I really abuse italics in this story. And that's after I removed a ton during my editing phases.

Soon this fic will be over and I'll have nowhere to write A/Ns pimping all sorts of things. I'll miss writing my A/Ns. At least I'll still have my LJ. You should check that out. It's the one place where I'll sort-of-kind-of reliably pimp out everything I write. Soonish I'll find somewhere to post a 25k word Pansy/Blaise fic with background D/Hr that kind of screws up all of Pansy's plans for herself. :P It's really very, very dysfunctional, come to think of it. Putting warnings on that thing to avoid triggering people will be a nightmare. Oh, look! That's me pimping stuff I didn't even completely finish yet! Here's to me finishing that project tonight so I can get back to the D/Hr fic I wanted to write in honour of Draco's 30th birthday which really should begin posting around then, creating an overlap with Bracelet if that happens. Hrm. Don't say I'm not prolific. And don't worry, I plan on working on every project I promised to deliver this summer.


Draco eagerly unfolded the parchment, skimmed it, and then punched the wall, crumpling the note, barely registering the physical pain through his disappointment. This little project of his wasn't going so well and it was going slowly. He was going to run out of time before he managed to see it through.

He was also well aware that the longer he left Hermione to her own devices, the greater the risk that she would get over whatever feelings she might have for him.

Blaise kept saying that at least Draco had told his mother and that the proof of this should be enough. Maybe he was right. But Draco just really wanted to somehow be able to show Hermione that if she gave him a chance, everything would be all right. Nothing would be in their way.

Only, his mother had different ideas. She was not happy with Draco's 'infatuation' and in the few letters she'd managed to get to him in the past few weeks, she kept alternating between asking him if he was sure, pleading with him to think of his family, and threatening to cut him off.

He really couldn't show those letters to Hermione. Hermione would only give him that annoying, understanding look and tell him that he wouldn't want to go through with something against his mother's wishes.

He was very prepared to go against his mother's wishes. True, he didn't really believe she would cut him off, but even if she did… he couldn't spend the rest of his life sacrificing his own happiness because his Mum told him to.

"Look who we have here!"

Draco looked up, disoriented for a moment, and then recalled that he'd only barely left the Great Hall. And… was that the girl Weasley, actually talking to him? "I'm not in the mood," he said and turned his back on her.

"Oi!" Ginny Weasley sharply said, sounding thoroughly irritated. "Don't be such a rude git! I want to talk to you about something."

"Yeah, and why would I talk to you?" he asked, looking down at the crumpled parchment in his hands and then pressing it into a ball. He wouldn't be needing this for anything. On second thought, though.... He put the ball in his pocket. At least this could be proof that he tried if it came to that. He really hoped it wouldn't. His mother said some fairly nasty things about Hermione and her 'kind' in this letter—things he hoped Hermione would never read.

"You slept with her and then you ignored her," Weasley said. "This means we'd usually get to beat you bloody. Alas, she told us not to. But now we just want to know whether you'll be your usual pratty self or if you'll actually be a human being."

Draco rolled his eyes and began walking towards the dungeons. "You don't get to threaten me. She wanted a one-off."

"Don't you mean two-off?"

He honestly couldn't help the smirk that spread across his features. "Who's counting?"

Suddenly Weasley was in his way. "Cute," she drily said. "But when are you going to do something about it? It's been so long. Fortunately, we didn't tell her this, but we all thought you'd have done something by now!"

Draco leaned forwards, fully intending to tell her to bugger off, but at the last second, he changed his mind. These people were—rather unfortunately—a part of Hermione's life, even though they did seem to be cultivating a strange form of hive mind. He couldn't exactly afford to get on their worst side. "Does she care?" he instead asked.

Weasley snorted. "I am not boosting your ego, Malfoy."

"Then don't tell me about all those secret little fantasies you have about me. Just tell me: does she care?"

Weasley narrowed her eyes at him. "I really don't like you," she stated. "Do you think I would be wasting my time here if I didn't think that she had a… a thing… about you?"

"She does have a thing. She likes that I'm easy to get into bed whenever she feels like it. But I'm done being her toy."

"Oh, come on, Malfoy! You really think Hermione is that superficial?"

"Why not? Everyone else is." He gave her a very telling look that said he knew what she'd been up to in the past.

She must have got the message, because her cheeks went pink. "No, Zabini is. The rest of us just have bad judgment sometimes."

"Ouch, hit a nerve, did I?"

Weasley's lips tightened. "Fine. We will assume that nothing more will happen. Personally, I still hope to get her for a sister-in-law. Harry would like that to happen too, and I know that Ron still fancies her. Then we can all be a family."

How cozy and neatly paired off that would be. "If you have that all figured out, then why talk to me in the first place?"

"Because—" Weasley had an expression of supreme annoyance on her face "—Hermione's happiness takes precedence. And what if it turns out she wanted you? She's not being very open about the subject. It's all up to you whether you're going to try and see if she wants you or not. If you aren't, then how she really feels doesn't matter anyway, does it?"

Draco could only imagine why Hermione was hiding her true thoughts and feelings behind a wall. But that had to mean there was something worth hiding, right? Something she felt could humiliate her if she let even her best friends know? "I'm… working on it," he said and, without elaborating, he went around Weasley and down to the dungeons.

His next owl had better get the response he hoped for. Acceptance or no acceptance, he couldn't afford to wait much longer.


Blaise was staring. Draco hated it when Blaise was staring. "What?" he snarled at his annoying friend.

Blaise shrugged. "Nothing. Just trying to memorize what a perfect idiot looks like."

"Give me a break, would you? I'm working on it!" Draco scowled and returned to his schoolwork. He'd known it was a mistake to do it in the common room rather than at the library, but she might be at the library and if she were, he wouldn't get anything done.

Not that this was much better.

"You're procrastinating, that's what you're doing," Blaise announced, annoying Draco further. "Your mother's attitude isn't what's going to make the difference for her: Your attitude is. And if she's not interested anymore… then your mother's blessing won't change that."

Draco snorted. " 'Anymore'."

"She was interested and you know it. But now you're afraid you blew it with her. The longer you wait, the more likely that's going to be, you know."

Draco carefully studied his own fingernails so he wouldn't have to look at Blaise. Blaise was right, sort of. Except Draco's mind was a lot more confused than that. It was filled with dread and hope all at once. He could go from being sure she wanted him to being sure she didn't within the blink of an eye. He'd been this close to approaching her a few times already, but each time he'd lost his nerve and found some excuse to postpone it.

He didn't want to know. He didn't want to risk having to go through what was left of the year knowing that he had, in fact, done everything he possibly could to prove his feelings to her and that it hadn't made a lick of difference.

So, yes, he was scared. But Blaise wouldn't understand.

"Just be honest," Blaise insisted. "And if that doesn't work, wear her down. She knows you aren't as bad as you've tried to pretend."

Draco scowled. He hated it when Blaise said things about Hermione, acting as if he regularly talked with her. As if he liked her now. "Would you sleep with her?"

Had he actually asked that? The way Blaise was staring at him suggested yes.

"What?" Blaise finally croaked.

Oh, well. Draco might as well just go with it. Ever since Hermione had pulled his leg by claiming Blaise had taken her virginity, Draco had had this occasional… irrational anger towards his friend. Maybe this could vent a bit of it. "If you didn't have Tracey, would you sleep with Hermione?"

"I… what? No! I don't even—no!" Blaise looked absolutely appalled.

Draco considered Blaise's reaction. On one hand, it was good he seemed so shocked at the question, but on the other hand…. "You don't find her attractive?"

Blaise's gaze flickered as he spotted that trap. "She's not my type, that's for sure. And then there's the tiny detail of you."

"What about me?"

"I wouldn't do that to you."

"I did it to Theo."

"No, you didn't. You were in love with her. You wouldn't have touched her otherwise."

Draco pursed his lips. He'd done lots of things with Hermione before he'd been in love with her, but he wasn't going to go that much into detail. "So no?"

"No! Of course not! What's got into you, Draco?"

Draco blushed. What was he going to say? Hermione had teased him a little bit one time, and now he was a jealous git for no reason at all? "Nothing," he muttered.

Blaise frowned. "It's curious. You never even once worried that I might touch Pansy."

"Well, of course you wouldn't."

"Why? Because you wouldn't?"

Draco considered for a second. "No. Because I just knew." Draco did realize the slight absurdity of trusting Blaise with one girl but not another. Maybe it was because Draco had never cared the same way about Pansy. Or maybe it was because Draco had known something about how much Blaise respected and cared about Pansy—as a friend. Not even Blaise would muddle that up with sex.

As cryptic as that statement was, it was enough. "Yeah…" Blaise muttered. "All right. But if you ever again imply I would do such a thing, I'll have to beat you. And I'll do a better job of it than Potter did."

Draco snorted. Not because he didn't believe Blaise would do it, but because he did believe he would. "Noted."

At least he'd managed to divert Blaise's attention from the original subject. For a while.


Hermione almost ran down the stairs. She was late. Crud. She'd dallied for too long over her lunch and then she'd forgotten a book in her room.

Forgetting your books when you lived in a tower off the seventh floor and were supposed to go to a class in the dungeons was not very smart. She had to get her head out of the clouds and begin to pay attention, damn it!

And here she'd been so proud that she still managed to keep up with all of her schoolwork in spite of not feeling quite up to it lately. For weeks she'd managed to be completely normal. But now she was late. Late, late, late! She hated the thought of being late. It didn't fit with the image that she wanted to project of herself.

Also, everyone would look at her when she entered the room. He would look at her. And they'd wonder why she was late, why she'd forgotten her books, why she was losing it.

And if they knew, they would pity her.

No, she was not overreacting at all!

She took the last few steps of this particular staircase in one jump and sped around a corner, only to bump into something unyielding and almost fall on her bottom. She would have fallen if the other person hadn't had good enough reflexes to catch her.

Oh, crud, she'd done that a few times lately as well. She forgot to look where she was going, and before she knew it, she'd knocked some poor unsuspecting first year—or herself—on their arse. She had even run into Malfoy that one time, but he'd barely noticed—

"I'm beginning to think you're doing this on purpose."

Hermione stiffened and then very slowly glanced up at him, only to quickly look anywhere but his face. Malfoy. Looking amused. There is no God. She swallowed. "No… I'm just… in a hurry…" she muttered, the words tripping over each other. "Class started. Aren't you supposed to be there?"

Yes, what was he doing going in the opposite direction when she knew very well that he needed to be in Potions too?

When she looked up again, Malfoy's eyes flashed with something that looked like annoyance—oh, good, she'd annoyed him! Would she ever learn to shut up?—and then he lifted his chin as if in defiance. "Not today. I'm not in the mood to tolerate that elitist old tosser."

"Oh." So he was skiving. She supposed that shouldn't surprise her very much. Belatedly, she realized she hadn't stepped back and, trying to hide her flaming cheeks, she did just that, instantly feeling cold. There was a slight tug as she removed her arms from his grip. Apparently he hadn't thought about their position either. "Well, I still have to, so…."

"Wait!"

She stopped and looked at him in puzzlement. What now? "Yes?" she asked with a small frown.

"You're really late, you know. If you go down there now, you'll just be disrupting class."

"I'll be very quiet."

"You could come with me? We could entertain each other? I, um, I have something I wanted to talk to you about anyway."

Hermione's eyes widened. He wanted to… hang out? With her? That would be… awful. She could just imagine it. "No, I… I really want to do well on my NEWTs."

"You already know you'll do brilliantly."

"I want to do better."

He actually looked disappointed, maybe even a little dejected. "Fine. Have fun." He turned away from her and began walking away.

"Yeah, you too…" Hermione mumbled, also turning her back. These little exchanges always made her feel extremely uncomfortable; her stomach always knotted up and no matter how hard she tried, she could never come up with anything even remotely interesting to say to him.

She simply couldn't relax around him anymore. She was afraid that if she did… he'd see.

She resumed her brisk walk, but she hadn't taken more than a couple of steps before she heard him call out from behind her. She almost stumbled—damn it—before she reluctantly turned back.

"It's not fine," he said, the words rushing out as he stepped towards her. "I really do need to talk to you, Hermione. Please. I have something… we need to talk!" His eyes… they were looking directly into hers and scaring her. Not because they were menacing but… just because.

She involuntarily took a step backwards. "Not now. Class." She was running away. They both knew it. But she couldn't.

If he heard the panicked rejection, he was being remarkably stoic about it. "Then meet me later. Tonight. In your office?"

She couldn't breathe. He knew. He must know. She hadn't hidden it well enough. "Is it really necessary—?"

"Yes. It is." He didn't look like he was going to back down. He wouldn't leave her alone until he had his way. And it was 'just' a conversation. She could do this.

She hoped.

"Fine," she almost whispered. "I'll be there at nine. Can't before."

"That's fine."

She turned around and ran, glad she had the pretense of being late for class. But she never went to the Potions class. Instead she found an empty classroom and spent the next hour trying to control her own breathing and telling herself she was overreacting.

She had to be overreacting.

He didn't mean to go in for the kill. He didn't work or think like that anymore. He wasn't a cold-hearted, cruel, sadistic bastard who wanted nothing more than to see her suffer.

She was almost certain of this.


Next chapter...

"I… you're right… no! Damn it, I can't do it like this!" Draco jumped up and began pacing. "This isn't how I wanted it."

"How?"

"With all the bickering and such."

"Then stop it!"

He stopped his pacing and looked at her for a long moment. "Tell me something, Hermione," he finally softly said. "Do you even like me at all?"