Chapter 15: Friday, Fights and More Than Slightly Painful Situations

Over the next couple of months, Draco and Hermione found that they had less and less time for each other. As the end of the year approached, their school load had naturally increased and Draco was spending more time than ever trying to complete his task for Voldemort. The only time the two had spare to spend together was doing homework in the library for which they were often joined by Blaise and Ginny and on occasion even Theo or Luna dropped by.

Hermione was still trying to work up the courage to break up with Ron. Harry had begun to glare at her every time they were in the same vicinity. She knew that the angry looks would stop when she finally broke up with Ron but she couldn't find it within herself to break his heart.

Due to the limited time they spent together, Hermione still having uncertainties about Draco being a death eater and Draco knowing about Hermione cheating on him; it was safe to say that their relationship was beginning to fray at the edges. Draco in particular was getting impatient waiting to hear Hermione's point of view about her sleeping with Blaise, just I case it threw some light on the situation.

One Friday morning, Hermione was late out of the Gryffindor common room for breakfast. She had been up late the night before finishing work and had slept through her alarm. This had left her annoyed and grumpy and when Draco offered her his arm to walk her down to the Great Hall, she scowled at him and hurried down the corridor. Draco followed after her, wisely keeping his mouth shut, keeping pace in silence.

When they reached the top of the marble staircase, Draco broke the silence. "Are you alright?"

Hermione stopped and turned around scowling. "No I'm not alright; I still have a lot of work to do before the exams, I still haven't broken up with Ron and my boyfriends a fucking death eater. So no, no I am not alright." Hermione took a few more steps down the staircase before she realised Draco wasn't following. "Aren't you coming?"

"You want to talk about not being alright? I have to listen to Voldemort and keep up with my studies, I can't kiss you publically and you cheated with my best friend." Draco hissed angrily before he walked past and through the doors into the Great Hall.

Hermione hurried after him bursting through the doors causing the whole hall to look up, although most were already looking after Draco had stormed through. "How the hell did you know about that?" She yelled.

Draco turned around from where he stood at the end of the Slytherin table and narrowed his eyes. "I asked Blaise." Draco indicated over his left shoulder to where Blaise was sat at the table. Blaise shrunk down as Ginny glared at him.

"What you just suspected that I cheated on you?"

"You're a really bad liar I knew something was up."

"What and you thought 'Oh Hermione, she cheats'?"

"You don't exactly have a good record, do you?"

"You're holding that against me?"

"No, I know Blaise too well. Even so you could have told me?"

"I can't trust you! Not any more, not since..." Hermione gestured and Draco immediately understood that she was referring to the dark mark on his arm.

"You know I didn't have a choice."

"Everyone has a choice." Hermione said furiously moving forward a furious glint in her eye causing Draco to step back slightly in fear. "You always have a choice; you can choose differently, you can choose the right thing." Draco's back hit the table, but in fear of Hermione's clenched fists, one of which was gripping her wand tightly, he climbed up on the table as somewhere to go. "But no, Draco Malfoy always chooses to save his own neck." Hermione kept moving forward, following Draco onto the table. The people sat closest to the arguing couple quickly moved out the way as goblets and plates clattered to the floor.

"I chose to protect my family."

"And in doing that you might have damned thousands of innocent lives. Did you ever think about that?"

"Well-"

"Do you ever think about anybody other than yourself?"

"Oh you can talk! Did you think about me and my feelings when you cheated with Zabini?" They were both shouting now and the whole hall was deathly quiet, listening to the fight that was sure to go down in Hogwarts' gossip history.

"No because you were too busy making a fool of yourself and Harry had just abandoned me, so no, for once in my life I didn't think. I'm sorry about that but your track record isn't so great so you can't go blaming me for something that you've done thousands of times."

"You could at least have told me, I might have understood."

"Yeah like you told me about...that."

"I did tell you."

"You sure waited long enough. Long enough to make me think I could finally trust you with everything that mattered to me because you weren't that involved in everything!"

"This isn't my fault; do you know how hard this has been for me?"

"No, because you never talk to me about it! You bottle it up and expect me to understand everything that goes on with you."

"Hermione-"

"Don't talk to me; I am not in the mood." Hermione walked the short distance to the end of the table and jumped down to the floor.

"Well what the hell does this mean for us, then?"

"What do you think? I clearly can't trust you!"

"I can't exactly trust you either."

"Fine then, fuck this we're through!" Hermione turned to leave but walked straight into Ron, who was standing there gobsmacked.

"Hermione? What was that?"

"Don't start Ron."

"What does this mean for us?"

"What do you think, Ron?" Hermione scowled and stalked out of the Hall.

Ron slowly moved over to the Gryffindor table sitting down opposite Harry. "What was all that ab-" He was interrupted by an angry scream and the shattering of glass. He turned around and watched as an angry Draco kicked goblets and plates off the Slytherin table as he made his way to the dungeons, fuming. Ron turned back to look at Harry who was calmly eating his breakfast.

"I can't say I'm surprised." Harry said. "She always had strong opinions." Ron watched opened mouthed as Harry continued to eat. "Want some juice?" He offered, watching as Ron followed the obviously popular pastime and stormed out of the hall.

Later in the month Draco opened the door to the top of the astronomy tower and breathed in as the fresh air hit his face. He was about to step forward when he spotted an oddly familiar back sitting on the edge. He moved closer and stood behind the figure, shuffling slightly.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione said in a monotone, blowing out the smoke that was in her lungs.

"I came for fresh air. Are you smoking?" Draco asked in disbelief.

"Yeah it's a nasty habit I picked up." She chuckled dryly at the sarcasm in her voice.

"It's bad for you."

"So were you, but that didn't stop me." Hermione chucked the last of the cigarette off the tower and turned around.

Draco was shocked by what he saw, her hair was all in disarray and she had deep circles under her eyes that rivalled his own. Her clothes were hanging off her frame, as she had clearly lost a lot of weight.

Hermione took in the sight of her ex. He looked tired and ill. She smiled meekly; it reminded her of her own reflection in the mirror. She nodded and indicated the ledge behind her. "I'll go, I've been here long enough."

Draco sighed. "Thank you." When Hermione had closed the door behind her Draco groaned and pulled his wand and a packet of cigarettes. It killed him that even looking like that he thought Hermione looked beautiful, that he missed her everyday and that he had to finally admit to himself that at some point he had fallen in love with Hermione Granger and now he was stuck that way.

Hermione was leaning against the door inside the tower. Even that exchange had drained her of all energy. All she wanted to do was open that door and have sex with Draco on the tower, but she couldn't. She mustn't. Every sight of him caused pain to shoot through her heart. She had been skipping meals just so she wouldn't have to look at him. She had requested a new potions partner so she wouldn't have to be too near him and she couldn't even walk down to breakfast anymore because of the many memories that assailed her.

Life went on, for both of them and exams drew closer forcing them to move on in life, but neither could make their hearts let go, they were stuck in love.