A/N:
I just wanted to leave a little note to say thank you to everyone who has been following this story, and to those of you who have been kind enough to leave reviews.
One of the main things people are saying is how much they hate Ginny, which makes me proud that I'm doing my job right. You're supposed to hate Ginny in this fic and there's a lot more to come from our crazy she-weasel.
I also wanted to say thanks to my new Alpha reader, CuppaTea90. We have bonded recently over our mutual love of Lumione and Triad fics and, as always, massive thanks and love to my bestie and Beta, LaBelladoneX.
I hope you continue to enjoy this little tale I've written.
~ coyg_81
THIS LIFE
Chapter Eleven
~•~•~•~
Both wizards sat up, looking intently at the witch who had taken a seat on one of the armchairs to the left of the sofa. Hermione took a deep breath before facing them.
"Is everything okay, Hermione?" Blaise asked gently. The witch had been ignoring them for the last few days and he wanted to tread carefully so as not to scare her off.
"I think we need to clear the air," Hermione answered, meeting Blaise's dark brown eyes. He was worrying his bottom lip between his teeth and regarding her curiously.
Draco sat back next to Blaise and looked across at their little lioness. She was fidgeting her hands in her lap and chewing the inside of her mouth; she was anxious. Draco watched as she looked from one of them to the other. He swallowed at the fierce and determined look on her face before she confronted them, although he noticed a slight nervousness in her eyes.
"Do you two like me?" Hermione cringed as the words came out of her mouth. That sounded so immature.
"What?" They answered at the same time, surprise written across both their faces. Neither wizard was expecting that.
"You heard me," Hermione clarified. "So answer me… truthfully. Do you both like me in a way that could be more than friends?"
Blaise glanced at Draco through his peripheral and saw the slight nod the blond gave him.
They had spoken about this a couple of days ago and decided that if this conversation came up, they would be honest with her. Draco had been whining about Hermione ignoring them both, and by Tuesday morning he had had enough of it, but Blaise had talked him down from confronting her.
"She'll come to us when she's good and ready, Draco. Don't push her."
"She's got until the weekend, Blaise, and then I'm speaking to her."
They had a feeling that Pansy had said something to the witch; she had been threatening to all summer, even though both wizards had asked her not to. But Pansy had definitely been acting a little shifty around them since last weekend.
The same time Hermione started ignoring us!
Blaise set his whisky down and moved to sit on the edge of the coffee table in front of Hermione. He placed both of his hands on her knees and looked into her amber eyes.
"Hermione," he spoke quietly, "We will tell you the truth, but please promise me you won't hex us or run off before we finish explaining, okay?"
"I won't, Blaise," Hermione confirmed.
~•~•~•~
Draco was petrified. He had loved Hermione for more years than he cared to remember and couldn't deal with her hearing the truth, rejecting him and Blaise as anything more than friends — and that was only if she could handle being friends with them both. Even though he had been prepared to force a conversation on her if she hadn't come to them, he didn't think he could stick around for this one. He knew the time had come though; Draco wanted her to know how they both felt, he'd just let Blaise do the talking as he seemed mentally incapable of stringing two words together just then. The panic raging through him was all he could concentrate on.
"Okay, Hermione, here goes," he exhaled a breath before continuing. "First off, have you spoken to Pansy in the last week?"
"Yes," she answered truthfully. She noticed Draco tense at the answer.
"Okay. What did she have to say for herself?"
"She… she told me that you both like me — more than a friendship level kind of like — and that you have for years. Both of you." Hermione answered, trying to come across as confident, even though she felt anything but. She glanced over at Draco, he still hadn't moved and wouldn't look at her.
"And what would you think if we told you Pansy was speaking the truth?" Blaise asked nervously.
Hermione had thought of nothing else over the last few days. After talking with the Slytherin witch, she hadn't been able to form an answer on what her reaction would be if Pansy had been telling the truth. It was only a week ago that Draco had apologised and they had decided to try and be friends. Anything more than that hadn't been in her realm of thinking at all.
What Harry had asked her earlier this evening was also running through her head. Why had she been watching the two Slytherins so intently from fifth year onwards? She liked to think that it had everything to do with the fact that Draco had been his worst that year, following Hermione and her friends around under the guise of the Inquisitorial Squad, trying to catch them at their D.A. meetings.
It still didn't explain why she'd been thinking of them both though; Blaise hadn't been a part of Umbridge's squad, but Hermione had still worked out the truth about Blaise and Draco's relationship. She could have only done that if she'd been looking closely. It wasn't like either of them had flaunted their relationship.
"I… I think I'd be shocked," she answered him honestly.
"Why?" Blaise asked.
"I… I wasn't expecting this. It's all too much, Blaise," Hermione whispered, looking down at his hands on her knees. "I didn't know you both liked girls... and especially me."
"We don't."
Hermione whipped her head round to look at Draco, shocked that he had spoken at last, and confused by his answer.
"We don't like girls," Draco explained quietly, looking up and catching her eye. "We just like you, Granger."
"But… I don't understand," she replied quietly to the blond wizard. "I—"
"You what, Granger? You can't believe that we both have feelings for you?" Draco asked her with his trademark Malfoy sneer etched across his face, standing abruptly and making his way to the exit.
"Draco, where are you going?" Blaise asked, concerned for his boyfriend.
Draco paused with his hand on the doorknob; he turned back to both of them, noticing their worried glances.
"I can't do this, Blaise. I… I can't be here for this," he said, wrenching the door open and disappearing through it.
Blaise and Hermione looked at each other, both shocked at Draco's reaction.
"Why did he leave, Blaise?" Hermione asked, almost in tears.
Her emotions were roiling. She hadn't had enough time to think about all of this, but she had to confront them over her talk with Pansy. The atmosphere in their common room the last few days had been tense, and Hermione knew herself well enough to know that she wouldn't rest until she had some clear answers. Her chat earlier with Harry had given her the confidence boost she needed to talk to them. The fact that these two wizards wanted to be with her was still rather unorthodox thinking in the wizarding world — as it was in the Muggle one — even though it was more recognised among wizards and witches. Three-way marriages had been legal for years in the magical community — that part she wasn't even really thinking about.
It was the fact that Draco Malfoy wanted a relationship with her, and how much he had changed, nevermind the fact that he wanted to share her with his lover and best friend, Blaise Zabini.
Hermione had also been surprised by Harry's reaction when she'd told him. She wasn't expecting him to make a joke about it and then tell her that he and Ron would support any decision she made regarding the two Slytherins; she loved her friends for their loyalty.
"He would kill me for telling you this, Hermione," Blaise said softly, pulling her attention back to him. He ran a hand down his face before placing it back on Hermione's knee. "He's scared."
"Scared? Of what?" Hermione asked the tense wizard in front of her.
"Rejection," he whispered.
"Rejection? From whom?"
"You know, for someone who's supposed to be the smartest witch of our generation, you can be very blinkered sometimes," Blaise told her in a tone he hoped didn't come across as mocking.
"Me?" Hermione asked, a little bewildered.
"Yes, you, Granger."
Hermione moved his hands from her knees, stood up, and started pacing in front of the fireplace as Blaise looked over his shoulder at her. He could tell her mind was trying to take in what they'd said and, after a few minutes of trying to wear the rug out, she turned to her roommate.
"I think you need to start from the beginning, Blaise," she said, making her way over to the sofa and falling onto it in a most unladylike fashion. She sighed deeply before reaching forward for the whisky bottle that was sitting on the table and taking a swig straight from the mouth. She held the bottle toward Blaise who took it and drank as well.
"The beginning, you say?" Blaise asked quietly, not sure where to start.
Hermione nodded and swallowed deeply. She was internally psyching herself up to hear this without having one of her episodes in front of him.
"The day we started Hogwarts — on the train to be precise — was the first time Draco noticed you," Blaise started. "You were all haughty, with your nose stuck in the air demanding we tell you if we'd seen Longbottom's toad." He smiled as recalled the memory.
"I remember that," she answered wistfully, thinking back to that day. She supposed she was haughty back then. She'd had a point to prove to everyone that Muggle-borns were just as good as half-bloods and pure-bloods. When Hermione had found out about her status as a witch, she had done as much research as possible and insisted McGonagall chaperone her and her parents to Diagon Alley as soon as possible. She wanted to buy as many books as she could to give her the head start she thought she'd needed. By the time she stepped onto that train for the first time, Hermione knew she would have her work cut out for her to be welcomed and accepted in the wizarding world, and just how far behind everyone else she was — hence the reason for her holier-than-thou attitude. It was her defence mechanism.
"I was rather haughty," Hermione giggled.
"You certainly were. You rubbed people up the wrong way from day one… except for Draco." Blaise tacked on at the end.
Hermione looked at him with furrowed brows, "Really?"
"Yes, really,"
Hermione blew a curl away from her face and sat back on the sofa.
"He thought you were fearsome, the way you'd torn through our carriage like a hurricane. He was in such a good mood that day. He'd told me how excited he was to be starting Hogwarts and to finally be free of his father for a few months." Blaise smiled again at the memories he was recalling. "Do you know why Draco wished you dead and called you Mudblood in second year?"
"N-no?" Hermione stammered.
"That first summer we went home, I was spending a few days at Malfoy Manor, and all Draco could talk about was you. Once he found out about you being Muggle-born, and then sorted into Gryffindor, he knew he wouldn't be able to have a friendship with you. Especially after you befriended Potter and Weasley a few weeks later. Merlin was he pissed about that. Anyway..."
Blaise waved a hand dismissively for going off topic.
"That didn't stop him talking about you to me every chance he got. Lucius..." He hissed the Malfoy patriarch's name, "he was listening outside the door one day as Draco was telling me that he couldn't believe what his father had told him about Muggle-borns being inferior when you were already so accomplished at our age. He studied so hard that first year trying to get better grades than you. It didn't work — as you know." He winked, making Hermione blush. "I won't go into details, Hermione, but I heard the sound of Draco's screams as his father beat him and demanded that when he see you again he was to start calling you a Mudblood and, if he didn't best you in class the following year, he could look forward to some time in the dungeons the following summer."
"What?" Hermione was on the verge of tears from what she was hearing. She'd never thought about Draco's home life back then. She'd just seen him as the prejudiced, spoilt git he'd been.
She found herself desperately upset at the realisation of what he'd been through.
"Dear old Lucius would lock Draco in the dungeons beneath the Manor if he ever defied him. Sometimes he'd be shut down there for days," Blaise explained, clearing his throat because the memories were also upsetting him.
"Blaise," Hermione whispered, reaching to take one of his hands between both of hers. He lifted his head at her touch, his eyes glassy with unshed tears.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was like that. To be honest, I never gave Draco's homelife a thought. He was such a—"
"Yeah, I know," Blaise interrupted, "and that's just a snippet, believe me. It was a whole lot worse than that the older he got, but maybe you can start to see why he is the way he is — or was."
"I suppose so," Hermione acquiesced. She was certainly being shown a different side to Draco right now
"Draco always had a soft spot for you, Hermione, even though it must have been truly horrible for you having him call you such vile names and acting in such a horrid way. I can assure you that he never meant any of it. In a way — and I know this is going to sound all kinds of fucked up — I think he was secretly pleased you always retaliated against his taunts because it kept him within your radar — even if it was for nefarious reasons. In Draco's head, negative attention was better than no attention."
"Wow, Blaise… just… wow, really. I don't even know what to say. That really is fucked up." Hermione never swore aloud if she could help it but having listened to Blaise's explanations, the expletive left her mouth subconsciously. She was shocked at herself, but what was she supposed to make of all he had just said?
"I just wanted you to know that this isn't a game to us. Pansy has interfered when we told her not to, but the fact is we do both like you and yes, I mean in a way that's more than friends," he clarified, recalling her earlier question. "I'll answer any questions you have, which I'm sure are many."
Hermione sat with her head rested against the back of the sofa and stared at the ceiling lost in thought.
She hadn't realised how bad Draco's upbringing had been. The punishments from his father had shocked her, and she wondered what role his mother — the regal Narcissa Malfoy — had played during Draco's childhood. She obviously loved her son very much, or she wouldn't have lied to Voldemort about Harry.
Hermione certainly had a lot of questions. She turned to look at her roommate with narrowed eyes, wanting to know what his part was.
"So what about you, Blaise? What's your side of the story here?"
~•~•~•~
Draco had left through the Heads' portrait intent on grabbing the bottle of firewhisky he had stashed in his room in the Slytherin dungeons, and going to sit out by the Quidditch pitch for some fresh air and to think.
Snape had called him back as he began stomping away.
"What?" Draco hissed at his godfather in the portrait.
"Don't take that tone with me," Snape drawled out in his own way that was so familiar to Draco, having heard him use it many times in the classroom — normally aimed at Potter.
Sighing loudly, the blond asked again what Snape wanted. He wasn't in the mood for one of his former professor's lectures right now. He just wanted to get wasted, and think about how to beat Potter this season for the Quidditch Cup. He couldn't bear the thought of Blaise divulging intimate details about his life to Hermione, only to have her turn them down anyway.
There was no fucking way she would be so overcome with pity for his traumatic childhood that she'd instantly jump into a relationship with him and Blaise.
Hell, he'd take just friends for now despite his earlier thoughts; he needed her in his life. It didn't matter what Blaise told Hermione; the fact was she didn't know how deeply it had hurt Draco to throw insults and see her upset over something he had said or done to her. All she knew was Draco, the bully. He had years of regret to make up for and knew Hermione wouldn't forgive him in the space of a week.
He just wanted her to give him a chance.
"You need to write to your mother, Draco. She is worried about you," Snape interrupted his thoughts.
"You're visiting with my mother?"
Draco was surprised. He knew Snape and his mother had been close — Narcissa was proficient in potions and alchemy, so they always had a lot to discuss. It used to annoy his father to no end to find the two of them always whispering together over cups of tea every time Snape would visit the Manor.
He was also aware his mother had installed a frame in her prized sun room for Snape to visit whenever he wanted in the months following the war, but he didn't think his ex-professor was doing so.
"Of course I do, Draco. You know your mother and I are close, and she asked me to keep an eye on you this year," Snape declared.
"She what?" He growled.
"You know your mother — always worrying. She also told me of the situation with Mr Zabini and Miss Granger."
"FUCK!" Draco shouted, grabbing his hair in both hands and kicking the wall. "She had no fucking right."
"Calm down this instant," Snape hissed, folding his arms across his chest, his black robes billowing around him. "What do you think I'm going to do? March in there and demand she marry you both immediately? Don't be an idiot, Draco."
"Well, no… of course not," Draco snapped back.
"No. Very well then, if I may speak without an interruption now?" Snape asked angrily.
Draco, who had moved his arms down to his sides and had both fists clenched, stared hard at the portrait. It wouldn't do well to lose it now and alert Blaise and Hermione to his continued and distressed presence right outside the door.
"I suppose you're reporting everything you hear back to Mother?" He accused. "Why can't you keep your noses out of my business?"
"Your mother just worries, Draco. At least this way I can placate her with some news. You haven't written to her since your first night back, when you told her that Miss Granger had fainted in fright… just by seeing you." Snape paused to give Draco a second to process this.
"She has been so worried, I stopped by to assure her that everything was okay. Think about it, Draco. If I did not speak to her, she would be up here in a flash and all set to interfere."
Draco released a breath, his shoulders slumping
slightly.
"You're right, of course, Professor," he agreed, his usual Malfoy posture back in place. "I've been remiss in replying to her letters. I've... had... other things on my mind. I'll write to her first thing in the morning."
Despite everything, he didn't mean to make his mother worry.
"Good." Snape nodded. "Now, one more thing. Do you think it's wise for you and Mr Zabini to try and pursue Miss Granger at this time?"
His tone was more gentle. Snape cared a lot for his godson and would do everything he could to see him succeed. If a rather unorthodox three-way relationship with Blaise Zabini and Hermione Granger was what Draco wanted, then he — Severus Snape — would do all he could to help. But he thought now wasn't the right time to add any pressure to the young Gryffindor. If what McGonagall had told him about Hermione's mental well-being was true, then he didn't want his godson, and his boyfriend, screwing up their chances by harassing her.
Draco could read Snape well; the man had taught him Legilimency and Occlumency, for Merlin's sake. He knew his godfather cared about him and didn't want him to mess everything up... like he usually did.
"Believe me, Professor, if it was down to me I would have kept the truth from her for a while yet, but the delightful Pansy got in our way," he sneered.
He and Pansy were going to have a little chat very soon.
"I see. Is that why you're running, and Mr Zabini is calming whatever situation this is?"
"That's right. I'm going for a walk, and I'd rather not discuss this anymore," Draco announced as he started to back away.
Knowing he wouldn't get anything else from his young godson, Snape told Draco not to forget to write to his mother first thing.
"I will, Professor… and… thanks," Draco replied, genuinely meaning it. It did help to have him act as a go-between for him and his mother.
But all he wanted to do right now though was grab the whisky and be on his way.
~•~•~•~
Draco made it to the dungeons to retrieve his much-needed alcohol, and out the front door, without being spotted by Filch or that disgusting cat of his.
He twisted the cap off his firewhisky and threw it to the floor. No point in keeping that, he thought as he swigged like a commoner straight from the bottle, I'll be finishing the whole thing.
The plan was to get so drunk that he passed out in a blur, with no thoughts on his mind whatsoever. As he drank with his head tilted back, he stumbled down the small hill in front of the Quidditch pitch, and heard someone laugh as he tried to regain his balance without spilling his drink.
Once Draco had righted himself, he peered through the darkness to see who had laughed. He made a drunken grab for his wand and cast a dull Lumos.
Harry fucking saviour of the fucking world, bane of Draco's fucking existence Potter stood before him, grinning like a drunken twat. His hair was unmentionable, and his glasses were skewed across his face. Draco noticed the redness in his cheeks and the smell of alcohol emanating from him. He was pissed. While Draco was just beginning to feel the effect of the whisky he had drunk on his way down to the pitch, the boy who refused to die was completely inebriated.
"Potter," Draco drawled, with his Malfoy sneer plastered across his aristocratic features.
"Malfoy," Harry spat back.
"What are you doing here?"
"Could ask you the same thing, ferret. Aren't you supposed to be talking with your boyfriend and my best friend right now?" Harry slurred, swaying slightly.
"And what the fuck do you know about it, scarhead?"
"More than you think, Malfoy," Harry answered, following as Draco headed towards the entrance to the pitch.
