I Love(d) You (Once)
Chapter Twenty-two: An Address to Hate
The day after the Daily Prophet announced Astoria and Draco's breakup to the world, gossip buzzed throughout the building. Why had they broken up? Who in the right mind would let go of such a beautiful woman? Was it a publicity stunt to promote the gallery Astoria worked in?
Hermione had kept her head down and avoided persistent questions. No, she did not know any specifics, could she please continue with her work? To show the world she was not in the mood for a chat, she put her headphones on and buried herself in proofreading an agreement between two wizards selling shaved Puffskein clippings for potion ingredients.
Truly, the world should move on
dum
turn its attention to something more worthwhile,
dum
and leave people's private lives alone…
dum
What Hermione had first thought was the kick of the drum beat in her song was coming from elsewhere. More specifically, outside. She frowned and swivelled in her chair.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," she gaped at the sight before her. A middle-aged lady with admittedly impressive mastery of the broomstick had attempted to squeeze through the opening of the third-floor window. With the front half of her body in the building, and her legs wrapped around the end of the broomstick she was a cork to a bottle opening.
"Please, could you help me?" The woman appeared more calm than Hermione would have been in the same situation. That being said, Hermione was scared of heights. Wordlessly, Hermione grabbed the woman by her forearms and pulled, wondering if this was what it was like to help deliver a calf.
With a couple of tugs, Hermione managed to get the woman in. The broom had been long lost, and had fallen onto the pavement below. Both huffing, Hermione placed a hand on her shoulder and began escorting the woman off the floor. Having caught her breath by the time they were at the elevator, the woman turned to Hermione.
"He must be doing drugs or something," she said to Hermione conversationally, as if she were talking about when she should take in her laundry. "That would explain the dark circles around his eyes."
The end of the room could not get fast enough. Hermione picked up her pace and gave a heavy sigh. Only she could joke about Draco being an addict (to caffeine).
"I was fine with them dating because Astoria was happy, but I always thought it looked like a forty-year old dating a young woman. Don't you think he has a terrible undereye circle problem?" She gave a slight laugh and she seemed too glow when she pointed out Draco's defects.
If Hermione had not previously read the Company's Manual on how to do deal with situations like these she would have opened her mouth. The reason why Draco looked like that was because he was tired, tired of bullshit like this coming out from this woman's mouth. More importantly, unlike a lot of fantasies fuelled by zealous imagination, Draco was not a Veela. He was a human and so Merlin help him to look unattractive at times.
Finally. Hermione stabbed the elevator button and prayed she could escort this woman out before she lost her temper. Her liquid rage was simmering in a pot, and the woman's asinine comments had just turned the stove on high. Hermione's nails were digging dents into her palms. Count to ten, Draco had told her once. Whenever he had felt personally attacked, he would count to ten before saying anything.
The woman stumbled in and continued, as though Hermione had been participating in a conversation with her. "Astoria should have looked more carefully to who she chose to date because, well, you know the kind of company Draco keeps."
Although she had been speaking in what was meant to be words of concern for Astoria, she had the kind of malicious smile on her face, to Hermione she was enjoying the fact that they were together way too much.
"…Could be entangled in some shady, dark things. I thought dating Astoria dating him might change him for the better but I guess not."
The kind of company Draco kept was her. She was the one who spent the day with him the day prior. That. Was. The. Kind. Of. company. He. kept.
And Draco. He was the arrogant person she had ever come into acquaintance with, Merlin help them all, but he was that way for a valid reason. Out of all the people she ran across in her daily life, she held him in her highest opinion.
Ding. Be it the clear ringing in her head as she metaphorically hit the clear crystal of truth in the recess of her mind, or more probably the elevator door arriving at their floor, Hermione snapped out of her train of thought.
She pushed the woman into the elevator harder than she should have. She and sucked in the air and though she knew she should follow Draco's advice again, to count to ten, she really could not hold it in anymore. It was to the woman's misfortune she had come across Hermione. She was probably the only person on the floor, in the building, in this entire world who would deliver who would deliver smack like this.
Hermione planted her feet shoulder-width apart, in a battle stance. She turned to face the woman, and squared her shoulders. It was in this way, she would deliver her address, because that was how it ought to be done. Plainly and directly in their face.
She finally asked: "Do you know Draco?"
"Well of course," the woman said, irked that The Hermione Granger would not have known something so obvious. "Who doesn't know Draco Malfoy?"
Hermione paused for a moment, for the trap had set and sprung on its prey. "You recognise Draco Malfoy. True, anyone off the street over the age of ten could pick him out from a crowd. But you don't know Draco." Her temper flared up. She could feel the rage which had been repressed and pent up about the entire situation come up and out. "You know absolutely nothing about him. You read articles about him and see pictures of him in Witch Weekly or Daily Prophet but that does not mean you know who he is.
"He is more than a person who likes dressing in black. He is more than the person who attends classy functions. He is not the player who messed with Astoria's heart. He is not a thief. He does not deserve to be hung for being the "Enemy of Females". Astoria does not need to be protected from Draco."
"Well, I never," the woman said, clearly offended by Hermione's speech. "He is quite a sneaky character and he has deceived even judges in the Death Eater Trials—"
"You think reading all the articles about him means you're an expert? That can only be an insult to your ability to comprehend, or a reflection in the lack of complexity of character you own yourself."
"You're just another one of his fangirls," she said. Agitated, she shoved Hermione into the wall. Hermione winced as her lower back hit the rail on the side of the wall. "You need to wake up to the truth."
"No, you shut up!" Hermione yelled exasperated. She felt her face heat up, and she knew it was doing the tomato-complexion thing that always happened whenever she felt outraged. The pot of rage was boiling over. With each sentence, she stepped closer towards the woman until she was yelling at her face. If she were a few years younger she would have socked the woman in the jaw. "You don't know anything so shut up! You have a problem if you think you can just people's lives by dumb articles! You need to go home, rethink your life values, because clearly you are a dumb piece of shit who gets turned on hating on someone!"
Security was waiting for them by the entrance of the elevator. Hermione made a rude face at the woman, pulling the tops of her lips upwards, all teeth bared. She made equally rude gestures with her hands as the security dragged the woman out of the building. Around the corner, at the entrance of the building itself, she could hear camera shutters flying, and an incoherent buzz of first-year intern reporters trying to pry a story from the security guards.
If the woman was going to speak about her horrible experience with Hermione Granger, then so be it. In all this, Hermione just felt, so so terrible for Draco. She decided, if the whole world was against Draco, then it was going to be against her too.
Feeeeeelings. Especially when people gossip about things they don't know about D:
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