Ch. 10

Blaise and Draco sat in a back corner of the Three Broomsticks, a butterbeer in front of each of them. They had hardly touched the butterbeer, instead talking about their mates. Blaise was beside himself, worrying about what was going to happen when Potter and Weasley showed up.

"I'm telling you, Draco, something doesn't feel right," He muttered, looking around.

The girls hadn't arrived yet, but Draco wasn't feeling the same thing Blaise must have been feeling. He watched the dark-skinned wizard fidget in his seat, his eyes glued to the door of the bar.

"Blaise, have a drink of your butterbeer," Draco said, gesturing towards it. "You need to calm down."

"What if he proposes to her?"

A pained expression fell over Blaise's face as he continued. "What if she says yes?"

Draco sighed and motioned for Madam Rosmerta to come to them. "Two shots of firewhiskey, please."

In a few seconds, two shots were set in front of them, and he shoved both shots in front of Blaise. "Drink both of those."

Blaise did so absentmindedly and then went back to staring at the door. Draco sighed. "You heard her say that she and Potter were fighting, and that he was pushing her away. I honestly doubt he's here to propose to her."

He didn't see Blaise react to him and leaned back, taking a drink of his butterbeer and hoping the girls would arrive soon.

Soon enough they walked through the door, and Draco saw an instant change in Blaise. He perked up, smiling slightly when he caught sight of Ginny and he proceeded to keep his eyes on her. Draco shook his head and watched Hermione.

She seemed to be in a better mood but he could still feel something bothering her. He wished he could tell her everything was going to be alright and his Veela bristled when he reminded himself that he couldn't.

They watched in silence as the girls sat down and talked quietly to each other. Draco couldn't help but noticed a bag from Tomes and Scrolls, the bookshop, at Hermione's feet. He smiled and knew there might be a few quiet nights ahead of him, depending on how many books she purchased.

The boys noticed a sudden excitement take their mates, and then they both growled when they noticed that Potter and Weasley had just walked in. Blaise nearly stood up when he saw Ginny rush to embrace Potter, but Draco held him down.

"Don't do it," Draco warned him. "It's too crowded and you haven't even begun to connect with Ginny yet. Don't ruin it before it starts."

Blaise sat down angrily and Draco could still hear him growling in a low tone. He turned his attention back to the girls and had to grip the table when he watched his own mate embrace both Potter and Weasley.

Weasley seemed to hold on to her longer than Draco liked. He gripped the table harder, and ended up breaking off a small chunk of the wood. He looked down at it in shock before immediately fixing it with his wand, much to the amusement of Blaise.

"Nice going, mate," Blaise smirked.

Draco glared at him and they turned their attention back to the group of Gryffindors.

"Why are Malfoy and Zabini staring over here?" Ron asked in annoyance.

Hermione looked over her shoulder at the two boys in question, noticing that they both were watching the table. She also noticed that they both looked tense.

She turned back to her group and shrugged. "I'm not sure. I mean, Hogsmeade is open to any of the students, so it's not like they're not allowed here."

"I'm surprised Malfoy was even allowed back," Ron grumbled.

"Is Malfoy giving you any trouble, 'Mione?" Harry asked quietly. "Because if he is, I'll hex him for you."

A sudden bark of laughter caught their ears and they all turned to see Malfoy and Zabini laughing together. Hermione narrowed her eyes at them and caught Malfoy's gaze, who in turn winked at her. She turned away quickly, rubbing her face to mask the fact that she knew she was blushing.

Harry and Ron seemed oblivious as to what happened between Hermione and Draco, but it didn't fail to pass Ginny, who raised an eyebrow at the brunette. Hermione avoided her eyes, ignoring her friend as she knew Ginny had caught them.

"Don't worry about Draco, Harry," Hermione said as she tried to keep a straight face. "Besides, he'd have already been hexed if he was giving me trouble."

Ron eyed her suspiciously. "Did you just call him by his first name?"

Hermione sat up, not realizing what she had done and panicking for a second. "Well, he and I called a sort of truce. We're calling each other by our first names now. He's actually become much nicer, Ron."

Ginny snorted after her truce comment, and Hermione shot her friend a look. Ginny avoided her eyes, looking sheepishly down at her mug of butterbeer which had suddenly become very interesting to her.

"A truce?" Ron scoffed. "You can't call truces with Death Eaters."

"He's not a Death Eater, Ron!" Hermione said angrily.

"He's got the mark on him, hasn't he?" Ron sneered. "You need to stay away from him; you never know if he's going to trick you or use you. Did you forget all the times he made fun of you? Called you names?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "I don't think you're in much of a place to judge him, considering all the times you've made fun of me, especially first year. He's changed quite a bit, and is much nicer now as I said. He even offered to help me find my parents, which is more than either of you have done!"

The table fell into an awkward silence, and then Harry looked over at Ginny, nodding up towards the stairs leading to the inn. "Ginny, can I talk to you in private?"

It took everything Draco had to convince Blaise not to follow Ginny and Potter upstairs. Instead they both moved to the bar under the guise of having more drinks, allowing Blaise to hear the conversation better. Draco wanted to listen, but he was more focused on Hermione and Ron, and he could easily hear their conversation better from where they were now.

"I'm sorry about your parents, Hermione," Ron said, hanging his head. "I didn't realize that you wanted our help."

"It's not so much that I wanted help," Hermione sighed. "I just wanted to know that you two were as willing to help me as much as I was willing to help you. I took every opportunity I could to help you guys, a lot of the time without you asking. I just wanted to know you guys would have done the same for me."

"'Mione, you know we would," Ron said, gesturing to nothing in particular. "We just don't think like you do. And Harry's been having a rough time with coping with everything that's happened to him. It just hit him all of a sudden one day and he started pushing everyone away."

"Yeah, Ginny was telling me about that," Hermione said, looking down at her butterbeer. "I was going to suggest he go to therapy for it but with the Auror training I'm afraid he won't have any time now."