S U R V I V O R
Based on the book 'I Will Survive' by Samantha Connolly.
A/N: Wow, it's been a while. And yes, I'm still alive.
I was just looking at the oldest fic on my profile (the Pokemon one) and I realized that I'd finished it in a fortnight. Whoa. So... where's that writing inspiration now? Lol. The truth is, I'm still looking... and as you can see, without too much success. Oh well. I try.
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Chapter Ten
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The atmosphere around the fire immediately became very awkward.
Hermione lowered her head, glancing at Krum as she did so. He had a surprised look on his face, but funnily enough she only detected a small portion of genuine sadness in his expression. In fact, most of his faced showed hastily concealed relief - which was definitely not what she was expecting.
"V-vell, Herm-own-nee... I'm sorry to hear that," he said, stumbling over his words slightly. "I guess ve vill talk later... if I can persuade you to change your mind. Maybe I took you by surprise." He looked at her hopefully.
The others stared at her as if she had just murdered a kitten, except for Draco, whose face was still closed off to her as he poked the fire. She felt somewhat better; it would have been much, much worse if he had looked at her like that too. It would prove that he really didn't care about her.
"Hermione, you really are an ice queen, aren't you?" Laurie said, laughing and breaking the tension. The others tittered as well. "Well, let's hope that you change your mind. Poor Viktor looks completely heartbroken." She nudged him playfully in the ribs.
Actually, he looks happier than he did when he came here, Hermione thought.
"She is right, ve hadn't been going out for long when I asked," he lamented. "So it is no surprise... I cannot say I was confident at all that she vould say yes."
We've been going out on and off for years, in case you got a sudden case of amnesia, she thought viciously, surprised at how readily the venomous tone emerged. Maybe rejecting Krum was better off for her sanity than she'd initially expected.
"Well, that's over and done with, despite the sad ending," Alex said, sounding unsuitably cheerful. "All I can offer is some man-to-man condolence; good luck with other women in the future, Viktor. Maybe Hermione just isn't the right girl for you."
Krum nodded solemnly, as if taking the advice to heart.
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Teresa had been attempting to drag Alex off to bed for the last 15 minutes, but Hermione kept pinning them down.
"So, where else would you go if you won the prize money? France? Hawaii?" she shot at them relentlessly. "Have you booked your tickets yet?"
"Uh, we're still thinking about it," Teresa said, giggling nervously. "We're taking things one step at a time. It can't happen without the money, so that comes first." Hermione noticed her tugging gently on Alex's arm as she spoke.
Alex quickly stood up. "Well, I think that's it for us for the night," he said. "Teresa and I could really use some sleep." They both blushed crimson as the others laughed at his comment and wolf-whistled loudly. Hermione felt sorry for them and decided that she would let them go this time. After all, they deserved it after her bombarding them with pointless questions.
Unfortunately alone time with her partner was exactly what Hermione didn't want, but she didn't see any way she could continue to chatter comfortably at the fire now that the only people left were the ones she really didn't want to talk to. There was an uncomfortable period of silence, then Krum finally patted her on the shoulder. "I think ve should head in for the night too," he suggested, smiling slightly. "I vill have to face the lizards at some point."
She returned his smile the best she could, and decided that facing Krum would be better than staying at the fire and trying not to look at Laurie and Draco sitting together. Her brain was caught up in a tornado of emotions that were previously foreign to her, ones that she had seldom encountered before; now they were all spinning around in her chest cavity at the same time.
What a night.
"Goodnight, you two," Krum said as he helped Hermione to her feet. "Sleep vell."
Laurie winked at him. "We sure will. Goodnight to you too."
Along the way to the shelter, Hermione busied herself with trying not to show her jealousy by running back and bitch-slapping Laurie into the middle of next week. The blonde was definitely making a mistake by being so obvious about her and Draco. Once the show was over Draco would toss her aside and move on to someone else. At least my humiliation wouldn't be so publicized, now that I've nipped our relationship in the bud, she told herself convincingly.
Krum obviously had nothing much to say to her either, because he stayed quiet throughout the journey and didn't attempt to make small talk. They got to the shelter a few minutes later and Hermione broke the silence by warning him to duck his head so he wouldn't hit the top of the opening. He did as he was told, but hit it anyway. Muttering curses in Bulgarian to vent his anger at the doorway, Krum then plopped down on the bedding, effectively taking up most of the space with his sprawling posture.
"Do you mind moving to the side a bit? I have to sleep here too, you know," Hermione said jovially, trying not to show her irritation.
Krum grunted and shifted over onto his side. His inability to communicate in English did nothing to improve Hermione's mood as she lay down and unceremoniously pushed back against him slightly so that she could get a bit more room. His back against hers should have been comforting, but it only provided a further reminder that there were now intruders in the quiet island life that she'd just about gotten used to. It made her wonder how they'd survived those nights spent together back when they were still dating. Was he always this selfish? And was I always so easily annoyed?
She gazed outside through the opening of the shelter, spotting a star twinkling in the distance. She was just tired from the day, that must be why she was in such a foul mood. With a burst of optimism, she decided that things would probably be a lot better in the morning after she got some well-needed rest.
"Herm-own-nee," Krum said suddenly. Hermione nearly jumped up in shock but with managed to keep her body still, with some effort. "There's something I vould like to tell you."
"Mmm," she said sleepily, pretending she was already in a half-dreaming state. She waited a few moments, then threw in some fake snores for good measure. Whatever he was about to say, she didn't want to hear it now. She'd had quite enough drama for one day.
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"It looks too dangerous," Teresa said nervously.
"We'll be OK, sweetie," Alex told her comfortingly.
If she says that one more time, Hermione thought, I'm going to push her over the edge.
Despite her optimism last night, Hermione didn't find herself in an even slightly better mood this morning. In fact, she'd been cramped all night without the leg space she was used to and had woken up sore and still irritated as hell. Unfortunately this meant that everyone and everything seemed to be getting on her nerves. Krum had taken a good 15 minutes of convincing before he finally agreed to come along, and now Teresa's anxious twittering was really starting to grate on her nerves.
"Don't worry, it'll be alright," Laurie said, joining in on comforting Teresa. "Look, Draco knows what he's doing."
Hermione nearly snorted but managed not to make it too obvious by stepping over to the edge of the cliff and peering down. Draco was almost at the bottom.
Since there were guests on the island, Draco had decided to lay off the challenges for a while as the visitors might pose to be a distraction. Instead, he'd announced that morning that they would be doing a fun activity - pair abseiling. They were going to go down the rock face in twos, except for Laurie, who would be going down by herself as Draco had to be at the bottom to make sure the others were doing everything properly and safely. This made Hermione grin for a second, but then she thought about the virtual non-existance of her athleticism and her smile disappeared as quickly as it came.
Draco had tied a thick rope around a sturdy tree near the cliff face, and after giving them a set of harnesses and abseiling gear each he showed them how to put it on and how to use it as they were going down. He then proceeded to go down first, to be followed by Laurie and the two couples. They were all nervous and excited about the prospect of doing something dangerous and new, except for Teresa, who was just plain nervous.
Hermione watched as Draco finally planted both feet on the ground and looked up. She quickly withdrew her head, feeling slightly foolish, then turned to inform the others. "He's at the bottom. Laurie, you're up next."
Laurie gave a squeak and Kenny zoomed the camera in on her face. "Any last words?" he asked, grinning.
Hermione gave him a light slap on the shoulder as she double-checked Laurie's gear. "That's not helping, Kenny," she said, then turned to the blonde. "You'll be fine. Just go for it!"
Laurie gave her a jittery nod and after some hesitation, slowly descended down the cliff, squealing as she did so. Draco continually threw tips and directions at her as a way to distract her from the height as she went, and the others noticed that Laurie was starting to look less fearful and more ecstatic as she inched further down. Teresa, however, was squawking almost as much as Laurie even though she was safely on the ground and Hermione, who was trying to listen to Draco's advice to Laurie, was starting to get annoyed.
"Viktor," she said, turning to him. "Want to go next?"
He looked surprised at her apparently enthusiasm, but nodded readily. "Sure, vhy not?"
A few minutes later, Laurie reached the bottom, and the others cheered wildly. "I did it!" she screeched, hugging Draco with teary eyes. "Oh my God, I really made it! That was awesome!" She looked up at the others, waving frantically. "You guys have got to do this. Especially you, Teresa - and I don't mean going down by the steps we came up from!"
Teresa looked only slightly reassured by Laurie's success, but Alex eventually managed to convince her that if Laurie could do it, she could do it too. At least it stopped her from chattering nervously the whole time. She watched apprehensively as Hermione and Krum checked each other's gear, and when Draco signalled that it was OK for them to proceed they slowly let themselves past the edge of the cliff.
Here the wind had no obstacles in its path and so it hit them much stronger than before. Hermione swayed as she struggled to keep both feet on the cliff face and leaned back as far as she dared, taking baby steps down. It reminded her of the time when she'd climbed up that banana tree all by herself; it was an exhilarating feeling, and made her feel like she could do anything she put her mind onto.
Her peaceful reverie was broken by Krum's wind-blown voice reaching her ears. She turned to him and he motioned for her to lean a bit closer so that she could hear what he was saying. After some careful manuevring, she managed to position herself a little more to the right, so that she was descending at an angle. Krum did the same towards his left until finally they were close enough to converse. Beneath them, Draco yelled up at them asking what they were doing, but Hermione merely tossed him a we're-having-a-chat-here-if-you-don't-mind look and ignored him.
"Listen, Herm-own-nee... I vanted to tell you this last night, but you fell asleep," Krum started, looking apologetic. Hermione brushed away the pinpricks of guilt dotting her mind and nodded. "Vell, how should I say this... I..."
"Don't worry, Viktor, just say it," she said as she dodged a large portruding shaft of rock and inched back to his side again. "Plus, we're nearly halfway down and I can't pretend to be this slow for forever."
Krum's expression turned sheepish and he scratched his head, a motion that made him swing wildly to one side for a moment before recovering. "Uh... Hermione, vhile you were gone, I... met someone else."
Hermione felt cold shock for a moment, then very hot rage. She wanted to reach over and slap him senseless for this betrayal but refrained from doing so at such a height and in such an awkward posture for fear of her life. But she couldn't believe it. They had been seeing each other for so long, even if it was on and off that she had never really thought about dating other people. Krum, however, didn't seem to suffer such mental limitations - and worst of all, he was two-timing them both, whoever the other person was. She felt that all those years of knowing him now amounted to very little. So he was just another cheating jerk after all.
"You know, Viktor, I thought you could be trusted! I mean..." She faltered as she suddenly realized, with a heavy heart, how hypocritical she was being and quickly swallowed her angry accusations. After all, she had done the same to Krum with Draco on the island, and then lied to him by saying that nothing happened. Krum, at least, was more honest than she was. "But why did you propose to me then?"
He didn't speak for a while and they descended a bit further, both lost in their own thoughts. It was only when they were nearly all the way down the cliff that he spoke. "I proposed to you... to see how serious about us you vere. I vas having an affair, yes, but I still thought of you as my top priority. So I decided to ask you to marry me and see vat you said; if you agreed, I vould break off the affair and be a faithful husband, but if you rejected me as you did, I vould... vell, my affair vould continue."
Hermione wasn't expecting something this elaborate and deceptive from him, but it did nothing to lessen her anger. "You used the proposal to test me?" she yelled, fuming. "So it was all just a trial, to see what I would say? And either way, you'd come out on top because you'd have someone to be with, while one of us would be left alone? I can't believe you, Viktor! I never thought you'd stoop so low!" In a raging spur of the moment, she forgot all about where she was and lunged at him, kicking at him the best she could. She was pleased when she landed a few hits, but in her maddened state she was totally unaware of the rest of her surroundings and all of a sudden, she found herself dangling upside-down nearly a dozen metres from the ground.
The top half of her harness had somehow come loose.
There was a shrill scream from both above and below her, which she vaguely identified as Teresa and Laurie, respectively. She felt that it would be appropriate to join in, but she was so shocked that nothing would come out when she opened her mouth. I'm danging from a frail rope metres from the ground. If I fall, my head's going to crack open like a coconut. Or worse, like a watermelon.
She could also hear Krum shouting above her, sounding both fearful and apologetic at the same time while Draco cursed loudly and ran beneath her, trying to adjust the ropes so that she could be lowered down slowly. This worked for a while, and she was relieved to see the ground getting closer. I'm saved! And what's more, I just had a near-death experience that I can now boast to everyone about!
"Herm-own-nee! The harness!" she suddenly heard Krum yelling. "It's about to break!"
The next part happened as if in slow motion. With a dreadful ripping noise, like a young child ripping a Barbie's hair from her scalp, the harness broke and she fell down slowly towards the rocky ground, still several metres away. She shut her eyes and clenched her jaws together, trying to bundle herself into a foetal position so that she would take minimal damage when the inevitable collision occured.
It occured, but it was a lot softer than she expected. She felt someone's arms around her before they both toppled to the ground, and opened her tightly closed eyes to find herself staring at the side of Draco's blonde head. He was panting slightly, and had fallen on his backside as he caught her, but looked fine otherwise. Hermione was slightly surprised and embarrassed to find herself whimpering, and instead of letting her go immediately as she'd expected, he kept his arms circled around her for a moment longer.
In the next moment, everyone was crowded around them. Krum had quickly abseiled down the remainder of the cliff while Teresa, Alex and Kenny used the emergency steps that Julia and her group of workers had set up to reach the bottom. Laurie kept patting Hermione's shoulders in comfort, but the real comfort was the fact that Draco was cradling her. Ah, this was the life.
"What were you thinking, doing wild stunts up at that height?" Draco suddenly shouted at her, breaking the magical moment. "Do you know how scared we were when you started dangling by your feet? You could have died!"
"But I'm still here," she mumbled as she snuggled into his chest semi-consciously. "And I'm OK."
He sighed, and was slightly disturbed to find his fingers trying to stroke her hair. He quickly changed his hand's course and ended up making an awkward claw-like gesture on camera, which made Kenny flash him a grin. Draco mentally rolled his eyes.
Once Hermione had established the fact that she was perfectly fine, albeit a little shell-shocked by her experience, Laurie started complaining that she should have thought of something wacky and dangerous like that so that Draco could have caught her in his arms too, and the others decided that they should probably call it a day. As they packed everything up, Draco wandered over to the useless pile of broken gear that Hermione had worn and examined the breaks in the harness. "Weird," he muttered to himself as he glanced at her again absently. I'm sure I checked it this morning with Julia and it was fine, but now...
It struck him like a random bolt of lightning out of nowhere. Julia! She must have done something to it. It was the only possible explanation. After all, nobody had touched these harnesses except them and the manufacturers, and he doubted they would have randomly cut one of them up for fun. He checked the few unbroken straps on Hermione's harness again and noticed this time that the cuts were made quite specifically so that the harness would look normal, if not a little frayed around the edges. This made them seem perfectly functional upon inspection but when a weight was applied, the remaining fibres wouldn't last long before they all snapped.
You had to admire the woman's determination to get good ratings for the show, even if her methods were incredibly insane.
Draco made a mental note to confront her later. It was unlikely he'd be able to get her to apologize to Hermione - in fact, it was about as likely as Potter not being a righteous ass all the time - but he would have to warn her against doing such a thing in future shows.
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"I am so sorry."
"Listen, Viktor." Hermione sighed. "I don't like what you did, but... I have to admit that I haven't been entirely honest with you either."
Krum didn't look as surprised as she would have liked. "So something did happen between you and Draco."
"It was only a small something," she said quickly. "But still, I didn't feel like I could continue on with you any longer. I think we've both felt that way for a while now. We were just in denial because we had been an item for such a long time."
He paused for a moment before finally nodding. "You're right."
They watched as the motorboat came towards the island to take him and Teresa away. Julia climbed down from the deck and lifted her sunglasses, exposing her beaming face. "So, who wants to hear about the differences the guests made to the polls?" she teased as everyone crowded around her.
"I didn't have any guests," Laurie wailed. "Does that make any difference?"
Julia flapped a hand. "We'll start with you, Alex and Teresa. Everyone thinks you two make such a cute couple and your popularity has soared." Laurie looked forlorn as Julia turned to her next. "Not much difference for you, I'm afraid. However, things may get better as Hermione's audience support has taken a bit of a dive."
Hermione groaned inwardly. She'd almost forgotten about the fact that everything she did now could be seen by the audience and thus affected her votes. Technically, she and Krum had mutually broken up, but of course nobody else knew that yet. And if she tried to tell anyone the truth now, it would just be seen as a pathetic attempt to redirect the audience's pity towards herself.
"Most of the audience feel that it was completely uncalled of for you to publicly reject his proposal - he's such a nice guy." Julia tutted. "Looks like it wasn't such a good move to dump him so soon, was it? On the other hand, the incident during abseiling has made the support dive a little less steep. A lot of people sympathized with you over the fall and seems like many of them are concerned with how you are." She had an oddly smug expression on her face. Draco, who was looking over some camera equipment with Kenny, coughed without looking up.
"Aw, that's sweet," Laurie said, making goo-goo eyes. Hermione ignored her.
"Anyway, that's the status for now," Julia said, putting her sunglasses back on. "Kenny, hurry up with the camera, they're about to leave!"
Alex and Teresa started murmuring together and embracing for the last time in a few more days, while Krum turned towards Hermione and kissed her stiffly on the cheek. "I guess this is goodbye, then," he said, looking a little regretful. "This has not been the happiest trip, but..."
"I think it did us a lot of good, actually," Hermione remarked dryly.
Krum chuckled. "If you say so."
With one last wave, he boarded the boat and Hermione headed back towards her shelter, feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
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"Still pining for Krum?" Draco sneered as he lifted up the roof of Hermione's shelter, where she was crouched inside. "Maybe Julia was right. You shouldn't have dumped him. By the way, she wants to see you."
"What is it now?" she grimaced, before glaring up at him. "And me, pining for a cheating jerk? Please."
He raised an eyebrow. "He cheated on you? Is that why you rejected him?"
"Actually, he had the good grace to save it until during our abseiling session," she said sourly.
Draco started to laugh. "Is that why you had a kicking fit in the middle of it?"
"Basically, yeah," she sighed. "But then I realized what a hypocrite I was. I'm just as bad as he is."
"Do you regret it?" he asked suddenly.
She knew what he meant. "No, not at all."
"You know, I could still forgive you for having a fiancè," he said after a long pause.
The notion was tempting, but then the Island Eye tape flashed through her mind again. Nothing good could come out of their relationship if that was how Draco was going to be. "Sorry, but I don't want another cheater," she said as coldly as she could and climbed out of her shelter, leaving a bemused Draco with his mouth open behind her.
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Finally... done... I hit a hell lot of writer's blocks during the writing of this chapter, which might explain for the lateness. Anyway, I hope it was still marginally enjoyable.
(Must! Finish! Fics! Soon! D:)
