11. Chapter 11

Hello all! Here's the next chapter!

I'd like to say how I hope everyone affected by Hurricane Sandy, or natural disasters in general, is alright. I hope you are all safe and sound!

From last time, my favourite Harry Potter book is Half Blood Prince. I love the character developement, especially with Draco. Also, all the puberty angst is hilarious.

That's all for my meaningless chatter.

Disclaimer: See everydisclaimer on the website. Ever.

The next day, Draco made sure to wake up before noon. He pulled himself out of bed and forced himself out the door. It had been agony, he didn't want to step back into reality. Last night's non-reality had been so fantastic. Besides the happiness he felt at the gala the night before, Draco also had an excellent night's sleep.

He had three consecutive good nights of sleep now. That was a new record. He slept for hours, enveloped in covers, and dominated by visions of happiness, nothing but good dreams. Last night had been exceptionally great. His dream hadn't had any real form, just shapes and colours, but he had felt safe. Safety was a feeling he valued so much more now than before the war.

Draco left his hotel half-conscious. He may have slept approximately thirty five hours in the last two days, but he was still tired. That's what happened when you were ten years behind on sleep. Before heading down to the office, he quickly grabbed a coffee from the Tim Hortons across the street, along with a donut. They had excellent coffee. The donut was great as well. Munching it down, Draco started the short walk to his office.

Upon arrival, he quickly spotted Katie and Justin. Again, they were both hanging out at Katie's secretary desk. It was like they didn't know about a single other room in the building. Katie was leaning against the desk, chatting to Justin, who was standing in front of her.

"Oi! You two!" he called out, causing Katie to jump up from the desk in surprise. On her landing, she tripped and Justin had to catch her before she fell.

"Welcome back!" Justin huffed as he helped Katie back to her feet, the secretary teetering on her heels. "Where were you yesterday?"

"Slept in," Draco replied, falling into Katie's vacant chair. She raised her eyebrow, as she regained her footing.

"All day?" she asked skeptically.

"I was completely worn out," Draco responded, slumping further down the chair. Katie put her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

"What's so funny, Katie?" He questioned.

"Well, Mr. Malfoy, what late night activity got you so worn out?" She wagged her eyebrows seductively. Draco shot her a quick look. He laughed anyway.

"Get your head out of the gutter, Katie. I just had some coffee with Hermione. Tim Hortons, have you ever been there?"

Justin eyed him dubiously. "Every Canadian has been in a Tim Hortons."

"Oh," Draco said quickly. He'd thought he had discovered the next big thing. Shame. Continuing with the story, he spoke. "I fell asleep immediately afterwards. Slept through the entire day. "

Katie jumped in the air again, and exclaimed "Hermione! Right! How was that?"

Draco sighed. Katie was acting like a schoolgirl about to hear the newest gossip. She was such a strange person. She was funny, had an exceptionally dirty mind, but freaked out about the littlest things. He felt as though he was looking at an oxymoron whenever he saw her. But, he answered her question none the less.

"Well, she's basically Hermione, just a muggle version. It's quite strange, to be honest. Same character traits, same interests, even some of the same relationships. It's weird though," Draco said, spilling a little more than he should have. "I couldn't really stand her back in the day, but now, I haven't seen her in approximately ten hours, and I already miss her."

"Ten hours?" Katie asked curiously. "Did you meet her last night too?"

"Yep," Draco nodded, as Katie's eyes widened. "She asked me to accompany her to a work gala to piss off her ex-boyfriend." Katie and Justin shot him a look.

"Well, pissing people off, that's your specialty," Justin stated. Katie immediately burst out laughing

Draco shook his head. "What is it with employer-employee relationships these days?" he muttered, thinking back to his owl from Seamus a few days back.

"So how was that?" Justin asked, managing to control his laughter.

Draco pondered on his question for a moment, unsure of the exact wording to use. Eventually, he got it.

"Strange," he said swiftly. Katie raised her eyebrow.

"Well," Draco continued. "We ended up talking about my relationship with Hermione, I mean, magical Hermione. And muggle Hermione, after hearing about my relationship with a little bookworm who punched me in the face, came up with a ridiculous conclusion."

"What?" asked Katie, leaning forward a bit.

What was the harm in telling? "Muggle Hermione thinks I was in love with magical Hermione." Katie and Justin exchanged a quick glance.

"Were you?" Katie asked directly.

Draco stared at her in disbelief. What? He had told them so they all could laugh at the absurdness of the idea, not so they could question his romantic past.

"No! I never was!" he denied. "I couldn't stand her! She hated me as well! We were never even friends, how could I have been in love with her?"

"Then why are you hanging out with her now?" Justin asked. Katie gave him a coy smile.

Draco gaped at them. He couldn't believe this. "I'm going to go get some work done," he said, hurriedly. What was going on? He quickly left for another room. He grabbed a chair, and sat, just staring at the wall, begging his mind to go blank. Of course, even his mind didn't listen to him.

Why did so many people seem think that he was in love with Hermio...Granger? When had he ever demonstrated romantic, let alone any kind of feelings towards the girl? He had bullied her mercilessly for years. He had stood by and let her get tortured.

Sure, he respected the girl. But that was now! That was after having years to reflect on the past. But back then, not even close, or at least, he didn't think so. This girl represented everything he used to hate! She was the Gryffindor Princess, he was the Slytherin Prince!

Not to mention they were total opposites! She was kind and loving, he was scheming and devious. She was brave and fearless, and he, well, he had his own problems. How could he ever be in love with her? He personally didn't think himself deserving of loving her. Draco shook his head. What a mess Hermione's reappearance was causing him.

He sighed, and pushed muggle Hermione's ridiculous conclusion to the back of his mind. He had work to do, given he missed the entire day before. Thank merlin to be a good businessman, you had to ignore personal problems. He needed to ignore this. Draco stood up and quickly got to it.

The new office was getting itself set up brilliantly. He spent all day working on the company. That was exhausting in and of itself, but he also had to avoid Katie and Justin, who he knew would bring up Hermione. Whenever he saw them, he quickly ran from the room. They must think he's insane.

The day lugged on for eternity. He couldn't quite keep his mind on work, however hard he tried. Whenever he wasn't one hundred percent concentrated on a certain task, the face of a bushy haired girl would enter into his mind, her eyes twinkling….

What?! Draco's eyes widened. Hermion..Granger's eyes did not twinkle! A better description would be that her eyes shone….

NONONONONO! His head screamed at him, and he slapped himself in the face. It seemed to be the only option at the time. Granger's face disappeared. Thank merlin, he sighed in relief. He heard a laugh behind him.

Katie stood in the doorway. "Are you OK?" Katie asked, laughing. She had just come and peeked into the room he was currently working in.

"What?" Draco asked, disoriented. Katie chuckled.

"You have a bright red handprint on your face now," she giggled, pointing.

"Funny, isn't it?" Draco muttered. He raised his voice. "I got distracted."

"And the only way to focus was to slap yourself?" Katie asked, crossing her arms and leaning on the doorframe.

"Maybe…." Draco murmured, not meeting her eyes. Her smile widened.

"Well, if you're too distracted, why don't you take off?" she asked. "It's almost four, and Justin and I basically got everything under control."

"Four?!" Hermione's face raced back into his mind. "I got to go!"

"Hermione?" Katie asked, smirking.

"Not a word," Draco said sternly. She put on an innocent face.

"Whatever would I say, Draco?" she asked bashfully.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'm out." With that, he disapparated. As he left he heard Katie yell out, "Have fun Mr. Malfoy!" Draco sighed. They would never let this go.

Draco apparated into an alleyway a few blocks away from the coffee store. He managed to walk casually into the group of pedestrians on the sidewall, blending in with them perfectly. He arrived at the coffee place with a few minutes to spare. He glanced anxiously up and down the street, anticipating the moment when Hermione would arrive. He shuddered at the thought of Katie hearing what he was thinking. She would never stop. He stared across the street at an office building, his mind wandering once more.

He knew he wasn't in love with Hermione. That was out of the question. However, he definitely felt something for her now, besides raw hate of course. He missed her, even though they had only been apart for a little under a day. This feeling, he definitely didn't recognize it. It was very new. What was it? He mused, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He spun around, meeting the eyes of a pretty brunette.

"Hi Hermione," he smiled, feeling all the tension and stress leave his body, simply by staring at her smile, her lovely smile…NO! What the hell was happening?

"Hey, Draco," Hermione replied, smiling. She pointed to the door. "Shall we?" He nodded, and followed her into the Tim Hortons.

That started their routine.

Every day, after work, Hermione and Draco would meet up at that Tim Hortons on Young, and talk. Just talk. They talked about their lives, their interests, their annoyances and anything else they thought of. They told their stories, Draco's slightly vague of course. They told each other little secrets they hadn't told anyone. They would spend hours together at the Tim Hortons each time they met up. It quickly became the best part of the day. He would spend every moment at work staring at the clock, waiting for it to say four, as Katie and Justin laughed at him in the background. He didn't care though. He wasn't in love with Hermione, he just enjoyed her company, missed her when she wasn't there, and cherished every second they spent together. They could think whatever they wanted. They were just friends. Really good friends. He had noticed that ever since they had started spending time together, his nightmares had completely disappeared. He hadn't had a nightmare in two weeks. It was incredible what this girl was doing to him.

However, in the back of his mind, a little voice was bothering him. The twentieth of October was drawing closer, so close; it was almost upon them. It was the day of Hermione's funeral, an inescapable fact that he would soon have to deal with. He still didn't understand how to bring Hermione back into the wizarding world. The situation was so unclear. Draco knew that she would be terrified the second she learned the truth, her entire world would have been ripped away from her. She didn't deserve that, even though it had already happened to her. Having your world ripped away from you twice, who could recover from that?

That was the reason he was telling Katie and Justin for his not returning Hermione to England. It sounded like a good reason. It was thoughtful, and realistic.

It was also a lie.

Draco didn't care at all if Hermione's life was ripped away from her. It wasn't even her life anyway. She belonged in the magical world, he knew that. With the concept of her not recovering, Draco had no doubt in his mind that Hermione could recover from virtually anything. She was the strongest person he'd ever known. No, Draco didn't actually believe this exceptionally politically correct reason for bringing her back. His real reason, though he wasn't sharing it with anyone, was exceptionally more selfish.

The truth was, he just wasn't ready to give her up. They're friendship was new, but it felt as though they had been friends forever. Draco knew that the second they got her back to the wizarding world, Potter would rip her away from him. Boy wonder would find her memories and she and Draco would go back to being enemies. He wasn't ready for that. Hermione definitely held an important place in his heart, just being with her made him forget about the rest of the world. He'd never truly felt like this before. He didn't know what it was, but it felt like he was on top of the world whenever she smiled at him. He wasn't giving that up just yet.

One day, about two weeks after the gala, Draco's day was going as it usually did. He was working, with one eye on the clock. It was nearly four. He smiled. Time to go.

He walked out of one of the side offices and stuck his head into the main lobby. Katie and Justin were once again hanging out at Katie's desk. The two of them were becoming really good friends; at least it seemed so to Draco.

"Oi!" He shouted. They both turned. "I'm going to head out!" They nodded, not expecting anything else. They both were very used to the Hermione situation by now, and kept their teasing to a minimum.

Draco, before apparating away, heard the door open. However, he was too focused on Hermione to see who it was. Katie and Justin could deal with this person. Draco disapparated.

He arrived in that same alleyway that he had two weeks ago. It was his safe apparition point. He quickly walked over, and began to wait outside the Tim Hortons for Hermione. He was a few minutes early, but he just couldn't wait to see her. He bounced up and down anxiously, when he felt a tap on the shoulder. He smiled, and spun around in excitement.

"Hermion…." He smiled, but he cut off immediately. His voice cut out. He face froze. He went ashen. His blood went cold. He pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. This couldn't be happening.

It wasn't Hermione who had tapped him on the shoulder.

It was Blaise.

Blaise stood before him, smiling like a maniac, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," said Blaise, scratching his chin. "Scratch that, you look like a ghost." Blaise said. Said Blaise. Blaise was here. Why was Blaise here? Does not compute, does not compute…

"What are you doing here?" Draco choked out, glancing discreetly at his watch. It read four o'clock. Oh shit. Hermione was going to be here any second, and Blaise was standing right in front of him. Fuck fuck fuck fuck…..

"Thought I'd pay you a visit, and the people at your office said you'd be here," Blaise replied casually, glancing at the Tim Hortons. Draco could've smacked himself. That's who was at the door. Blaise was still talking.

"I've always wanted to visit Canada anyway, seemed like the perfect opportunity." He looked around. "No igloos. Shame."

"Hey Draco!" cried a voice from behind him. A female voice. A female voice he knew very well was attached to a bushy haired know it all with a lovely smile and big brown eyes. If the apocalypse came that minute, Draco probably wouldn't have minded. This could not be happening, this could NOT be happening, he had no idea what to do, what the hell was he going to do…

Blaise looked over his shoulder to see who had cried Draco's name. Draco watched in horror as Blaise's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. Blaise's face went white and he started stammering incoherently. Shit, shit, shit, shit…

"Who's your friend?" Hermione asked curiously, as she took a place next to him, staring, interested, at the disbelieving form of Blaise stuttering before them.

"Ummmmmm," Draco replied, not knowing a single way out of his current predicament. Apocalypse now? Please?

"Interesting," Hermione chuckled. She took a step towards Blaise and reached out her hand. "Hi, I'm Hermione."

Blaise stood shocked, eyeing the hand as if it was about to explode. He was twitching. He was still pale, and stuttering.

Hermione gave Draco a questioning glance. Draco shrugged, trying to go for nonchalant. He could tell how white his face must be. Nonchalant wasn't really an option. He looked forward helplessly, hoping Blaise might disappear on the spot.

Blaise didn't disappear. Instead, he skin flushed, and he stopped stuttering. He regained the ability to speak. He spoke small words, that made Draco want that apocalypse to come as soon as physically possible.

"I know."

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