They say every road comes to an end, but sometimes the ending feels just like the beginning.

Even when you think you've come a long way, you can end up back where you started because every journey is fraught with twists and turns.

And one false step could spell disaster.

Just ask Granger.

Rumor has it that the dungeon floors were a bit slippery this morning.

Hopefully, the fall didn't bruise her ego.

~xoxo, Gossip Witch

"The floor wasn't that slippery," Hermione mumbled, keeping her head down as she made her way into the Great Hall. She found an empty spot along the back wall away from the rest of her housemates and anyone that would want to carry on a conversation with her. The students that normally sat here in the Great Hall were in the room to study. All they wanted from the room was background noise. That was all Hermione wanted right now, simple background noise.

The last thing she wanted at that moment was to talk to anyone. Actually, that wasn't true either. There was one person in the entire castle that she wanted to talk to, but he was nowhere to be found. That was why she was in the damn dungeon in the first place. Hermione wasn't enrolled in Potions because it didn't align with her plan, even if she was good at the course.

Hermione shook her head and brushed the thoughts of the class where she had first laid eyes on Draco. Now she'd give anything to lay eyes on him. He had been avoiding her since he got back from an impromptu dinner with his parents. She couldn't shake the idea that something was said at that dinner, and his parents' Pureblood ideals had bubbled into the conversation.

"Damn it," Hermione groaned, wiping the tears away from her eyes as she took a deep breath. She shook her head and pushed the thoughts aside as she reached for her History of Magic textbook. She had a paper that needed to be written, and the last thing she needed to be distracted by was her relationship with Draco.

~xoxo~

Draco swung at the uniform hanging up in his locker as he let out a yell. Everything was falling apart, and there was nothing he could do to fix it. If he chose to follow his heart, then he would lose the relationship he has spent so long building with his father - not that it was the greatest relationship, but it was better than no relationship with him at all. If he chose to follow what his brain was telling him to be right, then he would lose the one person in the world who saw him as more than just the son of a Death Eater. Hermione meant the world to him, but was she really worth throwing away his family?

"Are you okay?" Theo asked, glancing around the door to his locker with a furrowed brow. He could feel Blaise glaring at him from the other side of the room, but that destroyed friendship was the last of his worries right now. Daphne deserved better than what Blaise could offer her, but she didn't see it that way, and he wasn't ready to press the issue with her.

"Do I look okay?" Draco hissed, pressing his head against the locker next to his. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

"What's going on?" Theo asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned up against the locker, facing Draco. Theo looked his friend up and down. The person standing in front of him didn't look like the friend he had come to know and love over the last few years. He looked broken.

"My love life will be going up in flames if I want to make my family happy," Draco huffed, peeking at Theo out of the corner of his eye.

"I wouldn't say anything more to him, Malfoy," Blaise chimed in, shaking his head as he pushed himself up off the bench in the locker room. "Once he gets all of the juicy details of your relationship, he sweeps in and steals the witch right out from underneath you."

"Malfoy. Zabini. Nott. Get your arses out on the field," Marcus growled, looking up at them from his desk. He had watched this scene play out in this locker room too many damn times, and he didn't have the patience for it today.

~xoxo, Gossip Witch ~

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