A/N: This is the CORRECT chapter 481. I posted the wrong one by accident before! Please forget about it if you read it and read this one instead ( ' v ' )
Blaise didn't speak to Hermione the rest of the weekend. Hermione could tell he was still furious with her, but she could see that his anger warred with his relief that she was okay, leaving him in an emotionally tangled state. She'd gone looking for him, wanting to sit and talk it out, but she hadn't been able to find him. Theo had eventually admitted Blaise wasn't around.
"What do you mean, not around?" Hermione asked.
"I mean 'not around'," Theo snapped. "You scared the man half to death, Hermione. Give him some time and space. He'll come back when he's ready."
After checking around the castle one more time, Hermione gave up. Blaise had free reign of the ley lines, now – he could be anywhere.
The others, sensing the dynamic change between Hermione and Blaise at breakfast on Saturday, had tentatively asked what had happened. Hermione had summarized, simply saying that it hadn't worked and that Tom had to reunite with the other soul parts in the order the horcruxes had been made. Blaise had snorted and looked away at her explanation, but he hadn't offered any details himself, instead moodily eating his toast.
Hermione found Harry later that day, admitting to him what had actually happened. Harry's eyes had grown huge, but he looked thoughtful.
"Y'know," he said, giving her a slight grin, "I probably would have done the same thing."
Hermione laughed. "Would you really?"
"I think I would have," Harry said wonderingly. "My thought process would have been exactly the same. I probably would have been a better body for them to battle over, actually – I've already had a horcrux piece in me before, so my body might have tolerated it better than yours."
Hermione snorted.
"You get to do the next one, then," she told him. "There's no way on earth Blaise will let me try again."
"Fair enough," Harry said cheerfully. "Now – help me with the logistics of this heist plan. Where do you want us to put all these books for quick transport?"
The weekend was spent in the same way most of Hermione's weekends were, but the entire thing felt very odd, somehow. The lack of Blaise's quips and commentary was palpable, and as the weekend went on, Hermione found it harder and harder to concentrate. She kept disassociating, staring at her schoolbooks without reading, while the incident on the plains ran through her head over and over again, each time feeling worse.
By bedtime, even Daphne had noticed Hermione's mood.
"Out with it," she cajoled, hopping onto her bed in pajamas. "What happened with you and Blaise?"
"I—we had a fight," Hermione said, begrudgingly. "I did something risky that he thought was stupid, and he's still mad."
Daphne's eyes shone with empathy. "Oh, no. Did he at least leave you a flower to find?"
Hermione blinked. "A flower?"
"He didn't," Tracey said, glancing at Hermione. "They're not courting, Daphne, so he wouldn't have."
"You're not?" Daphne was momentarily surprised. "You seem so close, though."
"People can be close to each other without dating," Hermione said testily.
Daphne wrinkled her nose. "You really think so? That boys and girls can just be really close friends?"
"I'm closer to my male friends than you are to your Prince Cassius," Hermione sneered, and Daphne laughed.
"Okay, fair," Daphne admitted. Her eyes sparkled. "I did see him over the summer break a few times, you know. His parents came to dinner with mine and discussed things afterwards in the study while Astoria hung around, chaperoning us."
"Still as charming as ever?" Millie asked, mildly interested.
"He is," Daphne sighed romantically, holding her hands to her heart. "He's so thoughtful, you know. And he tells me such beautiful things – he could write love poetry, I think, if he tried—"
Tracey laughed. "Would you want love poetry?"
"Of course!" Daphne looked scandalized. "Who wouldn't?"
"Me, for one," Tracey said pointedly. "Adrian tried writing a sonnet and sent it to me over the summer. It was—" she broke away, her face coloring "—well. It certainly involved his feelings, but perhaps not the happy, romantic ones he thought he was expressing."
"That's right! Adrian is courting you!" Daphne was immediately interested. "How is that going? Has his father met your father yet?"
"It's… going," Tracey said, scrunching up her face. "He came over to the house for dinner, once. It was…" she paused, weighing her words carefully "…well. It could have gone worse."
"Oh no," Hermione said, wincing. "Was he rude about your father being a muggle?"
"No," Tracey sighed. "My father was rude about him being a wizard."
"Wait, how does that work?" Millie wanted to know. "Your father married a witch. He's got no room to talk."
"That's just it – he dated my mum like muggles date," Tracey said. "There was no initial gift of jewelry, no chaperoned dates – they liked each other, so they went out. That was enough." Tracey made a face. "My dad doesn't get it. He understands that Adrian's trying to show he values and respects me by doing it this way, but my dad's insistent that it's stupid. He says I'm far too young to tie myself to just one boy."
Daphne gasped. "Is he going to break the courtship?"
"If he realized he could do that, I wouldn't be surprised," Tracey admitted. She sighed. "I don't know how I feel about it, really. Adrian is… I don't know. The whole thing's very complicated."
Daphne seemed confused. "He loves you, Tracey. How can it be simpler than that?"
"What if I don't love him?" Tracey shot back. "What if I'm unsure I want to consider 'forever' yet?"
Daphne looked utterly baffled at the idea a girl might not automatically love a handsome boy who was courting her. Hermione gave Tracey a sympathetic look, though, which Tracey returned with a slow nod, a heavy understanding passing between them – Hermione had been in the same situation as Tracey was in, before.
"Fun group we are, aren't we?" Millie quipped, amused. "In January, we were all being courted or engaged. Now, my engagement to Yaxley's broken, Cedric got bested in a duel over Hermione, and Tracey's halfway broken-up already." She gave Daphne a smirk. "You're next, Daph."
"Cassius Warrington is a perfect gentleman who's going about this the entirely right way," Daphne protested. "Just because you all were unhappy in your relationships doesn't mean I'm at all unhappy in mine. Everything is perfectly fine."
"You think?" Tracey's eyes gleamed. "Want to bet?"
Daphne looked at her. "What?"
"Let's see if everything will be fine," Tracey said, pulling out her tarot cards. She shuffled them ominously, waggling her eyebrows. "If you're so certain, what's the risk?"
"I—" Daphne looked torn for a brief moment, like she didn't know what to think or feel, before she tossed her hair and glared, apparently deciding on highly insulted. "Absolutely not. I like the slow, romantic progression with him. To know what he's going to do next would ruin the romance of it all." She gave Tracey a sharp look. "Not all of us need to cheat and peer into the future to get ahead."
She flounced off into the bathroom haughtily, and Hermione glanced at Tracey.
"That was a bit mean," she commented.
"Maybe," Tracey admitted, shrugging. "She was getting on my nerves, though. 'Perfect Cassius this' and 'perfect Cassius that', giving me pitying looks because of what's going on with Adrian."
"Want to know anyway?" Millie suggested, eyes gleaming. "Do the reading, Tracey. Daphne doesn't need to know."
Tracey looked torn, weighing the cards in her hands. She glanced at Hermione, who stayed silent – Hermione didn't know what kind of moral standards there were around looking at someone's future who didn't want you to.
"Maybe just a quick one," Tracey said, shuffling the cards, cutting them three times. "Just a glimpse, before Daphne comes back out."
Tracey dealt five cards quickly, setting them into a cross, and Hermione watched as they each came up – eight of swords, nine of cups, the devil, knight of wands, ten of swords. Hermine barely had time to register the first card – a blindfolded woman stumbling through a maze of swords – before Tracey had swept them up, the bathroom door opening as Daphne came back out.
"Does anyone know where Pansy is?" Daphne asked plaintively. "It's almost curfew, and it's getting very late."
"I think she was visiting Ravenclaw?" Hermione said. "Don't worry – she'll be able to avoid Filch even if she comes back after curfew."
Daphne muttered something about stupid people being able to secretly travel and not tell anybody about their secrety-secrets, and Hermione stifled a laugh as she settled into bed herself.
She didn't miss the heavy look Tracey and Millie exchanged though, some kind of wordless worry between their eyes as they glanced at Daphne. Hermione felt a moment of unease, wondering what the cards had predicted, before dismissing it – Divination was imprecise and woolly, and Daphne would do as she pleased anyway, regardless of what the cards might have said.