Hermione stared at Draco, speechless in disbelief
Damn him, damn him, damn him! She had been the one bearing unexpected news and even so he had somehow managed to shock her into silence.
She was not sure how long she just stood eyes wide, jaw hanging open in disbelief. He simply remained standing, arms folded over his chest, waiting patiently for her reaction. He seemed oddly refreshed by all this drama and verbal sparring. All traces of tiredness had left his visage; he watched her patiently, but alertly, as if he wasn't sure if she was more likely to faint or suddenly lash out and start kicking, punching and screaming. Come to think of it, Hermione wasn't altogether sure either.
"What?" she demanded when her voice was working again, albeit cracking slightly. She swallowed hastily. "Is your idea of a joke…?"
"I can assure you I am entirely serious." Draco's voice was crisp and coldly confident. Indeed, there was no hint of humour in his expression, no smirk to show he had just said that to throw her off kilter for a moment.
"There is much expectation surrounding the announcement of my engagement. Naturally, there has been a great deal of gossip and public speculation. A public statement was set to be made this week and it would be a huge disappointment to the people if we were to cancel now, not to mention a public relations disaster."
"Everyone is expecting you to announce your engagement to Pansy," Hermione reminded him numbly.
"The bride is of no real importance," Draco replied condescendingly. "The main issue is that I have to get married."
"Maybe so, but you won't be marrying me!" Hermione told him fiercely, thankful to have finally recovered from her initial shock. It was slightly embarrassing to think that she had only just thought to deny it now. It should have been her first thought. Maybe second, after she had slapped him…
"Oh, but I will, Hermione. As you know, this is a very traditional country, and its older generations have certain fixed beliefs and expectations. I certainly couldn't ask you to provide me with an heir if we weren't already legally married. Think of the scandal!"
That was it! She'd reached her limit. Hermione was going to hit him. Her temper would snap and she would wallop him right in his pale, haughty, attractive, aristocratic face. He thought he was funny! Well, she'd soon wipe that disgustingly smug expression off his face... Except for the small fact that she still couldn't seem to actually command her body to move; her mind screamed, but her body was rooted firmly in place.
Oh, well… She'd inflict physical damage later, right now she had to correct a few of Draco's misunderstandings.
"I refuse to even dignify that last comment with a response. I have declined your proposal. Find another prospective wife slash baby-machine. Surely Crabbe and Goyle have sisters?!"
"First of all, that is a ghastly thought. No matter how much you might dislike me, female Crabbe or Goyle should not be wished on anyone. Neither should we encourage the propagation of those truly unfortunate genetic anomalies." His lip curled elegantly, clearly showing his disgust at the very thought.
"Secondly, this marriage is a sensitive issue. I am a busy man. I lack the time required to find another prospective 'baby machine'. Much of my schedule is already taken up by dealing with political processes and protracted negotiations involving the demands of opposing groups within Cythera. There are those who feel that their position in society and values are under threat from change from within and without, set against that the ordinary people want to be enfranchised and equal and even more radically who are pressuring for integration with Muggle culture and technology. I must balance these concerns with increased scrutiny over the background of some of our permanent residents, without whose vital financial input this country would be bankrupted. So you see, my marriage will reassure the older generation and those who are invested in the status quo of my own commitment to this country and its future, while by marrying a muggle-born witch I will also show that I am willing to break from Wizarding traditions dominated by notions of blood purity," he crossed his arms in a very business-like manner. "Basically it would buy me time with both groups."
Hermione stared at him in contemptuous disgust.
"How dare you use me like some political tool to prop up your feudal oligarchy? No wonder Pansy preferred to marry Ron. He may not have your wealth or your position, but at least Ron is human, with human emotions and reactions. Not cold and calculating, like you! You horrible, scheming, manipulative, smug, chauvinistic–"
Draco cut her off crossly. "I think you've said enough. In fact, you've said more than enough."
Hermione could feel his unyielding, and quite merciless resolve reaching out to her, or perhaps he was using a very subtle form of the Imperius? But she stubbornly refused to give into it – or him.
"Draco, I'm not an awe-struck teenager any more," she warned him. "I will not be ordered around – if you want a wife, then bloody well find someone else. I said 'no'. You can't make me marry you!"
"No?" Draco clearly still had something up his sleeve.
Was he actually going to resort to using the Imperius curse?
"It might interest you to know that I have recently heard some rather interesting things about your wonderful friend, Ronald Weasley."
Hermione's guilty conscience went into overdrive. But surely he couldn't know – no one knew. It must be something completely unrelated and she was just being excessively anxious… But still…
Something told her that Draco wasn't interested in swapping gossip.
"Now, tell me… are you still as protective of him, as devoted to him, as you were in school? Still as ready to fly to his defence? Of course you are, you can take the girl out of Gryffindor…" he answered his own question tauntingly. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here, would you?"
Without allowing her to answer he continued, "He works for a Gringotts, I believe? Could never decide what he actually wanted to do as I remember, and so he just got one of those countless siblings to recommend him. Would it surprise you to know that he's been taking some particularly risky decisions with clients' money? He always was the reckless one, wasn't he? The kind to curse first, ask questions later… Did you know that he's been on the verge of losing everything? Oh, of course you know," he mocked softly. "A devoted caring friend like you! You were the first person he came running to when he realised the fix he had gotten himself into, weren't you?"
Hermione was unable to respond; she felt as though her vocal cords had completely seized up. Instead, she stood listening in growing apprehension as Draco taunted her mercilessly. She could feel a surge of corrosive bile rising in the back of her throat, while a sensation of icy dread choked her insides.
No one, absolutely no one – apart from Ron and herself – could possibly know about all that. She had made certain to cover their tracks and fix any discrepancies. Not usually one to keep secrets, Hermione had even forbade Ron from telling Harry the potential danger he had been in and her role in helping him out of it… But somehow Draco knew.
Did that mean that he also knew…?
"It was indeed opportune that Weasley has such a devoted and clever friend in Hermione Granger," a shiver ran down her spine unpleasantly. "Who is not only willing but also able to help him out of the mess of his own making. How noble of you! Did you also do his homework for him at Hogwarts? A friend, prepared to risk her own career and professional reputation to help him. Because that's exactly what you did, isn't it Hermione?"
"I have no idea what you mean." At last she had got her voice back, but Draco was quite plainly unimpressed and unconvinced by her flat denial.
He smirked. "Liar. You know exactly what I mean. Weasley predictably got himself into a mess and you got him out of it. So first you ignore your job and you cover it up, it was probably never news fit to be reported anyway, right? Then you ask a few colleagues at your journal for tips and perhaps you advise him on which investments to make to undo the damage he had done. It's just like checking over an essay and fixing his mistakes, just like old times, eh? Break a few rules, it's like being back at school again! Except this is not Hogwarts, this is real life, and this time there's no kindly old fool of a Headmaster to award house points at the end of your adventure to ensure you win the House Cup."
Hermione could not bear to keep eye contact. How on earth had he managed to find out about Ron's problems? She had sworn Ron to total secrecy and had not told anyone about it herself. She had been too concerned for him when he had told her, sheepish and red-faced, what had happened to be able to refuse him help. Usually Hermione had refused to even bend rules, let alone break them. She would have never considered doing it for her own benefit. In normal circumstances would have never considered it at all. But this time…
"He's my best friend," she responded woodenly. "Naturally, I felt compelled to help him."
She hated the predatory satisfied gleam she could see in Draco's eyes.
"Even if in providing that help you were guilty of insider trading?" he challenged, his voice soft but his words nonetheless weighing heavily on her.
"No… that's not true," she protested. "It wasn't like that at all. I was helping… It wasn't insider trading. It was– "
"Maybe not in your own reasoning. And it may not have been your intention, but I'm sure you will agree that in the right hands, with the right kind of publicity – or rather in the wrong hands – it could be made to look very bad for you, indeed. Even worse, perhaps, considering the publicity surrounding your past, shall we say, 'indiscretions'. People would finally see that even the blameless, oh-so-perfect Gryffindor Hermione Granger isn't above suspicion."
Hermione's mind flashed quickly to Rita Skeeter's yellow journalism in her fourth year. The exaggerated stories and biased reporting that had ignored important truths had in part motivated her career choice. She shuddered to think that she might now be just as guilty as Skeeter. Remembering Skeeter and the ridiculous public reactions to the complete fabrication of her love affairs with both Krum and Harry, she shuddered again thinking how this situation would been blown completely out of proportion and twisted beyond recognition. No doubt the blame for the whole sorry episode would be placed squarely on her shoulders. Ron would be painted as the innocent victim in her conniving scheme. Pins and needles crept up her hands, phantom memories of the excruciating burns from bubotuber pus. And, now how damaging it would be that there was even a grain of truth to Draco's accusations.
"For starters, you'd probably lose your job and any professional status and credibility you worked so hard to achieve. In the swirl of publicity and without you to rely on that no-talent Weasley would certainly lose his. It would be so easy to destroy you both, Hermione."
He said her name in such a mocking tone. Hermione repressed a shudder, thinking back to their vulnerable friendship when the use of their first names had been polite and sincere. How different it was to hear it now, his hostile voice warping her usually familiar name into something almost unrecognisable.
"You're pathetic. You've never really gotten over the resentment you felt as an 11-year old. If Ron loses his job, what will happen to Pansy?" Suddenly the cogs in her mind switched up a gear. "Or is it Pansy you really want to hurt?"
"Pansy is the last person I would want to hurt in any way. My proposed marriage to her was a cut and dried diplomatic arrangement. As a matter of fact, I am extremely fond of her, more than enough to keep a watchful eye on your Weasel friend. If he does anything, anything whatsoever, to hurt her or make her regret her decision to marry him, if I even suspect–"
"Do you even listen to yourself? You say all that, and yet you're the one who is threatening to… to... destroy their life together!" Hermione reminded him fiercely.
"And you have the means to ensure that I do not," Draco countered smoothly. "The decision is yours."
Hermione stared at him. The room was warm, but she felt as though she were encased in ice. Her mind ticked over slowly. Her vision blurred. She could feel the coldness seeping into her bones, running through her veins, as deliberate and insidious as his threat to ultimately ruin Ron and herself.
"You would really do all that?"
All the horror and disgust she felt was in her voice, but Draco seemed impervious to it.
"I see that you don't question that I can do it – that shows an admirable grasp of reality, Hermione. One that I am almost surprised of, knowing your attachment to those two paragons of delusion, Weasley and Potter. It would make everything so much simpler if you were to also accept the inevitability of our relationship… Not to worry, though. No one expects a modern "mixed" marriage to last for very long. I will be sure to realise the error of my ways in reneging on tradition eventually and then we shall both be free to go our separate ways."
"Draco, this marriage is blatant blackmail!" Hermione accused him, adding emphatically. "There are laws against that kind of thing."
"You forget," Draco returned in a warning tone. "In Cythera, I am the law."
"What you are is contemptible!" Hermione yelled at him, her voice thick with disgust.
Draco's voice remained level and calm as he told her, "The choice is yours. Either you agree to this engagement and marriage, or you and your friend …"
"You know I can't do that to Ron … You're the same as ever, aren't you, Draco? I can't imagine that I was ever naïve enough to –"
Hermione stopped, her cheeks beginning to burn in embarrassment.
"Oh, don't stop there," Draco taunted. "You were just getting to the good part. Naïve enough to… what, exactly? To think that it would work? To ignore those voices of reason in your head that said it wouldn't and abandon yourself to–"
"Stop it. Stop it."
Hermione frantically covered her ears with her hands as she tried to block out not just his cruel words but also the haunting and disturbingly clear images that they were conjuring in her head. She managed to ignore the memories but she could not block his voice out entirely.
"Fine. But I believe you were yelling words to the opposite effect that particular night. Something more along the lines of–"
Her hands had left her ears and formed two tight fists. In a few steps, she could be standing toe to toe with him. He was too tall now for her to hit him squarely in the face, but she reasoned she could just punch him in the stomach and then break his nose when he was doubled over. Maybe kick him in the shin for good measure. Or significantly higher up, in retribution for that comment about her providing him with heirs. Maybe after she boxed Draco's nose a bit she might be more amenable to sitting down and politely talking this problem out? Either that, or he would be less motivated to try and force Hermione Granger into something she did not want to do.
It was time to get proactive.
The loud creak of the large wooden entry doors opening interrupted Hermione's incensed progress over the rich carpet.
"Draco, you're back! How did it go in Geneva?"
A/N: When I'm good, I very very good… but when I'm bad, I'm awful. I have consulted the Sorting Hat and it keeps placing me in Ravenclaw, which means I have to keep up the Slytherin-ly behaviour if I ever have a chance of making it! So, another evil cliffie!
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to read or add this to Favourites / Alerts. It's good to know that there are people out there who can muddle through this and get something out of it as well. Love especially to those who reviewed. Those itty bitty boxes with words in them brighten my day significantly. It really helps to get some feedback so I know that I'm not just imagining the hit counter increasing. Cheers!