"Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken."—Frank Herbert
Hermione was almost sure that Blaise had been following her.
Well, not almost. She was definitely sure.
At odd hours, as Hermione mindlessly trudged through the Manor to her room, face buried into a text, she would suddenly crash into Blaise, who would coincidentally be standing in her way. Had this been an isolated incident, Hermione would have considered this an acceptable intrusion and continued on her way.
But when this was occurring at steadily increasing intervals, beginning modestly at once a week to now nearing several times an hour, Hermione concluded that Blaise's vapid mind was busy conjuring something very sinister.
So when she entered her room after a numbingly large lunch, and with her body under the sluggish spell of food coma, ready to collapse into it's afternoon nap, she was more than slightly irked to find Blaise skittering around her room, rummaging through her drawers and belongings.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione snapped, sadistically pleased when shock passed over Blaise's powdered face.
"Nothing." Blaise squeaked immediately, the guilty look quickly replaced with an innocent stare. She nervously slammed the drawer she had recently been pillaging.
"Well, then, get the hell out of my room," Hermione replied irritably, already careening towards the quiet solace for her escape into semi-consciousness.
An escape that would have been completely possible, had Blaise not just fallen to the floor, trembling and screaming into an advanced stage of hysteria. She buried herself in her over-extravagant flood of clothing, immediately tangle into a flurry of delicate daffodil silk.
She wailed unstoppably, one of the worst sounds that Hermione had the misfortune to hear (Veela squeals were listed amongst the most unpleasant sounds, according to The History of Magical Creatures.). Blaise looked up at Hermione miserably, and she barely managed not to grimace when she saw the trails of mascara that bled down Blaise's melting face.
"Why does it have to be you," she screeched, delicate fists pounding against her carpet in rage, liberating clouds of dust to spiral away in the air.
Hermione felt awkward, nervously fidgeting in place for a moment, helplessly wondering if it would still be possible to ignore the crying girl altogether and go to bed, anyway. It seemed plausible, but only until Blaise left out another deafening squeal.
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid don't know what you're talking about, but I'm sure Draco would love to hear about it," Hermione attempted, taking Blaise by the arm in attempts to usher her out of the room.
"Oh, I've been hearing quite enough from Draco, all right." the girl snapped bitterly as she twisted out of Hermione's grip. She blew her nose grotesquely on an monogrammed silk handkerchief. "He won't stop talking these days, actually," she added, matter-of-fact. She collapsed into a fresh wave of tears.
"That's not a good thing? I thought you were interested in-"
Blaise snorted scornfully.
"Yes, that's exactly the problem. I am interested in him."
"And that's a problem… How?" Hermione felt dreadfully as if she were the Love Advice columnist in a teenage Muggle magazine.
"Well, Miss Granger, it'd obviously be a problem if he won't stop talking about another girl, isn't it?"
"But-"
"And it'd certainly be a problem if this other girl were a Mudblood, wouldn't it?"
Hermione was just about to coo out a generic "Oh no, I'm sure he doesn't feel that way" and a "I'm sure he's interested in you, Blaise" accompanied by a simpering smile and a camaraderie-like, gag-inducing arm stroke.
Until the Mudblood part, of course.
"E… Excuse me?" she barely managed to sputter, feeling her eyes bulge nearly out of their sockets.
"Yes, yes, I know. That's exactly how I reacted when he told me, too." She trumpeted her nose loudly onto the sopping napkin and hung herself hopelessly across Hermione's bed frame.
"Well- when you say Mudblood," Hermione began, still choosing to remain in the safety of disbelief, "you don't mean- well, you couldn't possibly mean-"
"You? Well, you don't see any more of your kind around here, do you?" she snapped irritably.
Hermione deadpanned, and Blaise resumed her weeping.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Blaise blew her nose loudly on the cloth "-It's just I'm so upset. I didn't mean it like that. My feelings- they're just so conflicted right now."
Blaise lifted a hand and rested the back of it against her forehead dramatically.
An apology, and Malfoy… interested? She couldn't quite figure this out.
Well, actually, Blaise spelled it out for her quite clearly.
But she didn't know quite what to make of it.
There was a choking, terrible acerbic strangling she felt tugging at all of her insides. Some cross-breed of anger and disbelief, mixed with confusion. On the other hand, complete… neutrality, almost. Where was the hate that she had reserved in her for the last six years? She attempted to summon it, boiling it up from her deepest memories of his baritone shouts of "Mudblood" and the things he had done to Harry and Ron…
-Both of whom had completely disappeared off the radar and hadn't bothered to contact her or save her from this hell as any good friends should have done. Weeks ago.
And all she could remember were his blinding robes carrying her out of her chamber, the Seafood Crustatta, the lunch on the veranda-
Hermione felt positively scandalous, near entertaining thoughts of romance with a Malfoy, and doubting her friendships, but what else was she supposed to think?
"I'm sure one of your friends have contacted you by now," Blaise sniffled, terribly on cue. "They'll take you away, won't they?"
"Of course they will," Hermione spat back fierclely, upset that even Blaise-who had hated Harry and Ron since they were first years- would expect such a noble deed from them. One they hadn't accomplished.
"And when they do come… what would that change?"
"I'll be back home."
"And when you're home, then what will you do?"
"Go to Hogwarts." she responded snippily, quickly losing interest in this string of questions.
"When it hasn't opened?"
Hermione choked on her breath. Hogwarts still closed?
"And what about Draco then? What about him?"
"Have him," Hermione replied spitefully. "He's all yours, you can have him."
A long silence.
"You're an incredible hypocrite."
"Excuse me?"
"You, with all your lofty words on making changes- changes for the House Elves, changes in Pureblood-Muggleborn Wizard relations- that's all crap. You won't do anything about it except make those stupid S.P.E.W. badges and annoy everyone with your speeches. And here's a perfect opportunity for you to actually make a change-"
"What opportunity," Hermione replied immediately, voice on the verge of a scream, pale skin reddening indignantly, "What change?"
"Change him."
She could barely breathe.
"You can change him," Blaise repeated, eyes earnestly shining through a film of tears. "The personal risk he's already taken- as a pureblood and a Malfoy- to admit his feelings for you shows that he's ready…"
Hermione numbly staggered over to her bed and fell over into it, trapping herself into a million folds of white cloth, insulating herself from Blaise's words.
But they were already seared into her mind.
Change him.
____
Blaise gently closed the gilded door behind her.
And finally exhaled the satisfied sigh that she held trapped for too long, while dabbing off the salty mixture of tears, caking powder, and dissolved mascara off that had been burning her delicate skin.
Really- this was too easy, this monstrous, most exhilarating task. For there is no greater weakness than a Gryffindor's sense of responsibility to those around them, to spread their great nobility and grace like a beacon to warm the world-
And to change the world around them. Change, the most overused, assumption-flooded two syllables in any vernacular, and in too many perfect romances- which are imaginary, of course.
Who ever said change was good?
The world is not the snuggly place Granger imagined it to be.
And Blaise was more than happy to teach her.
___
Hm… I took a teensy break from writing, and I can already turned my writing has turned to crap. Ugh. This chapter disgusts me. Next chapter is more Hermione/Draco, I promise!
And thanks again, to my lovely, lovely readers and reviewers, and arbitrary, who keeps encouraging this piece of crap. But… I can't thank you enough for the support. : )