Chapter Thirteen

"Merlin's fucking sac! What the hell, Hermione?" Adrian howled, tugging his hair free from her hand as he covered his face.

Shoving him back into the bed as he tried to get up, she snarled, "Why? Why did you do it? He's your friend!"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Fuck, I think you broke my nose."

"I'm going to break a hell of a lot more if you don't drop the act and start talking."

Throwing his blood covered hands up, he emphatically repeated, "I do not know what you're talking about! You've gone round the bend, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that, you lying sack of hippogriff shite!" she yelled, hitting him in the face with a Stinging Jinx. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. Tell me!"

Groaning as he looked back down and began to scrub at his face, Adrian fumbled around for his wand, finally finding it. He only managed to get off a counter spell for the swelling burn in his cheeks however, before Hermione summoned it to her hand, holding his defense hostage.

"What did I do to you to warrant all of this? What did Marcus do?"

At first she thought she was going to have to repeat her question yet again. Then slowly his shoulders began to shake and he started to look up at her. Gone was the mask of confusion that despite her wrath was beginning to whisper in her head that maybe she had gotten it wrong. In its place was what she could only imagine hid beneath the disarming and charming persona of the wizard she thought was her friend, Marcus's friend.

Smiling at her through the blood that had gushed out his nose and looking far more dangerous than she had originally given him credit for, he pointed a finger at her and said, "You know, I knew I was taking a risk by bringing him to you but it had to be done.

"He was going to leave it all behind after this season. Said he couldn't take it anymore — hated how he had to continue playing into the persona he had crafted in Ibiza while trying to forget you. You know, almost all of what he's done these last years has been to protect you. He would, and has, done anything that's been asked of him in the name of keeping your secret."

"So it's true?" she asked, somehow still shocked by his confession despite the evidence she had found. "You not only wrote to him pretending to be me and sent him pictures of me with Draco but you're fucking blackmailing him. Blackmailing me?"

Tossing the blood spattered sheet of his bed back, he stood up and made his way over to his dresser, pulling a pair of joggers on over his nude form. Leaning against the sleek piece of furniture, he crossed his arms and nonchalantly confirmed, "Nasty business blackmail, but yes. I needed to ensure he kept playing along. Give him a credible threat against you and he caves to whatever is being demanded of him. Leave the country; continue to sleep around so that your hatred of him was allowed to keep festering; sell his shares on the Ibizan Hounds. Spineless; you love a spineless, pathetic, imbecile." Laughing, he dragged his hands over his face and said to the ceiling, "Brightest Witch of Her Age and she falls for what is easily the thickest wizard to have walked the halls of Hogwarts. He didn't even question it! He just started forking it all over and asking how high, when I told him to jump. I mean honestly what did you, do you, even see in him?"

Leering at her as his eyes slowly went down the length of her body before tracking back up in such a way that had her tugging at the hem of Marcus's shirt as she pulled her coat tighter around her, he smirked, "I mean aside from the sex. Tell me, did you at least stop to wipe your cunt clean of his come before coming here?"

Slashing her wand through the air, she silenced his words and promised, "Do not tempt me, Adrian. I am not to be fucked with right now."

With a roll of his eyes, he mirrored her wand movement with his hand, reversing her charm and plainly reminded, "Don't forget, sweetheart, I'm just as gifted as you with Charms," before snapping his fingers and summoning his wand back to him. "Maybe even more so."

Firing off a series of curses at his smug face, her rage grew as he lazily deflected each of them. It wasn't that she was out of practice with so many years having passed since the war's end as she continued to regularly spar with Harry and later Kingsley, but that he was infuriatingly that good. That talented with Charms and thus exceptionally skilled in dueling. His turning down several offers of apprenticeship — including one from Professor Flitwick — as well as offers of coveted employment within the Ministry in favor of going into law had stunned her at the time and continued to baffle her for years after until she herself left all the offers behind to forge her own path. Though she imagined their motives for doing so were vastly different.

I like the challenge of manipulating and bending things to my will, he had explained during her fifth year when she couldn't comprehend why he would do something that was seemingly so ludicrous.

Now however as she relented in her offensive attack, she saw the deeper truth behind his words then and through all the years that followed. It was a constant conversation of double talk. Adrian's words could often have two or three meanings but as a friend — or rather as Marcus's friend whom she began to call her own — she often took his twisted speech at face value. She never stopped to question him or his motives and reasons as he continued to hang around despite how much time passed between her and Marcus having been together. She had simply accepted him into her circle and had begun to count him among her closest, dearest, and most trustworthy of friends. A mistake Marcus had made and she repeated with fatal consequences for their relationship.

Unable to puzzle him out, she asked, "Why?" her voice devoid of her earlier all consuming anger as she studied him. "This isn't Othello, and you're not Iago, so why? You have to have a reason, a real one. What did we ever do to you?"

"Gods, you really are just as clueless as him, aren't you? Open your pretty eyes, Hermione!" he yelled. "Why the fuck would anyone go through all of this?"

Hating the words as they left her mouth, she shook her head and admitted, "I don't know. That's the problem. He was your friend. He never would have done something like this to you."

"Of course not," he hissed, stepping away from the dresser. "Marcus bloody Flint would have had no reason to do any of this. And even if he did, let's be honest: you and I both know he lacks the stones for such conviction.

"He's a fucking brute with about as much sense as a troll. Without you and quidditch, he would be nothing. And the funny thing is, he wouldn't even have you if he wasn't so godsdamn stupid. I mean he didn't even know who the fuck you were until you became his tutor. But I did.

"Tell me, love, do you remember how we met?" he asked, standing before her, his back partially hunched as his hands rested on his knees to stare directly into her eyes.

Wanting to step back but feeling her long since tempered Gryffindor tendencies roar to life as they forced her to stand her ground, she snapped, "Third year, in the infirmary. What of it?"

Unable to control her flinch as he brushed an escaping strand of hair back from her face while tilting his head and examining her, Adrian cooed, "You're so beautiful. Even then, with your bushy hair that was more frizz than curl and your adorable buck teeth, you were capable of drawing my eye. So sweet and timid but with such fortification I wouldn't have been surprised if your bones and will had been forged by goblins. Prone to blushing and stuttering over the slightest flirtatious inflection. And your mind… brilliant beyond all acceptable reason… You captivated me.

"The match that landed me in Pomfrey's care obliterated any chance I had at playing professionally. Did you know that? Even with magic, the scar tissue from the tears in my rotator cuff meant any hope of a career in the league died while I was in that bed recovering.

"I trained for hours to be even a fraction as good at the game as Marcus was, is. Hours and hours of flying, running drills, weight training. I improved and got good, great even, but when your competition is a bloke who looks like he was specifically crafted for the sport and is a godsdamned prodigy, nothing is ever really enough."

With another spark of anger and sense of injustice flaring to life, Hermione snapped, "Marcus dedicated every moment he had to the game and I imagine he still does given the demand there is for him as a player despite your sabotage of him. You act like his career was just handed to him."

"It basically was," he scoffed. "Teams started scouting him when he was only a fourth year. They showed up to watch the sixth and seventh years and his sheer size commanded their attention. Soft offers started flying in that summer and by the end of his sixth year, he was the most sought after player in the league's history.

"And he was going to throw it all away to play for the Montrose bloody Magpies because he would be able to visit his little girlfriend at school whenever he wanted," he spat. "Other people's dreams that they would never see come true — my dream — handed to him and he fucking tossed it aside like it was a piece of tin. But I've digressed."

Finally leaving her space, Adrian began to pace about his bedroom. Stopping to adjust something on his nightstand, he asked, "Where was I?" only to answer himself by saying, "That's right, my injury and meeting you. He came to see me everyday and every day you would be there and every day he would ask after your name again or just say, 'hey, you.' Not that I think you really cared at that point but he didn't even see you. Couldn't even be bothered to remember your name. He wouldn't have even been able to have picked you out of a lineup, that's how insignificant you were to him. But again, I'm digressing because that didn't become an issue for me until the fall.

"The whole rest of the year, you were mine. I made it a point to come visit you in the Hospital Wing even after I left; I would seek you out in the library; alter how I got to my classes so I could bump into you. I did everything to make sure I was on your radar. And you — with your nose always stuck in some book or scolding Potter and Weasley — hardly paid me any mind beyond that of common courtesy. It was okay though, I was, am, a very patient person. I knew it was only a matter of time before you finally looked up and began taking stock of the wizards that surrounded you and when that time came, I would be there."

Having nothing else to do, Hermione laughed. The entire idea was absurd. She remembered her third year very vividly having re-lived aspects of it several times over while using the Time-Turner. In all that time, Adrian Pucey — a wizard who had nearly the entire Hogwarts population of witches fawning all over him because of how undeniably beautiful he is — had never once shown an interest in her. Even with her poorly developed social skills at the time, she was certain she would have noticed if the Adonis of Slytherin was paying her special attention, because contrary to what he believed, she had definitely taken notice of him.

"Oh my God, you're cracked. Every witch in Hogwarts wanted to throw you her knickers at one point or another, myself included. You should have just fucking said something, if you found me that beguiling. Instead you decided to lob a Bombarda at me.

"So no, don't fucking try this shite about you being some poor, unseen friend, forced to stand in the background while Marcus ran off with the girl of your dreams. It doesn't suit you."

Surging forward, he grasped her cheeks in his hand, squeezing until she was certain she'd bruise despite her best efforts at prying his fingers loose. Then smashing his lips to hers, he forced his tongue into her mouth, making her gag and offer up more entry for him in response. Shoving against him as his hand came up to grope her already fingerprint bruised bum, she made a fist and punched the underside of his jaw to get him off of her.

Wiping her mouth of his saliva as he spit blood out onto the floor, she demanded, "What the hell, Adrian?" moving to the doorway while keeping her front to him and her wand raised.

"I should be asking you that," he responded, rubbing his chin. "What the hell did you see in him? What the hell do you continue to see in him? Why did it take years for you to notice me and even then you would only let me fuck you? I mean sweet Salazar Hermione, I helped you get away with murder. And still, I wasn't good enough for you. Flint fucking comes back into your life after sticking his prick in half the witches across Europe, whispers a few sweet nothings in your ear about you always having been, ' his angel,' and you literally get on your knees to gag on his cock once again like a common corner whore. It's fucking pathetic!"

"Says the man that spent the last decade keeping Marcus and I apart so that he could have a chance at getting in my knickers."

"A chance? Oh sweetheart, we both know I had more than a chance. You would bounce on my cock all night long and loved every single second of it."

"Because I was thinking of him!" she unwisely yelled back. "I was thinking of Marcus. I was imagining you were him and you know what? It got me off better than you ever could, every single time."

The crack of the back of his hand across her face was a surprise. Even as her head snapped to the side and the sound reverberated through his penthouse, Hermione wasn't entirely sure it had happened. She was dazed by the shock of it even after the brutal way he had gripped her face and groped her body just moments earlier. It wasn't until she could taste the blood in her mouth from where his ring had split her lip and feel the stinging pricks of a thousand hot needles begin to bloom on her cheek that she was able to shake off the stunned cloud in her mind.

Slowly backing up as she silently started to cast every jinx, hex, and curse that passed through her mind, she warned, "He will beat your arse for this, Adrian. Breaking us up, keeping us apart, blackmailing me through him, he could have and probably would have let all that go and walk away without raising a finger against you, but this…" she said, wiping her tender lip on her shoulder. "God, he'll kill you if I don't stop him."

Stalking after her while deflecting her spells and destroying his flat in the process, he smirked, "You won't tell him. Not about that, not about the blackmail, not about any of it."

"And why not?" she challenged, glancing at the reflective surfaces throughout his home as she made her way to his office.

"Self preservation, love. For a Gryffindor, you've got it in spades. You aren't going to do shite, because I still hold the ultimate power when it comes to the two of you. Admittedly I've lost control over Marcus, even before bringing you back into the picture he was slipping the leash, but you…

"You, Hermione, have so much to lose. And I'm not even talking about the way you lured Greyback — who was a citizen under asylum in Italy — to his death. You finally got your precious, spineless, sappy, limp prick boyfriend back and we both know you would do anything to keep him. Tell me, how much do you think it'll hurt him to know you were spreading it for his best mate? Do you think you two could come back from that? Could you forgive him and move on, if it were he and Lavender?"

Finally making it into his office, which had a large terrace that overlooked Edinburgh and could be accessed through the double doors behind his desk, Hermione dropped her frightened countenance and unmasked herself as quickly as he had, flippantly saying, "Go ahead," as she started to destroy the room in search of the evidence he kept.

Attacking the wards on the drawers of his desk, she pried his magic loose and began dumping them out. Quickly moving throughout the room, she made fast work of his shelves, filing cabinets, and the small closet all while he physically and magically assaulted the barrier she erected between him and the space.

Looking at him as she reached up the chimney of his fireplace, she gave a rather smug shrug of her shoulders while turning her lips down, and said, "You're the one who has forgotten who you're dealing with. I've fought in a war against people with decades more experience than I; I've been tortured by a witch who was known for literally driving people into insanity and not only kept my mind but my secrets; I've survived curses that no one else has, faced the worst humanity has to offer, been persecuted, judged, and ridiculed and I survived it all and made myself stronger for it, all by the time I was eighteen."

Slashing her wand through the cushions of his couch before tossing them off entirely, she continued, "I now co-own one of the most successful businesses in all of Wizarding Britain and have a list a mile long of people with enough political clout and capital to remake our government if I so wanted in my pocket and indebted to me for helping them out of their sticky situations. I may have needed you five years ago, but I don't now. So don't be a fool and over estimate your worth and the value of the secrets you hold… again.

"You may have been able to manipulate us before but that ends today because unlike last time, I see you, Adrian; just like you always wanted. I see you for the entitled, selfish, spoiled, evil, little boy you are and you won't manage to pull another one over on me."

Turning the couch upside down before starting on his floorboards, she challenged, "From the very start, Blaise and I have had a contingency plan in place — a fire alarm if you will — that we can ring in the event of Italy coming to light."

Finding an unassuming, black box under the third randomly selected plank of wood, she grabbed it and tucked it under her arm, her wand raised as her shields to keep him out finally collapsed.

"Do your worst, Adrian, because I promise you, if you do not leave Marcus alone and pass off his legal needs to us, we will burn your house down with you in it. Even if we have to go down with you."

Tapping the box with her wand as she slashed her hand through the air to rebound his curse, she demanded, "I know this isn't the rest of it. In two weeks you better show up at my office with everything you have on us. And I mean everything.

"You're not the only one skilled in digging up dirt and pressing where it hurts. I get paid very well to ruin people who have done nothing to me, so just think what I'll do to you — the person who destroyed the man I love for ten years and who thought nothing of breaking me in the process."

Blowing out the glass of the French doors that led to his terrace, she reminded, "Two weeks," before Disapparating with a thunderous crack.