Secrets and Masks

67. Selfishness

17th May

There were a lot of arguments over the next few weeks. There were a lot of whiskey glasses thrown into walls and a lot of books launched across rooms because they had the audacity not to hold the answers Draco wanted.

Hermione never said anything when he flew off the handle. She always just stayed where she was. She'd watch, patiently with her hands clasped in her lap, and wait for him to calm down and sit with her so they could try again.

His anger will pass, she would tell herself. It always does.

She wasn't wrong. His anger always did pass, but with each failed attempt to save her life, with each dead end they reached, it took Draco longer to calm down.

Yesterday the kitchen sink bore the brunt of his anger. Today, the cupboards were his punch bag. "IT SHOULD BE FUCKING WORKING!"

"I know."

"I'M DOING EVERYTHING RIGHT!"

"I know you are."

"SO THEN WHY ISN'T IT FUCKING WORKING! IT SHOULD-" Draco screamed as he spun around and threw yet another crystal glass against the wall. "SHITTING - FUCK!"

Astoria was going to be livid when she found out about the glass. That was her last one. Draco had broken all of the others and unfortunately, no matter how hard Hermione tried to fix them with magic, she could never get them quite right. They always ended up in the bin.

"IT SHOULD FUCKING WORK!"

"I know."

No matter how many times he went off like this, it never got any easier to watch. For a long time, Hermione had wanted nothing more than to have his Occlumency walls crumble so she could know exactly what he was thinking. For a long time, she'd wanted to see whatever emotions he was hiding behind those big icy walls.

She just never considered that what was hiding behind them might break her heart.

It wasn't until he'd broken one of the dining chairs that he calmed down. Wasn't until he'd put a boot-shaped hole in the wall that he took a deep breath, pushed back the hair that'd fallen into his eyes and sat back down on the floor in front of the fire with her.

"Feel better now?" Hermione asked, taking a stab at humour to try and dampen his temper.

It didn't work, just caused Draco to glare at her for a moment. Sometimes her teasing was just the thing he needed to snap him out of his little bouts of rage. Today, apparently, wasn't one of those days.

"Are you fucking or fighting?" asked a feminine voice as high heels began clicking down the stairs. "I'm coming down! Is it safe to -" The clicking stopped as they reached the bottom step. "Is that the last of the crystal glasses?!"

Draco got to his feet again. It seemed he still had more anger to exorcise. "I think we have more pressing matters to attend to right now than a couple of broken fucking glasses!"

"Darling, is it really worth wasting your energy on this?" Hermione heard Blaise hush in a worried tone. He must have followed Astoria down the stairs. Or helped her down them. It depended on if she was having a good day or bad with her blood curse.

"It's not just a couple of broken glasses though, is it?!" Astoria snapped, still hidden from Hermione's view. "It's all of them! It's every crystal glass that I brought from home-"

"I told you to only pack the essentials when we fled the manor so why did you fucking bring them in the first place?!"

Hermione sighed heavily and leaned against the sofa, knowing that this argument wasn't going to be brushed over anytime soon. She wondered if she had time to make a cup of tea ...