Inevitable Lovers

Chapter 17:

'Who is he, Hermione?'

For a Saturday morning, it was early. Too early for most people to be up and about, so a kind of sleepy peace swathed the castle; disturbed only by very keen risers, although many students would soon be taking the weekend trip to Hogsmeade. Bright rays of golden sunlight filtered through the glassless windows of the Owlery, giving the room a warm, cheerful feel, despite the chilly February air. Unfortunately, there was nothing cheerful in the air between Harry and Hermione that morning.

'Harry, you had absolutely no right to rifle through my personal things!' Hermione exclaimed. 'Anyone could tell it was a diary, in which case you should have shut it straight away.' She glared at Harry, who stood looking at her with a scathing expression on his face.

They had agreed to meet in the Owlery at Hermione's discretion; the looks Harry had been giving her over the last two days had eventually riled her into asking him plaintively what the matter was, though she knew very well what. However, there had been no chance to talk with Ginny and Ron (who had taken to hovering by her side as if he had been bewitched with a Permanent Sticking Charm), floating about in earshot, and barely time to spare anyway, for the mountains of homework they all had. So under the pretext on sending a letter, Harry had crept out to meet Hermione away from listening ears.

'I can't ignore what I read, Hermione,' said Harry stonily. 'It might not be anything to do with me, but Ron is supposed to be our best friend, and somehow I don't think it was him you were writing about.' He folded his arms in what Hermione considered a ridiculously childish manner.

She didn't exactly have a plan for the situation, and her heart was beginning to thump as she contemplated a lie. But what could the lie be? That the whole thing was a fabrication? Or it was someone else? Who could possibly fit the description she had given? There was only one Draco...Thank God she hadn't written his name.

'Harry, do you really believe I'd want to hurt Ron?' she said imploringly at last.

'I don't know,' he replied coldly, refusing to acknowledge her disquiet. 'I think I'd believe it you had been Confounded right now.' He looked highly uncomfortable, and Hermione thought with a sinking feeling that he might suspect her worst fears. Swallowing, and casting an eye out to the clear sky outside, she mentally took grasp of the fact that Harry was her best friend.

'Harry, I don't want you to think something awful came over me. Well, perhaps it did,' she lamented, now humble and feeling torturous. 'Oh God. Harry,' she looked directly into his sharp green eyes. 'This is a secret. Promise me you won't tell anyone. Please.' In her mind's eye, the diary had long since been ripped to shreds.

Harry looked a little on edge, but his gaze softened. 'Just tell me.'

Hermione took this as confirmation of his loyalty. 'What happened, it's over now. It has been for a while. But yes, I have been, erm, seeing someone. And no, it wasn't Ron.' She blushed, trying to remember exactly what she had written. Something about Slytherin serpents...What on earth was I thinking?

'You might as well get it over with,' said Harry quietly. It was as if he knew.

'It was - it was -' began Hermione faintly.

A loud screech made them both jump violently, and they looked up to see a tawny owl swoop from its perch, some small creature clutched in its beak. Hermione felt tears begin to seep from underneath her eyelids, and blinked. What she wouldn't give for Draco's reassurance right now, Draco's embrace. She wanted to leave it, to leave the room, but Harry would follow. His accusations would haunt her.

'Who, Hermione?' Harry ventured again.

'Harry, please don't judge. It was...Draco. Malfoy.' A deep, all-engulfing blush seemed to take over her entire body, and for a moment she actually felt light-headed.

There was a very long silence.

'MALFOY!?' Harry cried in utter disbelief.

The expression in his voice made Hermione flinch, and two tears actually drizzled down her cheeks. She nodded to the ground, reaching in her pocket for a tissue.

Harry wanted to shake her. His hands had screwed into fists. 'Hermione, you're joking, aren't you? Another Slytherin, maybe, but...please tell me you're joking,' he said weakly.

Her silence confirmed Harry's fears. 'I wouldn't joke about this,' she said in a tiny voice, sniffing. 'Please don't make it worse, you don't know what I've already been through -'

'What you've been - what,' Harry blustered, unable to express his anger, and sounding quite like Ron. 'Malfoy, Hermione! You hate him! We all do! What were you thinking?' He was looking at her as though he'd never seen her before.

'Oh, Harry, what you feel for him isn't hate,' Hermione had to contradict, though her eyes and face were reddening as she looked at him. 'It's not real hate, it's resentment.'

'So now you're defending the wanker?' said Harry menacingly. 'I don't - believe this. When?' he burst out.

'It started near the beginning of the year,' she faltered, unwanting to bring the beautiful, secret, torrid affair back to life.

'That was months ago!' Harry exclaimed, and a few owls twittered. 'So all this time, you've been lying to us, sneaking around to be with him. God, you've kissed him? Touched him?'

'Well, yes,' Hermione conceded quietly, unwilling to worsen things, and reddeing again. He makes it sound so sordid and wrong, but it wasn't like that...

Harry looked sickened, no doubt remembering her account of Draco as a lover. 'So during Christmas, when we were at the Burrow, you were with him, and all the time you've been shut up in that tower.' He broke off, disgust written all over his face. 'He hates us,' he said slowly. 'Don't you get it, Hermione? He hates us, that's the only reason he'd ever...he wanted to get back at me and Ron!' His eyes widened with insight behind his glasses.

'No, Harry.'

'So why the hell didn't you tell us?' Harry blazed again, apparently not listening. 'Anyone could have put you right in a second! You should have told us as soon as...he didn't hex you, did he? Did he threaten you?'

'No, he didn't do any of that.' She couldn't belive he thought she'd be that stupid. 'You've got it wrong, Harry. I lov-' she broke off hastily. 'It was my choice, all of it.'

Harry still looked uncomprehending that she could possibly have looked twice at their worst enemy. 'So you've been holed up with the Slytherins? They know about this? I expect he would have wanted to use you, as some kind of conquest -'

'Harry, don't,' Hermione began. 'I've just told you, no one knows. We - we hid it all.'

'You could have told us.' There was betrayal in his voice now.

'And said what?' said Hermione. 'How could I have told you, what would you have said? Done? Ron would have killed him. I didn't want you all to treat me like I was - was-'

'Fraternising with the enemy. Stabbing us in the back. Lying,' Harry interjected harshly.

Consumed by guilt, she nodded. 'I didn't know what to do.'

'So what's going on then?' said Harry, thinking. 'We've been seeing you more lately, and you said it was over.' He paused, musing for a moment. 'And that letter I found in his room - is it because he's a Death Eater? Or is it - is it that Pansy Parkinson?'

She let him puzzle it out in his mind before speaking. 'Pansy owns him. I don't.'

Harry thought this an odd way to put things; but indeed the girl standing before him seemed like a completely different person. 'Is this to do with his father?' he blundered, trying not to sound too accusing but not quite managing it.

'Yes.' This seemed to sum it all it up, Lucius Malfoy being the perpetrator of it all, ruining everything. 'He's made sure Draco has to be loyal to - to her. He has to be engaged to her, and stay with her all the time.' She was speaking almost monotonously now, as if to save her own feelings. 'I couldn't take it, even if it was all lies. I couldn't watch them together and be his other girlfriend. So I ended it.'

A strong ray of sunlight had snaked across the straw-covered floor between them; a transparent line of division.

'So he's with Pansy? Instead of you? And you say he actually cared?' Harry voice again showed his disbelief.

'Of course he cared. I can't even look at him, but I know he's cursing her, cursing them all.' Her voice shook slightly, and she twisted her tissue between her fingers, feeling dreadful.

'So, he loved you then? Malfoy loved you?'

'We loved each other.' The words were out, and there was no calling them back. The most private thought Hermione had ever had in her life had been offered to someone else. But it was Harry. Not a deceptive, selfish Slytherin she couldn't trust. Not Draco. Why then, did she feel as if Draco was a thousand times more trustworthy than Harry?

'He took Lucius' orders over "love" and he's queuing up to be a Death Eater, Hermione! You should have stayed away, not even looked at him. He's a complete bastard,' said Harry exasperatedly.

'He said he was sorry,' said Hermione, desperate to justify something. 'He said he was sorry for everything he's ever said to me, and he hated Pansy, and his father. And he didn't want to become a Death Eater.'

Even to her ears, the words sounded completely, absolutely ridiculous, comical even.

'You'll be telling me he was different from the others next,' said Harry bitterly. 'He was kind and sweet and gentle. What about Ron? Or anyone other than him, for that matter?'

Hermione shrugged, unwilling to describe what had happened. Harry was mixing things up, making everything nonsensical. He was twisting her memories.

Harry walked over to the Owlery window. 'I mean...Malfoy?'

His question went unanswered. A small sob made him turn back, to see Hermione with her hands over her face, trying to stop the tears.

'He's pathetic,' said Harry, walking over to her. He led her to a small wooden bench where they both sat. 'All he cares about is pure blood and family. You can't change him, Hermione. He's toxic, he hurts everyone he knows.'

'I know I was stupid,' said Hermione thickly, although a small part of her was protesting that she hadn't been, that Harry was wrong. 'But the whole thing was - new for me. You wouldn't understand. I felt like I wasn't myself. He made me...' She broke off, not even knowing how to finish the sentence. He had made her so many things. He had loved her, wanted her, needed her. But at the same time, he hadn't. She could have imagined him cutting her off at any time, like he had done with so many other girls, like Pansy. But she had to admit, that had only made him more irresistible.

'I just don't get what he saw in you,' said Harry bluntly, then realised his wording. 'Sorry, I mean, not what he saw in you, not looks-wise. I get that.' He smiled a little, at last. 'But you're not a pure-blood, you don't have wizard parents, you're not obsessed with money. You're nothing like him.'

'It didn't matter,' said Hermione, wiping her eyes with her tissue. 'Harry - there's more to him than that. I don't want to sound like I'm defending him...' well, yes, I do... 'But I never hero-worshipped him, like those other Slytherins. And I suppose he liked it that I was off-limits -'

'Liked to rub our faces in it, more like,' Harry interrupted shortly. 'I still think he wanted to mess with our friendship, to claim you. I can't believe he could ever be anything else than what he is. I hate him.' His voice was filled with tense venom, as if he was about to start shouting again.

'Harry, please,' Hermione said softly, wondering how it had been transformed into a private battle between Harry and Draco. 'We should get going, the others'll miss us.' It was of a lack of anything else to say.

Harry, who had made a move to rise from his seat, froze. 'So you're taking it that Ron won't mind being with you after - after all this,' he said stiffly.

'I told you this is private!' The words came out much more panicked than she had intended, and her heart rate sped up again. Ron could never know.

Harry stood up, and faced her staunchly. 'You want me to keep this to myself?' he asked incredulously, his voice rising again.

'It's over Harry. I told you,' she said, her breath actually becoming shallow with apprehension. 'You'll only make it worse if you tell Ron. Please. I know I've been selfish, I know. But it'll do more harm than good.' She wasn't even sure if it was true, but instinct told her Ron must never know - Harry's reaction must only be a small reflection of what Ron's would be.

'Tell me you really like Ron,' said Harry slowly. 'Tell me you're not pretending. Because he's my best mate. I don't want him to be a substitute for that - that-'

'I do like Ron,' said Hermione interrupted earnestly. 'I'm not lying, I know he's not Draco. I know. But he's different, and with him I feel - I feel safe.'

This claim seemed to persuade Harry. 'You'd better mean that, Hermione,' he said seriously. 'Because if he manages to screw up this friendship, I'll - fuck, I want to curse him so much. What can I get him with?'

'Nothing,' she said dully. 'He's got to marry someone he hates, and do whatever Lucius Malfoy says. Doesn't that sound like punishment enough?' Her eyes sought Harry's, willing him to feel the slightest shred of pity. But there was none.

'You should never have let that waste of space near you,' said Harry unforgivingly, but then, 'Hermione. Come here.'

He reached out a hand, warm and soft and strong, so different from Draco's pale, elegant, graceful hands. He pulled her off the seat, and swiftly into a warm embrace. The friendship, the forgiveness after the condemnation, was too much. A sob escaped her, and Harry stoked her back comfortingly. The first strong, male, protective embrace she had had since Draco. She took a great shuddering breath, wondering how he had managed to half-convince her that Draco had used her in some sort of game. But she knew it wasn't true, it couldn't be. Or she'd have been like Pansy, and she knew, in her heart, she wasn't like Pansy.

Harry released her, although she wanted to be held forever. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her hand. The bright room contrasted with the harshness of the conversation, and owls hooted sleepily from above. Some people believed that airing the things that had hurt them was healing, by not keeping them bottled away. But as they quietly left the room to go to breakfast, Hermione felt worse. She felt frightened, knowing that Harry held her at such mercy, whether he knew it or not. One word, and that was it. Although Hermione would have liked to feel comforted, her mind was still panicked, confused, angry. Everything she felt for Draco had been brought back, and she wasn't sure she could take it for much longer.

***

Those elysian rays of sunlight had not been isolated to the Owlery, and bathed the otherwise frosty and dewy grounds of the castle. Draco clapped his hands in his fingerless dragonhide gloves to call his team to attention. As Crabbe and Goyle came plodding last out of the changing rooms in their green and silver robes, he addressed them all.

'Right, today ought to be a very good practise, what with everyone being out in Hogsmeade. No distractions. I want to see you putting in everything - pretend we're playing that Gryffindor scum, all right?' His blue-grey eyes scanned them all. 'Places then, we'll start with some defence.' He gestured towards the sky, and one by one the team soared into the air. Draco kicked open the Quidditch crate and released the balls. The Golden Snitch flitted and fluttered away, a small golden glint in the bright sky.

Draco mounted his broom, aware of the small group of female spectators, including Pansy, standing nearby and sharing some toast from the Great Hall between them. He ignored them, immediately circling the pitch for the snitch, while keeping a close eye on his team.

Half an hour later, the weekend Quidditch training session was going as well as Draco could have hoped; the sun shining was so brightly it glinted off his platinum blond head. As Seeker, he was able to practise alone as well as hover across the pitch to check on the others. The height also gave him a eagle-eye view of the winding path leading into Hogsmeade, where many students were heading that morning, alone or in small groups. He couldn't help himself from glancing over occasionally to see if he could spot Hermione, but to no avail.

Draco paused while circling around to watch Malcolm Baddock's attempt to block against the Slytherin Beater, Eden Hobbs. Hobbs struck the Bludger cleanly, and it soared across, until Vincent Crabbe suddenly swerved in the way and sent it clear across the field with his bat. Draco put two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle.

'What did you do that for?' he yelled incredulously, speeding across.

By the time he had reprimanded Crabbe and resumed practise, the number of students he could observe walking up to Hogsmeade had slowed to a trickle. He did a double-take. He had spotted Hermione as one of the people walking, that was sure...he could tell from her hair if anything. But she was holding hands with...Weasley? Weasel? Draco felt a stab of loathing, as they soon disappeared from view, but not until he was certain the mop of ginger hair could only belong to a Weasley.

***

For Hermione, things had been practically automatic since her confrontation with Harry. There was nothing to do, after her promises that Draco was forgotten and she liked Ron, but to put them into practice. What better opportunity then, than her first date with Ron to Hogsmeade, where Harry and the rest of the school could watch them to their heart's content?

After breakfast, they all made their way down the Entrance Hall, to be checked on the way out by Filch. Ginny tactfully pushed herself and Harry to the beginning of the queue, leaving Hermione and Ron far behind. By the time they got out, Filch scowling, Harry and Ginny had already disappeared from view, leaving them to walk together alone up the path. Hermione was sure she hadn't imagined certain people commenting as Ron shyly took her hand; namely Lavender and Parvati, who were arm in arm and trailing along a few feet behind them, whispering to each other. Trying to ignore them, she made scant conversation about how hard it was to keep up with recent homework, very aware of the pressure of Ron's warm, freckled grip.

After noticing that the Hogs Head was closed and ominously boarded up, presumably after recent events, Hermione and Ron met Harry and Ginny again in the Three Broomsticks, Hermione privately glad that they were back in a group. She had not escaped the fact that the Slytherins were involved in Quidditch back at Hogwarts, and was glad neither Draco nor Pansy was anywhere in sight. They sat at a little round table in the back and Harry and Ron offered to get the drinks in, while Ginny told Hermione the latest anecdote about Fred and Georges' ambitious plan to outdo Zonko's Joke Shop in takings, and how annoying it was that the Slytherins had managed to book the pitch over the Gryffindors on such a clear day.

Then Ron returned with a tray, Harry in his wake. He gingerly set down Ginny and Hermione's glasses in front of them, and he and Harry each took their own flagons of a deep amber liquid that looked rather alcoholic.

'What's that?' asked Ginny curiously.

'Firewhisky,' said Ron gruffly. Hermione looked at him. 'Well, we are over seventeen...'

'And Rosmerta assured us it was the finest,' said Harry with a bit of a grin.

Ginny rolled her eyes to heaven, but then glanced over Harry's shoulder. 'Oh look, it's Hagrid!' she said brightly and waved as Hagrid spotted them and made his way over; the only downside of which, Hermione almost had to sit on Ron's lap to make room for him at the table.

***

By about two o'clock, by which time Draco was hot and muddy and wanted a long shower, he called practise to a halt for the day, so that they might get back to the castle in time to change and have lunch. All the while he had been issuing instructions, correcting techniques, his mind was still playing over the picture of Ron and Hermione walking hand-in-hand down the lane. He couldn't be jealous of a Weasley, he told himself firmly. As if a Weasley could give a girl anything I couldn't...he almost sniggered to himself, imaging his fumbling incompetence.

'Put those bats away,' he ordered the Beaters, putting down his broom and heading over to the crate. The tiny Golden Snitch was grasped struggling in his right hand already, so much easier to catch without Potter on the trail for it. He trapped it quickly in the box along with everything else. 'Okay, showers, then lunch. Good work.' Without further ado, he began to lead the team back towards the changing rooms, lugging the Quidditch crate, in the opposite direction from Pansy and the rest of their apparent fanclub.

Someone suddenly cut across Draco's path just as they reached the changing rooms, dark hair streaming, eyes large and scared. Blaise. He had never seen her run before, or rarely look so much as mildly flustered about anything. He stopped before her, and motioned for the rest to continue.

'Blaise?'

'Look, something's happened. Come here.' Too surprised to object, Draco followed, after dumping the heavy crate on the ground. Under the shade of a nearby oak tree, Blaise began to speak.

'It's Theodore. He's - gone.'

'Gone? Where?'

'Well, you know he's been absent a lot lately, we all do, like in Potions. I know he's not absent this time; he's left the school.'

'Oh well, s'up to him, isn't it?' replied Draco tiredly, wanting to get to the changing rooms, although her words had actually stirred his memory of Nott's strange behaviour recently. 'But then, I suppose you don't think it's because of exam pressure?'

'Hardly,' Blaise remarked coolly. 'For one thing, he's definitely gone because I asked Snape - said he'd been withdrawn from school. But this confirms that he was up to something; we've all noticed.' Her voice dropped. 'He hasn't talked to anyone for ages, which was annoying - maybe I shouldn't have dumped him when I did; could've found out what was going on.'

'He was a bastard to you Blaise,' Draco said in a preoccupied tone. His mind was working now, suddenly piecing together little things he hadn't really dwelled on until now. Nott's nightly haunts, his secrecy...his owl visiting very frequently at breakfast. Something clicked. 'Blaise,' he said suddenly. 'When you were dating him, did you see his arms? Uncovered?'

'His arms?' said Blaise perplexedly. 'Oh - no, you're going to say he's been made a Death Eater, aren't you?'

'It's a pretty accurate guess,' said Draco, thinking of his father's current demands. 'I know you don't exactly agree with Death Eaters, Blaise. But we're - they're the next generation...Slytherin pure-bloods; it's natural.'

'I never noticed anything on his arms,' said Blaise. 'But what does it matter, he could have covered what he didn't want me to see, and I'm sure he was sneaking out at night to contact people. I suppose we'll never know; it's not like it's common knowledge who's involved...'

'No, we probably won't,' Draco answered, but thinking otherwise. 'Don't worry about it Blaise, there's no point. He's got nothing to do with you anymore, you couldn't have stopped him leaving anyway.' He had injected a note of reassurance into his voice, although his mind was far from it. 'Look, I've got to go, so...'

'Okay,' said Blaise. 'Thanks, I knew you'd know what to say. See you, Draco.' She smiled and left him standing there.

Draco walked slowly back to the box of Quidditch supplies he had left, thinking hard. There was no doubt about it, Nott had been recruited for initiation, and had even been taken out of school. He was young, but it was not impossible, and gave rise to only one question; am I next?