Thanks to those of you who reviewed, and to Burning Lily my wonderful Beta. I hope that you all enjoy this chapter. I'll try to get the next one out fairly soon. Let me know what you think.
Chapter 6: The Run-in
As she awoke the next morning, still curled up on the black, leather, armchair, she stood and stretched, almost falling over from the cramps in her legs. She stumbled up the stairs and into the bathroom to shower and get ready for classes.
Once she was ready, and dressed in her school uniform, she walked down the stairs, through the empty common room, picking up her bag from next to her chair, through the portrait hole, and continued her way down to the great hall. It was still early, so there were not many people there yet. Malfoy, Blaise, Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy, whom was hanging on Malfoy's every action, were seated at the Slytherin table. A few younger Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, whom she did not know their names, were eating, and she was currently the only Gryffindor in the great hall this morning.
She sat near one of the ends of the long table, and slowly picked at the food on her plate. She had not eaten since lunch yesterday, but for some reason she was not very hungry. Someone came and sat across from her, and began to eat without saying a word. She did not know why, but she could feel their stare and she automatically knew who it was.
"Nick, why are you doing this to me?" she looked up into his eyes. "Why do you have to make this so hard?"
"I'm sorry," he looked down at his plate, "do you want me to leave you alone?"
"I WANT SOME ANSWERS NICK!" she screamed, standing up and slamming her fist on the table, but then quieted her voice and sat back down when she realized that she was drawing attention to herself. "You break up with me three days ago because you met someone else. Now, I find out that you are a wizard, and that you are here, at my school! On top of all that, you are acting as if nothing has changed between us. You hurt me Nick; you shattered my heart in to a billion pieces. I told you that I loved you; do you know how hard that was for me? You were the first person I ever said that too. I am sorry that I made you wait so long, but I was going to give myself to you three days ago. I love you, and you being here, acting like this, all nice and crap, makes it that much harder for me to get over you." Tears were threatening to spill over now, and everyone in the great hall still had their eyes glued to the couple at the Gryffindor table. They could not really hear what was going on, but they hoped for a slip of the volume, as had happened before.
"I'm sorry. I am so sorry for everything I have done to you," he started, but was interrupted by their friends joining them at the table.
"Morning you guys," Harry said cheerfully.
"Morning," both Nick and Hermione said quickly and went back to their conversation.
"I would love to finish this, but I think that we need to do this alone," he whispered and she regretfully agreed. "Plus, I need to talk to Dumbledore before classes. Can we talk later, this is really important?"
"Sure, I guess we can go to my common room after dinner."
"Ok, thanks 'Mione," he got up and left the great hall, but turned around to mouth, "I'm sorry," to her and give her a sad smile.
'I guess I'm going to have to go through another afternoon of the anguish that that boy puts me through,' she thought before turning back to her plate and chatting with her friends, whom were talking about something uninteresting to her.
The Gryffindors had double potions today, with the Slytherins. Professor Snape had paired her with Malfoy, and things seemed to go okay. Contrary to her previous beliefs, Malfoy actually cared about school, and took it very seriously. They did not talk much, besides about the potion they were making, but it was nice. She was not interested in having a friendly conversation at the moment, as her thoughts were elsewhere.
The day went by quickly, and she kept finding her thoughts drifting to Nick, and she wished that they would not. She was feeling an array of emotions about seeing him tonight. She was anxious, scarred, excited, nervous, upset, and even a bit happy.
After classes, she still had about an hour until dinner started. She decided to go for a quick run, before she had to go, and she would do her homework after she talked with Nick, not that there was much left to do anyways. It was only reading, and of course she had already read the whole book.
He sat on the couch with his head leaning back against the back of the couch. He had on a green shirt, with a black button up shirt laying open over it, and a pair of baggy black jeans. He was stretched out with his feet up on the table and his arms along the back of the couch. He was staring at the ceiling.
"I am SO bored," he said to himself.
"Then find something to do Malfoy," he turned towards her, not expecting anyone to respond to his cries of boredom.
She did not say anything else, but he watched her run up stairs wearing a very small and tight shirt, it was almost like a mini tank top that ended right below her boobs with some elastic there, and a pair of shorts that were very small and very tight.
'Merlin she is in good shape,' he thought to himself, 'I wonder what she…NO, NO, NO, STOP THINKING ABOUT HER THAT WAY NOW! SHE IS THE KNOW-IT-ALL GRANGER! MUD…' he stopped his thoughts before he could finish that word. He told himself that he would not call her that word; it would make being "nice" to her a bit easier.
He started reading a book that he found lying on the table. "So this is where I left my transfiguration book yesterday." He began to read until Granger came down a while later.
"Glad to see you found something to occupy your time with," he looked up at Hermione who was currently putting silver hoop earrings through her ears.
"Doesn't that hurt?" his face was he looked confused and he looked as if he were in pain.
"What?" she said looking at him and moving to the other ear.
"That," he pointed at her, "sticking that thing through your ear, doesn't it hurt?" she was laughing at him.
"No, of course not," she said containing her laughter to just a giggle. "It hurt when they first pierced my ears, but not there is a permanent hold there so I can put earrings in." She used her fingers to move her earrings around to describe what she was talking about.
"Oh," his face was still contorted as if he were in pain, "ok then, whatever you say." He was now noticing her choice of outfits, and smirked. Dark blue jeans that sat very low on her hips, a black spaghetti strap tank top with a matching green one on top, that stopped right about her bellybutton, which was donned with a green and silver sparkly belly button ring, "Very slytherin of you Granger."
"What? She asked in disbelief, "Don't you dare…"
"I meant the outfit," he interrupted her and smirked a bit wider, "Green, black, and silver?"
"Oh," she just wanted to wipe that smirk off his face, "I didn't even notice." 'Not like it mattered what she was wearing, as long as it wasn't pink since that was Nick's favorite color on her. "Well, I'm off to dinner, see you later," and he watched her walk out of the portrait hole.
He picked himself up off of the chair, threw his book on the table, and followed Granger down to dinner, but kept his distance since he did not actually want to be seen with her.
The great hall was packed, but Blaise always saved him a seat so there was no need to worry. He sat down, piled food onto his plate, and began to eat, while he talked to Blaise. They were also listening to Pansy and Millicent fawn over Nick, he of course was listening to them absentmindedly.
"What is so special about this kid?" Draco asked Blaise, but before he could answer, Pansy and Millicent started to express their feelings towards the new boy to them.
"He is SOOOOO cute!" Pansy started.
"Oh I know, that spikey hair, tall stature, muscular body, and he is so tan!" Millicent chimed in.
"Yeah, he is great," the girls sighed together, making the boys roll their eyes and start talking about quidditch.
They walked back to the common room in silence, neither her nor Nick looked at each other, they both seemed to be watching their feet, while she fiddled with her hands, and Nick stuffed his deep into the pockets of his khaki, cargo shorts. They reached the portrait hole, she murmured the password, and Nick ushered her inside to sit on the chairs. They sat in silence for a few minutes.
"So," they said at the same time, "Go ahead." She put her hand up to quiet him.
"Please go first," she started, "I already told you how I feel, so please insist."
"Well," he stalled, "Where do I start?"
"How about from the beginning?" she was becoming agitated.
"Right, well," he was hoping for a miracle. He needed to tell her this, but he was nervous. He did not know if she could ever forgive him, or if she would ever understand. Why did he suggest doing this here? It they had done this in the great hall, or even in the hallway, someone would be able to stop her from killing him.
"HURRY UP," she was pissed, he could hear it in her voice, "I DON'T KNOW WHY I LET YOU TALK ME INTO DOING THIS LATER, WE SHOULD HAVE HAD THIS OUT IN THE GREAT HALL THIS MORNING! Then I wouldn't have to sit here and wait for your sorry ass! I would kill you, but you know that my threats would be empty and that I could never go through with it. That is what is so sad about this situation, you know me so well, and I obviously know you." She was breathing heavily from her yelling. "I could hex you though," she pulled her wand from behind her back, "let's try that, you tell me what is going on, or I'll hex you!" She was now pointing her wand at the middle of Nick's forehead, and he squirmed and struggled to get the words out.
"Ok, well," he stuttered, "Hermione, please put that away, I know that you are serious, but I swear I'll tell you. I just can't do it while you have that pointed at my face."
"Well, you should have thought about that before hand," she was glaring at him menacingly, "let's hear it Nick, let's hear your great story about why you broke my heart. Who is this fantastic girl who stole your heart away from me? Huh? Let's hear it?"
Just then, Nick turned his head when he heard a noise, and looked to see Draco whom had fell over into the wall in shock of what was before him, and he was now moving his eyes between Hermione and Nick.
"I…I…I gotta go," Nick quickly dodged the spell Hermione had thrown at him, and slipped out of the common room.
"I can't believe that asshole," he watched Granger pace in front of the chair she had been sitting in a few moments ago. "What is wrong with him?"
'Oh Merlin,' she had turned on him, and now had her wand pointed at his throat. His eyes grew wide as she spoke with malice.
"You!" her eyes narrowed, "He wouldn't have left it you hadn't of shown up. He wouldn't have left, and I would have gotten answers!"
"Now, now Granger," he was terrified, knowing what she could do with that wand, so he tried to rationalize with her, and actually hoped for a miracle. "I was just walking into the room, this is my common room too. I don't know what I walked in on, but I'm sorry. Oh Merlin am I sorry." She seemed to think about this for a moment, and then retracted her wand and dropped it onto the table.
Granger then collapsed onto the chair behind her and once again she started to cry, and she rambled on and on about something.
"What is wrong with me? Am I really that undesirable? Why doesn't he love me?" she was sobbing now, and he just started at her, "Why can't I just get over him? Why is he here now, of all times? Couldn't he have come when we were happy? Then at least I wouldn't have to work through the feelings of him being a wizard, and him breaking up with me."
"Does she even know that I am here?" Draco thought out loud to himself, no response from her assured him that she didn't. He decided to change that and snap her out of her trance. He bent over and picked his transfiguration book up from off the table, 'I knew this would come in handy here,' he thought to himself as he lifted the book over his head.
'BAM!' he threw the book onto the table, making Granger jump at least a foot in the air, and he had succeeded in snapping her out of her trance.
"Good god Malfoy," she put her hand over her heart and turned to glare at him, "What in the hell did you do that for?
"You were stuck in some sort of weird trance, and your murmuring was starting to bother me," he acted as if it were no big deal. "So what was Nick doing here anyways? Are you trying to hook up with him of something?"
She had burst out into a fresh batch of tears, and for some reason, she started spilling everything that had happened between her and Nick to Malfoy, of ALL people.
"No, I am not trying to hook up with him. We used to date back in the muggle world, we dated for two years, but he broke up with me three days ago. I didn't know he was a wizard until the night at the great feast when he showed up here at Hogwarts," she went on and on and he tried not to pay attention, but she was so alluring, "I loved him, and I thought he loved me. I was going to have sex with him. Why was I so stupid?"
He tried to keep the conversation going, because for some reason, he wanted to know more, but she just got up and sober her way up the stairs and into her room. She quickly dressed in a pair of red plaid pajama pants and a black wife-beater, climbed under her royal blue comforter, for the first time this year, snuggled into the warmth of her bed, and sobbed herself to sleep.