A/N: Chapter Seventeen!

New Year's Eve

It went without saying that all the pureblood soirees were beginning to do my head in, but there was still one more to attend before the dreaded holiday season was over. Daphne was hosting a countdown bash in her new home. It was about ten minutes from Brighton, located in one of the lush pureblood settlements.

Daphne's home in particular was three stories high, minimalist in decor, complete with neutral tones and vertical gardens, and made mostly of glass. Needless to say , it was gorgeous, and had amazing views of the ocean.

Someone as clumsy as me was bound to break something. Bearing this in mind, I tried hard not to linger too long around the glass walls.

It was around ten minutes after my arrival, that I found Ginny and weaved with her through the enormous crowd of pureblood socialites, to the bar — true to form. If we had to mix around with these people, we at least reserved the right to do it with a buzz.

Plus, there was too much on my mind that I needed to forget. I tried hard to hide it, but I noticed Ginny eyeing me every now and then, with a suspicious look on her face. She, along with Nott, could see right through me.

"Something about you is different," she voiced, as we moved to a less congested area of the house. "Have you been to the spa recently?"

I contemplated an acceptable response. It had been a week since a certain letter had been delivered to me via owl post, and in that time I hadn't told a single soul about what was written. In fact, none of my friends — including Ginny and Nott — knew there was a letter at all. I couldn't tell them without sequential follow up questions, and I wasn't in the right frame of mind to give them those answers.

Ginny narrowed her eyes at me. "Hold on. I know that look. You're sleeping with someone, aren't you?"

I feigned amusement. "If I were, you'd be the first to know — trust me.

She scrunched her mouth to the side, in thought. "It's either Malfoy or Nott. Has to be."

"Wait —" I paused, an arch in my brow. "Where did Nott come from?"

"You're both attractive, single people," she reasoned, as though it were an obvious conclusion to draw. " — and you sleep less than three seconds down the corridor from one another every night."

"Ginny, he's my roommate. I would never, not in a million years, have sex with him agai— erm —" I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to Merlin that she hadn't picked up on my brain fart.

She choked on her drink, earning the attention of several passersby, before blurting out one word. "AGAIN?"

I sighed with defeat. "It was a long time ago."

"How long? Couple weeks? Couple months? Couple hours?"

"About nine years," I answered, having kept my teenaged rendezvous a secret until then.

She paused, sparing a couple seconds to do the math. It was soon after that, that her eyes widened to the size of galleons. "He was your first, wasn't he?"

"Like I said, long time ago. Things have changed."

"…But how did it happen?"

"Ginny…"

"Come on," she interjected, pouting. "As your girlfriend, it's my duty to ask."

"Fine," I sighed, darting one look around to make sure the coast was clear. "It was the night of Slughorn's Christmas Party, and it happened in a…in a broom closet."

She clapped a hand over her mouth, suppressing the giggles. "That's amazing!"

I shrugged. "To be honest, it was a little uncomfortable — but he was very gentle."

"Have you talked about it since?"

"No," I answered, rather quick. "We're roommates. If anything happened between us, it would only complicate things."

Though reluctant to agree, she did nod. "What about Malfoy?"

I cringed at the sound of his name. "What about him?"

"For one, things between him and Katherine are on the rocks…"

It was now my turn to choke, and I did. "Wh — What?"

"Daphne told me," she explained, leaning close. "They've been staying here, with her, and for the most part things have gone well — excluding the massive blowout argument they had last night. It was very heated, and according Daphne, it was about another woman."

I stared blankly into the crowd, listening to the music as it transitioned from indie to electro. It appeared the party was reaching its apex, as the countdown was near, but my thoughts were far from the new year. I glanced down, into my drink, and hoped the blueish liquid would swallow me whole.

"What's wrong?" Ginny asked.

It was difficult, bearing such weight without telling anyone.

I had no grasp on the situation. I needed someone to talk to. I needed someone to tell me I wasn't mental for thinking this was all very bizarre and ill-timed. But more than anything, I needed someone to hold me back before I did something stupid.

Keeping this in mind, I reached into the confines of my clutch and handed the pro Quidditch star an unrolled piece of parchment.

It was the letter.

For some reason, I'd been carrying the damned thing with me, worried that Nott would stumble upon it at our house. I especially didn't want him to know, though I couldn't be certain as to why that was.

"You've got to be kidding me…" the redhead voiced, having read the letter about four times over.

"It's horrible," I added, in agreement with her shock and distaste.

She blinked hard, as though doing so would cause the words to rearrange and form a letter that wasn't so blunt in its message. "That scoundrel."

"I know. I can't believe he would proposition me with Katherine right th —"

" — Are you going to see him?"

I gaped at her, taken aback. "You're joking, right?"

"No," she decided, tucking the letter into my clutch. "You don't have to sleep with him. Just see him. If anything, you'll get closure over this whole situation."

"Doesn't closure usually end in sex?"

"If you're lucky," she winked, changing her tune the moment I gasped. "That, my dear friend, was a joke. But you should still see him. You owe it to yourself."

It was tiring, battling through the confusing mix of emotions in my chest. "This is so not how I imagined things would be," I voiced, running both hands through my hair, which was down in soft curls that night, matched with a simple black dress. "I spent the past two years dreaming about this guy…and now that he's finally here…things are shit."

Ginny placed an arm around me. "I know it's tough. I've been there. Just — Just try to focus on yourself and what you need. Fuck everyone else."

"I wish it were that simple."

"It can be," she told me. "If want something, you should go for it."

"Ginny…" I voiced, staring at her, shocked. "I'm surprised this is coming from you, a married woman."

"Listen, sweetie, I'm married but I'm not a moron. I know what the kids are doing these days."

I laughed at this. "You've obviously taken one too many bludgers to the head."

"Probably," she agreed, laughing with me. "Jokes aside, I still think you should talk to him, maybe knock some sense into that blond head of hair."

It was strange, going into the conversation I had decided I wasn't going to see him, under any circumstances, but Ginny presented an interesting argument. I didn't have to sleep with him. I could see him, smack him across the face, and leave with my dignity (and my knickers) in tact.

By this point, my mind was made up.

I would see him, and I would do it right there, at the party, where I knew nothing could possibly happen between us.

Ten Minutes Later

It was close to midnight, around five minutes until the countdown, when I found him outside, in the back. Strange locale, but I figured he was as over the party as I was. Still, it was mind numbingly cold outside. I approached him, arms folded over my chest, shivering and second guessing this decision. I hated the cold, almost as much as the cold hated me.

He stood there, with his back turned, overlooking the tide.

I paused, falling victim to the nervous feeling my chest. It was simple enough in my mind — how the conversation would go, what I would say, how he would react — but now that I was there, about six feet behind him, I couldn't move.

I was running out of time, too.

But the moment I decided to run back and salvage the night, he turned around and found me with those smoky orbs.

I opened my mouth to say something, to address the situation, to shout at him for being such a messed up human being — but the words were caught on my tongue, as he removed the suit coat from his back and moved closer to me, before draping the black fabric over my shoulders.

"What are you doing here?" he asked me.

I blanked. I couldn't remember any of the things I had planned. I stood there, open mouthed, contemplating whether or not to run or to hide — or both.

Sensing this, he waited for me to regain some control.

It was a struggle, forcing those words out, but there was no choice in the matter. "I — I'm here to talk to you."

His eyes traveled bottom to top, pausing over my bandaged wrist. "You're hurt."

"It's only a sprain," I told him. " — not that, that's any of your business."

"Fine," he voiced, holding his hands up in surrender. "You want to talk? Let's talk."

It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped, having this conversation, but it was necessary.

"How dare you," I broke through, faint but strong, in a strange mix of highs and lows. "How dare you presume to send me that letter, after everything that's happened."

Something rose in his chest. "Listen…I never meant to —"

" — No," I interjected. "I'm not here to listen. I'm here to tell you there's no chance in hell that I would ever associate myself with someone as irreversibly fucked up as you, Malfoy."

His eyes glistened, as the words came from my mouth.

"Do you want to know something else?" I furthered. "I don't even care that you're seeing someone, because that's not the part that hurts me," I told him, breathing deeply. "…the part that hurts me is that you, the man I waited two years to see, think it's acceptable to manipulate my feelings and treat me like some callow groupie."

"Granger, that's not what this at all…"

I scoffed. "Isn't it?"

"No," he countered. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Of course you did," I disagreed, wiping an unexpected drop of moisture from my eye. "You snuck out of my flat that night and left me under the impression that you would come back and that we could explore this thing between us and then two years pass with no word from you and then I hear you're coming back and for some reason I'm excited and I buy an entire outfit to please you and then you show up with another woman and expect me not to care and then you send me that fucked up letter and…and…"

"…and now we're here," he finished, moving closer to me, wiping a couple more drops before they cascaded down my cheeks. "Listen, Hermione…I never meant to hurt you. I know you don't believe me, but it's the truth. I didn't write to you for two years because I heard you were in a relationship with Nott, which for some reason I believed. I didn't want to interfere, so I bowed out and tried hard to forget about you, but I couldn't. It took me months to even consider going on a date, let alone be in a relationship. Katherine…Katherine happened out of nowhere. I met her only a few weeks before coming here and I thought, rather naively, bringing her wouldn't be a bad idea — but I was wrong. It was cataclysmic, because as soon as I saw you at that party…I knew…and then I heard from Harry that you were single and that I made a massive mistake, so I panicked and wrote you that letter, which I wish I could take back, but I can't because it's too late. I'm here with Katherine, and you've clearly made your mind up about me."

Before I could speak a word, or even register what he had said, there was noise. It came from inside the house. It was loud, like thousands of voices at once. It was a chant. It was, as both of us soon realized, the countdown.

8…

7…

6…

I turned back, face to face with the man of the hour. I couldn't fathom a response to the things he had told me. I could only stand there, as the countdown hummed in the background, watching as he watched me, in an attempt to gauge where this was headed.

5…

4…

I'm sure, if I had been in the right mind set, I would have turned back and found my friends before the countdown was over, but there was such a confusing mix of emotions in my chest, tugging me in opposite directions. I couldn't move, even if I wanted to, which I soon learned was the missing factor in all of this.

3…

2…

It was then, that we froze, suspended between this year and the next, caught in this moment that I was afraid would never end. I looked him in the eyes, deeper than before, and felt the stresses surrounding everything that happened dissipate into thin air.

1…

Later That Night

It was an hour after the countdown, and still, the party was going strong. I figured purebloods were so unbelievably uptight most of the year, that they seized the few opportunities granted to let loose and celebrate until morning. Even so, I couldn't join them.

I raced through the crowd and spotted Harry and Ginny in the foyer, mere moments before they planned to leave.

"Hermione?" Harry gasped, holding me upright as I struggled to catch my breath. "Are you okay? Why were you running?"

Ginny stepped in. "Does this have anything to do with what we talked about?"

By this point, I was wheezing, so out of shape. "It's — It's not —"

"Nott left ages ago," the Chosen One told me, misinterpreting those words for my roommate's name. "Before the countdown started."

His wife turned to him, annoyed. "Harry — wait outside. I'll be there in a minute."

In the moments that followed, we were left alone. I breathed in and out, waiting for the blood to return to my brain, before I held something between us, showing the contents of my clutch to Ginny.

"Please tell me you have the letter," I begged. "Because it's not in here."

Her eyes widened. "I — I thought I put it back."

"It must have slipped out," I concluded, rubbing my temples with one hand. "Gin, there are names on that letter. If — If anyone were to read it…"

"Don't worry," she told me, holding me by my shoulders. "I'll stay here with you, and we'll find it, okay?"

I smacked both hands over my face. "I'm fucked — like royally fucked."

Ginny did what she could to reassure me, and went so far as to recruit Harry to help us, but it was no use. Our trio searched for the next hour, through every room and every inch of the floor, to no avail.

The letter wasn't there.

A/N: Uh oh! Guesses?

Cheers

xo.