CHAPTER 20

Hermione ushered her two best friends of over seven years into her bedroom, sighing heavily as they sat down on her bed. She remained standing in the doorway with her arms folded wearily over her chest, looking at them. They exchanged a confused glance before looking at her as if to say “go on.”

“Guys,” she said in an almost pleading tone. “What is it that you two hate so much about Draco? What evil qualities are you seeing in him that I’m not? If there’s something you know that I don’t, then don’t you think I should know?”

“Have you forgotten entirely about last year?” Harry demanded. “About Dumbledore? About the huge fight? The Death Eaters he let into the school? The entirety of your magical education? How he insulted you, us, your entire being? What happened so much that you suddenly see this drastic change in him?”

“Yeah, Hermione,” Ron piped up, as if he just wanted to get a word in over Harry’s little tirade. “Are you really sure it’s him that’s changed and not you?”

“I never said he changed,” Hermione said, stepping closer to them and unfolding her arms to portray a more open stance. “I said I realized that wasn’t a bad person. It may seem like a change, in both of us, I guess. Maybe it is really me that’s changed, but I don’t think it’s for the worse. Harry, you of all people know the sway that Voldemort had over people. You yourself fell under it once or twice, and you don’t deny that it’s powerful. Draco was under that for his entire life, plus his father’s pressure. If you can manage to keep up a friendly façade with a childhood like that I would be impressed. As soon as his father died, and Voldemort couldn’t reach him, his entire act changed, the face he put forth. He stopped trying to please people he didn’t like or agree with, and he was just himself. That’s who I see. You refuse to acknowledge any sort of Draco that isn’t quite as evil as your previous misconceptions of him. Now who’s being unreasonable? Now who’s not seeing the truth?” she said.

“Hermione--”

“No!” she yelled at Ron before he could spout anymore nonsense at her. “No, I’ve had enough of you two always protesting our relationship! Like Draco said, if you were really my friends, you would want me to be happy, and I’m happy with him. I’m really, truly happy. I can see as clearly as you can that you’re trying to make me choose. I beg you not to force me to make that choice, but if you do…I just want you to know right now that I’ll choose him, and I probably always will,” she finished, rather subdued next to the sudden outburst. Her friends gaped at her, horrified and hurt. “I’m sorry--”

“But, Hermione--”

“I can’t believe you wo--”

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be!” she cried, squeezing her eyes to keep the tears in, a desperate attempt to stop their pleading from coming. “I’m sorry, but it’s a choice that you forced on me. I would much rather have you all. But if you continue with this same hostility and anger towards him, I’m going to have to choose him. I’m sorry.”

With one last sad glance over her shoulder at their stunned faces, Hermione turned and left them in her bedroom, staring at her retreating back. She heard them call out to her, but she didn’t turn. She couldn’t bear to let them see her tears, not after that. She just wanted Draco to hold her, comfort her, tell her it would be all right, but he was at the Ministry looking through the werewolf registration records in an attempt to find Lupin.

Instead, she just settled for grabbing her flute off the kitchen counter and heading toward the garden. That was the one feature that Hermione and Draco had insisted upon when the whole group of them were choosing a flat to share, a garden secluded enough for them to practice in, or to just be alone. A spacious plot of land filled with tiger lilies and purple roses, with walkways and little squares paved in subtle patterns of light grey stones. A few iron benches with velvety cushions sat around a large fountain falling in sparkling tiers to a gently lapping pool, a few small music stands tucked behind them so they could play at their leisure. It really was her favorite aspect of the house.

She sat at her and Draco’s usual bench, spreading out some new music on a stand in front of her. Before she began to play, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on the soft tinkling sound of the water dripping from level to level of the fountain and the musical “plink plink” of the droplets falling into the pool below. Sighing, she studied the music before her and set the metronome to 63. It was a slow song, lilting gently on the still afternoon air, an almost sorrowful keening that betrayed her inner conflict between her faithful friends her true love.

Technically, the song was meant to be sung and the words along the bottom of the staff were as beautifully poetic and musical as the notes themselves. As she reached the third stanza of the poem-song, she stopped playing but kept reading the words. They spoke to her, filling her heart with an indescribable love and warmth. Smiling, she leaned against the fabric-covered railings of the bench and sighed, closing her eyes contentedly. The song seemed to calm her, at least enough to think the situation out. Harry and Ron were just being overprotective. They didn’t really see anything wrong with Draco anymore, and that’s why they were acting this way. They didn’t want her to leave them for Draco. Now that she had threatened to do just that, it really couldn’t have helped the situation any. Either they would cut their disapproval down to a bare minimum, or they would do the opposite and go to the extreme to try and turn her against Draco. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, and pledged to herself to believe in her boyfriend one hundred percent, no matter the evidence against him. After all, evidence could be fabricated, and there were always two suspects with a motive.

As analytical as she was trying to be, so many images of Draco running around in her head were clouding her thoughts. She ended up just picturing him, grinning like a sappy happy dope. His crystal eyes, his small nose, his sweeping hair, his soft lips, everything just intoxicated her. Absentmindedly, she picked a deep purple rose from the bed beside her, sniffing it. It’s sweet scent always reminded her of Draco. They were his favorite flower. She went to put the flower back in the bed and two flowers, a rose and a tiger lily, intertwined, growing around and against each other, caught her eye. She grinned at them, relating to them. Her and Draco’s favorite flowers depending on each other like their counterparts. Sweet and symbolic.

Hermione hesitated on the verge of going back inside and running the risk of seeing Harry and Ron again, facing their pleading, their indignation. “Maybe I should just go help Draco look for Lupin,” she thought, sighing. She returned her flute to her case and stowed it under the bench on the shelf she and Draco had built for their instruments. She stood and, casting a look back at the house, Disaparated. She reappeared in the Ministry Atrium, and slowly worked her way through the various security measures until she was all the way back in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Beasts, Werewolf Subdivision.

Draco was sitting in an office with a homely blonde woman, supposedly the head of department, sifting through mounds of paperwork for all the registered werewolves in the country. Hermione knocked on the open door to announce her presence. Draco looked up, his hair disheveled and falling into his face. He pushed it back and struggled to his feet, smiling at her as he pushed a few piles out of his way to reach her.

“Hey,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “What are you doing here? I thought you were at home,” he said, leading her through the maze of files to a deflated arm chair in the nook they were working from.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly like the atmosphere,” she said evasively. She took the chair and Draco returned to his cramped seat on the dusty floor. He gave her an odd look.

“What do you mean? What was wrong with the atmosphere?” he asked, sounding a bit puzzled. Hermione reached for some of the files, wanting to help out, and began filtering through them looking for Lupin’s name.

“Well…I had a bit of a chat with Harry and Ron,” she confessed, but didn’t volunteer anymore information on the subject.

“Oh? And how’d it go?” he prompted.

“Awful, I guess. I mean, I got my point across, but that didn’t make it any easier to say,” Hermione said.

“And what exactly was your point?” Draco asked, getting more confused by the minute.

“I told them that if they were trying to make me choose between them and you that I would choose you, and always would,” she said quickly. Draco gaped at her.

“What?” he gasped. “Hermione, just because they don’t like me doesn’t mean they were necessarily trying to make you choose,” he insisted.

“But they were. I’ve known them long enough to be able to tell when they dislike someone for a reason and when it’s because they can’t find a reason and they just want to,” Hermione said. “And this is the latter. They keep bringing up last year, and all of that nasty business, and I guess I can see their point, but that doesn’t mean I agree with them. They’re trying to convince me that you never changed your ways, even though I keep trying to tell them that you didn’t change at all, and then they say that I’m the one that’s changed, and they get all dramatic and weird, and I just don’t know how to deal with it,” she finished. She said all of this in one breath, and stopped only to breathe, then continued.

“I mean, if they’re such good friends, they should want me to be happy and able to make my own decisions, but they just keep trying to make them for me and being all overprotective and all of that. But I still don’t see why they treat me like a little sister, I’m older than them! I don’t understand why they can’t let me do what I think is right, and what makes me happy. I guess it makes sense to them, but it doesn’t to me and it doesn’t to you, right?” she asked, confident that he would agree with her wholeheartedly. There was no way that he wouldn’t get her point of view on the subject, no way at all.

“…I’m not sure,” Draco said, not looking at her.

“What do you mean?” Hermione asked, her face falling.

“I don’t know, it’s just that…I guess they have their reasons. I don’t blame them for not liking me. It’s not like I’ve given them much reason to,” he said, glancing up to see her reaction. “There is no way I could expect them to trust me right off the bat. I have to earn it, and that will take time. I’m trying to be patient with them, and I think you should too.”

Hermione glared at him for a moment, but he didn’t look back up. In a huff, she turned back to her search. She wasn’t searching, though, just staring at the paper to avoid looking at her boyfriend. An awkward silence filled the room, broken only by the shuffle of papers. Finally, the homely woman spoke, sounding uncomfortable about butting into the problem.

“Sorry to intrude on personal matters,” she said, “but maybe you should try getting all of you together at once and talking things out, instead of running back and forth between each other. I’ve found that to be a more successful tactic.” No one responded, so she turned back to her task, but Hermione pondered her words. Maybe it would be more effective to just sit them all down at once and discuss the issue at hand. Or would that just mess things up even more? Oh well, it was worth a shot.

“Okay, there is no point in looking through all of this,” Draco said after another twenty minutes of fruitless searching. “It’s quite obvious at this point that we’re not going to find anything to point us to Lupin.” He threw down the stack of files on his lap and stood up, wincing as his cramped muscles stretched.

“Yeah. This is hopeless. There’s no way that Lupin would come back to the Ministry to tell everybody where he was going,” Hermione sighed, standing up as well, grimacing as her legs began to prickle uncomfortably. “My legs are asleep,” she said, stamping them to stimulate blood flow. “Well, I guess we should get back home and talk to the boys,” she suggested, though reluctantly.

“Yeah.” Draco fought his way through the maze of stacks to the door. “Thanks for your help, Amanda,” he called over his shoulder at the woman. She nodded and sat down behind a cluttered desk in the back of the room, looking rather lonely. He took Hermione’s hand and Disaparated.

“Okay, guys. I just wanted to get you all together to talk this out rationally. Harry, Ron,” Hermione said, turning to face them. They sat, looking stiff and forced, on one couch, with Hermione and Draco sitting on the other. “I don’t see why you dislike Draco so much. He doesn’t blame you for it, but I would really like to know why you refuse to give him a real chance.”

“Because!” Ron said childishly. Hermione gave him a patronizing look, and he pouted at her.

“‘Because’ is not a sentence, Ronald,” she said. “I need reasonable and logical explanations or everything I said this morning is completely valid.”

Harry uncrossed his arms and stared shrewdly at them, looking for something. Then he sighed. “Hermione, we’re just looking out for you. How can you suddenly think that he’s changed his ways, stepped out of the protective little hole his father built for him, become a good guy? It takes more than one summer and a conversation with an old enemy to completely rehabilitate a would-be Death Eater. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it,” he said evenly, leaning back with his hands in his lap. Hermione nodded at him, not happy, but mollified.

“Who would?” Ron demanded loudly. He was leaning forward and glaring heavily at the pair of them. “It’s completely ridiculous! People don’t change, Hermione, not really. They alter their appearance, the way they act, but they never really change and they will always revert back to the way they were originally. And I’m not taking all this crap about him being forced to do all of that stuff, all of the crap he’s been feeding you all year! His excuses are lame and you’re still swallowing them!” he yelled accusatorily, standing up and looking on the verge of violence.

“Ron!” Hermione said hotly, her voice carefully controlled. “Sit down and calm yourself before I’m forced to magically sedate you. You know I can, and you know I will,” she threatened, no hint of humor in her tone. Ron glared daggers at them both, then sank slowly back into his seat, looking a tad less aggressive, but not a bit less angry. “Alright. You’ve both had a chance to voice your opinions. Now, it’s Draco’s turn. Draco,” she said, gesturing for him to continue.

He gave both Harry and Ron almost pleading looks. Harry stared stonily back, and Ron rolled his eyes in vexation. “Okay. I know that neither of you like me, or believe that my intentions are anything short of criminal, and I understand why. You’ve never seen me act anything but malicious towards you, so I don’t expect you to trust me, or like me, anytime in the near future. But I do ask that you give me a chance. And not just the lack-of-open-hostility kind--although that would be nice, too--but the kind where you really listen and let me try to earn your trust and friendship,” he said, surprising even himself with the sincerity of his tone.

Harry seemed to consider the notion, looking a bit skeptical, but not entirely pessimistic. Ron, on the other hand, was staring at him as though he had suddenly turned purple, grown a horn, and announced that he was a flying platypus from outer space.

“I can’t believe that you’re even--” Ron shouted, standing up again and turning red in the face with outrage. Immediately, Hermione was on her feet, wand in hand, looking dangerously serious. Ron glared at her in indignation. “And you!” he bellowed at her. “How can you even accept the bullshit coming out of this liar’s mouth!”

“Sit down, Ron,” she said in a critically quiet voice, her eyes blazing.

“Please, Ron,” Draco said earnestly. “I will do anything! Give me veritaserum and ask me anything you want to,” he offered. Ron gave him a dubious look.

“Anything?” he asked, malice flashing in his eyes. And even knowing the kinds of things Ron was bound to ask him, Draco nodded. Ron smirked darkly at him. “Alright, then. All of you be back here in a half hour. I’ll go get some from Dad, I know he’s got a story somewhere.” And with that, he Disaparated, leaving Draco to wonder exactly what he had just gotten himself into.