A Time Machine Won’t Fix This
The morning started like any other.
Hermione arrived at the Ministry, the way she always did, her hands curled around a steaming cup of tea as she walked briskly through the atrium. She exchanged polite nods with her colleagues, making her way to the lift with practiced ease, her mind already turning over the long list of tasks waiting for her in her office. There were reports to review, correspondence to send, and—if she could find the time—lunch with Harry, who had been particularly insistent that she not spend another afternoon locked away behind a mountain of paperwork.
It was supposed to be an ordinary day.
But then she saw him.
Blaise Zabini stood in the hallway outside her office, looking as effortlessly composed as ever. As if weeks hadn’t passed in silence. As if he hadn’t disappeared without a word. As if he hadn’t left her wondering, doubting, and—worst of all—hoping.
Hermione stopped mid-step, her fingers tightening around the warm ceramic of her cup. She had imagined this moment more times than she cared to admit. In some versions, she was furious, lashing out with every bit of anger she had bottled up inside. In others, she was indifferent, so detached that he barely registered as more than a passing inconvenience.
But standing there now, faced with the sharp lines of his face, the dark, tired eyes that held hers so intently, she felt none of those things.
She just felt tired.
Blaise took a hesitant step forward, his hands shoved into the pockets of his tailored coat. “Hermione.”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she walked past him, unlocking the door to her office with a sharp flick of her wand. The door swung open, and she stepped inside without waiting to see if he would follow. Of course, he did.
The door closed with a quiet click, sealing them inside.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Blaise stood by the door, tension written in every line of his body. Hermione set her tea down on her desk, shrugging off her coat with forced casualness, though her pulse thrummed in her throat.
Finally, she turned to face him, arms crossed. “What do you want, Blaise?”
A ghost of a smirk flickered across his lips, but it didn’t last. “You’re not going to hex me first?”
She arched a brow. “Tempting. But I’d rather not waste my energy.”
His smirk faded completely. He exhaled sharply, running a hand over his face. “I deserve that.”
“Yes, you do.”
Silence settled between them, thick and unyielding.
Blaise let out a breath, his shoulders sinking slightly. “I messed up, Hermione.”
She scoffed, turning toward the stack of files on her desk, flipping through them as though she actually intended to get work done. “That’s an understatement.”
“I didn’t mean to leave like that,” he said, taking a slow step closer. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Hermione’s fingers stilled on the parchment. She didn’t look at him. “Then why did you?”
Blaise hesitated. “I got scared.”
Scared. Of course.
She lifted her gaze to meet his, her expression carefully composed, but her eyes—her eyes—were something else entirely. They burned with something she couldn’t quite name, something that wasn’t just anger, but something far deeper. Something raw.
“You got scared,” she repeated, voice flat, testing the words on her tongue as though saying them aloud would somehow make them make sense. “So your solution was to vanish? To let me think you had changed your mind? To let me sit alone, wondering if I had been stupid enough to believe you actually meant what you said?”
Blaise’s jaw tightened, his fingers flexing at his sides, but he didn’t interrupt. He just stood there, letting her words cut through the air between them like shards of glass. And for the first time since he walked in, she saw something flicker across his carefully controlled features—something raw, something that looked almost like shame.
“It wasn’t like that,” he said, his voice quieter now, rough around the edges, as if he knew how feeble the words sounded even as he spoke them.
Hermione let out a sharp, humourless laugh, shaking her head. “Then explain it to me,” she challenged, stepping forward now, closing the distance just enough to make sure he felt the full weight of her words. “Explain why you left me to pick up the pieces of something I never even asked for.”
He hesitated.
And for a second—just a second—she thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then he exhaled, running a hand through his dark curls, his composure cracking just slightly at the edges, like the first subtle fractures in glass before it completely shatters.
“You make me feel things I don’t know how to handle,” he admitted, voice low, uneven in a way she had never heard before. “And I panicked. I thought—if I left before it went too far, before you could expect more from me—” He stopped himself abruptly, inhaling sharply through his nose, as though the words themselves pained him. “I told myself it was for the best.”
Hermione inhaled slowly, deliberately, willing herself to remain steady, to keep her head above the rising tide of emotions threatening to pull her under. She gripped the edge of her desk, feeling the familiar wood beneath her fingertips, something tangible, something real—something solid in a moment that felt anything but.
“And now?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Blaise’s dark eyes softened, and something in his expression changed—shifted—as if he was seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time.
“Now, I know I was wrong,” he murmured, and there was something almost desperate in the way he said it. He took a slow, measured step forward, closing the space between them just enough that she could smell the familiar, intoxicating scent of his cologne—rich and warm and dangerous. “I want to fix this. I want you.”
For a split second, something inside her wavered.
It would be so easy to give in. To let herself believe him. To let herself sink into the warmth of what they had before, to pretend—for just a moment—that the last few weeks hadn’t happened. That she hadn’t spent endless nights staring at the empty side of her bed, waiting for a knock on her door that never came.
But she wasn’t that woman.
She couldn’t be.
Hermione shook her head, stepping back, the movement small but deliberate, putting space between them in a way that felt like drawing a battle line. “A time machine won’t fix this, Blaise.”
His brows pulled together slightly, confusion flickering across his face. “What?”
She took a slow breath before answering, forcing her voice to stay even. “You can’t just come back and expect everything to be the same,” she said, each word deliberate, unwavering. “You don’t get to decide when I matter to you.”
Blaise flinched, just the slightest bit, but she caught it.
Good.
Maybe, for once, he could be the one who felt what it was like to be on the other side of this.
Hermione swallowed, her throat tight, but she didn’t let herself falter. “I spent weeks wondering what I did wrong. Whether I misread things. Whether I was the fool for believing you would stay.” Her voice trembled slightly, but she pressed on, refusing to let it break her. “And the truth is, I was a fool—but not because I trusted you. Because I thought your fear was my responsibility to fix.”
Blaise opened his mouth, something unreadable flickering in his gaze, but she held up a hand before he could speak.
“I deserve better than someone who runs the moment things get complicated,” she said, her voice steadier now, her conviction solidifying into something unshakable. “I deserve better than this.”
Blaise’s throat bobbed, and something in his expression cracked—something deep, something vulnerable, something that looked almost like regret.
“Hermione—” His voice was quieter now, raw, like he wasn’t sure what to say but knew he had to try.
But she shook her head, the movement slow, decisive.
“No,” she said, stepping back one final time, blinking against the burn of unshed tears. “I don’t hate you, Blaise. But I won’t do this.”