This is to all of my very very very very very patient readers who have been so kind as to update once in a while to inquire as to whether my computer had blown up, or if I was still among the living.
Well, I am still very much alive and kicking, and my computer is perfectly ok. To be honest, I had a bit of a run-in with a boy this summer, very "Grease," insert "Summer Lovin'" . Unfortunately, it did not end well. However, I am over that (at least that is what I tell myself) and ready to take another crack at this writing bit.
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE a beta (I actually have NO IDEA what a beta is, but I heard they come in handy). So, email is in the profile. Check out the new link to my blog as well: . And here we go…
Chapter 28: The Trouble With Love Is…
Dearest Draco,
I am assuming that by the time you read this I will be as far away from London as I can get and you would have had it out with Hermione, Pansy, and whoever has crossed your path. I should be apologizing to your face, but I cannot bring myself to do it.
I am writing this to explain everything to you. When I left right before the war, I was vulnerable and lonely. I had you to correspond with, but even that did not seem like enough. I missed my family, my friends. Shortly after the war, Pansy somehow tracked me down when I was in Belgium and we began to write notes back and forth. I fell in love with her, Draco, because in her letters she made me feel wanted and alive. Then that is when it all started. She started asking about you and what you and I talked about in our letters. She began dropping hints about how hard her life had been after the war and how nutters mum was after losing everything. Then Pansy just right out said that in exchange for your freedom, you told the Ministry about the Parkinsons and my family's involvement in the dark arts. She said you got off while our lot suffered. What she failed to mention was that your confession of the Malfoy involvement as well literally ruined you as well. She made me believe that I had trusted a traitor, a cad, never once mentioning that you and your mother lost all your investments and had to almost start out from scratch just as our families had in order to retain the lifestyle we all grew up in.
I hated you Draco, because I truly thought that you had become the person everyone thought you were: a lying, cheating, manipulating monster. I knew that wasn't you, and I wanted to keep thinking that, but Pansy filled me with anger saying that the reason I was running around from city to city was because you didn't want me back in London telling the whole world the truth about who you were. That the reason she had to sell herself for money was that you refused to help he family once his family was back on their feet. That you were watching those who you used to call your friends live in squalor while you lapped it up working with Hermione.
I came back to London to destroy you, to hurt you the way Pansy said you had hurt us. But after a while, I saw that Pansy was just using me to get to you so that she could once again live in the lap of luxury. She never wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. She wanted to spend the rest of her life as a society wife with one or two children to groom and marry off to good families. And now I have caused you all this pain over some sorry little grudge Pansy had about not having any money.
I am so sorry. I cannot even begin to think of asking for your forgiveness, only that you understand that I never meant for any of this to happen had I known better. You are a good person Draco, I know this, and I know Hermione knows it as well. You will find a way to bounce back from this. Take care.
With deepest apologies,
Blaise Zabini
Pansy crumpled the piece of paper in her hand and threw it on the floor. She looked around and listened.
Nothing but silence.
Sitting down on a plush settee, Pansy crossed her legs and imagined herself living in such a grand flat as Mrs. Draco Malfoy.
'Well, that's never going to happen now that blabber-mouth Blaise found herself needing to repent!' Pansy stood up and scowled. She had to find out where Draco was and stop him before he managed to find Hermione.
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"So you have everything you need? Muggle passport?"
"Passport? Is that like a port-key?"
"Ron, shut up and just do your job and check everything off!"
"I have everything packed into this trunk! Shall we send it to your new flat?"
Hermione surveyed her home. Harry, Ron, and Ginny were busy helping her pack up things she would need for her new place in New York. Mr. and Mrs. Castleton were sending furniture and luggage via the shipping floo to her new housekeepers in the states. Everything was in disarray, but Hermione almost didn't mind. For the first time since she decided to leave London, she truly felt happy with her decision.
"Hermione?" Harry smiled as Hermione absentmindedly nodded to acknowledge that she heard him as she wrapped up a tea set. "I wanted to talk to you if you had a moment."
"Huh? Oh, well, of course Harry. Let's go into my office shall we?"
Harry and Hermione walked out into the foyer and into the office. Shutting the doors behind her, Hermione gestured towards the chairs by the window and they both sat down. Neither one spoke for a few moments, just stared out the window and the fading sunlight and the leaves changing colours outside the window.
"This is a bit late for me to say this, but I wish you would reconsider this move." Harry's eyes never left the scene outside the window, but he knew that Hermione was staring at him.
"I wish I could too, but too much has happened and as much as I hate to say it, this one time I need to run away from my problems. I can't do it Harry, as strong as you think I am, I can't make it through another day in this city."
"I saw him the other day. We had coffee." This time Harry turned to look at Hermione. Her face paled; she opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something but nothing but a sign came out.
"We had a long talk and well, I honestly, and I say this because I am your friend, not his, that you need to speak to him before you leave. He may say something you want to hear."
"I honestly don't think anything he says to me will change the fact that this all started out as a joke Harry! Draco is the reason that was so unsure and distrustful of all men except you and Ron! I can't go through another ordeal like this, I don't think I even want to resolve this or even hear anything because…well, I'm afraid that I'll just go running back to him and I don't think I'll ever to truly believe that he'll never hurt me again."
Hermione curled up in her seat, resting her chin on her knees as she closed her eyes. Harry watched her for a few moments, then stood up and kissed her on the top of her head.
"At least say good-bye before you leave. You can give him that at least." Hermione looked up, tears welling up in her eyes.
"No, I don't think I can even do it over owl post."
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"Master Malfoy, there is a young lady in the salon to see you. She says its urgent that…" Mr. Knightley, the butler at Malfoy Manor, didn't even finish his sentence as a frantic Draco rushed past him out of the dim study and into the salon. He saw a figure still wearing a cloak standing by the mantel and his heart jumped.
'She's here, she came…'
"Snap out of that trance, Draco, it's only me." Ginny Weasley slipped the hood of her cloak off and took a seat.
"Did Harry speak to her?"
"He tried," sighed Ginny, "But you should know how headstrong Hermione is. She put wards and all sorts of traps around herself and her home so if you even come within two hundred meters of that place you'll be in about a thousand pieces scattered all over Britain."
"I can't let her leave."
"She won't let you stay."
Mr. Knightley brought in a tray of tea at that moment, silencing both Ginny and Draco. Ginny looked up and saw how small Draco looked. His shirt was wrinkled, his hair unkempt. She even noticed that he was barefoot. 'I thought that was against the Malfoy Code,' she thought with a slight chuckle.
Indeed, Draco looked paler than usual, his cheeks almost sinking into his skull, his whole body seemed to have shrunk.
"You haven't eaten in days, have you?"
Draco smirked, "Kind of you to notice that I look like shit, Weasley."
"That's not at all what I meant you prat," snapped Ginny, "I think you should come with me."
"And where is that? I'm already in hell Weasley, so I don't need to go to some hovel to comfort myself."
Ginny got up and threw her hands in the air. "The bloody going-away party for Hermione that the company is throwing her. Merlin, have you answered any of your calls or any of your owls?!"
"No," said Draco. "And I don't think that's the best venue for me to return back into the public eye."
"Oh, so you'd rather mope about this monstrosity with your servants and your mother?"
"For your information," scoffed Draco, "My mother happens to be living overseas at the moment. This place depresses her."
"It's rubbing off on you apparently, come now, just, well, just go."
Draco sighed and stood up, walking towards the door to the salon. "It's not going to work Ginny, so, if you don't mind, I would rather be alone right now."
Ginny watched Draco's figure disappear through the French doors and into the darkness of the hallway. She picked up her cloak and was preparing to leave when she noticed a piece of crumpled parchment on the floor near the chair that Draco was sitting in. Letting curiosity get the better of her, she picked it up and scanned the page. She immediately ran out of the salon and out into the lawns of Malfoy manor apparating away.
I know this was realllly short---but I had to get it in there. FYI: Girl Fight and sappy stuff in the next chapter!
p.s. I am still trying to work out how I want this story to end….
