Authors Notes: Seventeen! You're favourite number of the day, I assume? Hahaha x Read to find out why I think that's so funny. Hahaha x
And btw… I got the nicest reviews from you guys last chapter, and though you probably already know, I read and love every one of them, so thank you again so much. You guys flatter me to no end!
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When You Lose Your Way
The Sun Will Fill The Sky
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A gentle nudge poked me in the ribs every now and then, as I floated in and out of consciousness. I was sleeping on a bed that wasn't mine, in a room that wasn't mine, and with a sleeping partner that definitely wasn't mine.
"Blaise?" I asked, when his face finally swam into my view.
"Morning, Sunshine," he said cheerfully. I looked down, and saw the hangings of his four poster drawn close together, and his usually twin bed enlarged to a queen size just for me. I groaned.
"Are you willing to explain how I got here, or does this hangover explain it all?"
"I'd have to say half and half," he answered, still in his cheerful voice. "Gave me quite a fright when you barged in your old bedroom with us boys and snuggled in. Didn't even care to explain why you were drunk in the first place, Mister Soon-To-Be-Father-And-Supposed-To-Be-Responsible-Guy."
I groaned, as little bits of last night began piecing themselves in my mind.
"I'm an idiot," I exclaimed, getting out of bed and shoving his curtains away. I fought the wave of nausea that hit me when I swung up, and was hardly able to contain the gunk already forming from leaving my throat.
"Old news," he said, sitting up. "So what happened?" Being my best friend, I'm guessing he probably knew it had to do with Hermione.
"Um," I said, stripping quickly out of my pyjamas and pulling out one of Blaise's spare uniforms for me to wear. It was murder for my head. "Tried... admitting my feelings for Hermione but only got laughed at... uh, was driven to drunken madness because of her reply... came home completely tipsy, yelled a few insults, confessed some... slept in your bed..." I shivered at that.
"Whoa," Blaise said, after I'd fixed up my tie.
"I know," I moaned. This was loud enough to stir the other sleepers in the room, not that I cared. Crabbe and Goyle usually slept through these kinds of things.
"You actually slept in my bed - and I didn't hear you snoring!"
I glared at him, almost flipped him the bird, but sighed. "Be serious."
"Sorry," he said, a hint of pity on his face. "What are you going to do?"
"Deh?" Crabbe said, rubbing his eyes. I rolled my own and ignored him.
"Avoid her and hope she forgot?" I suggested. But Blaise immediately made that noise that meant you were wrong. Ehhh. It echoed in my head and I swayed where I stood. Evil hangovers. "Well, what else can I do?"
Blaise gave me a completely astonished look. "Apologize?" As if the word had never crossed my mind.
"Sure - maybe when she cools down."
"Now would be good," he suggested.
"Whuzz goin' on?" Crabbe said, obviously still groggy. Actually, no. That was really how he spoke.
"Get back to bed," I ordered, and immediately he snuggled in.
"Why were you in bed with Blaise?" he questioned suspiciously.
"Because I'm secretly in love," I said sarcastically, which I shouldn't have. Crabbe plus sarcasm equalled complete confusion.
His mouth took the shape of an O. "Hermione won't be happy to hear her baby's Father..."
"Her baby's father what?" I challenged.
"Has a secret!"
I tried very hard then to keep my patience. "Crabbe..."
"Go to bed you git," Blaise said sharply. He did so without question, and I sighed.
"Why did I ever befriend him?"
"He may be in bed and pretending to sleep, but he can still hear you," Blaise commented.
"He can't hear this." Then I really flipped the bird.
"I heard that!" Crabbe screeched, as if he were having a nightmare. I drew back my middle finger slowly and shook my head from side to side. This whole conversation was pointless.
"Okay," I resigned, "I'll talk to her."
"That would be a good idea," Blaise said, like Crabbe interrupting us had never happened.
"Wish me luck?"
"Not that you need it," he said, coming out of his bed and retrieving something from his night stand. "But you will need this."
I took a small bottle from his hand, red liquid moving about, even though it hadn't been shaken. Pepper-up potion for my insane hangover. He brewed them by the batch, so he and I could never be in the post-drinking state for long.
"I owe you," I said.
"I thought you loved me?" he said, but that was his way of saying "No problem."
"She can't be that mad, can she?" I could have used a little reassurance. From what I did last night and how I had left, I had no idea if she really just didn't want to deal with it, or was burning with rage. I would only know by seeing her now, and the thought sickened me much more than I already was.
He shrugged. "She's pregnant. How mad can she be?"
That pretty much answered my question.
xxxxxx
I spotted her in the Great Hall sitting with Ginny and some of the other Gryffindor girls. They didn't seem to be fussing over her, like they knew we fought last night, so I was guessing she didn't tell them what happened, and I was glad.
Confident as I was as I strode up the Gryffindor table, I could feel the eyes on my back, wondering why I was there. And thinking of Hermione's reaction to me being all over her this morning when I'd just been all over her last night was almost enough to make me back out. But of course, Slytherin all the way, I didn't.
"Hey..." I said. About the only thing I had the guts to say.
She looked up from her cereal and glared at me. Ginny, formally reading a magazine, was staring at her, wondering why she didn't respond.
I chuckled uncomfortably. "N-nice weather, right?" She shook her head in disgust. "Come on Hermione... let me explain," I said softly.
"Explain what?" Ginny asked - forget that this was a two person conversation.
"Why he came home completely drunk last night and yelled at me for something I didn't know I did," Hermione said angrily. I opened my mouth to retort with something funny to make her stop looking at me like that, but something funny was probably the last thing she wanted to hear.
"You came home drunk?" Ginny asked, appalled.
"You don't know why!" I reasoned.
"You yelled at her?"
"You - come on - ! You don't know why!" I repeated.
"You came home drunk and yelled at her?" she said, the two questions now combined. I shook my head.
"Can you leave this between me and Hermione?"
"I don't know - can I, Hermione?"
She looked from Ginny to me, to Ginny and back, lingering on me for much longer. I knew what she wanted to say. No, Ginny, you can't leave this between Draco and I. Rip him to sheds right now for all I care - just don't let him talk to me.
"Yes, you can," she bit out. "I'll talk to you later."
She shared a not-so secret look with Ginny, telling her to beat it, that she would be fine, and I looked away. From past experience, Ginny probably gave her a grudging look, pushed away her plate, gathered up her magazine and walked off, the other Gryffindor girls trailing her. I sighed when she was gone.
"Thanks."
"I didn't tell her to leave so you could be comfortable," she spat, focusing more on her breakfast than me.
"Well, thanks anyways," I said. I was trying to be nice, but it was getting harder and harder with every second.
"Where did you sleep last night?" Hermione asked, even though she probably promised herself to try not to care.
"In my old room with Blaise."
She nodded, like that was all she needed to know, when that wasn't even half of what she wanted to ask. She wanted to ask me how long I had feelings for her and why I'd hid it. I didn't even know the answer to those myself.
"Why are you being so cold?" I asked bluntly. Bluntness was the way to go with Hermione, most of the time.
"Don't I have the right to be cold?" I decided that wasn't rhetoric.
"You were the one who laughed in my face when I was so obviously trying to tell you how I felt last night!" I whispered angrily. My bubble had long burst. A look of confusion crossed her face, but then it was replaced with surprise.
"You were the one who basically told me 'never in your life, Draco,' last night when you turned me down!" I continued.
"I said you were my friend - "
"And you so pathetically compensated for it by calling me that!"
She was silent for a moment, then said, "You've got it all wrong..."
"I do? Right - or are you just trying to make me feel guilty again?"
"You should!" she said, which wasn't originally what she wanted to say. She stopped, mid-word, and then looked at me like I was stupid. "You came home drunk last night and yelled in my face!"
"I used to always come home drunk at night!"
"Yeah and on one night you became a rapist," she hissed, as if that justified why she was being so cruel. And really, it did. "It's your fault." Old words, I hadn't heard in so long.
My mouth bobbed open and shut, unable to respond to that. Hermione obviously regretted what she said, for she had clamped a hand over her mouth. I really didn't know what to say.
If I'd said something to her, something rude to hurt her feelings, I didn't know. If she cried and burst into tears right then, I didn't know either. All I knew was that I somehow stood up, walked to the Great Hall double doors, and left her. How I was able to function, I had no idea.
Maybe it was when I reached the top of the stairs that my mouth began to move. Or when I passed Blaise through the halls, ignoring his "How did it go?" that I heard myself speaking. I don't know. But for a while, the only words I could hear were: She's right.
Because she was.
xxxxxx
"Come on, you and I both know you would never touch someone like that if you were in a right state of mind," Blaise said for the millionth time.
"But I wasn't - and I raped her," I said sullenly.
"These are old issues, Draco! You're going to have a kid. You should be focusing on that." He threw the grass he had ripped from the ground, but they never reached me. The Great Lake, by the way I was feeling, looked completely black and heartless. I kind of wondered if I was describing myself.
"A kid born out of wedlock - concieved through force," I said.
"Shutup," he said. "I thought you were over this? That you and Granger got past it a long time ago."
"We never really got past it," I mumbled, swinging my legs from the branch I was sitting on. Blaise stood below me, leaning on the tree itself.
"You looked like you got past it."
"And you look like a virgin. But are you?" I retorted. Blaise swatted my leg after that comment, but I pretended I didn't feel it.
"Dude, really, just apologize and forget about the whole thing."
"What about the way I admitted I had feelings for her? Do I just forget that happened?"
"Well, you could slam it down on the table and see what she makes of it. Then, you forget it happened," he suggested.
"You make it all sound so easy."
"Because it is," he insisted.
"When you rape a girl and get her pregnant, then suddenly talk of your feelings for her - that's when you can tell me that."
He shrugged, and began skipping rocks in the lake. They never really got far though, because a tentacle kept intercepting them. He cursed everytime it happened.
After that tiny fight in the Great Hall, anybody would have thought that I'd be in my room brooding. But instead, I sought out Blaise, long time best friend and counsellor, to console me on me idiocy. He was no help right now though. I guess my problems were always boring him.
"You think I'll be a good dad?" I asked quietly.
Blaise looked up, surprised I'd asked him something a little personal, then smiled. "Of course."
I dropped down from the tree and joined him in skipping rocks. "No, really. You think I'll be... I dunno, cold to it? Like my Dad was to me?"
"Only if you're an idiot," Blaise said confidently. "You know what it felt like to be ignored by your Dad. You learned your lesson. You'll be nothing like him."
"How do you know I won't break in the middle of parenting and leave Hermione all alone?"
"I don't."
"Then how come you're so confident?"
"Because you and I both know you love Hermione too much to even think of leaving her."
I paused. Dropped the rock on the grass. "Touche," I said quietly.
He smiled - he knew me too well - and put his hand over my shoulder, gripping it tightly.
"Now, I'm going to tell you what you're going to do," he said softly, as if speaking to a five year old. I gulped, listening intently. "You're going to find Hermione, and apologize till she accepts it. Even if you have to sit outside her room, speaking to a door all night, or prance around Hogwarts with I'm sorry written on your chest. You'll apologize, and you'll make her accept."
I gulped. "Right."
He kept on going, like I'd never spoken. "Then, you'll explain why it hurt that she laughed at you and turned you down and all that. Then, let her explain her piece, to take out any confusion."
"Sure," I said. He stopped talking, and let go of my shoulder. "Then what?" I asked expectantly.
"The rest is up to you."
I raised a nervous eyebrow, wondering if that would be enough. "You sure about this?"
"It looks easy enough."
"Like you."
He socked me in the shoulder, but I took it bravely. I probably shouldn't have insulted him, since he was trying to make me do the right thing and playing the good role of best friend, but this was how Blaise and I worked. Crappy best friends.
"Thanks mate... I mean it."
"Don't hug me," he said, backing away just a little. I laughed.
"Why don't I give you something instead?"
"Like?" he asked. "If it's Pepper-up, I've already got a ton so..."
"You wanna be my kid's Godfather?"
He paused. Looked me up and down, as if I'd suggested a threesome. Stopped. A smile crept onto his lips, like the sun coming up in the early morning. I could tell he was fighting the urge to break out into a silly grin, but I didn't mind. He had a hard time showing his feelings, like me.
Blaise coughed. "Yeah, of course. Not like I wasn't already expecting it."
"Won't be good news to Potter and Weasley."
"Which is probably why you asked me in the first place." I grinned. He was half right. "Okay, quit wasting time you lousy git, and start apologizing to Hermione."
"No better time than now, right?"
"Right. If you come back with a shiner, I'll know I did you some good."
I chuckled and began to walk away, on the hunt for Hermione. Lots of things had to be discussed. Our feelings for each other, how it happened, why we hid it, how this might affect our kid... and most importantly - why Blaise was now it's Godfather.
She was going to be so mad at me.
xxxxxx
"Hermione, come on." I sat at the front of her bedroom door, pounding it again. "Open the door," I pleaded. Nothing answered me. "How am I supposed to be able to talk to you when you won't even face me?" I asked.
It had been half an hour, and I was still the same place where I started. I only left to take a bathroom break, but after that, it was back to begging and pleading. Hermione really knew how to make a buy get down on his knees. Half an hour... if she kept up like this, I would be here in the morning, sipping coffee.
"Give me a chance to explain," I tried again. "It won't kill you!" She didn't respond. For all I knew, she could have been asleep, but I took the risk. I'd keep on trying till she woke up. "Why won't you just answer me for crying out loud!"
"Maybe because I'm not there?" A door shut.
I immediately stood up, turned to face the common room hole, and saw Hermione hanging her jacket. She didn't look at me once.
"I... thought you were... inside?"
"Well, obviously, I'm not," she said, walking over to the bathroom. "Ginny, you can come out now."
Immediately, her bedroom door, the one she was supposed to be in, swung open, and Ginny came out with a smug look on her face, passing me like I was invisible.
"Why didn't you just tell me it wasn't her?" I said, with a hint of irritation.
"'Cause you came home drunk and yelled at her," the red head stated simply. I rolled my eyes.
"What were you doing in her room?"
"Looking for clothes to borrow. Didn't expect to have a ferret annoying me when I was in there though." I sighed. I only had enough room for one arguement today.
"Can you give Hermione and I some privacy?" I flicked a look at her, and she emerged from the bathroom after a flush and a rinse was heard, and I was glad she wasn't about to follow Ginny out. I wouldn't want to have this conversation in front of Ginny.
"Whatever," she said indifferently, grabbing some sweets from our bowl as she left. "Owl me later, Hermione." She threw her a cautious look which I decided to ignore so I could keep my temper. My patience was needed right now, especially with the talk I was about to have.
When Ginny shut the door behind her, Hermione looked at me, perplexed, and I stared back at her, giving her the same look.
"How long were you out there?" Hermione said finally, gesturing with her hands.
"Half an hour."
"You didn't even bother to think that I was out? Especially since my coat and shoes gone?"
"I must have missed it. Besides, I heard rummaging going on around in your room, so I just assumed."
"Oh yeah, wouldn't expect anything else from you," she muttered, walking past me, almost at her door.
"What was that supposed to mean?" I challenged, daring to anger this moody pregnant woman.
She spun around with an edge. "You. Assume things."
"Really," I said. This definitely wasn't on Blaise's schedule for me, but I decided to throw it out the window. I could hardly apologize to her when she was throwing me insults. "Care to explain why you think that?"
"Hm, let's see," Hermione said, pretending to be in thought, "You assumed that I was turning you down when I started laughing at you last night. You assumed that it was because I really did have none for you, and you assumed my opinion of you hadn't changed and that I was ordering you around and everything just to make you feel guilty!" She took a deep breath. "Need I say more?"
"What do you mean I assumed?" I asked, really confused now. "Wasn't I right?"
"No!" she exploded. "I thought you had no feelings for me! I thought you turned me down long ago! I thought you wanted me to say that"
I gaped at her, definitely shocked by this piece of news. "That wasn't even it!"
"Then what was it?" she asked softly, almost in a whisper. "Why did you bring it up?"
"Because I was trying to tell you how I felt! Not so I could... hurt you or anything, but so I could confront you and have you admit it or something, 'cause I thought something was there!" I heaved heavily. "What about you? You laughed at me and - "
"I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings! I thought that was what you wanted me to do! I thought I was just your friend! I thought you knew!"
"Wait... what?"
"I don't get it!" she yelled.
"Neither do I!"
"You have feelings for me?"
"You have feelings for me?"
"Since when?" we both yelled in unison. I pressed the bridge of my nose for a moment, then let it go.
"You and I both thought that neither of us had feelings for each other that night? We completely misinterpreted each other?" I asked her.
"...It makes sense."
"But it still sounds so confusing," I stated. What were she and I thinking? "It explains everything though..."
"No," Hermione said quietly, while shaking her head. "It doesn't explain a thing."
"What do you mean?"
"It doesn't explain why you came home drunk last night and treated me the way you did... that night..." she trailed off, as if hypnotized. I sighed.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me - "
"Draco," she said sternly, "you don't remember all of that night, but I do!" I stared at her, hoping she wouldn't describe it. But it was hopeless. "You barged in and shook me, pushed me around, tore me apart inside with everything you said!"
"I didn't mean to..."
"But you did! How am I supposed to know you won't do that again when our child is born, and things are tough? How do I know you won't be like that and hurt me again?"
"Because - "
"I mean, come on Draco, I know we're not perfect but I hated the man you were that night, and I hated the man you were yesterday night! I don't want to see him again. How do I know you won't do that to me again?"
I stood there, in stunned silence wondering what exactly to respond with. I said the first thing on my mind.
"...Because I love you, Hermione."
She looked at me, not surprised at all. "You say so... and I love you too... but I don't know how I can believe you when you say that either..." She shook her head sadly at me, and turned away fully, opening the door to her room.
"What can I do to make you believe me?" I half-whispered. She wasn't supposed to tell me she loved me too and then walk away. That wasn't how I pictured it. She shrugged at the frame of her door, and shook her head again.
"Nothing, Draco."
I looked at her thoughtfully, and I decided she was wrong.
How the idea came to me, I didn't know, but it was just there, lying dormant for a really long time, until it finally popped up out of my head. I grabbed it, and used it as my only chance to make her believe me - to have her know that I really did love her.
I kissed her.
I held her as close as I could, without her stomach interfering. She didn't respond at first, but a few seconds in, and she was kissing me back. I could hardly believe it! I tossed her had around softly in my hands, trying to make her believe the extent of how much I loved her. I pulled away.
"Do you believe me now?"
Hermione stared in wonder at my eyes, probably fighting a battle in her mind. Will she believe me, all because of one kiss? Or will she do the exact opposite and slap me in the face?
Before I could even finish the thought however, she tipped her head back towards mine, kissed me once, twice, and then we were snogging right there in front of her bedroom door. As minutes passed, I somehow stumbled through it with her, our lips still connected, a messy tangle of limbs. Once we were in, I didn't know how long till we came out. I barely had the time to open my eyes and see her nod slightly, and her lips break from mine.
"Yes. I do."
I shut the door behind us.
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To be continued...
A/N: Yay! Isn't that crazy? They kissed! Woohoo! Snogging all the way! Hahaha. Er. Yeah. Sorry to say though - a few more chapters to go and I'm done diddly do with this story! A sad announcement, I know, but at least you'll soon know the ending which I've definitely already plotted! Hopefully you stay tuned for it x.
Review if you read it! Thanks so much x