A/N: To publish or not to publish. I wrote that chapter shortly after my last update, and I thought I should postpone posting it for a while so that I'd have something to post during the next -extremely busy- week. But I just can't stand writing a chapter and keeping it for myself so I decided to publish it anyway. But you guys will have to excuse me if it took me a week or so to write the next chapter.
Oh and another thing, the paradoxical character that is Narcissa Malfoy. Is she nice? Is she terribly prejudiced? I just love that woman and I've written her as constantly mean and prejudiced against Hermione in another story. This time I wanted to experiment with the nice mother side of her. I sort of imagined a conversation between her and Draco in the study where he told her how he loved Hermione and pleaded with her to treat her decently and she relented because after all, whatever made her son happy was perfectly fine for her. So I'm sorry if this depiction of Narcissa disappointed you, I just felt like being nice to her in this story.
"Where is she?" Draco asked, his eyes searching the room for his mother.
"She just left" Hermione replied distractedly.
"I knew it" Draco muttered under his breath. "I knew the gown was an excuse."
Hermione looked up at Draco, studying him intently as if looking long enough would show her something she hadn't seen before. Narcissa Malfoy's words echoed in her head. She could understand a mother's admiration of her son. Of course she won't see any flaws in him, and if she did, she would ignore them. But Hermione could see it, she could see glimpses of the man Narcissa was so proud of. What she couldn't understand was why.
Had he simply grown up out of the spoilt brat he once was? Was he still the same person only putting up a well performed act because he wanted something from her? Hermione found it hard to believe all this was an act. At least she was smart enough to figure out an act that lasted for so long. Whatever happened during those six years since the war, had left its mark on Draco as much as it did on her. Hermione suddenly realized she knew very little about his life.
For two people who have lived together for months, they barely talked. And Hermione guiltily took her part of the blame for this situation. She wanted to know more of the person she was supposed to live with, to have a child with. "You have a stronger hold on him now than I've ever had" Narcissa Malfoy's assumption came back to Hermione's head. This hold she referred to, was it the baby?
Which is more, was it possible that the older woman had a point? Could a man like Draco be redeemed? He seemed so desperate to have a child of his own and so determined that he would make a good father. Hell he even went through all this hassle just because he wanted a child.
"You have some major concentration issues." Draco decided, bringing Hermione back from her deep thought.
"I wasn't listening, sorry." Hermione mumbled.
"Was it something my mother said?" Draco asked with a frown.
"What? No. She was actually nice." Hermione sounded amused.
"Why do you sound so surprised?" Draco smiled at Hermione, relieved that his mother hadn't done any damage.
"I just..hadn't expected her to be like that. I honestly thought I had to prepare my wand." Hermione replied
"She's nice when she wants to be." Draco informed.
"She really loves you. You should see the way she speaks about you" Hermione said.
"She's my mother." Draco shrugged, a tint of pink colored his pale cheeks.
"You're lucky to have her" Hermione smiled ruefully, her chest tightening with how much she missed her own mother.
"You miss your parents, don't you?" Draco angled his head down to look at Hermione's tilted took hold of her hand and pulled her forward gently.
"More than anything" Hermione admitted, accepting the comfort Draco's shoulder offered.
At the Zabbini house, Blaise was sitting cross-legged and drumming his fingers impatiently as Pansy paced the hall back and forth.
"Can you believe what Draco did! When I first heard the news I thought people have gone mad. Appeared out it was Draco who has gone mad!" Pansy ranted.
For some reason, she felt an urge to rush to Blaise and whine about her encounter with Draco. And Blaise had wanted nothing less than listening to Pansy's endless rants. If anything he felt like strangling her for being the main reason behind Daphne and Ginny's constant spars.
"She must have had him under an Imperius curse. I would've said a love potion but even under a love potion Draco wouldn't touch that Mudblood." Pansy went on.
"Actually Pansy, I was just thinking about the same thing." Ginny said as she descended the stairs, "If Malfoy's standards went as low as you, I'm honestly flabbergasted they suddenly went as high as Hermione." she twisted her mouth in disgust.
"How dare you talk to me like that!" Pansy fumed at Ginny.
Pansy's hand flew to her wand and before she could raise it at Ginny, the wand flew from her hand and landed into Blaise's.
"What do you think you're doing?" Pansy frowned at Blaise.
"Me?" Blaise scoffed, "What do you think you're doing?"
"Teaching that blood traitor how to speak properly to her superiors." Pansy spat.
Blaise glanced at Ginny. She was standing with one hand clenched into a fist by her side. Her other hand was clutching her wand tightly and her knuckles were white. Her lips were pursued into a thin line and she kept blinking rapidly, fighting back tears that threatened to run down her face.
"Get out Pansy" Blaise hissed.
"Have you all gone mad all of a sudden!" Pansy snapped at him. "This act has been been going on for too long. Having this girl at your house all this time has corrupted your mind."
"The only act that has been going on for too long is this sham of a friendship." Blaise barked at Pansy as he stalked over to her. "How could you enter my house, talk to me and pretend to be my friend only to rush back to your precious Daphne and conjure a mess out of thin air?" Blaise narrowed his slanted eyes on her. "You think I don't know the sort of poisonous thoughts you plant into Daphne's head? That I made a fool out of her, demeaned her? That she should be seeking revenge for her oh so wounded pride." he smirked cruelly. "You have no right to intrude on my life under the name of friendship. And neither of you has the right to tell me what to do with my life or who I should be with" his voice was laced in contempt as he towered over her.
Pansy instinctively stepped back, looking up at Blaise with wide eyes. His unexpected outburst rendered her speechless for a moment.
"Blaise" Pansy said softly, "I have no idea who fed you those lies about me. We're friends! We've been friends ever since we met at Hogwarts. Anything I do, I do out of love for you and Daphne as well. You two were great together, Blaise. How could you not see it?" She feigned a sympathetic expression. "You're blinded for some hideous reason that's beyond me. So yes, you fancied the girl while we were in Hogwarts. But we're not there anymore. We grew older now, wiser."
Pansy shot Ginny a contemptuous glare before looking back at Blaise, "She used you, Blaise. Are you too blinded to see that too? She used you to save her sorry life. But that doesn't mean you have to ruin yours in the process. You're not married to her yet, you still have time to save yourself. She got what she wanted. Now let her go and move on with your life. The life you deserve, Blaise, with your equals, people you belong to" she tried to reason with him.
"You're right" Blaise inclined his head to one side thoughtfully. Pansy's face lit up and she beamed at him. "We've been friends ever since we met at Hogwarts" he nodded. "But just like you said, we're not there anymore. We grew older, wiser." he repeated her words. "So it's only reasonable that we leave our so called friendship back where it belongs. A history" he sneered at her, reveling in the way her wide smile faded.
"You're making a mistake." Pansy shook her head in disbelief.
"Pansy if you have one ounce of cleverness in that empty head of yours, you wouldn't test my patience any further." Blaise warned, extending his hand to Pansy with her wand in it.
Without another word, Pansy snatched her wand from Blaise's hand and stomped out of the door, slamming it behind her. Ginny was staring at Blaise with wide eyes. She only realized she had held her breath for too long when he walked over to her and freed her wand from her icy grip.
"Are you alright?" Blaise asked, studying Ginny's pale face.
"I guess..yes." Ginny mumbled.
"You don't look alright to me." Blaise contradicted.
"I am. It's just that..I've...I've never seen you look so.." Ginny paused, trying to find the right word.
"Intimidating?" Blaise asked.
"To say the least." Ginny gave out a brief nervous laugh.
"Scared yet?" Blaise raised an eyebrow at her.
"It would take a lot more than you to intimidate me, Zabbini." Ginny smiled with exaggerated sweetness at him.
"Glad you regained your nerve." Blaise smirked.
"Uh..one more thing." Ginny said suddenly as if she just remembered something, "What did Pansy mean when she said you fancied the girl at Hogwarts? What girl?"
"What girl?" Blaise repeated.
Ginny studied Blaise's face for a moment, his ever so subtle blink, and the way his throat moved as he swallowed hard.
"The girl Pansy was talking about." Ginny cleared up.
"Daphne?" Blaise asked.
"No, Blaise. Another girl." Ginny replied, raising her eyebrow suspiciously at Blaise.
"I haven't heard her mentioning any other girl." Blaise lied.
"I'm sure I did. As much as I'm sure you did too." Ginny pursued.
"If I did, why would I lie to you?" Blaise argued.
"Oh I can think of a list of reasons." Ginny's mouth twisted in amusement at Blaise's poor performance of oblivion.
"Ginny, Pansy is delusional. I didn't fancy any girls at Hogwarts." Blaise insisted.
"So you fancied boys?" Ginny quipped, grinning provocatively at Blaise.
"Yes. I had a huge crush on Draco but he broke my heart and started dating Theo." Blaise answered with his most serious expression. "His loss." he shrugged impassively.
"I've always thought you two were unusually close." Ginny went on with the joke. "Do I need to warn him off you?"
"Why, do you feel the urge to have me exclusively for yourself?" Blaise's eyes gleamed dangerously and Ginny sensed a change in his tone.
"Well, I have an image to maintain. What would people think if you were wandering around with other..partners?" Ginny feigned indifference, knowing that the joke was over.
"So you're finally referring to us as partners?" Blaise barely held back the triumphant smile that played on his lips.
"It is what we're supposed to be. What people expect us to be.." Ginny started to explain but Blaise cut her off. His hand reached for her waist and he pulled her closer until she had to raise her head to look into his eyes.
"Do I look like somebody who's willing to live up to people's expectations?" He asked, his gaze burning into Ginny's. "I'm not talking about people, Ginny. I'm talking about you." he said.
Blaise bent his head down and pressed his lips to the vein that's been throbbing ever so provocatively in Ginny's neck. He laced his other hand in her hair. Pushing her head to one side, he nibbled at her earlobe. Ginny sighed and raised her own hand to cup the nape of Blaise's neck and pull him down into her. Her other hand traced the muscles of his arm through the thin fabric of his shirt.
He raised his head up and his lips closed over Ginny's parted ones. The hunger of the kiss was only matched by the hunger in Blaise's gaze that never left Ginny's. Ginny clutched Blaise's shirt forcefully, pulling him closer and deepening their kiss. She let out a soft moan when Blaise's teeth bit at her lower lip. His lips once again found their way to hers. His tongue was almost frantic as it chased hers. Ginny growled loudly when she felt Blaise's arousal pressing against her. He tore his mouth away from her and rested his head on her shoulder. His warm breath fanned against the side of her neck.
"You have my undivided interest" he murmured into her ear. "My question is, do you want it?" He raised his head up and looked directly into Ginny's eyes.
Ginny stared at Blaise for a moment. She took one shallow breath after the other. Her lips still burnt and she was acutely aware of Blaise's body pressed relentlessly against her. His gaze was silently demanding.
"Yes" she whispered her answer, knowing that -even if she didn't like it one bit- it was true.