A Painful Reminder of Reality
A/N:Sorry it's taken so long. I tried to make it longer then usual.
Blaise awoke from the nap with a bad feeling. Not because Draco was for some reason in his arms and it would be a total gay scene if Draco was too much older then five, but the fact Hermione was no where to be seen. He picked up Draco, not wanting to leave him alone and left the room, peeking downstairs to see Hermione sitting on the couch, hunched over, an owl on the arm rest. Blaise sighed. Whatever made Hermione get out of the room that came by a school owl that wasn't work couldn't be good. She stood up, her legs seemed weak under the weight as she moved unsteadily toward the kitchen. Halfway there she slid to the ground, crying. Blaise saw her turn into a complete wreck, sobs wrecking her body. He silently hurried down the stairs, laid Draco on the couch, before picking up Hermione who fought him off harder then he thought she was capable considering how confused and weak she looked.
"I'm fine." she stated, "Leave me alone."
"because fine people go sobbing on the floor after receiving mail. Yeah, I do it all the time." Blaise replied sarcastically.
"Ha ha. So funny I forgot to laugh." Hermione said, standing easily.
"No, what's funny is the way you can collect yourself in front of others to hide your feelings easier then you can alone. Stop trying to set an example or prove yourself, no one is watching." Blaise growled.
"Shut up Blaise. You can't waltz in to a different world and dub yourself king of the little cabin in the middle of some deadly magical forest." Hermione said loudly.
"Oh, because you have to fix everyone's problems for them because they can't? How the hell are they suppose to learn if you hand them what they need on an over shinned fucking silver platter!" he retorted.
"Why do you care what I do with my life? You're just here to screw it up!" Hermione said.
"Yes! Of course! Everything is about you! I got put under an unforgivable so I'd come here to mess up your perfect life!" Blaise yelled. Hermione had her wand at his throat in an instant.
"You can call me names, spit on me, and think what you please, but don't ever think my life is easy or perfect and don't even consider giving me pity!" Hermione growled.
"What, are your socks the wrong color?" Blaise said, enraged.
"Here, if you want to know so much read my mail!" she said, shoving the tear-stained letter in his face.
"Dear Hermione, it's nice to hear you're doing well. Sadly, I regret to inform you that you're sister is once again in the hospital and your mother is finally gone. We need you to come back from boarding school immediately to sort through your mother's mess of a credit system to work out the hospital payments. If nothing else, she'll have to go into the government's system. Please call me or write when you get this. You're friend and councilor, Ms. Wreth."
"Yeah, so I'm officially and orphan, my little sister's cancer is getting worse again and she might have to go into that hell they call a government system! Where you get moved from foster home to foster home, some with perverted child molesters in them!" Hermione said. "Of course, they world defiantly revolves around me and my screwed up life!"
"I'm sorry, I didn't know." Blaise said, setting the letter aside.
"Is Mia leaving?" Draco asked, having been woken up by their fight.
"Yeah," Hermione replied, "I'll probably have to go. I'm going to go mail Dumbledore to see if I can have this worked out without too much trouble."
"That can wait a bit." Blaise said, "You should try to rest some."
"No, that letter had to go through the Ministry of Magic, to Hogwarts, and all the way here. It's probably been a week. " Hermione said, heading upstairs.
"I hate you!" Draco said. "You made Mia mad and now she's leaving!" Draco ran off to his room.
"Great! I must've done something really bad while I was asleep to deserve this." Blaise said. He sat down on the couch, picking up the book he had been reading a while back.
"I'm sorry." someone said from behind him. "I was upset and mad." He turned around to see Hermione in her pajamas. Her face red and blotchy from crying.
"Everyone gets upset, it's not your fault." Blaise said, helping her climb over the back of the couch and onto his lap.
"But it's my fault I took it out on you." Hermione said.
"Anger is hard to control, and better me then Draco." Blaise said. She nodded as she cuddled up to his chest.
"Thank you." Hermione mumbled into his shirt.
"For what?"
"For being here, for not being mad, for helping. For... everything." Hermione said.
"I think being allowed to sleep in your bed and stealing kisses is more then worth getting yelled at." Blaise said, kissing the top of Hermione's head.
"I told Dumbledore I'm going home to see my sister but that I have enough money in my wizarding bank account to pay for enough hospital bills until break by which hopefully Draco will be grown again and I will have time to deal with the billing. Not to mention the school work Dumbledore never sent."
"I sent that back." Blaise said.
"Probably too busy to do it anyway." she said with a sigh. "It's funny, my sister was so much easier to entertain and always was so neat I never had to micromanage her like I do Draco. I was always glad I had a sister, but now I think I finally realize how happy I should've been."
"Draco is a handful, five or seventeen. But the seventeen stuff I can deal with as it's mostly information he wants and offers, but needs I'm not so good at." Blaise said.
"You're alive, so someone is taking care of you." she said.
"House elves. They follow me around with food when it gets close to meal times so they can put it near what I'm doing. I usually start eating it when I get bored or start thinking." Blaise said. "I'd be anorexic looking if they didn't."
"If my little sister didn't remind me I'd forget to cook until it was time to set the table. For some reason I've been doing it so long I automatically start setting the table even if I forgot to cook." Hermione said with a laugh.
"Well you look ready to go to sleep." Blaise said, scooping her up and kissing her.
"I was." she said, starting to squirm. "I haven't been held like this in a while."
"I'm slightly surprised you've ever been carried around by Potter or Weasley." Blaise said, no malice in his voice.
"Like they'd carry me around the castle." Hermione said. "My ex-boyfriend use to before..."
"You broke up?" Blaise guessed.
"Before he died." Hermione said.
"Wait, he died?" Blaise asked, opening the door.
"Yes, sadly enough it seems everyone I love dies and now my sister is slowly dying in a muggle hospital." Hermione said, tears starting to run down her cheeks.
"Go to sleep, you'll feel better in the morning." Blaise said.
"Watch Draco for me." she said before drifting off as Blaise laid her on the bed.
"Right, because the seven years at Hogwarts wasn't enough." Blaise said, going to the next room to find Draco sulking, so naturally, Blaise got a few bruises while getting reacquainted with Draco's belongings.
"MIA!" was what Hermione woke up to the next morning as a little boy pounced on her like her now dead cat. This made her sigh but she shook the thought out of her head.
"Draco, I told you not to wake her up." Blaise said.
"You're not the boss of me." Draco said.
"Good morning." Hermione said, hugging Draco and pulling him under the covers. "Time to go back to sleep. I never knew how people could sleep so long but now I do."
"Quidditch." Draco whined. "I want to go play. NOW!"
"Have you eaten? Are you clean? Have you brushed you're teeth? When was the last time you had vegetables?" Hermione quizzed.
"He's clean, he's eaten, no and since you made him." Blaise said.
"Thank you for bathing him. I still think it's weird to bathe Draco, even if he's five." Hermione said.
"I have to shower with him in school; I'm use to it." Blaise said.
"He scrubs too hard." Draco pouted, trying to get the attention she had suddenly started giving Blaise.
"Well go make sure Blaise showers, seems he forgot." Hermione said. "I need to change."
"Okay Mia!" Draco said, mischief in his eyes.
"Thanks, damn me to hell while you're at it." Blaise said before shutting the door.
"But that's so cliche." Hermione mumbled to herself with a laugh.
The instant Hermione was done dressing she heard Blaise scream. "Maybe Draco did hurt him." She thought, heading for the bathroom when Blaise came out, towel around his waist, his hand on his forehead, blood oozing out from between his fingers.
"Can we not keep pointy lethal objects the bathroom and then send me there with Draco?" he asked, handing over a razor.
"It's not my fault you didn't watch him. Move you're hand, I'll heal that... up." she said, pausing when he revealed the true damage. "Wow, he's really vicious. I'm afraid to go to sleep near him."
"Like he'd try to kill you." Blaise said as Hermione whipped out her wand and said a quick spell, making the cut vanish.
"All done. Where is Draco?" Hermione asked. Suddenly her questions were answered when a seventeen year old Draco strolled out of the bathroom. "Looks like he needed violence to grow."
"Blaise, do I want to know what you got yourself into?" Draco asked, looking between his hardly clad house-mate, Hermione with her wand out, and Blaise's bloody hand.
"Wow, umm, maybe you'd like to put on some clothes Draco." Hermione said, blushing and turning away. Draco gave her a funny look because of her saying his name and then looked down to find what she had said was true.
"Whatever." said the naked Draco, smoke enclosing him, and when it faded he was dressed.
"I wonder if it's permanent." Blaise said.
"What are you talking about? Where are we?" Draco asked.
"You're age and we're in a cabin in the middle of a forest." Hermione said.
"Why?" Draco asked, looking at Blaise.
"You two are here because Dumbledore told her Hermione to watch you and I tried to kill her and steal you but she got rid of my Unforgivable." Blaise said.
"What's going on with you two?" Draco said.
"Just wait Draco, we should send Dumbledore a letter saying you're back to normal before we answer all your questions. What is the last thing you remember?" Hermione asked.
"Stop calling me Draco and the last thing I remember is getting attacked." he replied.
"Considering she took care of you for almost three weeks you might want to shut up for once." Blaise said.
"So you suddenly defend her because she got rid of your curse? You like playing with fire Blaise but stop being suicidal." Draco said, anger leaking into his voice.
"Go to hell Draco, leave me alone for once in your worthless life. I didn't do anything to you." Blaise said.
"I wrote a letter to Dumbledore, stop fighting or I'll make you." she said.
"Like you could. You're just a worthless little mudblood." Draco drowled, smirking.
"Blaise, leave. Now." she said, glancing at him. "I can deal with him. He's just a spoiled brat after all."
"Fine." Blaise said, disappearing in a flash.
"It's weird how one day you're playing muggle games with a smile on your face and the next you insult me. But then again, if you bite the hand that feeds you, it'll kick your ass." she said, and Draco was unarmed and paralyzed.
"Tricky little whore." Draco growled.
"And if that hand is numb, it'll leave you be, so bye Draco, have fun until Dumbledore comes." Hermione said, leaving him laying on the floor.
"So where were you for the past three weeks?" Harry asked at breakfast on Monday.
"In the abyss of the world unknown to you." Hermione stated, continuing to eat.
"In the unknown? Where exactly?" Harry interegated.
"It's unknown to me where in the unknown I was while you were unknowing." Hermione said.
"That was a mouthful." Ginny said.
"My head hurts." Ron stated.
"That's nice." Hermione said with a sigh. "I think I'm full."
"What is the meaning of this Granger?" a voice that was unmistakably Malfoy's said from behind her.
"I think after what I've been through you should leave me alone for more then twenty four hours." Hermione said.
"Explain this now." he demanded. She sighed.
"You know, I don't spoil spoiled brats because they are so spoiled spoiling is what they assume normal therefore normal is neglectful which screws up the spoiled brats head. So, in conclusion, I am helping you by not succumbing to your request, which your demand is and should be in normal terms." Hermione said.
"I don't care. Explain this now!"
"Three word sentences. Your limited vocabulary. It is depressing." Hermione said.
"Shut up and explain this!" he said, shoving a letter in her face. It was from Blaise, saying how he'd left.
"Why do you expect me to know about your best friend?" she asked.
"Read it you moron." he growled.
"You mean the 'untainted and freed by heaven and released from hell' part or the 'I'm sorry Draco is an asshole and you had to put up with him' part?" she asked. "It makes sense to me."
"He ran away! Tell me why!" he yelled.
"I believe it says here 'I've decided to leave because Draco and his ways keep the meaning from life and I'd rather die then live this way. Thank you for opening my eyes to this obvious fact.' Why do you have this if it's addressed to me?" Hermione stated.
"Because it was in my suitcase." he stated. "What did you do to him?"
"You mean undoing the Unforgivable your father had on him?" Hermione asked. "And the whole fact he was under attack by Death Eaters with us. You want me to explain how that demonstrated to him what he found as the error of his ways because only he can do that. Leave me alone."
And then the legends of the unknown flew around Hogwarts. Two Slytherins and a Gryffindor in a cabin in the woods. The possibilities were endless...
A/N:Sorry but the end is impending. Like impending doom. Like an epilogue. Hopefully soon.