A/N: All right, this is where it gets interesting.. Draco is considering Hermione's offer--rather deeply--and things happen. Odd ones. Here it is. Interested? Then read. The next chapter is the BEST one! ^_^ Domo arigatou! Mata aimasho!

....If you knew what I knew....

....You'd actually listen....

Indecision

-Heartbreaker's Prey-

The taste of her kiss haunts me still, three days later. The smell of her hair.. it all tempts me.

Three days ago, the devil was in my living room... in the guise of my unspoken love. Or was she the devil all along?

What is this strange thing called love? Is it death? Life? Is it an infection that sneaks into your soul like disease to your body?

I've been infected far too long.

An owl arrives with a tap on the window. A far-too-normal barn owl, with a letter in its talons. I lean towards the window and open it. The owl hops once towards me, looks at me inquisitively, then drops the letter and pushes it towards me.

I look at the address, though I don't doubt who it's from. Yes, I'm right. Hermione. "To Draco" is written in her flowing script. The message is brief.

"Draco--

I'll come to hear your decision at noon. You had better prepare.

Love,

Hermione."

The last two lines burn my eyes with the contradiction. Cold, formal at first; then love. Love. If she loves.. if she loves anyone, least of all me, she wouldn't dare throw that word around.

I look at the clock. It's eleven. Then I look back at the address on the envelope.

I pocket the envelope, grab my cloak, and head out the door.

---------------------------------

"Harry?"

I knock at the door of the house Harry and Hermione share. I brush a drop of water off my brow, then look up. It's beginning to rain.

Oh, well. Hopefully Hermione isn't home. I look at my watch. 11:20. I have forty minutes.

"Just a minute," I hear from within the house, muffled. A few moments pass, then Harry opens the door. He's barely changed; same scruffy hair, scrawny; but new glasses, thin framed, rectangular instead of round. "Draco," he says, looking surprised.

"I'll get straight to the point. I want to talk to you about Hermione," I say.

He pauses tentatively. "What about her?" he says finally.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about, Potter," I snap.

He laughs, smirks. "Ah, just like old times."

I smirk back, but I can't waste a second of time. "I know all about her. Who she really is. What do you know?"

He looks as if he's thinking, narrows his eyes, and nods. "Come in," he says abruptly. He opens the door fully and I step inside.

A warm home. A fireplace. A place where in my impossible fantasies Hermione and I would live. Picture of their travels across Europe and a large group picture of all the Aurors, including them, are propped on a small table beside a tall lamp and an overstuffed armchair.

I sit in the chair while Harry squats in front of the fireplace, distractedly warming his hands. He stares into the fire as he speaks.

"She's been acting differently. Understandable for a woman who's about to be married," he concedes with a wave of his hand, "but not like this. Not happy, ditzy, you know.. hostile, wound-up, snappish."

"Maybe it's that time of the month," I say, the old familiar smirk settling on my face. I haven't in years.. since I lost her for good. The smirk dissolves off my face.

He avoids my comment. "Then I found her talking to someone in the fire late on Sunday night. She told me it was Auror work, but I didn't recognize the voice."

"An affair, then." Now I'm not jesting; just trying to see what he knows, so I can save time.

"With a Death Eater?"

I freeze.

"She's no innocent girl," he says, tensing at the fire, still staring. "She's a temptress. A deceptive bitch," he snaps. Then he relaxes, sags. "She's got me lashed in tightly, though. She's deceiving all of us at once. I think in some way we all knew, but just didn't want to realize it."

I look down at my watch. 11:35. "You may as well know, if you don't, that I love her."

He nods grimly. "You hated her enough to really love her. I always had a feeling.." He trails off, sits down at the hearth and sighs. "I'd die for her. In a second, I'd die for her."

Suddenly images of that day, when my soul bled almost as much as today overcome me. Our graduation.

Just like today, I was alone. My mother and father were Death Eaters once again--but the Aurors were back again. A week before, Death Eaters led an attack on the Ministry of Magic and the Aurors. Not surprisingly, my father had called a personal day. The Aurors, however, had been expecting them. A slaughter. The Dark Lord lost most of his troops.

And I lost my parents.

Parents? Sponsors would be more like it. Parental love, who needed it. They used their power when I needed it, and spoiled me. I didn't need their love.

But for some reason, when they were gone... it hurt.

And I was alone. My demeanor fell, my reputation collapsed. My "bodyguards," Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, left me. No one spoke to me, not even that lapdog Pansy Parkinson. I was--and felt--off limits.

Hermione. She was even cruel back then. She talked to me, pretended to care. Hugged me, comforted me.

It wasn't me there. I didn't exist anymore, not Draco Malfoy, the smug blonde smirking and double-crossing. No longer.

A victim of circumstance. I was born to cold parents, fell in love with a cold woman, lived a cold life in a cold world. Happiness? I wasn't happy. I've never been happy.

That day, Hermione graduated with honors, along with Harry. I was close, but my studies dropped when my sunny (Hah!) disposition faded. I didn't care about that anymore, life didn't matter. Only one thing did.. and it quickly evaporated that day.

Hermione celebrated her triumph by kissing Harry. No one looked at me, no one saw the pain in my heart. I've always been a good actor. Disgust; I simply projected that foolish "mudblood" act I did for years.

Ron Weasley and a Ravenclaw named Lyra Meioh were going out. Even Weasley had a girlfriend.

And I was alone.

We've both been silent for these past moments. Now I speak. Confessions pour out in my words. "She wants me to kill you for her. She came to my flat and seduced me. She told me everything, she's the leader of the Death Eaters now since you and the other Aurors destroyed Him, she's been one since she was eleven." I take a breath, close my eyes, and listen. I can almost hear Harry's shock. "Ten years of deception," I say softly with the realization.

Finally he speaks. "She's worse than I thought," he says. "So, Draco," he says in conversational but bitter tones. "What now?"

"I suppose there's one thing we can do," I say.

"What?"

"Kill the manipulative bitch."

11:41.