The Sortinghat's Mission

Chapter 25

Her breath was panting hard, having run all the way up from the dungeons to the astronomy tower. She could tell her face was red, but from the exercise or the betrayal she didn't know.

Hermione stood bent over, hands on her knees, heaving long breaths trying to calm herself down. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have believed him so easily? So eagerly? When had she become such an insolent, love-cranked teen?

The quiet around her was broken by a loud wail and she startled until she realized the sound had come from her own mouth. With the realization she felt her knees give in and she slid down to the cold surface under her, gripping her knees snugly to her body and gave in to the tears that had threatened to erupt since hearing Malfoy's disgusting words about her.

She cried hard, and ugly. Not that she cared. She just felt so fucking stupid. The thought of Hermione Granger falling for a Malfoy was just so obscene. And to think that he would replicate these feelings? Laughable. She was a joke. It was utterly embarrassing. How many people knew that he played her? How many had laughed behind her back, knowing he didn't really want to be seen with her. How many had waited for her to give in, to have sex with him, and then getting tossed to the side? How many were laughing at her precisely now, disgusted by how naive she was?

Hermione didn't know how long she sat there, crying her eyes out and snot congesting her nose. She didn't feel the coldness creeping up on her as day turned into evening. She didn't feel the pain in her bottoms from sitting in the same spot for so long. She didn't even feel the pair of eyes on her that had been watching her for little over ten minutes.

All she felt was utterly betrayed. And hurt. And it hurt, more than she would ever admit. It hurt not because she had been played to believe his feelings were sincere, but because it had happened because she was muggleborn. Once again her blood status had made her a target, and it was so fucking unfair. It hurt because she had never really been wanted by guys, and coming here they had been interested. It hurt because she was led to believe she was desirable, when in reality all that was desired was her body and what it could do to him. He had never cared, he had never wanted to know about her life, or what she thought about politics, or her favorite subjects and what excited her. All he had wanted was those moments in the alcoves, those moments where she had given up parts of her body.

Hermione clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle another wail erupting when she remembered his hands on her sex just this morning, the anger in his eyes when she once again stopped it from moving any further. Of course he had been angry, he had not gotten what he wanted.

'Never once has she touched my dick. Always being a little minx.'

And she had persuaded herself to believe she hadn't seen the anger. She had told herself it was light playing a trick on her brain, something she had made up herself. When in reality, all he had wanted was for her to let him take her, to touch him like he had touched her.

She wasn't even sad anymore; she was numb. And numb, she knew, was somehow worse.

More tears rolled down her cheeks. She forcefully dried them off her cheeks when she heard someone moving towards her from the stairs. Quickly she jumped up, her wand drawn.

"Wow, easy Bernard. It's just me." Came a familiar voice, holding his hands up in defeat.

"What are you doing here?" She whispered, her wand still fully drawn and ready.

It didn't matter that she could barely see from how swollen her eyes were, or that she could barely breathe from her nose considering all the snot that was in it. All that mattered were the boy in front of her and how much she wanted to hex the shit out of him too. Hadn't he deserved it?