Chapter Twenty One

Hermione lay in her bed alone that night, feeling very cold and empty. Everything seemed to be going wrong and she couldn't figure out why. If there was one person she could have by her side right now…it would be Jessie Knowlton.

Why?

Because Jessie was the only one who ever really understood her feelings. She wondered if Jessie was feeling as hurt and as broken as she was right now. Her eyes were swollen and stung from crying and her lips were so chapped that it burned to move them.

Hermione sat up and looked outside; it was snowing fast and hard. It looked like it was never going to stop. Indeed it wouldn't for a long time. Maybe...maybe it would never stop. Like the heart ache that had been swelling in her chest ever since her first heartbreak. Ron had utterly killed her the day he made her break down.

The corners of her eyes stung from the tears that leaked out, that she wiped away constantly. Hermione sat up, got out of bed and stepped into the bathroom. Draco was standing in front of the sink brushing his teeth. He seemed to brush his teeth a lot when he was going through something hard. Hermione often walked in on him when he was brushing his teeth right after school started.

She leaned on the door arch and watched him. He looked at her in the mirror. She looked pathetic, she looked like shit. But how he missed her and it had only been a little while. How he loved her. Draco finished brushing his teeth and left the bathroom, grabbing his coat and shoes.

Hermione collapsed on the bathroom floor and shut the door. She slammed her fist into the bath tub, hearing the sound of the portrait hole opening.

Draco walked down to the foyer and then out of the school, figuring the cold would keep his mind off of Hermione. He walked to the Quidditch Pitch and looked around and the snow and wind nipped at his face.

"It's a little cold outside, isn't it?" He heard someone say. He turned around only to see Blair standing in a leather duster, hair in curls, glitter dusting her eyes and snow falling all around her. She looked as angelic as ever, as beautiful as ever.

"Not cold enough, Blair." She took a few steps closer to Draco and brushed the hair out of his face as Hermione might have done.

"Are you okay, Draco?" She asked, and he nodded in response. "It'll never be a crime to be in love with her Draco."

"Yes, yes it will be. I've interfered with every fucking rope there is to interfere with and still I can't fucking figure out how to use a fucking pair of scissors to cut these damn ropes so I don't trip over them anymore."

"Things like these take time, Draco. And sometimes even with time they don't work out, but you'll never know until you try." Draco looked from the sky to Blair wondering what would have happened if he hadn't turned her down that one day on the bridge. Blair was wondering the same thing.

"I was all out of hope when I left Australia, but then I met you, Draco. And ever since then, I can't- I can't stop thinking of you." Tears filled her eyes. "And I've tried to get over myself liking you because there's been Jessie, Pansy and Hermione and now there's Harry for me, but nothing's working." She looked down at her shaky, cold hands.

Draco swallowed, fearing that Blair was the only woman he had left now. She was dangerous for him. He licked his lips and put a finger to her chin, lifting it so he could see her face. "I don't want you to feel like that, I don't want you to be angry or sad…because nothing would be worth it. You helped me achieve my own happiness and now I need to repay the favor." Draco whispered leaning in, closer and closer. His lips touched hers, feeling agony increasing in his bones. Wishing he could mix Hermione, Blair and Jessie into the perfect woman. Hermione's wits, her stubbornness, her crave to look natural unlike the other girls. Blair's adultness, her scandalous ways and her very own desire to help people before herself. And Jessie…Jessie was different from both of them. She was sexy, she was wicked…but she was easy to please, and she was accepting. Blair and Hermione often held grudges towards other girls.

Blair shivered as she pulled away, icy tears falling down her cheeks. Great. Fan-fucking-tabulous. All the women that he truly cared about, he seemed to have made cry in all one night. He wiped away her tears before they froze to her face. "Blair, please, stop crying."

"It just doesn't feel right, Draco. I'm so much older than you and what about Hermione? I have Harry, too. I've hurt your relationship with Hermione too much already. I tried so hard to keep this to myself and I do believe I've failed." Blair looked off into the gloomy hills of dead trees, cold air and freezing rain falling.

"Blair, if you want this…if you truly, truly, want this…I'm not afraid of it."

"Draco! I don't want to be your secret or your mistress. I'm not going to be another Lisa, Goddamn it!" Draco's veins filled with warmth, as fire crept into his soul.

"Funny, I didn't think you cared, seeming your already Potter's secret!" Draco exclaimed.

"I didn't mean it like that-"

"To hell you didn't mean it like that! You mean every fucking word you ever say, Blair! You know Potter's your beau, you know I have Hermione crying over me, but still you tend to reach out to say that you're madly in love with me! What the hell is wrong with you, Blair? You know the shit about Lisa, you know every piece of my life so are you going to use that shit against me, Blair?"

"Is this kicking in again, Draco? You going into your deepest, darkest memories to bring out all the rage on me? You've done this to every fucking girl that you've ever had a romance with. And if you think about it, if you hadn't seen your father doing that to your mother you wouldn't have been with Jessie or Hermione." Draco clenched his fists trying to stop himself but he couldn't win this war. He slapped Blair across the face and then pinned her up against a tree.

"Draco!" Blair screamed in horror and pain.

"Remember that one night on top of that roof, where I told you if anyone ever spoke of my mother in vain again I would show them how angry it made me and I would show them the repulsion she went through? Remember?" Tears glided down Blair's face remembering a memory she thought she would never have to face.A memory that was not meant to last. Draco had told her that the next person who spoke of his mother in a denote way would get the last laugh, and Blair was that person. Alarm infested her mind, her bones, her skin and knots grew in her stomach.

§¤§

Hermione entered the Great Hall on the last day of vacation and sat down between Harry and Ron. She laid her head down tiredly and watched everyone eat. She wasn't very hungry; tears often seemed to drain the stomach but made food look like shit. It made liquids taste like plastic. It made her want to vomit. She closed her eyes, feeling weak, but strong enough to want to get up and leave.

"What's wrong, Hermione?" Ron asked.

"Nothing," she lied. Everything was wrong. The things she needed (love, food, fun)…she felt like she wouldn't be experiencing very soon.

She lifted her head like a dog would, seeing a friendly face enter the room. Blair's eyes were a tiny bit red and her face a littler distorted. Wasn't it ironic that Blair and Hermione looked almost the same on the same day, at the same fucking time? She got up, beginning to get worried and left the table.

"Where are you going?" Ron asked. But she walked over to Blair, without response. She stood in front of Blair and examined her face. She figured that the tears in her eyes were the same species of tears in Blair's eyes.

"Hermione, I- I didn't mean it. He's not…okay." Hermione stared at her, very confused.

§¤§

Hermione sat on Blair's couch biting the tip of her fingernail. Her waterworks had finally run out of water, and now all there was to do was to shake uncontrollably.

"Why? I don't understand. If he wanted to be the exact opposite of his father, why would he do it?" Hermione questioned aloud. Blair sat next to her with a cup of tea in her hands.

"I hit that last nerve of his, Hermione. He wanted me to experience the pain his mother went through and…I just couldn't…" She trembled, hot tea splashing out of the cup and onto her leg. She dropped the cup, breathing at an extremely harsh pace, the small cup shattering into a hundred pieces. Just like her heart; crashing into a wall that she couldn't find a way around and finally giving up and breaking.

The door busted open with Draco behind it and Jessie behind him, looking as depressed as ever. Draco walked over to Blair, the glass crunching beneath his feet, and pressed her so hard against the back of the couch that she could barely breathe. "Who did you tell, Blair?" He looked over at Hermione in disgust.

"Leave her alone, Draco." Hermione said quietly. "If you didn't do it she wouldn't have told anyone. You're a sparkling reflection of your father now."

"You told her?"

"Of course she did, who else was she supposed to tell?" Jessie piped in. "Draco, this is everyone's breaking point and if you can't be mature about it, maybe you're not the one for any of us."

Draco looked back at Jessie and then back at the other two girls, unhappiness welling up in their eyes. Maybe he was the one for one of them, but the real question was…did he deserve any of them?