Forbidden Shadows (Dramione)

Chapter 14

Hermione knew that she couldn't stay in the manor any longer. Things had gone too far. She grabbed her wand and muttered a spell. Everything in the guest room disappeared. Everything including her bed, her clothes, and even the color of the walls went back to beige. She left the room and headed down the stairs. "Hermione wait!" Hermione continued walking. "Hermione, Hermione please."

Hermione turned to face Draco. "What? What is it that you want Draco? Please, enlighten me!"

Draco touched her shoulder but she flinched away from him. "Hermione, I'm sorry, please don't leave."

Hermione felt tears in her eyes. "It had to be you. It just had to be. I'm sorry Draco but this is my job. Astoria is arriving tomorrow and this wedding is going to happen unless one of you two decide to end it. It's better if I continue working on the wedding from my flat."

"Hermione-"

"No! Draco, don't you understand? You're getting married in a week. Please, just leave me alone." With that, she left the manor.

Hermione apparated to her flat door. She felt like she hadn't been there in months. Truth of the matter was, she hadn't. She unlocked her door and walked in. She felt a sense of relief being home, there was no one there to ask her to do things and there was no one there to fall in love with. Just thinking about what happened at the manor made her heart ache.

The truth was, she missed Draco already. She was in love with him, but that love is forbidden. She was not going to hurt Astoria in the way she was with Ron. Hermione walked into her bedroom and expected to find it empty. Instead, she found Cher sleeping in it.

"Cher! What the bloody hell are you doing in my room?"

Cher shot up out of the bed. She spotted Hermione and put on a look of shame. "So I moved into your place, shoot me."

Hermione gave her a confused look. "Cher, you do know that you have a home right?" Cher looked down at her feet. She mumbled something that Hermione couldn't quite make out. "What was that?"

Cher stared Hermione in the face. "I was kicked out! Lauren kicked me out!" In case you didn't know, Lauren is, or was, Cher's roommate.

"What do you mean she kicked you out? What did you do?"

"I brought a wizard home and she got upset. She told me that I'm a slob, annoying, can never shut up, and now I am bringing wizards to her flat."

"Isn't it also your flat?"

"Her name is on the lease. Now, I'm homeless." Cher walked up to Hermione and gave her puppy dog eyes. "You're not going to let you business partner, let alone one of you best friends be homeless are you?"

Hermione thought about it for a moment and then wagged her finger at her friend. "You better not bring home any wizards."

Cher smiled and pulled Hermione into a hug. "Thank you! You're the best!" Hermione rolled her eyes. She was definitely going to regret this. Cher let go of Hermione and scrunched her eyebrows together. "Wait, why are you back?"

Hermione looked at the ground. She couldn't possibly tell Cher the truth. "Since there's less than a week of planning left, I've decided to move back into my flat so that I can concentrate better."

Cher gave her a quizzical look, but then shrugged her shoulders. "Well, if you say so. If it's alright with you, I'm going back to bed." That's when Cher climbed back into Hermione's bed and shut her eyes.

Hermione rolled her eyes. Cher was definitely not a shy person.

The next morning, Hermione was in her office hard at work. She was in the middle of making sure that all the invitations had been sent when she heard a knock on her door. "Come in."

She continued to work when she heard, "Hermione darling!"

She looked up from her desk and saw Astoria standing in her doorway with a big smile on her face. "Astoria, you're back." She rose from her chair and gave Draco's fiancée a hug. "How was your trip?"

She smiled, "It was absolutely wonderful. I almost didn't want to come back."

Hermione almost wished that she hadn't. How could she think that? She must be professional. "Sounds marvelous."

"When I got home, I noticed that you're things aren't there anymore."

"Oh, I moved out. Like I explained to Cher, I felt that it would be better to go back to my flat so that I could concentrate better on the wedding."

"That makes sense. Have you seen Draco today?"

Hermione really wanted to stay off the topic of Draco Malfoy. "No, I haven't gotten the chance to visit the manor and he hasn't come here."

"That's strange, when I got home this morning he wasn't at the manor. I wonder where he could be?"

"Well, how long has it been since you left the manor?"

"About an hour, before I came here I did a little shopping."

"How about you go back home and see if he's there. He probably just went out."

She nodded her head. "You know, you're probably right." She went to the door. She turned back to face Hermione. "By the way, Daphne is coming to the manor in a little bit so you should stop by to talk about the wedding."

Hermione just nodded in response. When Astoria finally left, Hermione sunk back onto her chair and rubbed her eyes. How was she going to make it through the end of the week?

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Hermione. Astoria has told me so many great things about you." Hermione was in Astoria's manor meeting with her sister, Daphne.

Hermione shook her hand. "Oh, it's a pleasure. So, basically there are really just last minute details that we have to deal with for the wedding. In all honesty, I can handle it with Cher, so you can spend quality time with your sister."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." Hermione checked her watch. She really didn't want to run into Draco. "Listen, if we're done here, I really must go." Hermione was about to head towards the door when a male voice entered the conversation.

"Daphne? I didn't know you were coming?" Good, he hadn't noticed her. Maybe she could sneak away before- "Hermione, what are you doing here?"

Hermione plastered a fake smile on her face and turned around to face the man that she had been trying to avoid. "Draco, how are you?"

"I'm doing fine, what about you?"

"I'm... I'm great."

"Listen, I wanted to talk to you about Blaise."

Hermione really didn't want to spend any more time with this man. "What about him?"

"Well, he's my best man and he was unable to be prepared for the speech and such, so I was wondering if you could help him out."

"Why was he unable to prepare?"

"He's been out of town."

Hermione sighed, "I'll see what I can do. Just send him to my office when possible. Alright, I must leave now." She addressed Daphne, "It was a pleasure." As she opened the door to exit the manor she turned her head to say a quick goodbye to Draco. When she got outside, she felt like her body was going to break in half. This will definitely be the hardest wedding of her life.

A/N: So what did you guys think? This was mostly a filler chapter.