5. A Loving Person Would Rather Suffer Pain Than Inflict It On Others
Blaise was not at his best the next day, which was to be expected given the large amount of fire whiskey he had consumed. But when he made the most difficult decision of his life, namely to leave his marriage with Hermione a closed chapter forever, he had to drink it. He had to numb the pain that was spreading through every cell of his body. Luckily for him, he was born as a wizard so he took a hangover potion in the morning, thanked Merlin again for someone being so wonderful to create this wonderful medicine, and after washing up and dressing appropriately he disappated to work.
“Are you here before me? This is a miracle..." he said in surprise as he finally made it to the office he shared with his friend after a few minutes of weaving through the crowd of wizards and witches at the Ministry. "I didn't forget something, did I?
"Probably set an alarm," Draco chuckled. He was a bit surprised himself to arrive at work first, and when Blaise still didn't show up he was getting a little worried. But just a little.
Blaise looked at his watch for the first time all morning, and his eyes widened in horror when he saw the time. "I need coffee," he sighed. He was extremely behind and knew he would have to stay here late tonight. Which he didn't really mind too much when all he had was an empty apartment waiting for him. Suppressing another sigh, he put his things away before moving to the coffee maker. He had made a decision almost a year ago and confirmed it yesterday, so now he had to live with it and not wallow in self-pity. And he'd better be at work than go back to his old Hogwarts life. According to their divorce papers, he and Hermione were no longer together, but he would hate himself even more than he did now if he slipped up and had something with another woman. He loved Hermione, and that would not change.
"I'd like one too," Draco informed him.
"Sure thing, sir," Blaise said as he started to make their coffee.
Draco gave him a look. It was very strange that Blaise was late for work, but that wasn't the only thing that didn't seem right. Something seemed different about him. He couldn't pinpoint what, which he didn't like because he didn't know if he should be worried or not.
"How was dinner?" he asked as he remembered that they had a family dinner at his mother's yesterday. Maybe something had happened there that caused Blais' late arrival and the strange atmosphere surrounding him.
"Fine," he replied vaguely, placing a mug of coffee on the table, his eyes fixed on the open letter. "Does my ex-wife send you letters?" he blurted out before he could think it through.
"She was asking me to take Charlie to see my mother," Draco said quickly to reassure him.
"Oh yeah, Charlie is enjoying all the attention from his grannies this week," Blaise smirked and went to sit at his desk. "I'll have him with me tomorrow so we could all go see your mother if she doesn't mind," he suggested. They both knew that Hermione wasn't going to attend the dinner anyway because, after the horrible memory of Malfoy Manor, she refused to go in there. And no one was surprised by it. Plus, dinner at Narcissa's would solve his problem of feeding his own son. He was a terrible cook. If he wanted to treat his little copy to a proper meal, he had to go to a restaurant with him or order food at home. It was definitely out of the question for him to cook.
"I think she will be more than happy. It's been a while since she's seen Charlie or you, and to be honest, I haven't visited her in a while either," he said, then immediately started writing a letter to his mother.
Blaise, meanwhile, went to work in silence. Draco wasn't too concerned with writing the letter. He wrote only a few sentences and sent it to his mother in a neatly addressed envelope. When the owl was out of sight he was about to go back to his work, but his gaze once again landed on Blaise, who was as engrossed in his papers as always, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
“Did nothing really happen yesterday?” he tried again.
"What should happen? I just went a little overboard with the fire whiskey,” he muttered absentmindedly, and Draco knew he only had a few minutes before Blaise was fully committed to the job, and then it would be very difficult to get anything out of him.
"And your mother left you?" he wondered. A drink or two was never a problem in families of their status, but it was never allowed to go too far. Even though they were both adults, once they were back at the family home, they had to strictly obey their mothers.
Blaise sighed and gave him a look, albeit a very reluctant one. He couldn't dwell too much on chatter when he had so much work ahead of him. "Mother and I had a bit of a serious talk, and then at home, I decided that my marriage to Hermione must be over forever because even though I still love her dearly, I'd rather let her go than hurt her again, so I had to drink it, to numb the excruciating pain," he told him honestly.
And Draco was taken aback by his honesty because even though they were like brothers, they didn't have heart-wrenching conversations very often. They had Theaodor for that. And he was even more surprised that he was talking about his marriage because it was a subject he never talked about. A year ago, he just told him that he was getting a divorce, and that was it. They didn't talk about it anymore.
"I know, it sucks, let's not talk about it," he said as Draco still looked at him in surprise.
Draco nodded and left him to attend to the paperwork. Perhaps it is true what they say. Everything just takes time. Blaise had reached the stage where he could talk about it. He's probably only now fully come to terms with the fact that their marriage is over. And he couldn't help but wonder if Hermione had reached this stage as well. And would it be possible for him to stand a chance with her now that he knew for a fact that it was over between them?
What, Merlin, are you thinking about? he shouted to himself. Blaise was basically his brother, and he was thinking about starting something more serious with his ex-wife? With the woman he will never be with again but still loves? With a woman, he's even slept with a few times behind his back?
Draco was a horrible person. This was nothing new, but for a moment he thought he had finally grown up a bit. That maybe he could be at least a little like Theo and Blaise. He knew that he had failed the minute he first woke up next to Hermione. But these thoughts of his raised it all to a whole new level. How horrible did he have to be to start a relationship with his brother's ex-wife?
No answer was necessary. After all, he's always been a bastard.