lap.

"Haven't you had enough of this for today?" he spat harshly as she stumbled away a few steps before regaining her balance.

Hermione stared at him in utter bewilderment.

"Draco…" she breathed.

"Don't you want to at least take a shower before climbing all over me or does it turn you on that I would smell him on you?"

He was speaking through gritted teeth in a low, measured voice, but his features were now twisted with rage. Hermione wanted to back away further, but his gaze was pinning her to the spot.

"What?" she croaked out.

His hands gripping the arms of his chair, Draco slowly rose from his seat. Hermione recoiled, going on the other side of his desk again and lowering herself onto the edge of chair standing there. In the puzzlement fogging her brain, anger was slowly starting to spark to life. Draco snatched a thick parchment folder from the top of the filing cabinet behind his desk and tossed it toward her. Without a glance at her, he crossed the room to a glass cabinet and opened it with stiff movements, taking out a glass and a bottle of Firewhiskey.

As he poured himself a glass of the amber liquid and downed it, his back turned to her, Hermione snapped out of her daze and returned her attention to the folder. Her hands were slightly trembling when she reached for it and turned it upside-down; a dozen of square pieces of glossy paper fell out of it on the desk. Hermione's eyes widened with surprise. Then, her brows furrowed. When she looked up, Draco was watching her; the knuckles of his hand holding the glass were white.

"What is this?" asked Hermione slowly.

Draco tilted his head, his lips curling into an ugly smirk.

"You tell me."

Hermione gazed at the photographs with incredulity; although black and white, they had been taken by a professional camera. They hadn't been enchanted to move and were all shots of the same place, taken within mere seconds. Hermione recognized the frontispiece of the Four Wyverns, the only wizarding hotel in London, opened some two years before. The outside of the luxurious building was charmed to appear thoroughly Muggle and, at the same time, to repel the latter.

Through the bay window of the ground floor however, Hermione could distinctly see herself, sitting on an elegant loveseat in the hall of the hotel and talking to a tall young man, obviously handsome even though only half of his profile was visible. The rest of the pictures showed them getting up from their seats, inch after inch, her smiling warmly at the young man, embracing him and kissing him goodbye on the cheek in an undeniably affectionate gesture.

Hermione knew the photographs had been taken two days before. The anger she felt stirring feebly in her stomach churned like a nest of furious snakes. Her hands resting flat on the pictures, the young woman took deep, calming breaths.

"You made someone follow me?" she asked in a hard, carefully controlled voice, looking straight ahead.

Next moment, she jumped violently, whirling to her right and gasping; Draco's glass had smashed loudly against the floorboards, shattering to pieces.

"AFTER EVERYTHING…" he roared. "After everything we've been through…"

Leaning back on her seat, Hermione gaped at him in disbelief; he seemed to have snapped. The veins on his neck were swelling. Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw his wand, which was lying in the middle of his desk, spit a spray of silvery sparks even though he didn't have it in hand. His rage seemed to be radiating off him throughout the whole room.

"After everything I did for you… You don't give a fucking shit, do you? You don't give a fuck that I risked my life just to be with you! I risked my life to save your ungrateful ass, and you don't even think I deserve the truth?! How can you look me in the eye after whoring yourself behind my back? How can you even look at yourself in the mirror? Why? Why?! FUCK!"

While Draco shouted himself hoarse, Hermione felt her heart plummet in her chest. Strangely, her anger was receding, turning into freezing coldness and then, into numbness. Despite Draco's voice booming around her like thunder, Hermione could acutely hear her blood thumping in her ears in rhythm with her heart. She sat very straight on her chair, watching Draco silently. When he paused to catch his breath, she raised an eyebrow.

"Are you done?" she spoke with an almost terrifying calmness. "Do I have to wait a bit more until you finish making an obnoxious idiot of yourself and let me explain?"

For a split second, Draco looked taken aback, but then, his gaze fell on the scattered photographs and the muscles in his cheeks twitched.

"Go on," he sneered in a honeyed voice. "I'm curious to know what story you could possibly make up to explain this. Fuck! He was fucking right… A bunch of lying whores all of them…"

Hermione blinked at him, hurt flashing in her big brown eyes, before her face shut. She suddenly looked exhausted.

"You know what? After all, I think I don't want to explain," she said quietly, getting up.

"Don't you dare!"

She walked to the door, ignoring Draco's furious yell, and exited the room. When she reached the stairway halfway down the corridor, she heard him stride out of the study behind her but did not turn around, only accelerating her pace as she descended the carpeted stairs. The anger was back, coursing through her like poison.

Only once in the entrance hall did she look up; Draco had stopped on the stairs landing of the first floor and glared down at her over the railing. A mix of conflicting loathing and heartbreak was etched on his face. A pang of pain shot through Hermione's heart, but then:

"Get out of my house," he spat.

After angrily thrusting her feet inside her boots and snatching her coat and purse from the coat rack, Hermione threw the front door open and stormed out of the house, slamming it behind her. The silence that suddenly fell around her was deafening. Snow was slowly fluttering to the ground, adding to the layer of the previous day. The street was bathed in the colorful, flickering glow of the Christmas lights hanging between the lampposts. Cars were screeching by every now and then. Hermione put on her coat and wrapped her arms around herself. A sob erupted out of her chest as she stumbled down the stoop and strode to the sidewalk. She couldn't apparate anymore. She waved a hand and hailed a taxi.


A/N: This story is not called "Mayhem before Christmas" for nothing!

And yes, yes, I know! It's full of clichés… But it's Christmas break, and as I said; my brain has gone on vacation!