Stay With Me (Dramione Fanfic)

Chapter Nine

Draco Malfoy

I sat and stared at my phone for a few seconds. I hadn't had the guts to answer when she called so I just let it go straight through to messages. I could barely take Potter reminding me that no matter what I did or how hard I worked to slip out from my family and my past, I would always be that person. I just couldn't bring myself listen to Hermione telling me that after that stupid kiss. I didn't want her to remember that part of me or see it and think of it every time she saw or thought of me, but how could she not? Nothing had changed about me for her. How could she not look down at her forearm and see my aunt bent over her and me standing by and doing absolutely nothing? 

I pulled up my messages and pressed play before I could stop myself from doing so.

"Hi Draco, it's Hermione. I just called to tell you that Harry was wrong when he told you I'd be staying with him and if the offers is still open I'd really appreciate a place at your house. If you'd prefer me to go somewhere else though I totally understand. Bye."

I was slightly stunned. Why would she turn down an offer to live in what I can imagine to be a warm and friendly house with two of her best friends to come live in the cold and foreboding Manor with a boy that she has never liked and barely knows? One who she was currently in a fairly awkward situation with after kissing him while she was high on pain medication.

I shoved my head down into my hands and yanked hard at my hair. I wanted her here just as much as I wanted her to stay away and I didn't know what the best thing for either of us was. If I didn't pick her up, what would she do? Would she go back to Ron? If I did pick  her up would I be able to keep my distance and keep her from slipping past my defences again? I didn't know the answer to anything anymore. Life was so much easier and far less complicated before. I knew that the best thing for her was not to get involved with me at all, but separating what I knew from what I wanted was becoming increasingly difficult. 

I brought up the number of one of the only people I was comfortable with telling this sort of stuff to, and dialled.

"Can we meet up please, if you aren't busy? I really need someone to talk to and I really need it to be confidential, like you can't tell anyone about this at all."

"Fine, you know I don't normally discuss what we talk about with anyone anyway. Who would want to know?" It stung a little but it was true, there was no one other than writers from the Prophet who really cared what I was doing these days and he would never go to them. 

"Can you come to the Manor? I broke my hand again and the bones haven't quite finished healing yet."

"Again? Fine, I'll be there in about 10, okay?" He sounded slightly exasperated but that was pretty much his preferred state of being anyway.

"Great see you soon," I said and hung up the phone. I spent the next 10 minutes pacing my usual route in the large library and trying to make my brain slow down. By now he must have known exactly where he would find me when my brain wouldn't fall quiet as he came straight into the library and sat down in one of the comfy chairs that my mother had insisted on instead of the swanky black leather ones my father had wanted. Mother had said that a library was for learning and reflection, neither of which were helped by uncomfortable seating. It was one of the only battles she had won when they were re-decorating, mainly because my father never actually went into the library.

"What's up?" Blaise asked as I took a seat opposite him. I took a moment before deciding that I would just tell him everything from beginning to end, otherwise I couldn't get his take on what the right thing to do was.

"I got a call from Hermione Granger the night before last. She was alone and bleeding in her apartment and needed help and for some reason she decided to ring my number. I picked her up and took her to the hospital and it turns out that shit went down, she was having a miscarriage after a violent altercation of some sort with Weasley." I watched as Blaise's carefully schooled face allowed a little surprise to slip onto it and then I knew that this was actually as strange as I thought it was. I thought that I was good at hiding my emotions but Blaise was a master, most people tended to believe that he didn't feel anything at all, I knew otherwise.

"Anyway we talked for a while and because I am a stupid idiot, I asked her if she would like to stay here because she had nowhere else to go, and she basically said that would be great and then once she went to sleep I went to have a shower, mainly because I still had her blood on me." I lied a little bit there because even though we had been through a lot together I still didn't feel comfortable telling Blaise that sometimes I had to stand in the the shower and rub my skin raw to feel like my soul wasn't black as night.

"She woke up and saw that I was gone and then came into the bathroom when I got out of the shower and then she kissed me."

"Wait, like a thank you peck on the cheek or a proper decent kiss?" Blaise interrupted.

"Like a full on, up against the bathroom wall kiss. It only lasted like a minute but I swear I have never felt like that before and I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Also she was still on quite a lot of pain medication at the time. I've kissed girls, and you know, but there was something different in this and that terrified the shit out of me."

"And now you want my help to decide if letting her come to stay here is a massive screw up or not?" Blaise smirked at me knowingly. 

"Look I know who I am and I know who she is. She's clearly been through a lot in the past few years and especially in the last few days and I know that a relationship of any sort is absolutely out of the question and friendship is maybe a possibility. Is it a mistake to create that situation to begin with?"

"I mean, not that my opinion counts for a lot because I really never paid much attention to her throughout school or since, but I think if you can manage a friendship then it would be good for you to have another person here but I don't think you should get involved beyond that. If you did and things went badly then the Prophet would pick everything about you apart again Draco and you barely lived through that after your parents. And she is one of the most well-know witches in England now, you would be completely demonised." He was right. As much as I hated it he was.