Author's Notes:

Again, I stress: many of the plot points for this story come from ACOTAR - including what happens in this chapter. It's important character development, it's important drama-angst for this part of the tale. This is what's called "The Hero's Test" in story craft. Have faith. I promised you an HEA, and you're going to get one. Just ride this hurdle with me to come out the other end of it.

XOXO

~.~.~.~.~

You're missing so much comedy by not taking Divination.

I was tempted not to answer, to leave the piece of parchment where I'd set it aside after the Yule Ball. Parkinson had been upping the ante since our run-in at Scrivenshaft's two weeks ago, and I realised that the warning Draco had given me long ago about the witch's vindictiveness had been correct. There was something mentally unhinged in the woman, and it seemed to be increasing in its capacity for cruelty, for a reason I couldn't fathom.

I watched the words erase, to be replaced by others.

Trelawney predicted Pansy would fall from a tower today, and she nearly shed all her hair.

Huddled behind closed and warded curtains on my bed with a ball of mage-light bobbing behind me, I read his comment and chuckled.

Should I reply? It had been so long since we'd last talked, and I'd missed him and his snarky, silly teasing. I'd missed his support and his good advice. I'd missed how he could read something I'd written and see between its words into its very heart, knowing what I'd really meant.

I miss you.

His words, a mirror of my own sentiment, forced me to recognise that what he and I had discovered in each other was rare. There was a bond between us, one begun through mutual dislike of a common enemy and grown over time into respect and a deep caring for the other. He was my ally, my confidant…my true friend.

"He's your soul mate," Crooks said, his tail lazily wagging and tickling my foot.

"How do you know?" I asked aloud, looking down the length of my body to where he sat at the end of my bed.

My familiar merely looked at me through mysterious green eyes. He licked his mouth and twitched his whiskers.

"Ooh, you males are all the same," I growled. "Go on, then, keep your secrets."

"He's waiting for a reply, I believe."

I turned back to the parchment, staring at the quickly disappearing letters for a moment longer, and then I reached for my quill and ink.

I've missed you, too, I wrote and let it stand there for a good minute, before continuing. Tell me about Parkinson's meltdown. What did Trelawney do?

~.~.~

I hated Valentine's Day.

It was the one day of the year that tended to turn level-headed, serene people into screeching beasts—especially if they were disappointed…or thoroughly pleased. Perhaps a bit of both, depending upon the experience.

The point was I found it a detestable holiday.

"You wouldn't think so if the right person was to push your buttons today," Astoria teased me as I grumbled my thoughts aloud.

"Rubbish," I countered and turned the page to the Political Op-Ed section of The Daily Prophet to read up on the Ministry's newest scandals. Honestly, the officials in Britain were far more corrupt than those in France, I was discovering, and that was saying a lot. "Plenty of people bedevil me on a regular basis, but you don't see me turning into a rabid animal over it, do you?"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it. And you're talking about Malfoy." Astoria intentionally flipped the page on my newspaper to the Pink Column instead. Little pink and red hearts bubbled up from it and floated through the air around us. I waved them away in annoyance. "For the record, I think you do plenty of foaming at the mouth whenever he's prodding at you."

I glared at her double entendre. "That prick could infuriate a nun."

Alright, yes, I was angry at him. For a man who'd once claimed he couldn't breathe when he looked at me, he'd been doing an awful lot of not looking at me at all on the lead-up to Valentine's. Or talking to me; the parchment had remained blank for the last three days. My friends had all sent me girlfriend Valentines today. Even Ron had passed me a small bag of chocolates, thanking me for helping him in his studies.

Yet, here it was dinner, and Malfoy had remained silent and invisible for the entire day.

Parkinson had been missing, too, I'd noticed.

"Mmm," my friend agreed with my assessment, looking entirely too much like my cat at the moment, specifically when he was attempting to play coy. "Malfoy's certainly made for sinning, isn't he?"

I snapped the paper closed, my temper riled. "And what do you know of it?"

My girlfriend looked at me as if I'd lost my ever-loving mind. Maybe I had. After all, I despised one of the most harmless holidays on the calendar, one that encouraged the consumption of large quantities of chocolate. How rational was that?

Perhaps, though, my dislike went a lot deeper. Perhaps I was disgusted by this school, with its silly logo about sleeping dragons and its teachers who happily promoted an annual event that tore people's hearts from their chests and turned them into howling monsters. Perhaps I hated that, as I looked around, I saw that too many people seemed to have the same attitude about relationships as my mother espoused: that a woman was for sale to the man who presented the most impressive and expensive token to win her attention.

Perhaps I simply detested the fact that love was a shade of Gryffindor red and that it was the colour of jealousy that belonged to Slytherin.

"Sorry. I'm out of sorts," I told Astoria, attempting to cover for my fickle mood and apologise. She seemed to understand in that way good girlfriends do and easily forgave me my rudeness with a simple nod. "I think I'll head to the library to finish an assignment. At least I'll accomplish one productive thing today, aside from brooding. See you later?"

My friend wished me luck and waved me off…and swiped my abandoned newspaper from where it sat on the table, immediately turning back to the pages with the latest gossip outside the school.

Gathering my things, I left the Great Hall and headed up to the fourth floor.

Halfway down the corridor from Madam Pince's domain, I spied a familiar head of platinum hair in a shadowy niche and stopped on a Knut. Malfoy was tucked away in secret conspiracy with Parkinson, who was hanging all over him. She cooed to him like a vulture seeking scraps from a recent kill.

"Darling, you know I enjoy how savage you are in bed, but if you keep tearing my knickers off like you did twice today, I'll have no lovely underthings to wear."

"I doubt any of your other paramours will care," he dryly replied, sounding as if he wanted to be elsewhere at the moment.

"Mmm, probably true," she conceded, ignoring her partner's disinterest, too narcissistic to care. "Still, I'd like you to be a little less amorous in your pleasuring of me from now on. As it is, I'll have to ask Gregory to buy me another six sets from that little Parisian lingerie shop I so adore, which will set him back quite a bit. The poor boy won't be able to afford my graduation dress robes at this rate, and then whatever will I do?"

He growled and pointed a finger in her face. "I could care less about your underwear, and you can stop sniffing around for me to volunteer to pick up your clothing tab, too. The only thing you'll be getting from me is a good, hard fuck every now and then. That was our bargain."

Her smile was cruel, and her eyes filled with black malice as they alighted on me behind him. "Then do me again, right here. Fuck me. Now."

My reaction was uncontrollable and unfortunately, played right into her hands: I hissed like an incensed viper at her.

She knew.

The wicked witch had somehow found out how I felt about Draco, even as such feelings were against my will and better judgment. She was provoking me.

Having heard the sound, Draco's head snapped around and he froze when he spied me standing there several feet away, panic and guilt crisscrossing his features. Pansy twined her arms around his neck, draping her body triumphantly over her conquered prey. "I gave you an order, lover. Fuck me, right here…or else I might decide to discuss Nott's real mother—the lady of Nott Manor's chambermaid, wasn't she?—with Rita Skeeter at lunch tomorrow."

So. This was how she did it.

Finally, I was seeing how Parkinson bent people to her will.

I'd imagined it was bad, but this...

"Darling, you know how excited I get in that woman's presence," the witch continued with dark amusement. "Why, I might just let it slip that the servant girl also mysteriously disappeared soon after giving birth to young Theodore...and well, that sort of scandal could open up all sorts of ugly criminal investigations into the father by the Auror Department, I would think. Wouldn't that be just...awful?"

Oh, my god.

What. A. Bitch.

This, then, was the secret Draco couldn't earlier tell me: he was protecting his best friend, Theodore Nott, from being revealed as the half-blood spawn of a servant girl who had, Pansy implied, been murdered by his father. Given that, the manner of Theo's conception was also in dispute. Had it been a seduction or a rape of the poor witch? Furthermore, considering the snobbery the wizarding Bon Ton held in regards to magical purity, if the secret got out of his mother's true heritage, Theo's reputation in pureblood circles would be irrevocably destroyed. The scandal would, most likely, see him ejected from his family's home and disowned, regardless of whether or not Nott Senior ended up behind bars.

Theo would lose, no matter what.

This is what Pansy Parkinson held over Draco. He'd traded his body and his freedom to keep his friend safe from the sins of his father.

It wasn't fair! Theo wasn't responsible for his parent's evil, and Draco sure as hell shouldn't bear the brunt of the punishment for any of it, either. Both of them were simply victims to the whims of bad people's decisions. And Parkinson was preying on them, on Theo's vulnerability and Draco's love.

Clenching my hands into tight fists, I winced at the burn as my nails cut through the delicate skin of my palms. "Don't you dare," I growled in warning, wanting to ram my fist into Parkinson's pug-ugly face. "Let him go!"

Parkinson threw me a sneer and her tone grew hard, almost grating when she demanded of her puppet, "Well, little Malfoy? Get to it. And make me cum before you get off."

The spiteful, malicious cunt.

"Draco?" I called to my...to him instead, hoping he'd hear in my voice my desperation for him to walk away from this madness, to come to me and not let such a horrible woman own him any longer. "Please, don't do what she wants. She'll never stop if you keep submitting to her."

Parkinson snarled at him when it seemed as if he might give in to my plea. "I'll have Nott's two half-brothers pay him another visit, and they'll take more than his hands this time! He'll never recover, Draco. I promise you that!"

That threat seemed to be enough to seal the deal.

Draco shut his eyes and turned back to the woman in his arms, hiding his face from me in shame. He slammed Parkinson into the wall nearby, and I could hear the clink of his belt buckle coming undone. "Beat it, Granger," he growled. "We don't need an audience."

"Let the little freak stay and watch, if she wants," Pansy antagonized us both, practically purring now in excitement. "It's probably all she'll ever get of you anyway, lover."

"No," I whimpered, taking a step forward, reaching for him. "Please, don't!"

My wand was suddenly in my hand, but I hesitated to use it. I could be expelled, my future would end before it had even begun. I couldn't afford to-

"It's all a game, Hermione."

"Shut up!" I shouted at my mother's voice haunting my brain. "Shut up, shut up!"

This wasn't a game, not to me.

"I said get out of here, Granger!" Draco snarled and I heard his zip come down and the rustling of clothing that was shifted to give better access.

It hit me hard then that he wasn't going to stop this. He was going to do as Parkinson wanted because he was her whore, and this was the price of her silence. This was the bargain he'd made for Theo's safety... "No, Draco, please stop!" I cried out, stricken. My mind grabbed for and discarded a dozen spells in seconds, as they became mixed up in my head. I couldn't remember the correct hand movements or the proper words to cast, as everything inside me was too busy screaming in horror to concentrate. "Please, I beg you, don't do this!"

"Leave!" he demanded.

The cloth of Parkinson's knickers being ripped from her body was a violent, tearing sound that I swore I'd hear until the end of my days.

"Come back to your room, my Mistress," Crooks appealed to me through our connection, and I knew he'd felt my heart breaking across the distance and was trying to help in the only way he could. "I'll tell you all the secrets you ever wanted to know about cats if you do! Just...come back to your room NOW!"

I reached out again. "Draco, please‒!"

He grunted when he thrust into Parkinson's body, and something inside me…just…...broke. I shattered into a million pieces right there in the fourth-floor corridor. The Hermione Granger that was before this moment was abruptly no more. She'd died as assuredly as if she'd had every bone broken and her neck snapped.

Parkinson saw my agony and she laughed at it.

She laughed as Draco fucked her.

I don't remember much after that.

Somehow, I'd ended up back downstairs, Astoria found me first. Only when she'd asked me if I needed a healer did the shock allow a bit of emotion to peek through. I'd ended up crying in her arms. I'd been hurt so many times in my life‒by my mother's disdain and my father's cowardice, by the mocking of my classmates and the betrayal of Madam Olympe, by the death of extended family and the upheaval of my dreams. You'd think I'd be inured to the feeling by now, immune to it even. The truth was I knew nothing of real pain until that moment.

Draco had been right: this did feel like dying.

Crooks comforted me that night by staying at my side and snuggling up with me. His soft fur and gentle purring eventually brought an end to my tears and lulled me into a deep sleep.

My last thought before I drifted off, however, was that I'd always hated Valentine's Day…and now nothing was ever going to change that fact.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Note:

In ACOTAR, Amarantha kills Feyre by breaking every bone in her body and snapping her neck.

*cringe* I'm sorry, my lovies, but this horror had to be for our heroine to grow and for her relationship with Draco to evolve. Part of the hero's journey is, after all, the low-point and the pain. Without it, Hermione could never overcome the ordeal of the quest to come. Please be gentle in your reviews for this chapter.