Chapter 17: Pieces

Capitulo XVII: Fragmentos

When the long class of Defense Against the Dark Arts finished, Draco Malfoy was the first one to stand up and leave the dungeons. Neither Zabini nor Pansy followed him, but Snape watched carefully as the blonde boy picked up his things with speed.

Hermione, on the other hand, didn't want to leave or move from there. During the whole class she had felt everybody's gaze on her, as though she had suddenly grown two heads. She knew that Harry and Ron would be disconcerted and surprised about Malfoy's words, perhaps even more than she was. Once more she felt guilty about hiding her feelings for Malfoy and the kiss (the kisses) that they had exchanged few days ago. But, what could she do? She knew that Harry and Ron would be mad with her and that if she confessed everything; they would consider her a traitor. Harry hated Malfoy more than anyone in the world, except maybe Voldemort and Snape. How would he handle knowing that his best friend had fallen in love with him? Hermione couldn't say that this hate was unjustified. Harry could never forgive her and neither would she if he discovered her feelings. It was not that Harry meddled with other's life or judge it for being with someone as Ron did; he hadn't said anything about her relationship with Dewey, but if someday she had something with Malfoy it would be very different.

And Ron, she could not even imagine his reaction. He had always been a little overprotective when it was about her. He didn't like her to have boyfriends but Harry and himself… maybe Neville too. He had been hostile and hurtful when she had been with Krum and he hadn't talked to her the day before she started dating Dewey. With Malfoy he will see his ideas reinforced, he will have a real motive to justify his hatred and condemnation, and if Harry backs him up, things will be worse.

Harry and Ron had always been her best friends, but there were things they could never be able to understand. Sometimes she felt really lonely when she was with them. She knew they loved her and cared for her, but Harry and Ron were best friends, and then she was there. They had quidditch and she had her books. They were always ready to break the rules and she was the one who resisted but in the end she gave up and joined them, to protect them in some way. Now Harry was with Ginny and Ron with Lavender; another thing that brought them apart.

- Hermione? – Harry stood up in front of her, books in hand, Ron was already leaving through the door. The classroom was empty.

- Yes, I'm coming – she answered leaving her thoughts and picking up her things.

- Hey… don't you think Malfoy is behaving… strange? – asked Harry. Hermione had feared something like that but even still she couldn't avoid the top of the ink bottle slipping through her fingers. She kneeled quickly to pick it up and appeared to be concentrating.

- Well… I don't know – she answered evasively.

- Before… it looked like he was defending you – Harry insisted resentful and with his green eyes fixed on the girl.

- I don't think it was that. I'm sure he just wanted Zabini and Parkinson to leave me alone so he could bother me exclusively – she answered. It was the only reasonable explanation she was able to find.

- Yes, it could be that.

Harry was happy with the answer, even though Hermione still had some doubts, so she quickly grabbed her bag and left the room before her friend could ask more questions. Just leaving the room she ran into Ron, who was standing in the middle of the hallway with his face reddening with disgust. Hermione watched him for a while without understanding, but when she followed his gaze, she understood. Ben was there with a little bouquet of strange, exotic, violet flowers. Hermione recognized them because she had read about them in the Herbology book; they were Brunfelsia flowers, with venomous properties, used in many potions.

- Hello Hermione! – greeted Ben with a radiant smile, he passed Ron as if he didn't exist.

- Hi Ben – she answered a little intimidated by Ron's presence. She wanted to take Ben out of there so she grabbed him quickly by the arm and took him to the empty room of Defense Against the Dark Arts, passing by Harry.

- What's wrong? – asked Ben, surprised by the girls roughness as she was closing the door.

- Am… nothing – she answered feeling more secure now that they were away from everyone's eyes - are those for me?

- Yes – answered the boy blushing – Professor Sprout told us today about the properties of Brunfelsia and I thought you would might like them…

Hermione took the little bouquet and inhaled the fragrance with a smile. Ben was so attentive… they had never given her flowers. Speaking of it, no one had ever given her a gift when it wasn't her birthday or Christmas. And this was Ben's second gift in just a couple of days.

- Thanks Ben… I love them.

Ben smiled deeply and scratched his chin embarrassed. Hermione found the gesture so charming, and approaching him, she kissed him softly on the lips. When they separated, they both were smiling.

Then Ben took one flower from the bouquet in Hermione's hands and moving a brown lock, he put it carefully behind one of the girl's ears, caressing her neck with his fingers. Hermione felt herself redden beneath the intense gaze of the Ravenclaw and she shuddered slightly when he kissed the ear where the flower was resting.

In that same moment, the room's door opened and a blonde boy crossed it with a concentrated air, as if he was looking for something he was sure he would find in there. He was paralyzed when he raised his eyes from the desk, where he had forgotten his quill in his rush to get out of class, and saw two people against the wall.

The moment he recognized them as Granger and Dewey, he felt a punch in his chest. She had her face raised toward the Ravenclaw, her cheeks blushed and a violet flower behind one of her ears, and he was kissing her right there.

They looked like two lovers that secretly met in any empty room to be alone, to kiss and maybe to whisper nothings to each other. And that image hurt him a thousand times more than the kisses he had seen two days ago, as if his chest had a thick glass that the first time had only been cracked but that now had been blown into a thousand pieces; Pieces that had scattered inside him, sinking painful stings throughout his entire being.

But soon the familiar wave of jealous hatred extended through him, drowning briefly the broken pieces. And even though his eyes were ice blue, he saw everything behind a red curtain. Granger was barely a blurred image that had moved apart from the dark spot that was Dewey, Draco couldn't distinguish her features, but he knew she was looking at him. That infuriated him even more, he wanted to sink his fingers into her tender throat and extinguish those hazel eyes forever, so she could never look at him like that. But he also wanted to kiss her, to hold her tightly in his arms and made her forget Dewey with his own kisses. Bend her, make her surrender until she could only think of him.

- Malfoy, I don't know if you've noticed, but you are disturbing.

The tone of superiority and irony with which Dewey addressed him, turned his fury into pure lava that ran burning through his veins, extending throughout his whole body. He watched him, thinking that an Avada Kedavra was too quick and painless for what he wanted to do to him, but then he saw him approach Hermione and surround her waist protectively as her guardian, as her boyfriend. As something he will never be.

And that certainty dissolved his anger completely, like spirals of smoke are dragged by a strong and desolate wind. What hurt him more wasn't that she kissed someone else, but that he couldn't do it.

- I… - he stammered stupidly and the he saw Hermione. She observed him completely immobile with her mouth slightly opened in a surprised gesture, she looked at him as if she wanted to understand. And that scared him and at the same time he felt humiliated as he had never felt, just standing there like an imbecile in front of them.

Without saying anything, he turned around and ran from the room as though Lord Voldemort himself was in there. But it was different. In that situation he would feel fear, panic.

Now he felt that wherever he ran he could not free himself of his just discovered feelings. He could escape from Granger and Dewey; he could escape from everyone, but not from himself. He needed to do something, anything, to distract himself, to try to forget. It didn't matter what, but he must do something.

Without being conscious of what he was doing, he entered his Common Room and didn't stop even though some people called him. He reached his bedroom and kicked his black trunk which opened immediately revealing the objects inside it. He search through many artifacts he had bought at Borgin&Burkes, old parchments, dark books and broken quills, and at last, at the bottom of the trunk, he found his Nimbus 2001 covered by a fabric of black velvet. He uncovered it roughly and grabbing it, he left his room without locking the door. He crossed the Common Room once more, unaware of the astonished looks and gossiping that he caused and went through the dungeons that would take him to the Hall. He strode through the main doors without stopping and walked through the grounds until he reached the quidditch field.

He needed to fly; high enough so that Hogwarts and everything it stood for was just a very little, insignificant spot and fast enough that every thought would disappear. Kicking the ground with force, he rose quickly through the air. He rose at full speed for a minute or so, but it seemed an hour to him, a slow and painful hour. He turned around and descended into a nose-dive a few miles, trying unsuccessfully to forget everything that had happened, to erase from his mind what he had seen, to take out of his heart what he had felt.

He flew for a couple of minutes, rising, descending, making violent turns in the air, but nothing could free him for more than a few seconds. He ascended vertically at a speed that made the skin of his face start to stretch, his hair agitated violently and the robes were attached to his body as if they were a second skin, but not even this worked. He finally stopped, suspended in the air and rubbed his forehead with force, as if like this he could be able to control his thoughts. He slipped his hands to his eyelids, and closed them. Then he felt it. There was something wet in the corner of his eyes.

Impassively he felt the humidity with his fingertips and discovered that he was crying, more precisely, that a couple of tears had escaped his eyes without his conscience or permission. Without a lot of conviction, he said to himself that his eyes had been irritated by the force of the wind. It was impossible. He had never cried for anyone but him. And he would never do it, especially not for Hermione Granger.

He let out a heartrending scream into the air and threw himself nose diving, as if he was after a snitch. When he was about to crash into the ground, he raised the handle of the broom with all his strength, managing to raise a few inches. Then he landed and dismounted near the goal posts that keepers protect during matches.

Keepers.

Dewey was the keeper of Ravenclaw's team.

He gritted his teeth with rage and crushed the broom's handle. He cursed Dewey for existing, for choosing Granger, for daring to touch her. Because he could do it.

He hated him; he hated him with all his soul, as much as he envied him…

In an outburst of fury, he reached one of the goal posts and beat it with the Nimbus. The goal post trembled slightly for a couple of seconds and the broomstick made a worrying 'crack' but Draco didn't hear it. In his mind, that post was Dewey and he could beat it, and unload all his frustration and desperation against it.

He raised the broomstick in the air and unloaded all of his strength again. This time the wood gave up and the broom cracked in two, but not even then did he stop. He moved and again he hit the post, again and again, letting out violent growls with every attack and crying furiously without noticing it, making the post tremble and surrounding it with wood splinters. He wasn't able to stop until his once lustrous and magnificent broomstick was reduced to a bunch of fragments and a 10 inch broom.

Then he felt exhausted and let himself fall onto the ground, on his knees, with what was left of his broomstick under his hand. Like a downhearted warrior of old, leaned against his battle-worn sword. As someone who had lost that which he had been fighting for.

But he hadn't fought for anything. Yet.

A Malfoy had a crush on a mudblood.

He passed a hand roughly through his hair, messing it up and grabbed between his fingers a blonde lock in the back of his neck. He, having a crush on Granger…

It was against who he was but he couldn't deny it anymore. He had never felt so jealous, as a matter of fact, he had never felt jealous. And no one had ever entered his thoughts turning them into almost an obsession. Never, until then, had he had the desire to kiss someone until he lost all his senses. Neither had he desired with all his might that that someone should feel the same.

He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose while he made a choice. He was a Malfoy and when a Malfoy wanted something, he just got it.

Now he had a crush on a vulgar mudblood, well then, the best way to avoid temptation,

was to fall in it…

Finally!

Lol Malfoy can deny anymore his feelings. Fort he momento he is aware of having a crush with Hermione. I know this chapter is a little bit heavy, but it was necessary for the story. Now Malfoy is planning to fall into temptation, what is going to happen?

As always thank you for your support and for the reviews.

Love, Dry.

Here it is! I'm so sorry for my BIG delay… but school was horrible! But now I have more free time so I'll try to update sooner.

HAPPY NEW YEAR for all of you!! And thank you for reading this story, I really appreciate it. This is my last 2009 update!! And my gift for all of you! Hope you'll like it =)

Big thanks to my beta-reader Mystic Tink!! Thanks to her now the story will be better.

With love, Lola.