See part one for disclaimers.
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Section 3:
"Ladies and gentlemen," Harry announced, his eyes twinkling in true, Dumbledore fashion, "I think we have a winner. Lightning is about to strike, again!"
Ron and Justin cheered while Parvati and Hermione groaned and Luna simply smiled dreamily in that way she had, but they all turned to watch as Blaise began to cross the barroom floor. He had been approached twice already that night, leading to two false alarms as the girls each approached Blaise with those inimitable smiles on their faces that all-too-clearly advertised their intentions only to be politely but firmly sent away. With this one, however, the interest in Blaise's face was unmistakable. He'd been throwing little glances her way all night, and now he was finally making his move.
Hermione bit the inside corner of her lip while she mentally recited all the editors who had ever contributed to Hogwarts, A History first in alphabetical order by last name, then in alphabetical order by first name, then in alphabetical order by spouse's first name... but it didn't work. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't manage to calm and refocus her thoughts. Her primal instincts were urging her to go over to that blasted witch that had caught Blaise's attention and drag her out of the pub by her hair before hexing her into an animal with bristles and spikes. And warts. Definitely warts.
She thought she had become accustomed to Blaise going home with a different witch every night, but she had been wrong. It was one thing to watch from the sidelines while one witch after another seduced the man she loved into their beds. It was quite another to watch the man himself initiate the seduction.
Fortunately, her friends were far too busy watching Blaise in action to realize that every trace of a smile had faded off of her face as Blaise approached the witch in question and caught her attention with a dazzling smile. Hermione felt her fingernails start to dig into her palm when Blaise led the girl to the bar and bought her a drink. When Blaise leaned over to whisper something in her ear, causing the girl to simultaneously giggle and blush, the inside corner of Hermione's lip began to bleed from being bitten too hard and she decided that she had seen quite enough.
"I'd think I'd best be going," she announced to the table at general. With a sigh of aggravation, she realized that no one had heard what she said. Bloody nuisance of a noisy bar; it was no wonder she wanted to get out of there.
Technically, she was there as Harry's date since Padma hadn't been able to come in that weekend and Blaise was, as always, quite thoroughly occupied with other women, so Hermione tried to get Harry's attention first to let him know she was leaving. It was an exercise in futility; Harry was having a marvelous time goofing off with Ron and Justin and was completely oblivious to Hermione's increasingly frantic attempts to get his attention. Finally, she gave up and turned to the person seated closest. When Harry finally realized she was gone, at least someone would be able to tell him where she went.
It took a minute of persistent tugging, but Hermione finally managed to get Luna's attention. "I'm tired, Luna," Hermione told her, forcing a faint smile onto her face, "I'm going to head home."
"You've got blood coming from the corner of your lip," Luna replied. "Do you think you might have been bitten by a vampire beetle? If so, then you shouldn't go to sleep or the effects may become permanent." Hermione took a deep breath and forced herself not to tell Luna that vampire beetles didn't exist. Arguing with Luna about the nonexistence of bizarre creatures was about as productive as attempting to chew one of Hagrid's rock cakes, and at the moment, all Hermione really wanted was to get out of that bar and away from that blasted tramp of a witch who was now whispering in Blaise's ear.
"I won't go to sleep until I'm sure I'm not infected," Hermione promised as she got up from her chair and gathered up her cloak. Luna merely nodded at her and returned her attention to Ron, as usual. No one else seemed to notice as Hermione slipped silently to the door.
As soon as the cool, outdoor air hit her face, the tears came along with the stinging pain that started in her chest and spread along her nerve endings all the way to the tips of her fingers until she was tense head to toe with the ache of it. As emotionally jumbled as she was at the moment, she knew that apparation would cap her evening by leaving her splinched, so she started to walk in the direction of Grimmauld Place. The fact that it was three kilometers away didn't discourage her in the least. She rather relished the thought of a long walk. Maybe she could get all the tears out of her system before she got home. They continued to fall at an alarming rate, leaving her comforted in the knowledge that her body's water supply couldn't keep up a rate like that for long. If she was patient, she'd run out of tears, eventually.
She didn't bother brushing them away. Long hair came in handy at times: as long as she kept her head down, her hair would screen her face, and she could cry in peace, undisturbed. Keeping her eyes focused on the pavement in front of her, she began to walk, paying little attention to direction as she simply walked where her feet led her, letting the tears fall as she went.
She walked through noisy streets. She walked through quiet streets. She walked through streets lined with bookshops where she stopped mechanically and looked at the windows without processing anything that she saw. She very nearly walked in to a fountain that she didn't notice in her distraction, but she managed to avoid it at the last minute. She walked until her feet hurt in the less than sensible shoes she had worn because she thought they made her legs look nice. And then she walked some more. Her tears died out after twenty minutes or so, as expected, and the pain faded somewhat to a type of numbness after about half an hour.
Walking had always been therapeutic for Hermione. It started when she was six years old and began having bursts of uncontrolled magic when she was angry or upset. Her parents, bewildered and more than a little scared at the strangely waterproof flames that sprouted up around the house at odd, inconvenient intervals that unluckily seemed to concur with their daughter being in a temper, would tell her to go outside and walk around the block until she calmed down. At the very least, they figured, it would get their bookish daughter outside in the fresh air, away from her books, and out from underfoot while they tried to deal with the fires. They lived in a safe, quiet, residential neighborhood populated almost entirely with retirees who doted on Hermione as the only child in the area, so they knew she was in no danger. Usually, after a few circuits of the block, she had forgotten her anger and was busy chatting with Mrs. Gibson about her dahlias over a cup of tea and stale biscuits by the time her parents came to find her.
By the time they discovered the cause of those waterproof flames, the habit had already been ingrained, and Hermione continued walking away her anger or her pain after she entered Hogwarts. During first year when nobody liked her and second year when Ron stopped speaking to her and third year when Ron and Harry were angry with her and all the other times throughout all of the seven years when she'd been alone and hurting and not wanting to show it, she'd developed the habit of going outside on the grounds, regardless of the weather, to walk around the lake.
She'd let herself relax into the purely mechanized movement that did not require her thought or her attention, and she'd let her mind burn through the things that bothered her. Her anger or her hurt or her sadness would be blazing when she began, but as she circled the lake over and over again, some of that fire would burn out. She always felt calmer when she was done, more relaxed and certain of herself. She'd pop over to Hagrid's cabin and he'd make her a cup of tea and she'd chat about how sweet blast ended skrewts were, once you got to know them, or how fascinating she found flubberworms, and then she'd return to the castle, feeling ready to face her problems again.
By the time she reached home, three quarters of an hour after leaving the bar, she was reasonably certain that she had calmed herself down. It still hurt to think of Blaise wanting every woman under the sun who wasn't her... but the pain was bearable now. Heading up the stairs to her room, she resolved to hang up her cloak, head back down to the kitchen for a cup of tea, and then get some sleep. She breezed up the staircase and into her room without noticing anything strange and actually managed to hang up her cloak and exit her bedroom before an out of place sound made her freeze.
Moans. Passionate, lustful, purely sensual moans, coming from Blaise's room. Hermione's jaw clenched in a mixture of anger, annoyance, and blinding hurt. The idiot hadn't even thought to put up a silencing charm. Not surprising, really, since the situation had never before occurred. Blaise invariably went to the girls' flats instead of bringing them home with him. This girl must really be something since Blaise openly pursued her and brought her home.
Hermione's instinct was to put back on her shoes and head back outside for another long, long walk... but that wasn't really an option now. It was late, she was tired, her muscles and her feet were sore and overstrained. A walk might actually do some damage to her at this point. As tempting as it sounded, no one could walk indefinitely. Mechanically, she slid into the second part of her routine and headed down to the kitchen. She was barely aware of her own movements as she put the kettle on to boil and brought out the sugar and milk. Operating on auto-pilot, she made herself a cup of tea. Then she placed it on the kitchen table, seated herself in front of it, put her head down on her arms and started to cry.