Chapter Eighteen

Draco was dreaming. He was still aboard the Lady Madeleine in the year 1788 and taking a walk around the ship. It was the day after he had kissed Hermione and she had gotten so angry at him over it when he wouldn't admit that he had been sober and he felt so bad about it all.

He strode over to the railing and stood there silently, watching the waves lapping at the side of the ship. Suddenly he felt a presence at his side and he turned, expecting to see Hermione.

"Finally decided to join me?" He drawled. The voice that answered him wasn't one that he was expecting.

"I didn't know that you felt that way about me, Oscar." Priscilla purred in response.

"Priscilla?" Draco said, surprised.

"The one and only." She replied with a sly smile.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I was looking for you. I heard you leave your cabin, but I didn't see where you had gone…I wanted to talk to you." Priscilla answered.

"You wanted to talk to me?" Draco repeated, taken aback.

"Yes. I want to know whether you love your wife." She said silkily.

"I…I'm not sure." Draco replied shakily.

"You're not sure? Oscar, if you are not sure that you love her, then why are you married?" Priscilla asked.

"I, well I guess I didn't have much choice." Draco answered, realising how true it was.

"Ah. Was it an arranged marriage then?" she asked.

"No! No…it wasn't anything like that. Its just that she was the best one out of all the girls presented to me, that's all." Draco lied.

"Oh? What of the other girls then? Tell me about them." Priscilla whispered, sliding closer to him. Draco gulped.

"Uh, well there was one that looked like a pug. Her name was Pansy and she had absolutely no personality." Draco said.

"Oh I know…Thomas is like that too. Dreadfully boring." Priscilla purred. Draco felt like slapping her for saying that about her husband. He remained rudely silent and Priscilla noticed, but prattled on.

"So, tell me about your wife." Priscilla continued, placing a hand suggestively on his arm. Draco gave her a look, and then shrugged. Priscilla smiled knowingly, and moved closer still.

"You don't want to talk about her? Or is she so boring that she doesn't even deserve to be talked about?" she asked nastily.

Draco was about to blow up at her. That bitch had no idea about anything! How dare she assume that just because he didn't feel like talking about her at the moment that he didn't at least respect her enough to not talk about her behind her back!

He opened his mouth to verbally abuse her, but found that she had latched onto him and was kissing him fiercely…

Suddenly a loud tap-tap-tap jerked him awake from his nightmare that wasn't really a nightmare.

"What the hell is that noise?" Draco muttered underneath his breath.

He squinted and realised that it was the sound of an owl pecking at his skylight. He grumbled slightly, but got up and opened the latch on the skylight that he was so proud of owning. A charmed skylight was the ultimate privilege in the Slytherin dormitories because they were located underground in the dungeons and so any letters delivered by owls had to wait until breakfast in the Great Hall where they could be dropped off to their recipients, but with a skylight, you could receive letters at anytime.

He thanked his father for paying extra for his private room with the skylight when he realised who the letter was from. He took the letter that had his name scrawled on it in Hermione's careful handwriting from the snowy owl that had brought it. As it flew off, he realised that she had borrowed Saint Potter's owl.

He held the letter in his hand, not wanting to open it because he was afraid of what it might say. He let his imagination run wild for a few moments, wondering why she was writing to him at such an early hour - perhaps she had changed her mind, or maybe she realised that they had this undeniable chemistry together and they should do something about it or -

"Stop it." he mumbled to himself. He couldn't do this to himself again - getting his hopes up for a moment and then watching helplessly as they got shattered into a thousand pieces a moment later.

He gripped the letter hard, and tore it open savagely, ready to take whatever she wanted to throw at him.

Draco,

Could you meet me at the Quidditch field in half an hour? I think that we need to talk.

H.G.

He felt himself losing his balance and fell onto his bed, feeling completely shocked and having no idea how to react. This was not what he was expecting. It was what hewanted to hear, but now that it was there on paper in front of him, he had no idea what he was going to do.

What was he supposed to do anyway?

It wasn't like he was going to go and tell her exactly how he felt about her. If he did, he was sure that she was just going to throw it right back in his face.

No. She probably wanted to talk to him because she didn't want him to hate her. Yes! That was it! She was such a goody-goody that she didn't want anyone to hate her and she knew that he was angry at her for having the last word about how everything was going to end between them and -

Draco wasn't so sure he wanted to go anymore. He wasn't ready to face her again…especially when she was in her little 'everyone lets be friends' mode. He had offered his friendship to her once, and she should know that with Draco Malfoy, one chance is all that you get.

But it was Hermione. How could he pass up an opportunity like this? He had been aching to talk to her, to ask her to think about it - they could make it work if they tried hard enough. They didn't even have to be anything, they could just be friends…it was enough for him.

He just couldn't forget about her and it was killing him inside.

He had spent the last few days tormented by memories of the month that they had spent together and tortured to see her so happy and unaffected in comparison when she was with Potter and Weasel.

He just couldn't stand the fact that she was glad to be back at Hogwarts.

This place had been an absolute hell for him since he had been back - he had had to deal with Blaise everyday, trying to be friends with him again and not thinking that maybe, just maybe Draco didn't want to talk to him anymore. He had to deal with all the rest of the Slytherins muttering about him whenever he left the common room to seek solace in his own room and he had to deal with seeing Hermione every bloody day and not being able to go anywhere near her.

God damn it, she had ruined him. He wasn't Draco Malfoy anymore. The old Draco would never even think like this - never even worry about a Mudblood. Now look at him. He was pathetic. Where was his arrogance? Where was his confidence and where the hell was his trademark pride?

He had spent the last few days acting like a bloody lovesick puppy for god's sake. Over Hermione Granger out of all people. He really needed to get a hold on himself. Get a reality check or something - they could never become anything - she was right. He was dreaming of something that will never happen and -

He glanced at the clock.

He had exactly one minute left to make up his mind whether he was going to go and talk to her or not. He also had one minute left to figure out whether or not he was going to pursue this delusional dream of him and Hermione being together. He could either go back to being Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince or he could stay Draco Malfoy, pathetic adolescent yearning for the Head Girl.

No matter how true the last part was, he couldn't allow himself to stay that way. If he was going to get her, he was going to get her the way he had gotten all his other girls - through pure Malfoy charm, not wannabe Gryffindor bravery crap that had gotten him into this mess in the first place.

Yes. He was going to and talk to her with his head held high and his trademark smirk back in place. He wasn't going to let her see what she had done to him.

He glanced at the clock again. He was late, but he didn't care. He wanted to make an entrance that she wouldn't forget.

Hermione was early. She sat in the stands, holding a mug of steaming hot chocolate that she had made herself. The air was chilly, but felt fresh and Hermione welcomed it - it woke her up a little more. She pulled her cloak closer to herself after she finished off the hot chocolate to try and keep herself warm.

She glanced at her watch. It had been more than half an hour ago that she had sent that letter to Draco with Hedwig. Surely he would've read it by now. Hermione sat huddled for another twenty minutes before realising that he wasn't coming.

She sighed.

She had hoped that this wouldn't happen. She had realised how harsh she had been to him after they had gotten back to Hogwarts - they definitely hadn't parted on the best terms. And despite outward appearances, she really wanted to talk to him again. She missed him even after what he had done to hurt her back in the past. She missed being able to talk to him whenever she felt like it and being able to have decent conversations with him. That month she had spent with him had really opened her eyes to what he could be like, and made her believe that maybe, just maybe, Draco Malfoy wasn't as bad as he showed himself to be.

Sure, he had gone and kissed another girl, but the more Hermione thought about it, the more she realised that they had never admitted to each other anything about their feelings. They had just been pretending to be married and in love…technically what he did had nothing to do with her because they weren't really in love or married so technically she had no right to be angry with him over it no matter how much she liked him.

And maybe she had overreacted to it a little. He had apologised for kissing Priscilla, even though he didn't really have to explain himself to her and to be honest, she hadn't really given him much of a chance to do that because she had just stormed off after she had found them and she hadn't spoken to him about it since.

When Blaise had told her to talk to Draco for him, she had felt panicked. She wasn't ready to talk to him again after all that had happened because she was afraid that he would be angry at her and he would just be the arrogant jerk he had always been to her again. But as she thought about the idea more, she realised that she was being an idiot. It was her own fault that they weren't friends.

They could've been though- he had offered but she was being so pig-headed and worried about what Harry and Ron would think if they did become friends that she didn't realise that she was sacrificing her own interests just to keep Harry and Ron happy. If they were truly her friends, then they shouldn't care if she became friends with Draco - it was inevitable after spending a month together. After all, they had become friends with Blaise…right?

Hermione got up to leave and was almost at the exit of the stands when she found her way blocked by a certain tall, expensively attired boy with silvery blond hair.

"Hello Granger." he said quietly.

"Draco." Hermione responded a tad breathlessly-she was surprised to see that he had actually come.

"I hope you don't mind that I'm late." He drawled.

"No, I'm just glad that you actually came." She replied with a small smile.

He raised his eyebrow in response.

"I wasn't aware that you found me so impolite that I would actually decline your kind invitation. Honestly, Granger after all we've been through, I thought that you knew me better than that." Draco smirked.

Hermione allowed herself to study him for a moment. He was so perfect - he had gorgeous features, alabaster skin, that silky silver blond hair and his expensive clothes that looked like they had been made to show off his toned body.

"Hello? Granger? Finished staring yet?" he smirked yet again.

"I wasn't staring." Hermione answered firmly.

He seemed so unaffected by all this. Hermione was so surprised, she had thought that he was completely broken up on the inside about how everything had ended between them and that that was why he was being so slack to Blaise. But it wasn't that. He was acting so normal that she was starting to have second thoughts about whether Blaise was lying to her about him.

"So, why did you wake me up at such an ungodly hour? What is so important that it couldn't wait until breakfast?" Draco asked.

"Well…there's two things that I want to talk to you about. Firstly, I want to know why you are being such an asshole to Blaise." Hermione answered.

"Ok Granger. About your question - why do you care how I treat Blaise?" Draco asked suspiciously.

"I - well he's my tutor and he kind of came to the tutoring lesson very upset by how you were treating him yesterday so I just wanted to know why you were treating him like that." Hermione answered.

"Your concern is very touching Granger. But surely you can figure out the answer to that yourself." Draco drawled nonchalantly.

"So it is about Xavier?" Hermione asked.

"Yes it is. I mean come on, I'm sure you can see the similarities between them. Every time I look at him I get shivers down my spine because they are so alike…and just thinking about what Xavier's done makes me really wonder about Blaise. He's not as harmless as he seems, Granger." Draco replied.

"How can you say that about your best friend!" Hermione exclaimed, "He's so upset over how you're treating him and you're trying to turn me against him! Blaise is not Xavier! Draco, you've got to understand that they're two completely different people on the inside, regardless of how much they resemble one another. Why cant you just let it all be in the past!"

"Because its not as simple as you think, Granger! You think everything is all rainbows and daisies but its not! There are bad people out there, and you just don't understand that not everything can be solved by just 'talking to each other'." Draco shot back.

"Well then what has Blaise done that makes him so dangerous?" Hermione asked defiantly.

"I can't tell you, Granger." Draco replied.

She glared at him and stopped talking.

"Ok. What was the second thing you wanted to talk about?" Draco prompted.

"I don't want to talk to you." Hermione spat out.

"Oh c'mon Granger. Stop being immature, just tell me." Draco whined.

"No."

Draco glared right back at her and started to walk off.

"Fine. I wanted to know if your offer of friendship was still open." Hermione muttered.

"What?" Draco said, taken aback.

"I said it already. Its your fault if you didn't hear." Hermione responded childishly.

"Ok let me get this straight. You want a second chance?" Draco asked with an incredulous expression.

"I-well basically yes." Hermione answered quietly, feeling humiliated as Draco laughed.

"Alright Granger. Here I'll strike a deal with you. I'll be civil to Blaise again if you'll come with me to the next Hogsmeade weekend." Draco replied with a straight face.

"Are you serious?" Hermione asked in surprise.

"Dead serious." Draco answered.

"But…this is a win-win situation for me." Hermione spluttered.

"I'm feeling generous." Draco replied coolly, "So what do you say, Granger."

"What do you think?" Hermione answered.

"I'd say yes. Am I right?" he replied. Hermione nodded and Draco smirked in response.

"So is that all you wanted to talk about, Granger?"

"Yeah…sorry for waking you up so early, its just that -"

"Don't worry about it." Draco reassured her.

"I'm glad that we've sorted things out." she admitted.

"I knew that you didn't want things to end the way that they did." Draco smirked smugly.

"I'm really sorry about that…I guess I was worried about what Harry and Ron would think." Hermione said softly.

"Don't worry about it. Anyway, I should go now. I'll see you around." Draco answered with a small smile.

"Good luck for your Quidditch game." Hermione said.

"Thanks." Draco replied, and then he left.

As Hermione watched his retreating figure and felt a smile making its way onto her face, she realised that she had done the right thing this time.

A/N: OMG! That was the worst chapter ever to write. I hope the characters aren't too OOC for you…I'm just trying to show both sides of the story and how coming back to school has affected both of them. I know people are finding the whole Blaise and Hermione thing very strange because she opened up to him so quickly but if you think about it - she's had nobody to talk to about her feelings and what's happened between them and its been driving her crazy. Blaise just happened to be the first person she's talked to since she's come back who doesn't hate Draco and doesn't really hate her either. Hope that's kind of cleared that up for you guys and hope you guys liked that chapter!

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