Chapter Three.
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"So, I see congratulations are in order?" Julie chuckled as she led Hermione into the therapy office and watched as the woman settled down on the couch.
"Surely you don't believe everything you read in that rag?" Hermione smiled and rolled her eyes at her therapist. "I think it might have been the most ridiculous article about me yet."
Hermione heard Julia laughed and watched as the woman collected up her notes from their previous sessions before sitting in her normal chair. She liked Julia. She had instantly made her feel welcome and at ease, as did her office. Instead of the other therapists, of which she had been through seven before settling on this one, her office was light, airy and set up to feel more like a living room. It almost felt, to Hermione at least, like visiting a friend for a cup of coffee and a chat. A friend who wrote copious notes about you, prescribed you drugs and was paid to listen to your worries, but a friend just the same.
"How has your week been, Hermione?" Julia asked kindly and Hermione shrugged.
"Eventful, I suppose." Hermione chuckled, turning to the older woman. "I saw Dr- him again, for the first time."
"And how did that particular meeting go?" the therapist enquired and Hermione shook her head sadly.
She had cried for hours after their very brief encounter at Blaise's apartment. When she got home she had found just enough strength to drag herself to her sofa before curling in on herself and sobbing her heart out. Blaise had come through about twenty minutes later and silently pulled her head onto his lap and sat up with her into the early hours, stroking her hair. She hadn't asked what had happened after she left. In truth, she wasn't sure that she wanted to know.
"As expected." Hermione shrugged. "He sneered and insulted me. I cried, left and stayed up all night."
"Do you think that is a healthy coping mechanism, Hermione?" Julia frowned and Hermione shook her head.
"It's all I've got, though." She admitted and watched as the woman made some notes before turning to her with a smile.
"Would you like to talk about that, or is there something else you feel you need to discuss?" She asked patiently.
"I'm beginning to find myself yearning for annonymity again." Hermione admitted with a sigh. "The same way I felt before Eloise appeared."
"Do you think you would go down that road again?" Julia asked and Hermione snorted.
"God, no!" She exclaimed. "Look where it got me!"
"It's good that you have come to understand that, but would you care to tell me how you arrived at that conclusion?" The older woman urged and Hermione sighed, leaning her elbows against her knees and focusing her gaze on a particularly knot in the woodgrain of the coffee table in front of her.
"For five years I lived a lie that not only threatened to tear me apart, but threatened to destroy every relationship I had." She muttered, hearing the pen scratch against the clipboard as Julia recorded what she was saying. "I mean, I know I had Dr- him, but I had to hide it from everybody else I cared for. I lost my best friends and now I don't know who I am any more because I spent so long pretending to be someone else."
"So how do you plan to cope with the attention you receive?" Julia asked once she had finished writing.
"The same way anybody does when they're in the public eye, I suppose." Hermione nodded, leaning back into the couch. Julia raised her eyebrow and Hermione snorted. "Grin and bear and find some way to make the most of it."
"How do you plan to 'make the most of it'?" her therapist asked and Hermione shrugged.
"I haven't thought of anything yet, but I'm sure I'll tell you when I do." She smiled and Julia chuckled.
"You seem to be in higher spirits this week, much better than I can recall you being in any of our previous sessions, at least." Julia noted, "Do you think the increased dosage of your Anti-Depressant potion is having the desired effect?"
"I assume so," Hermione nodded, "I feel better. Nothing has really changed, but everything is beginning to feel a bit brighter."
"That is excellent news." Julia said, turning sharply when the timer alerted them that their hour had come to an end.
"Same time next week?" Hermione asked as she pushed up from the couch, and Julia nodded.
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"Have you untied that knot you've got in your wand mate, or are you still pissed at me?" Draco asked his Italian friend from across the table.
"Don't be a twat, Draco." Blaise muttered, sipping his drink, "You know that you've been acting like a douche."
Blaise had dragged Draco into the Leaky with him when they had bumped into each other in Diagon Alley. He knew that the two of them needed to have a proper discussion about what had been happening and since Draco had been completely ignoring his Owls, Blaise had seized his opportunity and decided that that talk had to be now, or it might never happen.
"Don't you care about her at all, Draco?" He asked seriously and noticed his friend fidget nervously in his chair before he spoke.
"She didn't care about me when she lied to me for five years." He growled.
"Of course she bloody did." Blaise rolled his eyes. "The woman was, is, in love with you. How can you even begin to convince yourself that she didn't care?"
"So why didn't she just tell me the truth?" Draco asked, angry.
Blaise sighed and shook his head. He knew that Draco was stubborn, he always had been. He was also prideful and those two things were a disastrous pairing. How could he explain it to his friend in a way that made him understand why Hermione had done these things? How could he get Draco to comprehend what his reaction would have done to her? Had done to her?
"Can you be honest with me? And tell me the truth?" Blaise asked, cocking his brow and Draco nodded. "Would you have approached her, in the club, if she had looked like herself?"
"Probably not." Draco muttered after a long pause, "What does that have to do with what she did though?"
Oh god, he could really be an idiot at times.
"If she had revealed to you who she really was, would you have continued to see her?" Blaise asked and sighed when Draco shook his head. "There's your reason then."
"I mean, I might have..." Draco mumbled.
"No, you wouldn't. Draco, we both know that you are too prideful to admit that you're wrong. She may have lied to you, but she had her reasons. She knew that you would never give her a chance in her own skin so she chose to do what she could to keep you." Blaise shrugged and Draco sighed.
"Is she... I mean... How is Granger?" he muttered and Blaise snapped his eyes up to look at his friend.
"Heartbroken, broken in general, lonely." Blaise listed, "She's been going to therapy every week."
"Therapy?" Draco gasped as his eyes widened.
"Of course, mate. She's messed up, big time. She's lost everyone that she ever cared about. That alone would mess anybody up." Blaise shrugged, downing what was left of his drink.
"What about Potter and Weasel? Surely they're still pandering to her every whim?" Draco sneered and Blaise rolled his eyes.
"She hasn't spoken to them in over two months, Draco." Blaise informed him and saw as Draco gulped.
"Well..." Draco muttered, "Thats... Unexpected."
"You should know that I'm moving in with her soon. We're looking for a place together." Blaise informed him, snorting when his friend gaped at him.
"Why the fuck would you do that?" Draco blurted.
"I'm all she's got left, mate." Blaise shrugged. "I'm not going to let her struggle alone."
Conversation soon turned onto less serious topics, and Blaise was dismayed to hear about Draco's newly rediscovered love of the playboy lifestyle. He had always hated hearing of the blonde's conquests, knowing himself that women deserved to be treated so much better than Draco had ever treated anyone, except Eloise. In internally wished to push Draco into realising that Hermione was coming to the point at which she would begin to move on from him, leaving Draco to realise what he had lost, but he knew that Draco would never admit to such a thing even if it were the truth. Hermione was the best thing that could have ever happened to his friend, and Draco was so wrapped up in external beauty ideals that he failed to see the glaring truth: Hermione was everything that Draco had loved about Eloise, she just wasn't the blonde bombshell that Draco wanted on his arm. It was sickening, frankly.