Chapter Seventeen: Break

Hermione and Draco were a tangled mess of body parts and kisses, lying on the cold marble floor of the Astronomy tower. Draco covered her with his body, keeping her warm as his hands roamed over each and every one of her curves and every inch of her silky skin.

He wasn't sure how long they'd been there, hours maybe, or maybe only a few heavenly minutes in the cool air that breezed through Hogwarts' tallest tower.

Her hands were sliding underneath the hem of his shirt that had, at some point, come untucked. The sensations that came from her warm, gentle hands against his chest were too much and reality crashed upon his shoulders like a tidal wave.

Draco, you can't do this to her. You can't leave her in the dark forever. When are you going to tell her the truth about your task?

With monumental self-control, Draco broke their kiss, lifting himself to a sitting position beside her where he watched her chest rise and fall with her breath. Her mouth, where his lips should be, took the form of a soft smile in his absence, but her eyes remained closed, contented.

For that, he was grateful, for he knew he wouldn't be able to tell her what he needed to tell her with her fire-lit eyes staring back at him.

She was still that radiant beautiful girl, and her hand reached out to brush his knee so gently, it almost melted his resolve. But the way she rubbed slow circles along his leg, reaching out for more contact, only made him love her more.

He knew that if he loved her, he had to tell her.

As much as it killed him to hurt her this way, he knew he didn't deserve her affection.

His body ached to stay on the cold floor beside her, but instead, he stood and took a few unsteady steps toward the railing, unable to look back at the witch he was leaving behind. Each step was harder from the last, and when he felt her sit up, searching for him, his feet halted, feeling her eyes on him.

Less than two months - that's how long it took for him to learn this exquisite witch. Two months, and now he could practically feel her thoughts swarming in her mind like stressed bees.

She was probably wondering what this would mean for their fake relationship or wondering if her speech about stars really made him kiss her. She was probably wondering why he moved away, if he was trying to keep things from moving too fast, too quickly, or if he was regretting the way they had just snogged as if nothing else in the world mattered.

He glanced at her, but only for a moment before he started walking again, the need to confess becoming stronger. Despite how badly he wanted to return to her side and smother her with more kisses, he moved to stand against the railing, as far away from her as he could get.

For a few moments he said nothing, merely looked out over the school grounds. The look on his face was tortured, pained, and probably showed the tiniest hint of hope, he knew. He had become skilled at masking his emotions, hiding behind a solid wall of indifference, but that didn't feel important right now. And he wondered, if it was the fact that he had come to trust her so completely, or if he was so distraught that the mask was impossible.

"Draco?" Hermione's voice faltered behind him. The air between them was growing cold and thin as if there wasn't enough air for them both.

"Um-" she started nervously. "Are you okay?"

He couldn't look at her, he really couldn't. He couldn't handle seeing the hurt in her eyes when he told her, so he continued to look over the grounds, the frozen lake barely glistening in the dim light from the dull stars and the sliver of light from the waning moon.

"I need to tell you something." A knot found its way into his throat and breathing was, somehow, becoming harder.

She rose to her feet and joined him by the overlook. "I'm listening," she promised patiently, trying to search his eyes for any hint of what was weighing on his mind. She reached out to touch his hand, but he jerked it away at the slightest contact.

He wouldn't look at her.

"I'm a Death Eater. I'm working for Him." Like a band-aid, he thought. Like a Gryffindor.

But the girl who always seemed to have something to say suddenly didn't. She stood there frozen, as those eight words haunted her. Her silence haunted him.

"I've got the Mark, Hermione." The emotion poured from his shaky voice. His eyes were empty, mere ghosts of the silvery havens she'd grown to find comfort in. She stared at him but he couldn't look at her. His head hung to his chest, fringe hiding his eyes from her. His knuckles were growing white from his strong grip on the Astronomy Tower railing.

As her mind became clearer, she processed his words, understanding, but not wanting to. She found her voice, but it was shaky and disconnected, so unlike the passionate and brilliantly brave witch he knew she was.

"I- No, Draco, you're only sixteen. And- I don't-

She desperately wanted, no needed, for this to be a lie. Tears were falling silently and slowly down her cheeks. This couldn't be real.

But the vulnerability he showed, the brokenness of his voice and the surrendering of his prideful, aristocratic stature were too much to deny.

He glanced at her as if hearing her thoughts. Slowly, he began to unfasten the cuffs on the left sleeve of his crisp black dress shirt.

Draco's gaze was locked on the witch before him, the girl he loved, the girl who he knew was breaking because of him. The girl who would never glance his way again. Hermione's gaze was locked on Draco's arm, the tears falling faster than before.

Just as he said, the Dark Mark was there on his arm. The black ink stood out dramatically against his pale skin. It looked red and irritated, some of it swollen. But it was there.

Draco Malfoy was, indeed, Marked.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked, meeting his eye for the first time.

His eyes were glossy, too, tears threatening to spill over. "I couldn't keep lying to you, Hermione, not when I was falling in love with you more and more with every glance and every word you send my way. I'm in love with you, Hermione Granger, and I couldn't keep hurting you."

He couldn't hold his tears at bay any longer when her hand collided with his pale cheek, turning it Gryffindor red. The slap was as loud as a clap and it stung his face.

He was looking at her. Her nose was pink, and the skin around her eyes was red and blotchy. He noticed her eyes had more golden flecks when she cries, almost like the sun shining through scattered trees in autumn.

But she didn't look angry. She only looked hurt.

Betrayed, broken, but beautiful.

He hated the feelings that washed through him at the way she looked at him.

"I deserved that," Draco groaned. "I deserved that a million times over. I'm sorry Hermione, I deserve more." Those ugly wet streaks covered most of her beautiful face and he hated himself in that instant.

"Hit me again, I deserve it. I deserve it all."

She didn't need telling twice. Her other hand collided with the other side of his face, leaving behind another red welt from the force. She let out an anguished breath through her tears, which were now flowing freely and loudly down her cheeks.

"Again, Hermione," he begged. "I deserve so much more."

He continued crying, encouraging her, pleading her to hit him more and she obliged. She punched his chest and his stomach a dozen times, but her sadness had taken its toll on her force and she wasn't physically hurting him nearly enough.

She crumbled into his arms, sobbing, barely breathing, and broken. He hugged her intensely, he held her tight as though she were his whole life and it was being taken from him.

Because, well, she was.

"I'm sorry, Hermione, I'm so sorry," Draco whispered as her lifeless hits slowed to a stop.

Then, with unexpected force, she pushed him away from her and he stumbled, reaching for the railing for support.

"How dare you!" She bellowed wildly, the anger she should have felt all along radiating through her body from her fire-lit eyes to the tips of her fingers. "How dare you tell me you're marked in one sentence and you love me in the next!" She took a step forward, punctuating each sentence with another swat at his chest.

"You? Love me?" she cried, "That's impossible," she hit him again, her force returning. "I'm Muggleborn, Malfoy, a filthy, dirty, scum of a witch with mud for blood, or had you forgotten?" She hit him again with more force, but he was numb to it. He deserved every hit, but her words wounded more than her punches did.

He couldn't help but notice she called him by his surname.

Draco finally found his voice, "I do love you, Hermione! Don't speak that way about yourself. That's not-"

"What's wrong with my words? Surely you and all of your other Death Eater friends have even more foul mouths when you talk about me and my kind, or are you not a Death Eater? Is that a temporary tattoo and this is all one big joke?" She was growling with every word.

"I am a Death Eater, Hermione but I-"

"Which is it then?" she shouted, taking several steps away from him. "Do you love me or do you wish I were dead? That's what this means, you realize."

He stayed silent; he stayed put.

Her eyes grew big and her mouth, the mouth that his had so recently been kissing, fell agape. "The Vanishing Cabinet! You're a Death Eater. That's what this is all about, isn't it?" He had the decency to cast his gaze down and away. Never in his life had he felt so small.

"Was it even about your mum at all?" she asked, betrayed.

He steeled his features as best as he could but the tears wouldn't stop falling down his pale skin. The mask he'd always worn, the one that all Malfoy's were expected to maintain, was covering his face. Everything but the eyes.

He didn't have strength for the eyes.

"Well, that's just bloody fantastic," she turned and began her march toward the stairs.

He croaked, "Hermione, please."

She was very near hating him now, yet the sound of his voice weighed on her heart and made her need to look at him. The way the moonlight fell on his thin, light hair, the way he held his breath, and stood, and wore his rumpled clothes…

She was sure that even these trivial things were woven into her deepest life. And no matter the severity of the situation, Hermione couldn't prevent the rapid stream of hopes that flooded her mind- things she hoped he would say.

Please stay. Please forgive me. Please help me find a way out.

Please know this hasn't all been a lie.

But hope is a dangerous thing and she knows it has no business being blown around in the chilling air of the Astronomy Tower. So she steeled her voice the best she could, refusing to reveal the embarrassing stitch of hope she held onto despite who he was and what he'd done.

"Please what?" she spat weakly.

That fire was back in her eyes, he noticed, but not in a way that made him feel anything good. He could still see the traces of saltwater that streamed down her face. He could practically feel her racing heart as her breathing hitched in her chest. She almost looked scared, and the reality of what he'd done sunk even deeper into the hole where a normal person's heart should be.

He was sure that, after this, he probably wouldn't have one, if he ever did to begin with.

"Please don't tell anyone," he pleaded, voice breaking.

Any last stitch of oxygen left in her lungs painfully and in quick succession, leaving behind the harsh sting of suffocation. She whipped her wand toward him in a flourish, angry magic tingling through her fingertips. "Pinoculus!"

He felt the curse's magic changing his nose rapidly. It was growing, extending to the length of his hand before it stopped. He examined the cursed feature with his hands and eyes as best as he could.

When he looked back up at where she'd stood at the top of the stairs, she was gone.

Dobby was doing his nightly rounds on the fourth floor when he heard crying.

The little elf felt sad knowing that this was almost a regular occurrence. At Hogwarts, students couldn't find much privacy in their dormitories, so elves took it upon themselves to help them when they needed to be alone.

It had become an unspoken protocol that all of the elves followed:

1. Check to make sure crying student is not in physical danger.

2. Invite crying student to the kitchens for tea.

3. If they don't respond, set up wards to keep other students away.

4. Alert their head of house to keep an eye on the student for the next few days.

Tonight was different though because Dobby knew this student. Miss. Granger was crying on the stairs and it made his heart feel like it was being squeezed.

Miss. Granger was so nice, she shouldn't be crying.

"Miss. Granger? Why is you upset?" the elf politely asked, making his way onto the stair below her.

She looked up and he saw her eyes were very red, but she didn't respond. She buried her face in her hands and continued crying.

She didn't look physically hurt, maybe she needed tea.

"Would you be liking tea, Miss?"

Still, she sat and she cried.

Protocol told him that he should set wards and find the Gryffindor Head, but this was different. He knew the student and he didn't like seeing her cry like this.

Dobby is a free elf, he doesn't need to follow protocol.

"Is it Mr. Malfoy, Miss?" the elf probed, but he had gravely misstepped. The girl began bawling wildly, sending the sounds of her cries throughout the hall. Oh dear, Dobby, what did you do?

Dobby couldn't just leave her here, no, he had to get help.

Harry and Ron were in the middle of a game of Wizard's Chess, where Harry was getting his arse handed to him, as usual.

It was a rare night when Lavender wasn't hanging around Ron, and Ginny and Dean had left the common room an hour ago. While Harry knew what that meant, he was relieved that he wouldn't be forced to share the common room with the obnoxious, constantly-snogging couple.

Harry felt, for the first time in a while, relaxed. Ron was talking smack openly, without holding his vulgar language back because Lavender was listening. Seamus was watching from the next seat over, laughing as one of Harry's rooks was smashed to pieces and taking another sip from the Butterbeer he'd somehow gotten his hands on.

As far as Harry figured, it was a pleasant evening, despite his pathetic chess skills. Well, until a very frantic Dobby showed up at his side, half-shouting at him.

"Mr. Harry Potter Sir! You must be coming quick!"

"Dobby, what's wrong?" Both he and Ron turned their attention to the elf.

"It is Miss. Granger, Sir."

Ron shot out of his seat without hesitation. "Hermione? What happened? Where is she?" he asked.

Dobby regarded the redhead, then the concerned-looking Irishman he hadn't met before, before turning starkly to face Harry Potter. "Miss is crying, sir. I thinks she is needing a friend."

Ron stormed to the portrait hole before Dobby had even finished. Harry knew that he'd been wanting to be back on Hermione's good side for a while, but this was not the time. Harry and Dobby both knew that.

"Ron, mate," called Harry catching up to him with a run. "This isn't the time. Let me go."

Anger and concern practically radiated through Ron's skin, turning his face a soft shade of red and making his muscles stiff. "I know this has something to do with Malfoy, the foul git. I want to help."

"But Ron, now is not the time. You two still aren't speaking. It doesn't make sense for you to help right now," Harry reasoned.

"But I can't just let her cry, Harry! I- I need to do something!"

"I'm telling you, Ron, it will be easier if I go," Harry insisted, his green eyes pleading. "If Hermione is crying, she's really hurting. I wouldn't be arguing if you two still weren't in the middle of this weird fight but as it is, it makes more sense if I go."

Ron nodded sadly, stepping aside so Harry could pass through the Portrait, Dobby trailing shortly behind.

Seamus, his mood soured knowing that Gryffindor's best girl was crying, finished the rest of his drink before lazily cleaning up the scattered chess pieces. He knew Ron wasn't going to come back to play.

In fact, Ron only waited a whole 12 seconds before sprinting to his dormitory to grab Harry's invisibility cloak. It was common knowledge that Harry'd been keeping it underneath his pillow all term.

And 43 seconds after Harry and Dobby left, Ron exited the common room too, setting off to find them.

Harry tentatively sat beside his crying, broken best friend without saying a word. She rested her head in his chest as her frantic sobs continued. He pulled her close, rubbing small circles on her back.

"Shhhhh, Hermione. I'm here. What's wrong?" He could feel her taking deep breaths in an attempt to slow down her sobs. She softly sank into Harry's back rubs; more deep breaths.

Harry felt a surge of admiration for his female best friend. She was brilliant, she was passionate, she was hardworking, she was creative, but most of all, he admired how strong she was. Here she was, heartbroken and hurt more than he had ever seen, yet she was trying to pull herself together with every breath she took.

A minute passed without her speaking, so Harry tried again. "Hermione?"

"How does it feel, Harry?" she sniffled against his shoulder. "When you see Dean with Ginny?"

The question made him stutter, "Oh. Um.." That was not at all where Harry expected this conversation to go.

"I know. I see the way you look at her. You're my best friend," she exclaimed, finally pulling her silently-crying self to a position where she was holding herself up. "How does it feel? What do you do when you know that you're perfect for each other, but the timing is off; the circumstances keep it from happening? How do you make it go away?"

The hall was filled by the sole sound of Hermione's labored breathing. Minutes passed.

"It feels like this," answered Harry honestly, an unmistakable twinge of sorrow in his voice. "It feels like this, Hermione, and there isn't anything you can do to make it go away, so you hide it. You hide it the best you can and you hope that, someday, the circumstances change."

She was crying harder now though, leaving dark marks from tears on the shoulder of his shirt. He meant for the words to be comforting, though he was blindsided by this conversation and wasn't prepared.

"What did he do?" he whispered in her ear. Ron was right, these weren't normal tears, these were heartbreak tears.

Her voice was muffled when she responded a few minutes later, her tears slowing down for lack of substance. "We- we broke up."

Harry hugged her close as she shook harder. He'd always admired Hermione for how she could handle awful things with such grace. He guessed one person could only be strong for so long.

At some point, everybody breaks.

"What happened?"

"He told me- he told me he loved me." She shook violently against him with every cry. "But we can't be together."

"Why's that, Hermione?" Harry asked patiently, gently, despite his conflicted emotions.

He loved Hermione like a sister and hated to see her so crushed and upset, but he still hadn't yet come to terms with the idea of her dating Malfoy anyway. The prat was still very much a prat and the feeling that he was up to something remained overwhelming in the Gryffindor's stomach despite Hermione's insistence that Malfoy was okay. He seemed to treat Hermione well, so Harry put up with seeing the two of them together. He was still unnerved by the discovery that they were sleeping together.

Now Malfoy tells her he loves her and breaks her heart? It's all so messy.

Harry kicked himself for not putting up more of a fight before when Hermione first told him about her new relationship.

"He lied."

Harry's stomach flipped under the weight of more guilt. Sure, Hermione had pointed out that his intuition had been wrong exponentially more times than it was right, but maybe, with Malfoy, he'd been right all along. He should have stopped her from dating the prat somehow. He should have been able to prevent this moment. Harry's her best friend; isn't it his job to protect her from slimy liars like him?

It was too late to prevent it, but he remembered after a few moments that it was also his job to comfort her. He'd never been much good at comforting.

"Lied about what?" he asked pointedly. The stern gleam in his green eyes was not comforting in the slightest. It was the same look he had given her months ago, every time he brought up his Malfoy-is-a-Death-Eater theory.

That was almost what hurt her the most. It seemed that so many people saw it coming. And worse, she had spent so much time defending him, thinking he was different, falling in love with the man she found him to be, when, in reality, he had been exactly what everyone else knew he was.

And she was left to wonder if any of it had been real.

"That part doesn't matter," she declared fiercely.

She wasn't sure why she was defending him now. Maybe she didn't want to admit she had been wrong. Maybe because she thought she loved him. Maybe because she couldn't say it out loud.

But for some reason, she decided she wouldn't tell Harry.

Harry looked at her softly, caring. "I want to help, Hermione."

"I know, Harry, I know, And thank you, but what he lied about doesn't matter." She insisted, pleading with her tear-filled eyes. "All that matters is that it means we can't be together. I can't trust him. That's it."

Harry seemed like he wanted to argue with her more, like he always seemed to, but Hermione had made her decision and she refused to backtrack now. "I don't want to talk about it," she declared, not letting him speak. "Not right now. Tonight, I want to cry. Maybe tomorrow we can talk. Tonight, can you just stay with me?"

He pulled her close once again, sighing in defeat. "That, I can do," he promised.

Ron almost felt sick from holding himself back. He wanted to help. He wanted to brush away Hermione's tears. He wanted to pull her close. He wanted to make her feel safe and loved and important.

He wanted to do a lot of things.

He wanted to punch the daylights out of Draco fucking Malfoy. But that wasn't new.

.

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A/N: I know you must hate me right now. First I'm late posting. Then I pull this shit and break up Draco and Hermione right when they come together for real. I'm awful, I know. I hate me too. But I promise: THIS STORY WILL HAVE A HAPPY DRAMIONE ENDING. Thank you all who read, reviewed, and favorited last chapter. It is my favourite, too and I'm so excited so many people loved it!

Questions: What are your thoughts about the way Hermione found out? What do you think is going to happen next?

Thanks, as always, to Rachelletwin2 and Bumbleb-thc for their helpful work as Betas for this fic.

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Disclaimer: All publically recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of J.K. Rowling.

Many thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this story, OxfordElise