Zzzzz...
"So… You're really going out with Theodore Nott, then?" Harry wrinkled his nose and Hermione had to roll her eyes.
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with Theo," she pointed out.
The last day of school before the Christmas holidays was at an end and they were all packed and were just lounging in the common room.
"He's weird."
"He's not weird!"
"Yeah, he is!" Harry was grinning now. "He's really, really odd."
"Well, how fortunate for you that you don't have to date him, then!"
"Aw, don't be mad," Harry said, looking anything but contrite. "I'm sure he has nice… brains… and other qualities. I just sort of thought you'd end up with Ron once all this was sorted out."
"That would have been neat, wouldn't it?" Hermione muttered.
"It would," Harry agreed. "Sort of. But I think that he actually might be sort of almost together with Lavender again now."
Hermione frowned. "Lavender? I thought she annoyed the heck out of him."
"Oh, she did. And I don't think it's exactly love this time, either." Harry shook his head. "I suppose it doesn't have to be. Why be alone if you don't have to, you know?"
Hermione didn't really know what to reply to this. She was glad Ron was moving on, but she just had a difficult time understanding why he'd just be with someone he didn't even seemed to like very much instead of trying to find someone he might like. "But… I don't see why he's risking another one of her Christmas presents," she muttered.
Harry burst out laughing. "He probably told her not to get him anything."
"Or maybe he gave her a crash course in taste."
"Who, Ron?" Harry raised an eyebrow.
"You're right. My mistake," Hermione drily replied.
Harry laughed again. "We're being mean."
"Yeah, but mean is fun."
He shook his head. "You're really spending much too time with Slytherins."
Hermione blinked and frowned. "Do you really mean that?" she asked, almost afraid of the answer. She would just hate to turn into Malfoy.
"No, of course not," Harry replied, grinning. He really did have the most obnoxiously good Christmas spirits this year. "Besides, I started it, didn't I?" he asked.
He was right. She was being silly. Her frown deepened. Why was she being so silly, putting too much meaning into a joke, and more importantly, why was she giving it so much thought now?
"Hermione?" Harry ventured. "You think too much. Stop it."
"I know," she murmured.
The funny thing was she knew that there were things that she probably ought to think about that she firmly kept blocked from her mind. It was just too much for her to deal with just now. Joking around with a friend was infinitely more preferable.
"The library. Right. Where else would one want to spend one's Saturday morning and last hours before going home? It makes perfect sense. You know, this place is actually closed."
Hermione scowled at her blond nuisance. "What do you want, Malfoy?" she asked.
"Of course, I don't know why I even bother being surprised since this was the first place I looked for you, so something suggests that perhaps you're predictable enough for people to know exactly where you'll be. That has to be sort of depressing."
"Malfoy!"
He plonked down in a chair across from her. "So, I was thinking…"
"Did you hurt yourself?"
He rolled his eyes. "Really, Granger, you need some new material."
"But the old material fits so well!"
"I was thinking," he repeated, ignoring her, "that there was a misconception that I probably should correct."
"What? Just the one?" she drily asked.
He scowled. "That I will correct, yes. And this would go so much faster if you wouldn't interrupt all the time."
"Oh, I wasn't sure there was a point to this at all."
Again, he ignored her and leaned forwards. "You think that I'll be using the bracelet again, don't you?"
This momentarily shocked Hermione into silence, but he waited her out until she had to reply. "I'm sure I never thought of it, much less care to know."
Draco snorted. "Right. You threw it in my face often enough. Well, I won't."
"Good." She returned to her book.
"You don't believe me."
"Methinks thou doth protest too much."
"I didn't think you would." This fact seemed to annoy him a little. Hermione found that annoying Malfoy was very pleasing to her indeed.
"Then why bother?" she asked, wondering what his agenda was.
"I can convince you."
"Why?"
He didn't reply but just reached down into the schoolbag she hadn't noticed him wearing and placed a box on the table. She immediately recognized it as the one that contained the ring and bracelet when she'd first seen it.
"What do you plan to do with that?" She was warily cringing away from him, unable to help herself.
He looked up at her, his gaze very intense. "Absolutely nothing. Merry Christmas." He got up and began walking away.
Hermione frowned and reached out to flip the lid open. There it was: the jewelry that had pretty much been the bane of her existence. She shook her head. "I thought you said they were worth a fortune," she called after him.
"They are," he called back without turning around or stopping. "I know a wizard down in Knockturn Alley if you plan on selling…"
She stared after him. If she planned on selling? Her gaze shifted back to the box. Wasn't he broke? And he'd never answered why he needed to convince her that he wouldn't use it again.
Draco managed to get a clean getaway by deliberately going in the opposite direction of the dungeons before doubling back down another corridor. She would get over her surprise and then try to follow him to badger him about why he had given up the bracelet. Never mind that the Hogwarts Express would leave for London very soon and she needed to be on it.
Why indeed. He doubted she wanted to know the answer.
He'd spent several nights since the end of the bet, staring at the jewelry, imagining putting it on someone else. Anyone else. He'd thought of trying it on Pansy and later Astoria and even a few girls he hardly knew.
The result was always the same.
He couldn't. He had a very powerful physical reaction when just thinking about it. Once he'd put the bracelet in his pocket, just intending to ask Pansy to wear it for five minutes, and as soon as he'd seen her, he'd become so violently sick that he'd actually retched and he'd just barely managed to drag himself back to his room without anyone asking him any questions he couldn't answer.
The next step had been asking his mother about the bracelet and its magic, which was tricky in itself, since he didn't know who actually read their correspondence. He truly wouldn't put it past the Order to read his letters, trying to get to his father. He somehow managed to be obscure enough without being too obscure, though, and get the message through to his mother.
When she had finally replied, the answer hadn't been very encouraging.
Naturally, she wondered why he would want to know, but other than that—nobody had ever used the bracelet on more than one witch.
Not ever.
Even if the first wife died, there were no records of anyone even trying to use it a second time. The magic was too strong, too intense, and nobody ever wanted to be that intimate with more than one person, even if the first use was unsuccessful in sparking any lasting emotions.
And even should they want to, they weren't able to. Nobody knew why anymore, but the magic wouldn't allow for it to happen. He could kill himself trying.
Basically, he was screwed.
He did gather that he hadn't exactly somehow irreversibly bound himself to Hermione—which was a huge relief—but there didn't seem to be any way for him ever to get that mentally close to another person again.
So he was left craving her.
And she had never even really felt the closeness.
At least now that he had given her the cursed things, she would maybe stop giving him that suspicious look. He had noticed how she would glance at his ring finger, suspecting the right thing for the wrong reasons. He didn't want a girl to boss around—he wanted to feel close, connected.
She would never really understand. Not unless she tried wearing the ring herself, and he highly doubted she ever would.
He was almost back to the dungeons, when he heard Blaise's voice coming from a side corridor. Feeling a bit curious about what his friend was up to, he decided to find out.
"Let me go, I'm going to miss the train!"
Ah. Angry female voice must belong to Tracey. Edging a bit closer and peeking around a corner proved him right. This couldn't be good.
"You have plenty of time to get to the train. What did you tell him?"
Draco inaudibly sighed. It seemed Blaise had decided to ignore his advice about letting it go. He should leave and let them fight in privacy… but he didn't. He found himself really needing to know how bad his friend would be off, and since said friend currently wasn't talking to him…
"It's none of your business what I tell my boyfriend, Zabini."
Draco couldn't help but marvel a bit at just how feisty Tracey had turned lately. She'd always blended in with the wallpaper before as far as he was concerned. Of course, being dogged by someone as thickskulled as Blaise could probably drive anyone mad.
"Yeah? I heard you broke up!"
"Well, of course we broke up, you idiot!" she hissed. "I snogged some other bloke, you really think he was going to just accept that?"
Blaise grabbed Tracey's arm. "I told you to lie!" he growled. "Why are you doing this? Is it some roundabout way to get back at me? You won't be with me and you won't be happy without me either?"
She yanked her arm free. "I don't have to do anything you tell me to do, and not everything is about you, Mr. Ego. I know it might be hard for you to understand, but some of us don't want relationships based on lies."
"I never lied to you!"
Tracey looked as if she'd been slapped, but quickly recovered enough to say, "No, you didn't, did you? So much worse the fool I was. I took kisses for promises."
"Tracey…"
"No. You leave me alone. Stop following me around. Stop messing with my head. Stop trying to interfere with my relationships. We're done."
"We're not done!" Blaise insisted. "I made a huge mistake, I know, but why can't you just try to forgive me? I lo—"
"NO!" she yelled loud enough to stop Blaise and make Draco blink. "Don't you dare go there! If you really cared about me, you wouldn't want to… to just have some sordid little affair, hoping your mother didn't find out. What happens when we leave school? Hm?"
Tears were shimmering in her eyes, threatening to overflow. Draco felt a tug of sympathy for her. Blaise really was an arse these days.
"You buy some secret little cottage and put me there to be your dirty little secret?" she asked, not giving Blaise time to answer. "While your mother presents you with nice pureblood future marriage prospects? Did you even think about where this would lead? Did you even consider the fact that it would only get worse? That in a year or two walking away would be harder?"
Blaise looked dejected. "I don't want to lose you," he quietly said. "Tell me what I need to do to stop that from happening."
"You already lost me," she replied. "You just didn't let go."
"No!" He violently shook his head. "There has to be a way!"
She slowly shook her head. "No, Blaise. There isn't. I was stupid enough to think there might be once, but you were right to keep it casual. It couldn't work. I was the one who shouldn't have thought it was more than it was. I just never thought that far back then. It was really, really stupid. You can blame it on a teenage witch that was too dumb to tell sex from love. I know now that we couldn't be together, even if it had been more. You'd lose all your friends, and your mother would make your life hell."
"Then so be it. We'll find a way, we could run and—"
"No. It's not worth it."
"But I love you."
She smiled a little sadly. "No, you don't."
"I do! I never meant those things I said about blood and all that other crap… You know I didn't. The kisses were promises. I would have figured my feelings for you out eventually and we would have—"
She shook her head again. "No, Blaise. You wouldn't have figured it out. There was nothing to figure out. You would have gotten tired of sleeping with me and dumped me. Just like you did with every girl before me. You just think it's love because you weren't done with me and it's driving you crazy."
"Tracey…"
"I really have to make my train now."
She walked away without a backward glance, leaving Blaise looking lost and crushed. Draco thought that now was probably a good time to disappear, but before he had taken two steps, Blaise rounded the corner.
"So you heard, huh?" was all the other boy said. His lack of reaction astonishing.
"Kind of hard not to," Draco awkwardly replied.
"Good. Then I don't need to explain. Dumbledore is kind of busy these days, but you have sort of special status. Could you get me a meeting with him?"
Draco frowned in confusion. "I'm not sure I could do that. Why…?"
"I'm going to run and I'm hoping this… Order of the Phoenix will help me hide from my mother. They help against any dark wizards and witches, right? You know what my mother is like, the minute she finds out I'm not going to fulfill her plans and give her a pureblood heir, I become dispensable."
Becoming dispensable around Blaise's mother had a tendency to be fatal—although there was never any evidence to implicate the beautiful witch. There was a silence as Draco took that in. "Run with Tracey?" he then asked.
Blaise's face fell and he shook his head. "You heard her. She doesn't want to. It would probably be a miserable life for her anyway, losing contact with her friends and family just to be with me. I… She doesn't believe me and even if she did, I don't think she's really in love with me anymore. I hurt her too badly."
"Then why are you going to do it?" Draco quietly asked.
"Because, if Tracey ever changes her mind, I want to be able to offer her more than some… sordid affair. If I ever find another girl that I feel this way about again, I want to be able to just be with her. Being free to sleep around but not be with the one that I want blows. I want to be free."
"Running doesn't make you free."
"What do you suggest I do then?" Blaise sharply asked. "Commit matricide? I can't do that!"
Draco thought about this for a second. "You could hide for a while and supply the Ministry with some of the information they need to put her in Azkaban. She can't hurt you from there." Even as he said it, he didn't really believe it was an option. People had often enough tried to make him turn in his own father. Still, Blaise's mother was different. She redefined cold.
"She's my mother."
"Didn't she kill your father?"
Blaise sighed and shrugged. "I don't know, actually. She claims she didn't. That he had a spell backfire on him. The evidence supports her story."
"Yeah, but didn't it happen after he filed for divorce?"
Blaise shook his head. "Coincidences do happen, Draco."
"She had seven coincidences like this," Draco pointed out, "each one making her richer."
Blaise looked away. "I know. And don't get me wrong, I absolutely hate her and I don't trust her not to try and hurt me or Tracey, but…"
"She's your mother."
"Yeah."
Draco felt another surge of bitterness against those who thought theirs should be an easy choice. Do what's right—sell out your family and be completely alone. He didn't show his thoughts, though, but just shrugged. "Fair enough. I'll see what I can do about a meeting."
"Thanks, mate," Blaise muttered.
They were such a happy lot these days.
"Besides," Astoria said, moving a little closer. "Maybe you'll get lucky and she'll get jealous."
He snorted a laugh at that highly unlikely scenario. "You're one manipulative little witch, you know that?"
"Yes, of course. I really want you to agree to this and I'll do what it takes."
"You'll do anything to see it happen?" he drily asked.
"Well…" she murmured, taking another step closer.
