I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has reviewed the story so far, I believe that I am about halfway through and I am definitely going to persevere and get it completed.
I was going to upload this last night, but i got caught up watching White Collar – god he is so hot! I really hope someone knows what I am talking about :)
Just as a warning, Hermione gets some really bad news in this chapter.
Oh, And Happy Halloween. I just carved a pumpkin and it looks like a five year old did it. I tried to cut a moon and it was just disastrous - i'm so unartistic that it is unreal!
"Have a nice day, Malfoy." I jerk myself away from him as soon as the floo has stopped moving around us. I can still feel my hip and hand blistering from the lick of the green flames as they soldered our body together, and it is frightening beyond belief because he doesn't seem to be feeling anything.
He nods, pushing his hands into the pockets of the trousers that he must have transfigured for himself – I only notice this time because I can't seem to meet his eyes. "You too, Granger."
"You should call me Hermione," I tell him, "We've known each other for fifteen years and you can't even use my first name."
He smiles as we walk together towards the lifts, the grates slide open as we near and we step through them together. "You have only just started to call me Draco, give me some time to get used to it, Granger." He tells me and I smile, "I'm sure we'll get there one day." He gives me one last smile and then gets off at his floor. I watch him until the lift moves up and my vision is obscured by the brick walls of the elevator shafts.
When i get to my office there are stacks of pages with several post it's stuck to the front. Most hold Malfoy's handwriting and I start sifting through the stacks. It seems like he just never runs out of things for me to read and sign!
I sit in my office for most of the morning. Pansy takes me out for lunch. To a small restaurant of the side of Oxford Street and we both sit and pull out menus. The hour passes quickly and I am soon back in my office examining the quickly growing, accurately scaled model that stands in the corner of the room.
"Granger." Malfoy walks in, "I have some more files." He glides in, flipping his hair out of his eyes and placing a set of manila files on the table in front of me.
"More?" I ask, thumping my head onto the table and holding my hands out to revive the file from him.
"I just need you to sign, but I doubt you won't until you read through them."
I nod, flipping the first one over and scanning through it – quickly, but carefully. "Yeah, I don't want to sign you over my first born child or anything." I joke, laughing to myself but stopping quickly when I realise that he doesn't get the reference, "Sorry, muggle thing."
"I gathered." He smiles. "Should I hang around in case you decided to cut off a finger and are in need of emergency medical attention, or should I leave?"
"Oh haha." I look up, motioning to the door with a finger and I watch as he struts out. I continue watching his retreating figure, until I notice Theodore Nott staring back at me through the glass doors.
There is a ring. A solid tringing noise that I can't ignore. I am in half a mind to ignore it, to just drop the phone in the bin and hope that whoever is calling gets the hint that I don't really want to talk right now. But I don't.
I pick up the phone and mutter a greeting. "Hermione, I need you." My mother. A sense of urgency clambers its way into my chest as I find myself analysing her tone. The sadness in her voice fills me with panic.
"Mum. What's happened?"
"Hermione, just come to the house." I push away from my chair, clicking the off button on my mobile phone and thrusting it into my bag as I grab a coat and fight my way through a crowd of people milling around the corridors to get to the lift.
I pass Draco on my way, he tries to grab on to my arm, but fails to do so. He yells after me, asking me what's wrong and where I am going, but I ignore him and clamber my way in to the floo. I had my parents house connected last year when they finally gave me permission, so when I step out into their living room neither of them flinches.
They are standing there. My mother and father. My mother in a blue oversized jumper and a pair of jeans, her long brown hair scraped back into a pony tail and tear tracks lining the side of her face. I rush to her, facing off my father as I take a place at her side. "Tell her what you are doing, Richard." My mother forces out through tight lips, her eyes water, tears leak from the corners. "Tell her what's happening."
"I'm leaving." He told me, avoiding my mother's gaze. He looks a lot older than the last time I saw him. While my mother's face becomes more youthful with the presence of grief, by fathers does not. The lines around his eyes tense, becoming deeper rooted, harsher. "I can't do this any more " He paces, pulling a coat over his shoulders and gesturing around himself with his hands as he talks.
I don't know how i should be acting, what I should be saying to resolve the tense situation, so instead I just say the first question that pops into my head. "What are you talking about?" I ask, my posture tense, tears spilling from my own eyes as I move to block the door. I stand there covering it, making sure that he won't get round me without an explanation. Making sure that he knows that he should stay, that I want him to stay, that there are ways to fix this even though there seems not to be any at the moment.
He looks from my mother and then back to me. I can barely even here him over the wreaking sobs falling from my mother. "I've been having an affair, Hermione." He spits out, "For years," he tells me, I don't know what to do. I feel like I should be strong for my mother but everything seems to be shattering around me. "Since before you even went to Hogwarts." I don't know what to do. What to say. I feel like everything is just dripping out of my control. A sob catches in my throat.
All the time I was at Hogwarts and something went wrong, something went bad, I would always think of home. Think of how happy everything was. Now, I realise that this was all a lie. A huge lie. "What?" I choke, stutter and then fall to the ground, clutching my chest and looking up at my parents. Both of them glare at each other, facing each other off and trying to be the one who looks the least affected. "What are you talking about?"
He looks at the ceiling and then turns his gaze back to me. "I haven't been happy for years." he pushes his hand into his hair, a stressful gesture that has be balling my fists. He has no right to be remorsefulness.
"It's your fault then." My mother spits out, her tone harsh, her eyes full of pain. "I tried to make it work, for both of us, for Hermione."
The next phrase seems to slip from his mouth. "I didn't want a child." I sit there as my father spits my existence in my face. The one man that I should have been able to count on my whole life, shoots me in the back. My heart fills with ice. He can't seem to stop the words now. "I never wanted a child. But you forced me into it and I stayed."
"Get out."
He turns to look at me, "What?"
The words slither from my lips easily, even though they are as hard and as cold as ice. "I said, get out." by the end I am yelling. My voice is raised and my eyes are hard as I stare him down. "Now." I know that I have no right to be kicking him out, but the pain soars through me and forces me to do something. To turn of him. To hate him with all of my hear and my being.
The house is cold. All the life and love that I felt growing up is gone. This is it. My father brushes past me, not really acknowledging anything. This was his fault, all his fault. He has a bag in one hand; a large duffel stuffed with jumpers and other articles of clothing that I can see brimming over the top. "Never, ever come back." My mother says, her voice low but forceful all the same. "We will always be better off without you."
There door barely even manages to shut before we both fall to the ground, huddled together and crying. We sit there for hours. The sun passes behind clouds and eventually dips below the horizon. My mother cries for a lost companion, a lost love. I cry for my father. A father who I thought lived me, who I thought would always be there for me. But now I find out that I caused the rift between my parents. I cause the hate and the lies and the despair.
It was all my fault.
All my fault.
"Hermione." My mother speaks, her voice is hoarse and as I look into her eyes I find they are red rimmed too. "You know that I love you, don't you?"
"Of course." I cry into her shoulder.
She pulls me closer, "Never, ever forget that."
She tells me to leave after another hour. Says that she needs to be alone. But being alone in a pit of misery is the last thing that I want.
I apparate back to my flat, and as I stand there in the dark I know that I can't be alone tonight. Despair washes over me causing a dark, hurting feeling to settle in the bottom of my heart as I make the decision to step towards the floo.
"I never wanted a child." My father's voice rings in my ear, tear tracks on my cheeks that never really got to dry are dampened again as a new onslaught of hate and anger and misery cascades over me.
"I didn't want a child." Plays over and over in my head until I can't think, can't breathe, can't do anything except stumble into the open grate of the floo and pray that I land somewhere with someone who wants me.
I assumed I would find myself with Harry - or Ron - but, that is not where I land. I end up falling through the grate and into the house of the first person who popped into my head. I look around, the walls are a Slytherin green, the sheets on the bed are a mixture of silver and black, and he is sitting beneath them. They are pulled up to his waist and he's wearing a black t-shirt. "Draco." I sniffle, and to my embarrassment, I collapse to the ground. He's out of the bed – thankfully wearing pants – and has his arms around my body before I can hit the floor.
"Shh," I let him hold me after I get over the fact that in my crying haze the first person that I thought of was Draco Malfoy. He lifts me up, a hand supporting my back and one under my legs as he carries me over to his bed. Though the sheets look a little like tin foil – not that I would ever mention that – they are actually supremely comforting, so much so that it sort of starts to border on ethereal, instead of just perfect. "What happened?"
"I-I-I..." I stutter, my eyes water, my head feel thick and foggy and I don't really know what is happening until I feel his arm snake around my waist and drag me down under the covers until my body touches his. Though I can't seem to find it in myself to enjoy the sensation. Instead, all my focus is on the pain behind my heart.
Pulling me closer still, he begins to mummer into my ear, "Shh, babe." He flattens my hair against my head and for a second I am so shocked at the term of endearment that the tears falter, but then the pain is back. Everything is back and I have no idea what to do to stop it. I feel hopeless, tired and inferior. "You don't have to talk about it, babe." He whispers, pulling me into his chest and breathing deeply. "You are falling into my bed way too often, Granger, and your clothes are always on." He chuckles to himself and I start to join in, hiccuping and trying to hold back a new onslaught of tears, "If you want to keep doing this, you are going to have to start stripping soon." He jokes and I playfully hit his chest, but the tears start falling again, with new vigour.
"I feel like I can't breathe, Draco." I tell him, fisting the material of his shirt and clutching it tightly in my hand.
"It's going to be ok, babe." He whispers into my hair, I find myself relaxing into his arms, the tears still flow but a little less strongly. "Will you tell me what happened?"
I nod into his chest slowly, sucking in a lungful of air as I prepare to walk him through the events of the afternoon. "My parents are getting a divorce." I tell him slowly, "My mother called me while I was at work, she sounded awful, I went over and ...and ...and."
"Shh," He strokes down the length of my back and then back up again, I fist another section of his shirt and push myself into his body.
"And, my father told me in no uncertain terms, that I was never supposed to exist in his eyes." A rush of tears escapes again, forcing their way down my face, "He didn't want me. The only man that I should have been able to trust and he basically told me that he couldn't care less if I went and died in a hole."
"Hermione, listen to me." He drags my face up to meet him with his hand, but he doesn't remove it. He holds my chin between his thumb and forefinger and makes sure to keep my eyes locked with him. "You don't need someone like that in your life. You shouldn't want someone like that in your life. And he's so stupid if he can't see that you must be the best thing to happen to him, ever." I let out a watery smile, he hugs me close.
He sighs, "Your brilliant; smart, kind, perfect..." He trails off and I smile. And then, I remember who I am talking to.
"Are you drunk?"
"No, why?"
"Is your head about to explode? You just handed me four whole complements without a sarcastic remark!" I tell him, the sobbing has quieted. My eyes feel puffy and red and I know that I must look an absolute state.
"I'm trying to be nice."
"Thanks, Malfoy." I tell him, looking up to meet his eyes and then pushing my head back into the hollow between his head and his neck. And then I remember what I am doing here, how I got here, and how I am in a bed with Draco Malfoy. "I'm so sorry, Malfoy." I say, springing back and brushing tears off my face as I clamber out of his bed and rush towards the wall. He jumps out and stands opposite me, and I can tell by the look in his eyes that he is pretty unsure about what just happened. "I feel so stupid! I'm sorry."
"What are you sorry about, Granger?" He asks, walking towards me and holding onto my arms at the elbows.
"You don't even like me and I basically threw my pathetic crying into your face." I tell him, backing away and walking to the floo, "I'm sorry I disturbed you, and thank you for being so tolerable."
"Granger." He grabs onto my arm, pulling me round to face him and dragging me back over to the bed. "I find you tolerable and maybe even enough of a friend. Stay here. I know how it feels to have to lie alone with misery. I won't put you through that."
"You don't have to do this for me. I know your rule. Not sleeping in the same bed with a girl overnight, sexual activities and then out of the door."
"I can make an exception."
I smile before I tell him that, "I can go and bother Harry."
He smiles, motioning to the bed and clambering between the sheets. "It's fine, Granger."
I shake my head, but he's already flipping back the covers and pulling me down between them, "Do I have to dress you and undress you all in one day, or can you sort out bedroom attire for yourself?"
He hands me a green and silver quidditch t-shirt. "I noticed you wearing one last night." He smirks and for some reason I don't question his motives. I just let the sadness overwhelm me and the deepness of his breathing lull me to sleep for the second night in a row.
He's so sweet, right :)