The Bracelet, Chapter 80
Title: The Bracelet
Author: AkashaTheKitty
Characters: Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Pansy Parkinson, Ron Weasley, Theodore Nott (whew)
Genres: Drama, Friendship, Hogwarts Years, Humor, Romance
Warnings: HBP Spoilers, although slightly incompatible.
Overall Rating: R
Summary: When Hermione Granger loses a bet she was sure she'd win to Draco Malfoy, it's the beginning of her own personal hell. And his.
Go here if you didn't read previous chapters.
Draco sat leaned back in a sofa in his common room and stared at the ceiling. So. This was how it was going to be, then? He wasn't terribly surprised, just a little disappointed. He'd hoped that things would have been different, maybe even easier, after what had happened between Hermione and himself, but... no such luck.
Although, to say that things were hard was an exaggeration, he supposed. She was not giving him a hard time at all. She was just avoiding him when she could, and the very few times she couldn't, like for classes and such, she was apparently pretending that nothing had happened.
She was doing a damn convincing job of it too. If it hadn't been for all the physical evidence to the contrary, he'd be questioning his sanity right about now. Even if he could have told himself that he was fooling himself and that he'd messed up his own bed, she'd apparently been in a great enough hurry to sneak out to not bother finding her bra, which had somehow been tucked under his pillow.
He did not just imagine bras, no matter how nice souvenirs they made.
So, basically, they had made love or whatever he was supposed to call it, and it didn't seem to have made the slightest impact on her. Or she was damn good at lying to herself as well as everyone else.
Shouldn't he be able to tell somehow? It was entirely possible that he'd misread her responses and seen what he wanted to see in the heat of the moment. It wasn't unlikely that she hadn't gotten anything from it at all.
Except, of course, that stupid declaration of love that she did not want.
He sighed. It really was no wonder that she was avoiding him. Hell, he'd probably be doing the same thing in her place. It hadn't been what she'd been asking for. He'd just... felt it so strongly in that moment that he'd had to share it with her.
Yes, he'd felt something strongly, all right. But that had hardly been controlled by his heart and it had been a stupid thing to say. A very stupid thing. It didn’t take a lot of brain power to realize that such a statement would scare her off at this point.
How was he going to get her to come back to his bed if he couldn't even satisfy her and he was shoving excess emotional baggage at her when all she wanted was a physical connection?
He was in love with her, though. No use denying it. He should probably be panicking or wishing that he hadn’t told her but… no. It was just one of those things; nothing to get all worked up about. Not for him, anyway. What was the worst that could happen? Hermione wasn’t the kind to make fun of him or tell all her friends so… pretty much this and he had expected this much.
True, he did ultimately want her to return his feelings, but he was looking at the odds here. The odds that he could talk her back into his bed were much higher than the odds that he could make her fall in love with him-and that still wasn't saying much.
He'd take whatever he could get, though, so he needed to somehow get her attention back on him. Her positive attention.
It wasn't really nice to cast spells on anyone without their knowledge. Hermione knew that. But when she'd found that nifty little location spell, she'd not even thought twice about using it on Draco so she could know where he was at.
Not so much to know where he was as to know where he wasn't, because that was where she wanted to be.
It wasn't like it was a permanent spell or anything, anyway. She just cast it every once in a while to prevent any uncomfortable meetings.
She had never felt as rotten before in her whole life as she was feeling now.
Love. That had not been the plan. That was... that was... that was simply unacceptable! It wasn't what she'd signed up for. She didn't want him to say such things. It was not like he even meant it! He was just messing with her head... again!
But if it were true.... No, it couldn't be. How could she have missed any indications of it?
Ok, maybe she had missed it due to him repeatedly telling her how unsuitable and unworthy she was. But that just enhanced the insanity of it all-how could she be supposed to know if he had those kind of feelings for her when he claimed that he never even wanted to date her?
She couldn't have known! And, besides, maybe he was just deluding himself. Yeah, that was probably it. Self-delusion made much more sense.
It didn't keep her from feeling like a horrible person, though. Even if he was deluding himself or even just trying to fool her, she had effectively taken advantage of him just to get her own itch taken care of. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, but... now she just wanted to cry.
She couldn't be held responsible for the choices he made! She’d given him an offer and he’d taken it, knowing what it was!
She wasn't supposed to feel this confused and upset just because he couldn't be honest one way or the other to save his life.
But... she definitely hadn't wanted to hurt him. It had all been supposed to be a good thing. Some great sex to work out the chemistry between them. Sometimes that was all it took-just look at that thing that had once occurred between Ginny and Blaise!
She hadn't even been able to face him the next morning, so she'd snuck off like a thief in the night while he'd still been asleep. Even back in fourth year when she'd made the mistake of her life and slept with Viktor Krum, she hadn't been that callous. She should have woken Malfoy up and told him that she was leaving, but it had simply been too hard to face him.
So, she'd left and had done her best to avoid him ever since.
It was the coward's way and she hated herself for it, but each day it became harder to face him.
At least he didn't actually want to date her. That made it slightly better, right? As long as she kept her distance and made it easy for him, she did not deserve a painful, fiery death for this... right? No promises had been made. They hadn't even been friends before, so nothing would be broken there either.
Hermione took a deep breath. What was done was done. She should remember that. Now she should take advantage of it being Friday night with not a soul in sight here at the library. Her vast emotional overreactions weren't helping anyone anyway.
She was never having sex again. Ever.
“Hey, Draco!”
“Draco's not in right now.”
Blaise stopped up and gave Draco an annoyed look. Ok, so maybe it was a bit cheeky to claim he was 'not in' when he was splayed all over the common room sofa, but he just wasn't in the mood.
“What is it, then?” Draco sighed.
“I have good news,” Blaise replied, still scowling a bit.
“What? They now serve meals in the Great Hall five times a day?” Draco guessed with a small twitch of his lips. “I swear, there's very little besides nagging me and food that gets you excited these days....”
“You're wrong. There's Tracey.”
“Oh, yeah, Tracey....” Draco looked away. Even if Blaise was grateful for the second chance, Draco couldn't help but feel a little guilty that he’d made sure that Blaise was effectively being led on by a girl that did not really want him.
“She's agreed to go with me to Hogsmeade next week!”
Draco sighed inwardly. “That's good, mate.”
“Just a tad more enthusiasm on your part and we might be talking about my funeral.”
“No, look, it's good. It really is.”
Blaise crossed his arms over his chest. “It's a date. In public. Did you even try to get one of those?”
Draco almost laughed. He'd slept with the girl he was having much more than a passing crush on two weeks ago and she'd spent every waking moment since then eluding him. Even if he could catch her, he sincerely doubted she would be interested in a date. “One thing at a time, Blaise.”
“What thing are you working on, then?” Blaise was looking very skeptical.
“Getting her to stop avoiding me,” Draco muttered, figuring his game was up. “Say, what time is it?”
“Almost midnight.” It seemed to dawn on Blaise what had just been said. “You're... actually doing something besides moping? What about the money and all that other crap you were spewing?”
“I'll worry about that if it's ever an issue.” Which probably meant never. Draco got to his feet. He hoped that this time he managed to catch her before she went to bed.
“Tracking spell?” an all-too-familiar voice asked, startling Hermione out of her book.
She shot Draco a wary glance. It had been two weeks since they'd... well, talked. It was odd. “Location spell,” she admitted. And she'd forgotten to check on his whereabouts for the past hour, thinking he'd be asleep by now. Damn. She quickly grabbed a book to return it, hoping he would have some mercy and leave her alone.
“Tracking spell works better,” he calmly said, following her. “You can get it to set off alarms too if you don't want the one you track to get too close.”
“Good to know,” she muttered, pretending to be looking for the right spot to put it.
“Don't avoid me, Hermione,” he quietly said, taking the book from her and putting it back in the obvious gap.
“I'm-I'm sorry,” she muttered, avoiding his eyes. Ugh, she hated herself so much. It almost overshadowed how much she resented him.
“Why are you uncomfortable around me?” he asked. “You sought me out. I'm sorry if it... if it wasn't what you wanted, but I tried to give you what you asked for.”
“I know.” She still couldn't look at him.
“So, what is it? If it weren't up to your standards, just tell me how to fix that.”
That made her stare at him. Fix it? What? He wanted another go?
He flinched at her look and muttered, “There are other ways to fix something, you know.”
She slowly shook her head and looked away again. “Look, I'm sorry if I mislead you...”
“You didn't,” he interrupted rather abruptly. “Can't a bloke wish for more sex without having been mislead?” His voice was hardening.
“W-what about what you said then?”
“What I said?” His lip curled derisively. “You mean that I love you?”
Hermione winced. The words were bad enough, but the way he said it, as if it was beyond ridiculous to believe in such a thing... it made her feel silly. And small.
He made a dismissive sound. “I don't know how to tell you this, but I hadn't actually done it before...”
“Oh, I realized that,” she replied with a shrug. It had been fairly obvious, after all, with the way he'd hesitated and how he'd been fighting for control. Sure, it had surprised her a little bit, considering his dating history, but it didn't actually matter.
Now he was the one to stare for a second. “Thanks. Very reassuring. Anyway, whatever I may or may not have said, you can't... you can't take it very seriously.”
“So... you didn't mean it?” she asked with a slight frown. “It was all just pillow talk?”
“Exactly.”
Draco gave the performance of his life pretending none of this mattered, while Hermione was giving him the skeptical once-over.
Denying how he felt was hard. Really hard. In a perfect world, she'd be ok with him loving her, even if she didn't return his feelings. But she wasn't ok with it. She was upset. He wasn't sure why it was so awful that it upset rather than flattered her, but part of being in love with her was not wanting to upset her anymore than he had to. Besides, she was very obviously not currently going to let him close to her again if she believed he had feelings for her.
So he lied.
Convincingly.
Surprisingly bitterly.
“You would say something like that and not mean it?” she asked rather incredulously.
Sometimes she was so endearingly naïve, but he was sent here to shatter her faith in human nature, even though he had indeed meant it. Oh, the irony. And the way she looked at him actually made it hard, but what else was he supposed to do? “Yes.”
And he watched her go from what had seemed to be the brink of tears to extreme annoyance with him. It wasn't so bad when she was mad at him. He could easily live with that. He just wished that she didn't also look disappointed in him. Disappointed in the kind of lies he would tell. The kind of lies he'd never told.
Had he mentioned the irony of it?
“Why would you say something like that and not mean it?” she demanded. “That's just... cruel! What if I'd believed you?”
“You did believe me.”
She made an annoyed dismissive motion. “What if I'd wanted it?”
Then he would have been a very happy wizard indeed. Giddy, even. Probably kissing her right now. He looked away, quite unable to look her in the eye for a second. “Then we would have dealt with that.”
“You can't just go around saying things like that!” She all but stomped her foot.
Now he was truly becoming puzzled. “I didn't hurt anyone.”
“You could have!”
She was becoming upset again for some reason he couldn't quite understand. And he wasn't even sure what to say. “I thought you'd be pleased,” he finally managed rather lamely.
“I am!” she said, looking everything but pleased. “But you have no idea how- ugh, I can't even look at you right now.” She began pushing past him.
He gaped for just a second, but then he gathered enough of his wits to catch her against the bookcase. “No, finish that sentence, Hermione,” he said, feeling anger wash through him. Another sacrifice wasted on her. If she was going to stay like this, then why should he have to lie to make her feel better? He would have preferred to not have to pretend again if it didn’t even change anything. “Let me know how that affected you,” he added. “How you were upset that it might be true. What if it had been? Where would that have left me?”
In Hell shaped like a library, staring at the girl he couldn't have after denying his own heart, that's where.
“That's exactly it!” she shot back at him.
He blinked. “What?”
She visibly fought to keep her composure. “I didn't come to your room to take advantage of any feelings you might have for me. I went there because I thought we might want the same thing. T-to realize what I had-thought I had-done.... Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”
“Nobody did,” he quietly replied. He'd known exactly what was going on; he hadn't been hurt or thought she was using his feelings. He'd been happy to just get that part of her.
“Now you tell me!” She shook her head. “For weeks I've been trying to figure out if I missed any signs that obviously weren't even there, or if I could have done anything to prevent it. I felt awful! So just... stay away.”
She pushed him away, and he let her go, trying to figure out whether he should be hurt at the way she'd fretted about him having unrequited feelings for her, as if it were the last thing in the world she wanted, or elated that she cared that he might get hurt.
Author: AkashaTheKitty
Characters: Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy, Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Pansy Parkinson, Ron Weasley, Theodore Nott (whew)
Genres: Drama, Friendship, Hogwarts Years, Humor, Romance
Warnings: HBP Spoilers, although slightly incompatible.
Overall Rating: R
Summary: When Hermione Granger loses a bet she was sure she'd win to Draco Malfoy, it's the beginning of her own personal hell. And his.
Go here if you didn't read previous chapters.
Draco sat leaned back in a sofa in his common room and stared at the ceiling. So. This was how it was going to be, then? He wasn't terribly surprised, just a little disappointed. He'd hoped that things would have been different, maybe even easier, after what had happened between Hermione and himself, but... no such luck.
Although, to say that things were hard was an exaggeration, he supposed. She was not giving him a hard time at all. She was just avoiding him when she could, and the very few times she couldn't, like for classes and such, she was apparently pretending that nothing had happened.
She was doing a damn convincing job of it too. If it hadn't been for all the physical evidence to the contrary, he'd be questioning his sanity right about now. Even if he could have told himself that he was fooling himself and that he'd messed up his own bed, she'd apparently been in a great enough hurry to sneak out to not bother finding her bra, which had somehow been tucked under his pillow.
He did not just imagine bras, no matter how nice souvenirs they made.
So, basically, they had made love or whatever he was supposed to call it, and it didn't seem to have made the slightest impact on her. Or she was damn good at lying to herself as well as everyone else.
Shouldn't he be able to tell somehow? It was entirely possible that he'd misread her responses and seen what he wanted to see in the heat of the moment. It wasn't unlikely that she hadn't gotten anything from it at all.
Except, of course, that stupid declaration of love that she did not want.
He sighed. It really was no wonder that she was avoiding him. Hell, he'd probably be doing the same thing in her place. It hadn't been what she'd been asking for. He'd just... felt it so strongly in that moment that he'd had to share it with her.
Yes, he'd felt something strongly, all right. But that had hardly been controlled by his heart and it had been a stupid thing to say. A very stupid thing. It didn’t take a lot of brain power to realize that such a statement would scare her off at this point.
How was he going to get her to come back to his bed if he couldn't even satisfy her and he was shoving excess emotional baggage at her when all she wanted was a physical connection?
He was in love with her, though. No use denying it. He should probably be panicking or wishing that he hadn’t told her but… no. It was just one of those things; nothing to get all worked up about. Not for him, anyway. What was the worst that could happen? Hermione wasn’t the kind to make fun of him or tell all her friends so… pretty much this and he had expected this much.
True, he did ultimately want her to return his feelings, but he was looking at the odds here. The odds that he could talk her back into his bed were much higher than the odds that he could make her fall in love with him-and that still wasn't saying much.
He'd take whatever he could get, though, so he needed to somehow get her attention back on him. Her positive attention.
It wasn't really nice to cast spells on anyone without their knowledge. Hermione knew that. But when she'd found that nifty little location spell, she'd not even thought twice about using it on Draco so she could know where he was at.
Not so much to know where he was as to know where he wasn't, because that was where she wanted to be.
It wasn't like it was a permanent spell or anything, anyway. She just cast it every once in a while to prevent any uncomfortable meetings.
She had never felt as rotten before in her whole life as she was feeling now.
Love. That had not been the plan. That was... that was... that was simply unacceptable! It wasn't what she'd signed up for. She didn't want him to say such things. It was not like he even meant it! He was just messing with her head... again!
But if it were true.... No, it couldn't be. How could she have missed any indications of it?
Ok, maybe she had missed it due to him repeatedly telling her how unsuitable and unworthy she was. But that just enhanced the insanity of it all-how could she be supposed to know if he had those kind of feelings for her when he claimed that he never even wanted to date her?
She couldn't have known! And, besides, maybe he was just deluding himself. Yeah, that was probably it. Self-delusion made much more sense.
It didn't keep her from feeling like a horrible person, though. Even if he was deluding himself or even just trying to fool her, she had effectively taken advantage of him just to get her own itch taken care of. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, but... now she just wanted to cry.
She couldn't be held responsible for the choices he made! She’d given him an offer and he’d taken it, knowing what it was!
She wasn't supposed to feel this confused and upset just because he couldn't be honest one way or the other to save his life.
But... she definitely hadn't wanted to hurt him. It had all been supposed to be a good thing. Some great sex to work out the chemistry between them. Sometimes that was all it took-just look at that thing that had once occurred between Ginny and Blaise!
She hadn't even been able to face him the next morning, so she'd snuck off like a thief in the night while he'd still been asleep. Even back in fourth year when she'd made the mistake of her life and slept with Viktor Krum, she hadn't been that callous. She should have woken Malfoy up and told him that she was leaving, but it had simply been too hard to face him.
So, she'd left and had done her best to avoid him ever since.
It was the coward's way and she hated herself for it, but each day it became harder to face him.
At least he didn't actually want to date her. That made it slightly better, right? As long as she kept her distance and made it easy for him, she did not deserve a painful, fiery death for this... right? No promises had been made. They hadn't even been friends before, so nothing would be broken there either.
Hermione took a deep breath. What was done was done. She should remember that. Now she should take advantage of it being Friday night with not a soul in sight here at the library. Her vast emotional overreactions weren't helping anyone anyway.
She was never having sex again. Ever.
“Hey, Draco!”
“Draco's not in right now.”
Blaise stopped up and gave Draco an annoyed look. Ok, so maybe it was a bit cheeky to claim he was 'not in' when he was splayed all over the common room sofa, but he just wasn't in the mood.
“What is it, then?” Draco sighed.
“I have good news,” Blaise replied, still scowling a bit.
“What? They now serve meals in the Great Hall five times a day?” Draco guessed with a small twitch of his lips. “I swear, there's very little besides nagging me and food that gets you excited these days....”
“You're wrong. There's Tracey.”
“Oh, yeah, Tracey....” Draco looked away. Even if Blaise was grateful for the second chance, Draco couldn't help but feel a little guilty that he’d made sure that Blaise was effectively being led on by a girl that did not really want him.
“She's agreed to go with me to Hogsmeade next week!”
Draco sighed inwardly. “That's good, mate.”
“Just a tad more enthusiasm on your part and we might be talking about my funeral.”
“No, look, it's good. It really is.”
Blaise crossed his arms over his chest. “It's a date. In public. Did you even try to get one of those?”
Draco almost laughed. He'd slept with the girl he was having much more than a passing crush on two weeks ago and she'd spent every waking moment since then eluding him. Even if he could catch her, he sincerely doubted she would be interested in a date. “One thing at a time, Blaise.”
“What thing are you working on, then?” Blaise was looking very skeptical.
“Getting her to stop avoiding me,” Draco muttered, figuring his game was up. “Say, what time is it?”
“Almost midnight.” It seemed to dawn on Blaise what had just been said. “You're... actually doing something besides moping? What about the money and all that other crap you were spewing?”
“I'll worry about that if it's ever an issue.” Which probably meant never. Draco got to his feet. He hoped that this time he managed to catch her before she went to bed.
“Tracking spell?” an all-too-familiar voice asked, startling Hermione out of her book.
She shot Draco a wary glance. It had been two weeks since they'd... well, talked. It was odd. “Location spell,” she admitted. And she'd forgotten to check on his whereabouts for the past hour, thinking he'd be asleep by now. Damn. She quickly grabbed a book to return it, hoping he would have some mercy and leave her alone.
“Tracking spell works better,” he calmly said, following her. “You can get it to set off alarms too if you don't want the one you track to get too close.”
“Good to know,” she muttered, pretending to be looking for the right spot to put it.
“Don't avoid me, Hermione,” he quietly said, taking the book from her and putting it back in the obvious gap.
“I'm-I'm sorry,” she muttered, avoiding his eyes. Ugh, she hated herself so much. It almost overshadowed how much she resented him.
“Why are you uncomfortable around me?” he asked. “You sought me out. I'm sorry if it... if it wasn't what you wanted, but I tried to give you what you asked for.”
“I know.” She still couldn't look at him.
“So, what is it? If it weren't up to your standards, just tell me how to fix that.”
That made her stare at him. Fix it? What? He wanted another go?
He flinched at her look and muttered, “There are other ways to fix something, you know.”
She slowly shook her head and looked away again. “Look, I'm sorry if I mislead you...”
“You didn't,” he interrupted rather abruptly. “Can't a bloke wish for more sex without having been mislead?” His voice was hardening.
“W-what about what you said then?”
“What I said?” His lip curled derisively. “You mean that I love you?”
Hermione winced. The words were bad enough, but the way he said it, as if it was beyond ridiculous to believe in such a thing... it made her feel silly. And small.
He made a dismissive sound. “I don't know how to tell you this, but I hadn't actually done it before...”
“Oh, I realized that,” she replied with a shrug. It had been fairly obvious, after all, with the way he'd hesitated and how he'd been fighting for control. Sure, it had surprised her a little bit, considering his dating history, but it didn't actually matter.
Now he was the one to stare for a second. “Thanks. Very reassuring. Anyway, whatever I may or may not have said, you can't... you can't take it very seriously.”
“So... you didn't mean it?” she asked with a slight frown. “It was all just pillow talk?”
“Exactly.”
Draco gave the performance of his life pretending none of this mattered, while Hermione was giving him the skeptical once-over.
Denying how he felt was hard. Really hard. In a perfect world, she'd be ok with him loving her, even if she didn't return his feelings. But she wasn't ok with it. She was upset. He wasn't sure why it was so awful that it upset rather than flattered her, but part of being in love with her was not wanting to upset her anymore than he had to. Besides, she was very obviously not currently going to let him close to her again if she believed he had feelings for her.
So he lied.
Convincingly.
Surprisingly bitterly.
“You would say something like that and not mean it?” she asked rather incredulously.
Sometimes she was so endearingly naïve, but he was sent here to shatter her faith in human nature, even though he had indeed meant it. Oh, the irony. And the way she looked at him actually made it hard, but what else was he supposed to do? “Yes.”
And he watched her go from what had seemed to be the brink of tears to extreme annoyance with him. It wasn't so bad when she was mad at him. He could easily live with that. He just wished that she didn't also look disappointed in him. Disappointed in the kind of lies he would tell. The kind of lies he'd never told.
Had he mentioned the irony of it?
“Why would you say something like that and not mean it?” she demanded. “That's just... cruel! What if I'd believed you?”
“You did believe me.”
She made an annoyed dismissive motion. “What if I'd wanted it?”
Then he would have been a very happy wizard indeed. Giddy, even. Probably kissing her right now. He looked away, quite unable to look her in the eye for a second. “Then we would have dealt with that.”
“You can't just go around saying things like that!” She all but stomped her foot.
Now he was truly becoming puzzled. “I didn't hurt anyone.”
“You could have!”
She was becoming upset again for some reason he couldn't quite understand. And he wasn't even sure what to say. “I thought you'd be pleased,” he finally managed rather lamely.
“I am!” she said, looking everything but pleased. “But you have no idea how- ugh, I can't even look at you right now.” She began pushing past him.
He gaped for just a second, but then he gathered enough of his wits to catch her against the bookcase. “No, finish that sentence, Hermione,” he said, feeling anger wash through him. Another sacrifice wasted on her. If she was going to stay like this, then why should he have to lie to make her feel better? He would have preferred to not have to pretend again if it didn’t even change anything. “Let me know how that affected you,” he added. “How you were upset that it might be true. What if it had been? Where would that have left me?”
In Hell shaped like a library, staring at the girl he couldn't have after denying his own heart, that's where.
“That's exactly it!” she shot back at him.
He blinked. “What?”
She visibly fought to keep her composure. “I didn't come to your room to take advantage of any feelings you might have for me. I went there because I thought we might want the same thing. T-to realize what I had-thought I had-done.... Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”
“Nobody did,” he quietly replied. He'd known exactly what was going on; he hadn't been hurt or thought she was using his feelings. He'd been happy to just get that part of her.
“Now you tell me!” She shook her head. “For weeks I've been trying to figure out if I missed any signs that obviously weren't even there, or if I could have done anything to prevent it. I felt awful! So just... stay away.”
She pushed him away, and he let her go, trying to figure out whether he should be hurt at the way she'd fretted about him having unrequited feelings for her, as if it were the last thing in the world she wanted, or elated that she cared that he might get hurt.