Beauty From Pain

Chapter Thirty-Six

The next few weeks passed quietly and without further incident. Hermione couldn't help but feel like it was the calm before a particularly nasty storm.

Thoughts of the war, of what Lucius and his ilk could be up to, clouded her every thought. She threw herself into work to try and avoid it, taking on as many clients as she could to fill her appointment book and keep herself too busy to think about anything other than the success of her tattoos.

Draco stopped by a few times a week, and she went out to brunch or dinner with him on several occasions, but there was a distance there. Their meals were rushed - one of them almost always had to leave early for work or some other engagement. Their letters were even less frequent. Hermione wasn't sure how to fix it, nor did she really have the time to give it enough consideration to find any solutions.

As the current week came to a close, more and more articles bearing her name were popping up in various wizarding publications. None of them were kind.

"Look at this one," Ginny said. She was perusing the Daily Prophet for just such articles with far too much enthusiasm in Hermione's opinion. She read aloud, "Impressionable young minds encouraged to get marked."

Hermione didn't even bother to look up from her accounting book. "Love that they use the word 'marked' in that one," she said, her voice laced with sarcasm. "At least my name wasn't mentioned this time."

"That's in the subtitle," Ginny pointed out. "War Heroine Granger: guiding the younger generation in a questionable direction."

"Questionable indeed," Hermione muttered. She finished her calculations for her most recent appointment and wrote the amount with a bit more force than was necessary. Her quill nearly ripped the page. "It's not like I'm summoning my clients with dark magic and forcing them to get tattooed."

Ginny laughed. "Yeah, or tracking their whereabouts and making them wear ridiculous masks while they call you My Lady."

Hermione's quill stuttered on the page. She scratched out the error and continued writing. "My Lady," she sneered. "Make that the next article title."

"Lady of Ink and Skin," Luna said with a faint smile. "Sounds ethereal."

"Or like a porn star," Hermione said with a snort.

Ginny tossed the paper in the rubbish bin and asked, "What does Draco think of all these articles? I bet he's relieved to not be the center of attention for once."

"I haven't mentioned them." Finished with her notations, Hermione looked up from her accounting book and found both witches staring at her incredulously. "What?"

"You haven't told him?" Ginny crossed her arms over her chest. "How has that not come up even once? I doubt he'd be that worried about it. If anything, he'd probably get offended on your behalf. March right down to the Prophet's office and demand they retract every statement."

Hermione rolled her eyes and said, "Yes, because that's exactly what I need: a wizard to get up in arms about something that doesn't matter."

"It is a bit odd you haven't told him," Luna argued. "No two relationships are the same, so I can't hold you to the same standard as everyone else. But don't you think you should be open with each other? Have you not told him because it truly doesn't bother you or because you still believe you should handle such situations on your own?"

Hermione opened her mouth to say that it was obviously the former, but the words wouldn't come out. Her mouth slowly shut, and she pursed her lips. Her independent streak was a mile wide; anyone who had spent more than a minute with her knew that. But she had told other people about the articles, hadn't she? Miranda and Jacob had both written her a few letters, and she had told them about the horrid articles being written about her shop. And here she was discussing them with Ginny and Luna. It was horrible of her, but she'd probably even tell Theo if he walked in the door and asked her how her day was going.