"You understand why I'm doing all this, don't you darling?" Pansy stroked Blaire's hair as they laid in bed passing a bottle of wine back and forth to each other.
Sighing, Blaise shifted her position to face Pansy. "Pans look, I absolutely adore you, but if it's Draco you want, then, go and get him."
"Blaise, it's just that getting him back would mean that I no longer have to sell overpriced knickers to horrid cows on their lunch breaks from their fancy, 'respectable' jobs. If I can get him to fall in love with me, you know what the means? Malfoy proposals, according to the binding spell, make them irreversible. That means we get the money, the manor, everything! And by the time Draco realizes what has happened, I'll be back to being filthy rich, get to shag Draco endlessly, and when I'm done with him, I'll get to play with you! All I need is to get that filthy mud blood away, and swoop in when he needs someone to warm his bed again. I've been with Draco before, his needs are far too great. He's just caught up with that stupid woman. He'll see, what he needs is a strong woman with slytherin values, and a few tricks in bed that would blow his mind!"
Pansy smiled as she took the bottle from Blaise and proceeded to empty the bottle. She was unaware of the tears that were welling up on the face of the girl who held on to her.
~*~
"Hermione? Hey--let's sit, alright?" Ron led Hermione into the parlour and sat her down on one of the couches. Hermione was still sobbing hard, unable to say anything coherent just yet, and it had been almost ten minutes since she had walked in the door.
"Shhh," said Harry, gently rubbing Hermione's back in a failed attempt to comfort her. Her throaty sobs turned into loud, screeching wails. Harry and Ron looked at each other over Hermione's bent figure without the foggiest idea as to how to deal with Hermione. Neither of them had ever seen her so upset, not even when so many of their closest friends died during the war.
A few minutes later, Hermione managed to stop wailing and hitting the couch and took a deep breath.
"So-o-orry. I-I j-j-uu-s-t…oh Merlin!" Another sob escaped Hermione's mouth before she managed to calm down completely.
She wiped her face and graciously accepted Ron's handkerchief. After taking a few more calming breaths and sat back and stared at the ceiling.
"Um, Hermione? Look, I know you might at any moment begin to, well, you know, leak again. But I just wanted you to know that Ron and I will stay here as long as you need us."
Hermione looked up and smiled at harry. She placed her hand on his cheek and brought him closer to give him a peck on the cheek. She did the same for Ron, and then stood up.
"I'm fine now, really. I just want to get to bed. I'll see you both at the ball tomorrow?"
Ron and harry stared incredulously at their best friend. One minute she looked on the verge of despair, and now the 'normal' Hermione was back, without a trace of her sobs in her voice or on her face. Just a small smile.
"Uh--sure? Look, Hermione, we know you're not like other girls who you know, cry and want to talk about feelings and such, but we don't have to leave. We can talk about it you know?"
Hermione's smile faded and a dark look came over her face, but quickly vanished. Her smile widened.
"Look, I just had, a-a-, a moment! Must be that time of the month of something!" Chimed Hermione cheerfully as she ushered her friends towards the front door. Before closing the door on them, she sighed, and looked up at her two best friends. 'If they only knew. I could say something, but not on the eve of one of the biggest moments of their lives.' She gave each one a hug and a peck on the cheek.
"I'm going to assume you two don't think im a cow for being so unreasonable and insensitive about coming home. Am I forgiven?"
Ron grabbed Hermione in for another hug; harry joining the two in a group embrace.
"We never said you were a cow, well, to you face," chuckled ron as Hermione jabbed him on his side. "Look, whatever transpired between the three of us is over, done with, finito! Let's just get together after tomorrow night and have a chat, alright?"
Hermione nodded and waved as Harry and Ron apparated from her front porch. She shut the door as tears began to flow back down her face.
~*~
'Where in the hell is that woman?' Draco paced anxiously in his living room that was covered in candles and rose petals. It was a bit cliché, but Draco was horny and well, he felt like doing something nice for Hermione. Wanted to show her that he had a sensitive romantic side. 'And nothing seals the deal like a romantic dinner of champagne and sex,' he thought as he smirked and began to rearrange the pillows on his sofa. He glanced at the clock. It was eight-fifteen. Hermione was due to arrive any moment now. She was always early.
He checked his reflection in the mirror and nodded in approval. Simple light blue button-down shirt and a pair of vintage jeans that VERSACELF specialized in. 'Perfect--I look like a bloody muggle model.' Draco smiled at the thought. He knew witches went ballistic over muggle male models. He assured himself that being pureblooded and fantastically good-looking made him even better.
Right on cue, he heard a knock on his door.
He opened it to find Hermione dressed in a black jersey dress with a neckline that literally plunged to her navel. He could only guess what charms she had put on the dress to keep it in place.
'Better figure out how to rip it off her in moment,' he thought.
"I never thought you would get here," said Draco, leaning in to give Hermione a kiss. But instead of meeting her lips, his lips found themselves kissing a folder.
"What the--" Draco looked up and saw a brown manila folder in his face. He pushed the folder away from him and was met with a glare from Hermione that he didn't think anyone but his father had.
"is there a problem, love?" Hermione smirked and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. She surveyed the room, trying her hardest not to cry. Everything looked perfect, exactly how she would have wanted to spend this evening, had it not been for the contents of the folder. She walked towards the middle of the room, the candlelight reflecting on her skin, making her more alluring to Draco than before.
She turned around and faced Draco who was leaning against a wall by the door. Pulling the contents of the folder out, she walked towards him.
"So, I was thinking, we never did get a chance to get together with Parvati and Seamus once they returned from their honeymoon. But you'll be glad to hear that Parv and I had a lovely chat this afternoon."
Draco remained silent. He had a bad feeling about this whole situation. Hermione never ran around in circles, she just cut right to the chase. He watched her pour herself a glass of champagne and shook his head refusing a glass for himself.
"Not a big drinker tonight? You might want to reconsider." her voice was cold and monotone.
Draco stood up straight and tried to grab the contents of the folder that Hermione had laid out on the coffee table. He wasn't quick enough.
"Immobulus!" Draco stood suspended in mid-walk staring at Hermione with wide eyes filled with a mixture of fear and annoyance.
"Naughty Draco, those papers are not for you to mess with. You will see them after I've told you about my fantastic day." Hermione took a sip of champagne and walked around Draco's figure. "So as I was saying, Parvati rang me up this afternoon in the office. Apparently, she had overheard two women talking loudly about what a fool I was. I can hardly think of anyone who thinks im a fool--after all, I'm the smartest, most powerful witch in Europe. But no, apparently, I'm bigger than a fool. I'm your girlfriend. And a bloody daft one at that." Hermione picked up the papers off the table and suspended each one in the air in front of Draco. His expression couldn't change, but it was clear in how his eyes darted from one object to the next that he would most likely want to thrown each paper in the fire.
"Fancy photos, aren't they? Well, the women Parv heard talking? It was Pansy and some slag she was out lunching with. The two dolts left this folder behind. Parv was kind enough to be a curious one and snatch it up. Apparently, Pansy wanted something to remember my trip to Monaco by. Finite Incantantum!" The spell wore off and Draco fell flat on his face. Managing to get himself up, he started grabbing the pictures that were suspended in the air. There were a total of six pictures. Each one showed Draco and Pansy sprawled over a mussed-up bed enjoying each other's company. On the corner of one was a message.
Never knew you were this wild. Meet me again after the IFOWC ball--we can add more of these to our collection.
~D.
"This is fucking ridiculous! It's a bloody trick, don't you see?!"
"A trick? Do you really think I'm that stupid?! This is your handwriting, that's your arse in the air; those are you bloody balls in that whore's face! You two-timing cad, you awful, hateful, cheating, lying--" Before Hermione could finish, she was hitting Draco with all her might. Draco just stood there, watching this slight woman filled with anger pound at every inch of him. He was numb. He never meant to hurt her like this. He may have been using her, but Draco could not even imagine making her this angry.
He grabbed a hold of Hermione's fists before they flew at him again. Steadying her, he pushed her against the wall and held her there. "These are fake," hissed Draco. Hermione shook her head and spat in his face.
"Don't even try to explain. This thing, if you could even call it a relationship is over. I am writing for a transfer to run the new York branch, that way you and your whore can enjoy each other's company without me hindering you any further. I really thought you changed Draco, Merlin, I was even falling in love with you," sobbed Hermione. She grabbed her wand and pointed it at his face. "don't come near me. There is no way that's a fake. Now I know why Pansy's been ringing me up--she can't stand the fact that you might be sleeping with a filthy mud blood like me right? And how could she fake it? They outlawed the use of ply juice potion after Voldermort was defeated. Only professors can have all the ingredients in one place at the same time without the ministry swooping down on them. So she couldn't have used it. I know that's what you're thinking."
Draco clenched his fists around the photographs, "I didn't do this, Hermione, and you have to believe me."
"believe you? Ha!" Hermione laughed as she continued to point her wand between his eyes, "I could kill you right now, you know? I want to. But I would rather you rot in the wizarding world without ever knowing what love is. I can only imagine what the press will do if they see those photos."
Draco cringed, moving back slowly to give himself enough room to hopefully dodge whatever curses Hermione might be thinking of throwing at him.
"Look, Hermione, we need to talk, there has to be an explanation to all of this--"
"Shut up. SHUT UP!" Hermione took a deep breath, "Whatever 'explanation' you may have, I don't want to hear it. I'm sure it's nothing but a lie. I'm leaving now. I expect you to resign from the company on Monday. I never want to see you involved in VERSACELF ever again. If you even step foot inside one of our stores, I will have those photo's circulated all over Europe and America." With that, Hermione apparated, leaving Draco stunned and angry. Grabbing him cloak, he quickly apparated to harry and Ron's.
~*~
Hermione found herself in muggle London, tear-stained and a bit dishevelled. She walked into an alley and managed to fix herself up. Finding her muggle mobile, she rang up a few muggle friends in London and decided that the best way to mend a broken-heart was with liberal helpings of martinis.
~*~
"What do you want?" Ron stood in the doorway of his flat looking at a pretty terrified-looking Draco.
"let me in, please, I need to talk to you and Harry." Ron moved aside and let Draco in. Harry was sitting on the couch looking through some files and working on a muggle laptop.
Harry looked up and nodded towards Draco. "'lo Malfoy, what brings you here?"
"These," said Draco, throwing the crumpled photographs on the table.
"Bloody hell," whispered Ron as he shuffled through the photographs that Draco had brought. "You bastard! How could you even think--"
"Shut up Ron, these aren't real." Harry blocked the way for Ron to lunge at Draco as he took the photos from Ron's hand and examined them. "It's the worst trick photography I've seen since Voldermort used them to frame Ministry officials in our sixth year. Look, here, on the corner, you can see that the backgrounds aren't even the same, but blurred just enough by a morphing potion used to morph two photographs to look like one." Ron grabbed the photos back and stared intently at them before dropping them back on the table.
"So this was the reason that Hermione was so upset. Why didn't you try to explain this to her?"
Draco shook his head, "I did, you dolt! You think I want that cow ruining this relationship? Not bloody likely!"
"Well," said Harry, "you better perform a locator charm on her. Hermione's been known to do rash things when she's upset, and I can guarantee that this little situation pissed her off."
A note to my readers:
I am so so so so so so so sorry for being so so so so so late in posting anything in the last few weeks. Writer's block, combined with piles of HW can do that to a person. I am finally getting back on track and promise to have the next chapter posted by Friday. Here's the preview….
Chapter 24 Preview:
Hermione could hardly stand, but she managed to drag herself out of the bar and into a cab. Minutes later, she found herself in the most unlikely of places--Blaise Zabini's flat.
BANG! With one flick of her wand, Hermione managed to blow up Blaire's door and found the owner of the flat scrambling to the foyer wrapped only in a sheet followed by the most unlikely person.
