Chapter Thirteen.

Hermione felt the bed dip as someone laid down next to her and turned her head to see Blaise smiling gently at her.

"Why did he do that?" She asked brokenly and Blaise frowned questioningly, "Why is he making fun of me?"

"What are you talking about, lovely?" Blaise asked, gently stroking her hair from her face.

"Well clearly he invited me there to humiliate me." Hermione muttered, "Him being attracted to me is laughable. It'd be like... Oh I dunno, but it's a joke. He's so far out of my league."

"Oh, Honey." Blaise murmured and pulled her against him. "You know, when we were in school, Theo never had a girlfriend. He always said that no-one was intelligent enough, could hold a decent conversation, stuff like that. One day, in fourth year, we caught him eyeing up a girl, guess who?"

"I dunno, Blaise," Hermione sighed, resting her head on his shoulder, "Pansy Parkinson?"

"Nope." Blaise chuckled, shaking his head, "Hogwarts very own resident bookworm."

"I don't believe you." She snapped, pulling away from him to get out of bed but Blaise pulled her down and held her in place.

"Will you let me finish my bloody story?" He grumbled and Hermione sighed, but she nodded.

"Right. Where was I? Oh yeah. In fourth year, he noticed a girl, who was intelligent and pretty. But he never approached her because he was the geeky Slytherin who people always overlooked. He thought that she would laugh in his face. So he watched from afar and enjoyed seeing her smile." He heard Hermione sniffle and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"How do you know this?" She whispered.

"Theo and I have always been closer than anyone else. We might not talk or get together often, but when we do, we talk about the serious stuff." Blaise smiled, "Anyway, that girl showed up to the Yule Ball that year and blew every other girl in the room out of the water. She was a stunner, alright. Really beautiful. And all of a sudden, people who had never noticed her before started to want a piece of her. Boys were approaching her for a dance left right and center and she turned them all away. Why would she dance with them when she had never heard a kind word out of their mouths, right?" Hermione snorted and nodded.

"You asked me to dance that night." She chuckled wetly.

"Yeah and you told me to do one, if I remember correctly." Blaise laughed. "One boy though... One boy didn't ask, because he didn't want to hear her tell him no. So he waited, for the attention on her to die down. Then he approached her where she had always been the most beautiful to him. Her natural habitat, if you like. He approached her in the library, asking to study with her. And she said yes."

"He's not messing with you Hermione. I promise you that." Blaise told her and she hesitated before she nodded.

"Is he still here?" Hermione asked and Blaise nodded, "Can you bring him here please?"

Hermione watched Blaise leave and got up from the bed to clean up her face and quickly change into something more comfortable. She put on a pair of baggy pyjama trousers and an oversized t-shirt, laying back down on her bed just in time to hear the door close, and she turned to see Theo stood awkwardly in front of the door, his hands stuffed into his pockets. The room was silent.

"Fourth year?" She whispered, looking nervously at him and he grimaced and nodded.

"I could kill Blaise for telling you that." He muttered and ran a hand through his hair. "You were never meant to find that out."

"Why not?" She asked, confused.

"Because that would make me seem a bit pathetic." He huffed, "Can I uh... Can I sit down?" He asked, gesturing towards the bed and she nodded, patting the bed next to her.

She watched as Theo sat on the edge of the bed and bent down to pull his shoes off before pushing himself back so that his back was against the headrest with his legs stretched straight in front of him. Crossing his ankles he turned to her.

"How are you feeling?" He asked quietly.

"Mortified," Hermione groaned. "You couldn't possibly seem more pathetic than I must do right now."

"Blaise told me... Well, everything, really." Theo told her hesitantly and she gasped, turning wide eyed.

"What? Like, everything everything?" She whispered, covering her face when he nodded.

She felt a hand, gentle and hesitant, move to her hand and try to pull it from her face. She struggled briefly but let him pull it away and waited for him to let go, but he held it between them. For a moment he just looked at her before he moved his other hand to brush her hair out of her face.

"None of it is your fault, Hermione," He whispered, "Are you listening to me?"

"Five years, Theo. I pretended to be someone else for five fucking years!" She hissed, feeling tears fall sideways from her eye and roll over her nose. "That's a pretty fucked up thing to do."

"And why did you do that, hmm?" Theo said calmly, "Because you fell in love with a man whose idea of beauty is only skin deep. He can't see further than what's in front of his face. He never could. He couldn't see what was in here," He tapped her temple with his finger, "Or here," her chest above her heart, "If he loved you, for everything you are, he wouldn't have cared what colour your hair was or what your name was. It wouldn't have mattered."

Hermione's mouth hung open and her eyes were wide. Something about his words, or the way he spoke them, or the look in his eyes had seeped into her mind and her heart and she felt... Light. Not like she could float, but like she wasn't being dragged down at that moment. His eyes were full of indignity and anger on her behalf, concern and care for her. She couldn't find words to speak and she didn't have to, because it seemed that Theo wasn't finished.

"Blaise told me that you tried to kill yourself, because of your depression." Hermione winced and he gently cupped her cheek with his palm, making her look at him as he spoke. "But I need to tell you, Hermione, that this world needs you. There are people that would be destroyed if you weren't here any more. Before he met you, did you know that I was the only one who knew he was gay? You've given him the strength to be honest with the world, albeit slowly. Harry worships you and if you went, who would keep Draco in check, huh?"

Hermione listened, and noticed that his voice was growing croaking and hoarse. His eyes were hard, but she could see the beginning of tears forming in the corners of them. Feeling the need to comfort him, she shuffled forward and put her forehead against his, offering as much as she could, something to help him.

"Who would I dream of if you weren't here?" He whispered and Hermione choked.

She didn't know why, and even after the fact she wasn't sure how it had happened but she suddenly found their lips pressed gently against each other. Both sets of lips were shaking and hesitant and neither moved, but the two of them lay together, his hand on her cheek and their lips barely touching, offering their silent comfort to each other