Notes: I know everyone's excited for the Yule Ball, but I had to get this chapter out of the way first. See if you can spot the Nikita and Firefly references! As always, comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism are very welcome. The next time I see you guys, it will be at the Ball!
Chapter Eleven
Miss Me When I'm Gone
"What," Sabine demanded, barging once more into the living room, "was that?"
Draco's lip curled. "Of course you were eavesdropping."
"Naturally!" she snapped. "You 'already have plans'? What plans? Are you going to take someone else to the Yule Ball? Enlighten me, Malfoy. Tell me about this new mystery girl, because I sure as hell haven't seen her around!"
Draco ignored her tirade as he started scribbling on his parchment once more. But the wellspring of inspiration that gripped him earlier in the morning had now run dry. Sentences formed in his mind, only to peter out into nothing more than drops of ink beading the white space after the lines he had already written. He could only stare at those black dots, not wanting to think of anything else, not wanting to remember the teasing grin on Hermione's face and how it had faded. A tense, heavy feeling prickled the back of his neck. He frowned down at arms covered in goose-bumps.
He felt colder than usual.
Sabine plopped into the chair Hermione had vacated. She stared levelly at Draco for a long time before she asked, "There's no other girl, is there?"
"You know there isn't."
"Then why…?"
"It would have ended badly otherwise."
"Yes, and this was such a great way to end it-"
"I'm only sparing Hermione and myself from pain," Draco patiently explained. "I don't get along with her friends, and I'm leaving in a few months. What's the use?"
"The use?" Sabine echoed, green eyes flashing. "The use is that you could be happy, you dolt! You met someone worth your time who was also someone who could put up with you. Don't you know how rare that is? And you let her go, just like that. I'm- well, I'm absolutely disgusted."
The words sounded oddly mature. Draco was smart enough to recognize seventh-year talk when he heard it. "You've been hanging around Cerise too much."
"And you," Sabine replied in clipped tones, "should stop listening to Bastien Auclair."
"That has nothing to do with-" Draco started to protest halfheartedly, but she barreled ahead.
"Everyone heard that screaming match the other day. I don't think it's coincidence that you did this- this massively stupid thing in the middle of Auclair's sulk. He's heartbroken; of course he'd warn you against romance. But if Fleur felt the same way for him, you can bet he'd be singing a different tune."
"There will be heartbreak," insisted Draco. "It lies ahead, at the start of summer. Why should I wait for it?"
That shut Sabine up for a while, to his immense satisfaction. There was a long pause as he returned to his work. Part of him was glad that he could write again; he was penning a description of the events of the First Task, and the brief quarrel with his closest friend had given him the burst of frustration that he needed to tackle the dragons.
Je me souviendrai toujours de battement d'ailes puissantes, de rugissement du feu, et de courage des Champions quand ils confrontés les terribles bêtes… It was a bit sappy, but it would have to do for now. He marked the sentence as a placeholder, to be refined in later edits.
"You and I don't know much about the world, do we?" Sabine suddenly asked, sounding pensive enough to make him glance up from the parchment. "We're only just kids. I didn't realize until this year… I mean, the sevenths and eighths, they seem so sure of what's going on, most of the time. They're always laughing at how easy our homework is, and when they give me advice it sounds so… so patronizing. I've learned a lot from them, but it would be nice to feel like you and I aren't the only ones muddling in the dark. I miss our classmates. Don't you?"
Draco shrugged. "We'll see them next term."
The truth was that, aside from Sabine, Draco wasn't particularly attached to anyone in his class. He was familiar with their habits and their quirks, but he only tolerated them at best. Draco thought of Noel, Chantal, and the rest of his Quidditch team, those he'd once trained with almost every day, and he realized that it was kind of sad that he'd never once felt their absence in all his time here in Great Britain.
Maybe the problem was him. Maybe he just didn't know how to be with people. Sabine had demanded his friendship the day she sat next to him in their very first class because "You're the only one around here who doesn't seem like a total fool," and Hermione, well, she'd sort of snuck up on him. He hadn't been able to get rid of the former, but he'd succeeded in pushing the latter away.
It had felt like the right thing to do at the time, but now that the sting of the moment was wearing off, it was beginning to appear more and more like a hollow victory.
"Anyway," sighed Sabine, "like I said, I don't know much, but I do know what I believe."
"And what would that be?" Draco asked.
"You shouldn't be so afraid of losing something that you don't try to have it at all."
With that last parting shot, Sabine stood up and went back to her room, leaving Draco alone with his dark thoughts.
What really took Hermione by surprise was how it easy it was for her to push Draco Malfoy to the back of her mind.
School was a big help in that regard. After the incident in the carriage, the days passed in a blur; she wrote five essays, annotated twenty different chapters, solved fifty-three Arithmancy problems, and practiced on her spell-craft, hardly pausing to draw breath. She produced some of her best work during this period, and Draco took on the quality of a dull toothache, the type that was forgotten except when she prodded it. So, for the most part, she didn't. She withdrew from her social circle because the Yule Ball was all they could talk about, and Parvati and Lavender seemed especially keen on bringing up the topic of Draco.
"You're hurting. We know you are," Parvati had declared. "We have to hash it out. The only way to let pain go is to talk about it, yeah?"
Maybe I like my pain, Hermione had thought mutinously. It gave her a single-minded determination that she hadn't even known she was capable of, and the feeling was a comfort in itself. She reveled in her strength.
She was halfway through her fifty-fourth Arithmancy exercise in the library when Viktor Krum approached her. Head bent over a piece of parchment, she didn't register his presence until he said, in a deep gravelly voice, "Excuse me."
Hermione blinked up at him. She could see his fan club in the background, glaring daggers at her from behind a shelf.
"Yes? How may I help you?" Her words came out a little priggish, but she was still harboring a grudge after the countless times giggling girls had ruined her concentration in the place she went to for peace and quiet.
"I wish to sit," he said awkwardly in his thick Bulgarian accent.
Hermione glanced around. Hers was the only occupied table in the library.
"With you," Viktor amended. "If you permit it."
"All right," she said, confused.
He pulled up a chair and sat down. He seemed less sure of himself on the ground than on a broomstick, and this endeared him to her a little bit.
Viktor darted a glance at her homework from beneath his black eyebrows. "Magiyata na chislata," he mumbled in recognition.
"Pardon?"
"The magic of numbers… Sorry, I forget the English…"
"Arithmancy," Hermione gently supplied.
"Yes, that's it. Not my best subject, but is nice when you follow on a theorem and suddenly everything… makes sense. You know, it-"
"Clicks," they both finished at the same time.
Viktor managed a small smile. Hermione was surprised by how easy it was for her to smile back. He was tall and sallow, his rough features containing none of Draco's fine-boned grace, but beneath the surliness his dark eyes were soft and kind of shy.
"May I know your name?" he asked.
She introduced herself, and his lips moved wordlessly as he accustomed his tongue to the progression of syllables. "Hermy-own," he tried at last.
"We can work on that," she said, almost giggling and hating herself for it.
"I am Viktor."
"Yes, I know. I was at the World Cup final."
Unexpectedly, he looked down in embarrassment. "I was very muddy, full of sweat…"
"So were all the other players," she assured him. "I'm not a fan of the game, but I do know the crowd went bonkers when you caught the Snitch. I don't think it mattered very much how you looked."
"What happened after, though, on the camping grounds…" He shook his head. "Disgrace."
Masked figures, green light, the world on fire, four people floating, limbs contorted in the air, spinning, the woman being flipped upside down to reveal her undergarments, jeers, drunken laughter, "You are not worthy, you do not deserve…", the Dark Mark in the sky like a planet…
Hermione shook her head to free herself from the grip of the distressing images. She knew Durmstrang Institute admitted only children from pure-blood families; it was time to put all her cards on the table. "Yes, one of the looters tried to kill me," she told Viktor. "He knew I was Muggle-born."
She hadn't even realized she was also in danger. No one had warned them. A tall masked figure reared up in her memory, just at the edge of the forest, sneering Mudblood, wand raised, halfway through Avada Kedavra… Ron forgetting all magic, charging into the attacker hard enough to interrupt the spell and knock the man off his feet… Running with her boys into the cover of the trees…
"I am sorry," said Viktor. "We are not all like You-Know-Who. Blood doesn't matter to me."
Draco had said that to her, too, long ago. But what if he'd been lying? Maybe he hadn't wanted to go as far as taking a Muggle-born girl to a huge public event like the Yule Ball. Suddenly, the ache was back, crashing into her at full force.
Viktor frowned. "Are you all right?"
Hermione realized to her utmost horror that her eyes were wet. "Yes, I'm fine," she said, taking a deep breath, willing away the tears.
"Um, I have tried to speak with you before," Viktor said slowly, "here in the library. But you always look busy, or you're with Harry Potter. And I know you're busy now, too, but I think I will not get another chance like this, so…"
He trailed off. Hermione stared at him. She knew what was coming. She gripped the quill in her hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
"So, ah, Hermy-own, would you go to the Yule Ball with me?" Viktor finished, looking absolutely hopeless, shoulders falling into himself as if he were bracing for rejection.
"I already have plans," Draco had said, his stony gaze hard and unflinching.
"Yes," Hermione replied in a distant voice that didn't seem like her own. "Yes, Viktor, I'd love to go to the Ball with you."
Fleur emerged from the lake, the sunlight turning her hair into wet gold. Teeth chattering, she wrapped a cloak around herself and used her wand to siphon out all traces of moisture.
"I hate this country," she ranted at her schoolmates, who had gathered by the shore to keep an eye on her as she practiced. "Why does it have to be so cold all the time? I wish I were back in the Riviera."
"We all do," said Cerise, who had borrowed Fleur's muffler and Lascelles' mitts. "How's your Bubble-Head Charm coming along?"
"What I need is a good Warming Spell," Fleur groused.
"None of us know how to do that," said Adrien.
It was true. Any attempt made by the Beauxbatons contingent at generating magical heat often ended in explosions or a room-temperature buzz that crumbled at the slightest breeze. On this particular day, Draco couldn't even feel his hands anymore. He huddled closer to Sabine.
"Seriously, though," said Cerise, "how's the Charm?"
"I'm working on it," Fleur snapped.
"Sheesh." Cerise rolled her eyes. "Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."
"And you know why? Because my bed was freezing."
"Ladies," Brys drawled, "as much as I love a good catfight, my dick's about to fall off. Shall we continue this discussion inside the carriage? We can all gather by the fire and treat ourselves to Sumaya's famous chocolat chaud."
"Make your own damn chocolat chaud, Desrosiers," Sumaya grumbled.
But the prospect of seeking refuge from the cold indoors was too much to resist. The shores emptied as the students trooped back to the carriage. Draco found himself at the tail-end of the group when Fleur suddenly called his name.
He stopped and turned back to her. She hadn't moved from her spot. Lake water lapped at the hem of her robes.
"That argument, a few days ago- I'd appreciate it if you kept what you heard to yourself," said Fleur.
Draco wondered if he should tell her that everyone had been privy to that particular conversation, as no one had been polite enough to soundproof their respective rooms. It was all they talked about these days behind Fleur and Bastien's backs- that and the Yule Ball.
However, he really wasn't in the mood for another one of Fleur's tantrums, so he simply nodded.
"Good." Fleur tilted her head contemplatively. It was a strange look on her; he wasn't used to seeing her unsure. "How's Bastien?"
Draco shrugged. He felt some loyalty towards the older boy, since they were both La Plume staff, and being roommates this year had brought them closer together.
"It's not really him, you know," Fleur mused. "It's all me. It's always all me."
"You told me once that I could choose what defines me," Draco quietly said. "You should, too."
Fleur shook her head. "I'm not talking about blood, this time. I'm talking about me." Her features were still proud, still disdainful, but there was a hint of sadness in her blue eyes. "I don't think I know how to love anything."
She brushed past him on her way back to the carriage, and he was left alone to stare at the lake. He found himself remembering all the times he and Hermione had spent on its cool shores. The scent of brown sugar and vanilla as they bowed their heads over homework, the flight of her hands in the dusk, the warmth of the scarf she'd draped around his neck on that terrible day Rita Skeeter's article came out…
A worried voice broke through his thoughts. "Malfoy?" Sabine was peering at him curiously. "Aren't you coming in?"
"You were wrong," he told her, his heart pounding.
"Excuse me?"
"The sevenths and eighths don't always have it all figured out. They can hide it better, but they're just as confused as us. They don't know what they're talking about. Bastien doesn't know what he's talking about."
And then he was hurrying to the castle, at as fast a pace as his feet could take him while still maintaining dignity.
He saw her as she was leaving the Great Hall. She was giggling about something with her girl friends. He marched up to her without a moment's hesitation, and her eyes widened when she spotted him.
Draco had planned a careful speech in his head, but a look of pain flickered on her delicate features and he lost the words. He stood in front of her, his mouth dry, while Parvati and Lavender flanked her sides, glaring at him.
"I apologize," Draco said. "Go to the Yule Ball with me."
Her friends gasped, while the tips of his ears turned pink. Really? That was his grandiose invitation? His silver-tongued ancestors must be turning over in their graves by now.
"Oh," Hermione squeaked. "I- I thought you had other plans?"
"No," he quickly replied. "I was… being stupid. I'll tell you about it. I'll tell you everything. Just- let me escort you? Please?"
She bit her lip, looking torn. And then he watched her face turn resolute, he watched her square her shoulders and lift her chin with every single vestige of her wounded pride.
"Someone already asked me," she told him in a chilly voice, looking him right in the eye as his heart dropped. "And I said yes."
To Be Continued
