A/N: Make sure you've read the updated version of the previous chapter, or you will feel like you've missed a big section out!
Previously: Draco continued to stare at the flame lost in contemplation, and after a few minutes of neither speaking, he finally voiced a question he needed to know the answer to, "Did you love me?"
Hermione didn't miss a beat, "No"...
Chapter 22: Contemplation
There was pregnant pause, "...I still do"
Draco, whose head had dropped at her first statement, snapped it back up at the second part, began walking over to Hermione who was looking intently out of the window. "Did you just say what I think you did?"
When she didn't reply, he whispered into her ear as he got within a few inches of her, "Did you say, you still love me?"
Her back stiffened and she took a barely noticeable step away from the warmth of his body behind her. When she moved, Draco gently put his hand on her shoulder to turn her from her incessant staring out of the window, but her voice broke forth, "Please don't touch me." There was so much emotion behind her words that something inside Draco broke.
-DMHG-
A knock and then creaking open of the office door caused Hermione and Draco to freeze on the spot. Their Italian classmate stepped over the threshold, holding a folder similar to those that Hermione had found in Draco's drawer in his hand. Draco's hand was still settled on her shoulder, and he looked like a deer caught in headlights as he turned towards Blaise.
Blaise himself looked confused at seeing the Gryffindor in Draco's office, and quickly shuffled the papers sticking out of the folder back into its depths, his eyes rushing backwards and forwards between Hermione and Draco.
"Drake I brought that other file." He ran his hand through his raven hair, "Pans says to tell you she may have something else for you as well, about the article."
At the mention of an article, Hermione's gaze flickered quickly from outside the window to Draco's over her shoulder, to see the flaxen haired man looking intently at any place but at her, even more so when she squared her shoulders, making her back go rigid.
Only when she turned to fully face him did he face her, and saw as she mouthed the word 'Article?'
Breathing heavily through his nose, Draco nodded his head at his friend before directing his speech at Hermione. "Hermione will you wait downstairs? I'll come and see you when I've spoken to Blaise."
"We have nothing else to discuss," she shook her head as she quickly rushed out of the door through which Blaise had entered.
"I have a feeling I interrupted something... Something important," Blaise admitted once Hermione was out of ear shot.
Draco breathed heavily through his nose, running his hands harshly up and down his face before rubbing at his eyes, and running his hands haphazardly through his hair. "I'm fucked!" he whispered, his eyes flickering to the flames of the fire.
"What do you mean?" Draco knew Blaise was being curious but he couldn't tell him the information Hermione had just divulged, not one single scrap of it.
"I can't say." Blaise nodded at his blond friend in understanding.
"If you do want to say, I will listen mate. This has been a long time in coming..." Blaise trailed, as the pair of them knew what he was referring to and thus didn't need to go into much detail about it.
Draco nodded as he flicked through the file that the other man had passed him. "What is this?" His eye brow arched as he scanned the page's content. "Is this true?"
Blaise simply nodded, "It's worse than we expected, or even anticipated"
Draco ran his hand thoughtfully up and down his jaw line and across his chin. "What are Gringott's rules on transfers between single personal vaults?" It was Blaise's turn to furrow his brow.
"The ministry has become quite strict on personal vaults; transfers have to be signed by the payee and the payer, and there is a limit."
"What about if it was so that the payee wasn't to know?"
Looking curiously at his friend Blaise divulged, "Well that's impossible nowadays, there will be a few of the older goblins that would allow it, but Drake, look at the file. If it's what I'm thinking is what you're planning on doing, it would be futile."
Draco scanned through the finer details of the file, "Shit!" he finally exclaimed.
"Exactly!" Blaise looked at his friend and could tell he was about to ask him a serious question, so without waiting, Blaise steam rolled ahead, "Remember what we did for Scorp and for Amando?" Draco nodded. "You need to do that again."
"But that was different circumstances, surely"
Blaise waggled his eye brows, "All you need is a financial adviser recognised by Gringott's." At this point, he pointed to himself before adding, "And maybe a Goblin on your side to smoothly run it through the system." He paused momentarily. "I'd say give me a few hours to knock up the paper work and it'll be done by, oh I don't know, midday tomorrow?"
"If you could, that would be great!" Blaise chuckled. "And while you're at it, I'm sure you have enough charm at your disposal to get me a viewing on a house? Or even make a bid for it?"
"I owe you remember!"
Draco shook his head, "The bid is sounding like a much better idea, blackmail as well..." a predominant smirk found its way onto the blond's face- "Oh this is going to be good."
-HGDM-
-Meanwhile-
Hermione rushed out of the office and down the stairs to a bedroom before anyone could even contemplate saying 'Nargles'. She leant heavily on the closed door trying to bring her emotions into check. 'What in blazes had she done?' She must have lost the plot completely to have told him- that!
She'd never told anyone that she loved them, not even Ron, and she certainly had never told anyone she held any romantic notions with Draco Malfoy. And now she had told him she loved him, not only that she had loved him, but that she still did! She was in deep trouble; she knew he wouldn't let the topic slip until he had exhausted all lines of questions, and she wasn't sure if she could answer them.
When had she become a woman who would marry a man while still being in love with another man? Oh yeah, eleven years ago. She suddenly felt as if the weight of the whole world had settled on her shoulders. She'd learned so much in the past few hours about herself, her ex-husband, and Draco Malfoy, that she couldn't take it anymore and decided she needed to rest her addled brain.
Changing into the green negligee she had worn a few days earlier, she dressed for bed, opening the French doors into the room before clambering under the duvet situated in the centre of the room. She curled into a ball in the heart of the bed spread.
Alas, sleep did not consume her straight away and she was left with her thoughts swirling about her head.
She had been denying her attraction to the blond for so long and yet his sincerity when he asked whether she had loved him, made her unable to deny him the answer he sought, and thus she was unable to lie to him. Then she remembered his advances beforehand, how he had said he could give her 'what she deserved'. If only she could take him up on that offer, but she'd already been hurt too much in one life time; she couldn't go through it all again... Could she?
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a cautious knock of a fist on the door to the room. Summarising it to be Draco, she feigned some semblance of sleep by closing her eyes and evening out her breathing in the hopes that should he enter, he would leave soon after realising she was 'asleep'. Luck however appeared to not be on her side, as the door creaked open and in walked the blond who was the main actor in her thoughts.
"Hermione?" he whispered into the darkened room, and she heard him pad silently over to the bed, where it dipped as he sat at the edge closest to the door, acting as a shield against the cold air blowing in through the opening. "Princess?" he sighed when she didn't answer, "I know you're not asleep," he whispered after a few seconds, "I just want you to know, what you said earlier..." here he paused, as if for dramatic effect, "... I feel the same way- but you probably already know this." With that said, he began to get up from his perched position on the bed.
A/N: A big thank you to my beta NumeralNerd for getting this chapter back to me as quick as she did, and for her continuing work throughout the rest of Enough
Same as usual guys, please leave a review to let me know what you think!
I hope you enjoyed it, and continue to. Isn't Draco so devilish? And... Slytherin?
Til the next; Scorpio219 -x-