Chapter 44

Hermione got home and threw her bag in the corner. She was too angry to go back to work. She'd wanted to hit Blaise right across his smug face. She hadn't, because she didn't do such things, but she had gotten up without another word and just walked out.

Anger diffused into her bones and it sat there like red hot little embers. She knew she wasn't just angry at Blaise, although he deserved a good hard kneeing where it hurts, she was angry with the whole situation. She could actually throw something right now and she regretted that it hadn't been the haughty tea service. She could actually see herself having a full on childish tantrum while Blaise ducked for his life. But she didn't do such things, she was mature and mature people didn't behave like that. Turns out they wanted to though.

She was too angry to do anything, so she just sat down on the couch and crossed her arms while she worked out whatever it was that had completely hijacked her emotional state. Of course it had to do with Draco and the way he was acting. The way he had just slipped back into his old ways. It was like he was putting pressure on her, that it was her that kept him together and if she walked away, he would just sink down to the depths of his previous charming behaviour. He was better than that, why could he just accept it and act like it? She would not be blackmailed, she affirmed with fury. If he wanted to act like a creep and just let things slip, then what was she supposed to do about it? It would make her decision easier to make if it just ceased to exist.

She hadn't quite intended on them breaking up, but in light of his behaviour, that seemed to have been what happened. He had walked away immediately and decisively. It had kind of snuck up on her and she had just realised this afternoon, along with the knowledge that she would now have to process all this emotional crap related to it. It felt like a conversation that had just finished mid-sentence and she'd been left hanging waiting for it to resume. But it wasn't going to resume, it was over. Like a ripped off bandage. They best way, they say.

There was the upside of not having to deal with a future in Malfoy Manor and all the pureblood bullshit. It felt really strange that this wasn't an issue any more. An issue that had torn her apart into the deepest levels and it had just evaporated. Well not entirely, her concerns were broader that Draco and his immediate environment, her issue had to do with the traditional ways of the Wizard community in general. It was still an issue she had to face; she just didn't perhaps need to choose between the two extremes.

She had definitely been trying to juggle the values of the wizard world and that of her own. Her own family wanted her out of the wizard world, but she knew that something in her wouldn't feel complete if she turned her back on this part of her. Draco had pushed this dilemma into very harsh light and it wasn't going away just because he had.

Desperate loneliness gripped her over the next few days. She would not give into the ice-cream cliché, she decided. She was a big girl and she could face this. She swung between fierce independence to an all-consuming need to know where he was and what he was doing. His things started to bother her; they would remind her of him every time she turned around. They would remind her of things she didn't want to think of. She had to clear them away after a while. She gathered them all up and shoved them all the way in the back of a cupboard.

She tried to focus on the bad things about him, which inevitably led her to realise that it was mostly the crap around him that had pulled them apart. There was his arrogance and the way he was kind of spoilt. But strangely, that also formed part of his charm and the reason why they fit so well together when they were alone. He was intelligent, challenging and committed. He didn't hide his opinions, even when they were extreme and he was ready to defend them. He listened to her opinions, argued with her and picked apart her reasoning, assumptions and general thinking. Not that she would give him any points for it, she would argue back until they invariably found some point of opposing values. And then there was the sex, which quite frankly she wasn't sure how she would survive without because he challenged her there as well. And she ached for him at times.

No one had wanted them to be together, seemingly including the two of them. She missed him desperately. She was constantly listening for owls at the window, hoping he would establish dialogue between them, but nothing came. Before long she just wanted to know he was ok. Sometimes the part that just simply cared about him would rise to the surface and she just wanted to know that he wasn't suffering. Intellectually she knew that he was on some level, even though he had taken this step.

He had reverted to his self-destructive behaviour, the lifestyle that he had been so keen on leaving behind. She had been so angry with him for it, but now it just sat really badly with her and it wasn't letting up. She wished she could just ask someone, but none of her friends were acquainted with that crowd. The only one who she saw on a regular basis and who she could potentially ask was Blaise, but over her dead body really. She would rather drill holes in her own teeth that ask him.

"Blaise," Hermione said a week later when she appeared at his office.

"Hermione, what a pleasant surprise," he said looking up from his large oak desk that looked at least two hundred years old. She could see that he was surprised to see him. He stood up from the desk and vestured for her to come in. "Do you want some tea?"

"No thanks," she said with a tight grimace that was supposed to be smile.

"You look great," he said. It was a lie. Her appearance had not been something she'd taken care of lately. She just pulled on whatever cloths were near, provided they didn't smell too bad and she hadn't even brushed her hair. Although surprisingly, her hair seemed to appreciate the lack of care. It actually did look better for it.

Blaise sat down in his chair again and leaned back. His finely tailored shirt showed him off nicetly through the expensive material. Purple vertical stripes. She hated that he had the confidence to wear purple stripes, and not look like a complete pansy. He looked fantastic and he knew it. "How can I be of assistance?"

"I'm actually trying to find Draco," she said sucking up what was left of her pride. Having to ask Blaise was an act of sheer desperation.

"Ah," Blaise said. Hermione could see a bit of disappointment or reprimand in his expression. "As I said, he is probably in some gutter somewhere."

"I need to know where he is," Hermione said stretching out her hand that had an uncontrollable propensity to form into a fist around Blaise at the moment.

"I am not sure where he is," Blaise said finally.

"You can find out."

Blaise looked away for a moment. "I'll find out for you," he said after a while and looked back at her. Hermione went to get up from the chair she was in. "You're wasting your time," he said.

"It's my time to waste."

She got a note from Blaise the next day. The owl landed on her desk. A magnificent beast of a thing, large enough to take her finger off if she wasn't careful. The purebloods took their owls seriously. The thing stared at her with contempt while she tried to get the note off its leg.

"Shoo," she said with determination when she was done. She was pretty sure it narrowed its eyes at her before flying off.

He is spending the weekend at Babette Huircoix's country estate in Provence.

Your Faithful Servant, Blaise

Blaise obviously had a different definition of faithful; she thought thinking back on how he had dumped her at the first sign of trouble, fake trouble too. She shook her head with dismay.

And who the hell was Babette? Hermione hated her already. She recognised the irrational reaction, but she didn't care. Then she dismissed it deciding she had bigger things to worry about than this irrelevant person.

She wrote a note to Draco saying that they needed to talk. She wasn't entirely sure what about, but there was so much left unsaid. So much they needed to figure out. She sent it off with one of the Ministry owls. Ron couldn't understand why she didn't get her own as she could afford it. He'd gotten himself a nice fancy big owl as soon as his pay check allowed it. She'd hesitated, depending on communal ones, or borrowing others'. Getting an owl was a commitment; a good twenty years and she'd shied away from it for quite a while.

The owl appeared at the window the next evening. Hermione felt her heart race when she saw it scratching at the window pane. She let it in, but could see her own letter on its leg even before she got it untied. Draco's name had been crossed out and 'Return to Sender' had been written on it. It was unopened. She also noted that it wasn't Draco's handwriting.

He had either not bothered to read it, or he had never known it had come. Now that she looked at the hand writing on the letter more closely, she thought the handwriting was a little on the feminine side. Fucking Pansy. Now Hermione was sure that Draco hadn't seen it. Pansy had intercepted it and sent it back. Bitch.

Hermione's imagination ran away with her trying to figure out Pansy's motives. Blaise had pretty much said that Pansy was with him and was 'taking care of him', whatever that meant. Pansy had always been protective of Draco. They had been an item back at school, and of all the people, Pansy had been the least welcoming of Hermione and Draco's relationship. She wondered if the girl was trying to re-establish the relationship between them. Surely Pansy realised that if he had wanted to be with her, he would have. It wasn't like she hadn't been available. But now he was hurt and perhaps a little vulnerable and she was sure that Pansy was taking full advantage. It turned her stomach thinking of them together. Hermione knew that for all her faults and downright vile shallowness, Draco did trust Pansy.