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Victim of the Fall	By : PrettyDesdemona Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 32726 -:- Recommendations : 5 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe or any of its characters. I do not make any money off this story. Only love!

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
- 14
CHAPTER 13

MANHOLE

“I look up to see who’s different, the latest me or the latest you.”

The next day, Hermione decided to swallow her pride and go to school. It was so spectacularly out of character for her to skip classes that she could no longer bear it. After two days, she had not only embarrassment hanging over her head but also something akin to barely controllable panic about missing so many classes. Fortunately, Thursday was the only day of the week that she did not have Defence Against the Dark Arts so she was not forced to endure facing Malfoy or her tovarasi head on, and at lunch, she sat down at the Gryffindor table to eat alone. The rest of her tovarasi ate together at the Ravenclaw table and seemed to be giving her a wide berth, only flashing her quick, uncomfortable smiles and muttering hurried greetings when she passed them in class or in the corridors over the course of the day.

Hermione strongly believed this was exactly what she deserved. She was a wise up to her own flaws, she knew she could be narrow minded and cynical, that she was a know it all and sometimes snobbish about her own intelligence, but she had never thought herself cowardly or childish. Recently, she had been demonstrating those flaws in abundance.

She was still hurt by their reticence though. She thought at least Luna would talk to her but she had dropped off the Rusine potion to Graham the night before without attempting to come up, just like Ginny. And she was as cold as the rest of the group that day at school.

Early that evening, after dinner, Hermione went to Teodora’s office for the Rusine potion, determined to apologise for her outburst and smooth things over with her teacher. She didn’t know where to begin fixing the damage she’d caused but an apology seemed a good place to start.

“Come.” she heard Teodora call through the door after Hermione knocked. She pushed the door open and entered.

The older woman looked up and regarded Hermione seriously. “I’m glad you came, Hermione.”

Hermione had barely stepped through the door before the words tumbled out of her mouth ungracefully, “I’m really sorry about what I said the other day. I was angry and… Oh, I’ve been such a coward! I should have come to school and I should have apologised sooner. I’m sorry.” she said, without drawing breath.

Teodora nodded and gestured for Hermione to sit.

“It is no matter. Well, it is matter but I forgive you. Would you like to talk about what made you angry with me?” asked Teodora.

Hermione shook her head fervently, “I wasn’t angry with you. I was angry with…”

“Draco.” her teacher said this with weary compliance and Hermione got the impression that Teodora was probably sick to death of hearing about their rivalry.

“Well not even him, really. I mean, he said some pretty awful things but he was right mostly and totally justified to be honest. No, I was angry with me.” Hermione admitted.

Teodora raised her eyebrows, “With you? Why?”

Hermione nodded. “What I said to him was… appalling.”

“Yes. Your tovarasi told me what was said.”

Hermione ducked her head, “I don’t think they’re my tovarasi anymore…”

Teodora gave her a sympathetic look. “I do not think that is true, Hermione.”

“After the way I acted? I wouldn’t want to be friends with me either.” she ran an anxious hand through her hair, revisiting the shame she’d felt days ago.

“I don’t think they feel like you are no longer a friend, Hermione. I think they were hurt and shocked by your words.” Teodora handed Hermione a goblet of the Rusine potion as she spoke, which Hermione drank.

She nodded understandingly. What else could she say? It was just another thing she’d broken, that she’d now have to fix. Hermione wasn’t used to being the bad guy, it didn’t suit her. She was so used to being right all the time, always the one with the moral high ground, that her situation felt almost dreamlike in its ludicrousness. She felt for a moment that she had only scratched the surface as far as how the war affected her was concerned. She wondered if she should do something about it but she was so exhausted by the idea that she dashed it immediately. What was there to do but wait for herself to get over it? Time healed all wounds, didn’t it?

“Tell me what you’re thinking.” said Teodora.

Hermione slumped forward onto Teodora’s desk, her hands scrubbing at her face in frustration. “It’s just… Fuck, I’m so tired of being me! I’m over it! Before, I was tired of the war, then I was tired of feeling abandoned by Ron, then I was tired of being sad and it’s getting to the point where I’m just sick of myself. I’m sick of the drama that seems to surround my life all the time. I can’t go one day without something shitty happening and I know that’s life but I feel like I can’t get a break. I feel like I have absolutely no control over my own emotions or reactions. I don’t know myself anymore, and I think I’m about to just give up pretending!” she looked at Teodora earnestly, her hands flying out in front of her as she gesticulated wildly, “I don’t actually want to hate him, Teodora. I really don’t! It just happens! There are so many other things around me that are far more important than some stupid grudge…” she lowered her voice tiredly, “You know the funny thing? We had a civil conversation, an actual conversation, moments before I said those things the other day. I woke up next to him and we talked for a minute and, I mean, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t exactly friendly. Just civil. I had all this internal dialogue going on about how I should try and accept him and be nicer to him and minutes later I went and fucked it.” Hermione shook her head disbelievingly, “And now I’m starting to realise, he’s giving me all these chances, Teodora. He is! I mean, we had that argument in the corridor that day and after that, he still said sorry! I proceeded to be a total bitch to him for the rest of the week and then he went and saved my life! And then, after what I said about his mother, he sees me in Knockturn Alley,” Teodora looked at her sharply but Hermione didn’t notice, “and seems genuinely concerned about me! What have I… Oh.” the full reality of how immature she’d been being settled onto Hermione.

“What were you doing in Knockturn Alley, Hermione?” said Teodora slowly.

“He’s the better person now isn’t he?” said Hermione, finally looking at her teacher. That’s what it had come to. Draco Malfoy was the better person. Had the war turned her into a bitter, cynical woman? The sort that would never marry, never have children or friends because she was too wrapped up in her hatred of the world? No. She had to believe it hadn’t happened yet. But that’s where she was heading. Malfoy appeared to be moving forward while Hermione just kept taking steps back.

“Hermione, why were you in Knockturn Alley?” Teodora pressed urgently.

Hermione wasn’t listening, too wrapped up in her epiphany. “I can’t believe I didn’t realise… When he was a death eater… He could talk the talk, but he couldn’t walk the walk. He couldn’t kill Dumbledore. He was lowering his wand. But now… Now he’s doing both, he’s talking the talk and he’s walking the walk. He’s actually trying to get along with everyone, trying to encourage house unity. The only person he’s not getting along with is me.” she stood abruptly, “I have to go.”

“Hermione. Sit down.”

Hermione seemed to come out of a dream as she stared at Teodora who was looking up at her with a mixture of frustration and amusement. Hermione sat.

Teodora took a deep breath. “I’m very glad you are starting to see reason. But leave him alone for now, yes? Show him with your action and then your words. Saying sorry is very easy. Acting sorry is much harder.”

Hermione nodded distractedly. “Yes, yes, you’re right.”

“Now, please tell me why you were in Knockturn Alley.”

Hermione started. Yes, she had said that out loud hadn’t she?

“I… was looking for a book.”

“Do you not live above a bookshop?” asked Teodora, her disapproval evident in her voice.

“Yes, but I couldn’t find anything there or in the library. I just thought… Perhaps I might find something in Knockturn Alley.” she was floundering. She did not want to tell Teodora about the Dividing Lines until she knew more about them, sure that Teodora would react the same way as the other people she’d talked to about them. She didn’t want her teacher putting her off the scent. Not when she was so close.

“Is this book on dark magic?”

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure yet… I won’t know until I read it. But I won’t go down Knockturn Alley again. I know where I can find it now.”

Teodora stared at her seriously and Hermione fidgeted.

“I will tell you about it soon, ok? Just trust that you don’t need to worry about me. I’m not doing anything stupid.”

“I have already trusted you much with this, Hermione.” Said Teodora, shaking her head tiredly.

Hermione felt instantly guilty. “I know. Really I do. Just… This one last time? Please?”

Teodora considered her for a moment before saying, “Alright. One last time. Please do not disappoint me again.”

Hermione left Teodora’s office feeling more confused than when she’d entered it. Once again, she was aching to fix, to mend, she wanted to run off to find Malfoy but she knew Teodora was right. She had to show she was sorry, not just say it. He’d told her as much when she’d tried to apologise in the classroom. What would she have done if Malfoy had tried to say sorry to her? Probably thrown it back in his face like he’d already done. And there it was again. He was indeed showing his apology to the wizarding world by being a better person.

She didn’t feel like going home. The castle was warm and quiet and though she was walking through the halls alone, she didn’t feel it. The castle felt inhabited and she felt she needed that right then. The calm loneliness of her flat allowed her too much time to think.

Her feet carried her to the library where she intended to catch up on the pile of homework she had received that day from her quietly annoyed teachers. Surprisingly they hadn’t seemed to believe her well constructed and thought out lie of, “I had a cold.”

She reached the library and entered, immediately losing herself happily in the familiar lines of shelves. As she loitering in the Potions section, searching for a text on advanced potions that Slughorn had told her about, she heard raised voices.

“I’m telling you it’s transvorto not transverto.”

“That’s not what I heard McGonagall say.”

“You’re jabbing too much anyway, it’s supposed to be a smoother wand movement. Look, like this.”

Hermione rounded the corner and saw her favourite third year Gryffindors sitting at a table, parchment and books splayed out around them. Ebony was demonstrating the movement with her wand.

“I hate to argue with you Noah, but it is transvorto.” said Hermione, grinning.

“Hermione!” cried Gypsy, looking gleeful.

“Told you.” said Ebony smugly.

“Fine.” grumbled Noah, scratching something on his parchment.

“I’ve got homework to do too. Can I sit with you guys? Maybe I can help?” asked Hermione.

“Sure!” said Felix with a grateful smile.

Hermione sat herself down, depositing her books and bag on the table in front of her. She pulled Felix’s essay towards her as he appeared to be the one who was the most stressed by his homework.

“Oh yeah I remember this one.” her eyes scanned the parchment, “This isn’t bad Felix! But, oh yes, here. See? You’ve mixed up St John’s wart with mugwort. Other than that, it’s pretty good! Don’t beat yourself up so much.”

Felix grinned proudly as she handed his essay back to him.

Hermione whiled away a few hours helping the four Gryffindors with their homework and tutoring them on the finer points of transfiguration and potions. When the younger students finally fell silent and the only sound that surrounded them was the scratching of quills, Hermione turned to her own homework. The essay that professor Flitwick had set the seventh years on protective charms, wasn’t overly hard as Hermione had become quite adept at them the previous year. Consequentially, her mind was able to wander as she worked.

Hermione felt as if her mind was darting off in several different directions at once, each thought like an uncontrollable, naughty toddler who wouldn’t sit still.

She began to question her own reactions to what had taken place at the beginning of the week. She had always had an ‘obsessive need to know everything’ as Malfoy had so kindly pointed out the previous day, but it suddenly occurred to her that perhaps she had more of an issue with control. The last four days had proven exhausting, even though she’d not done much more than lie on her couch reading. That exhaustion, she realised, came from the chaos having other people in her life inevitably brought. Despite appearances, she found it easier living alone in her flat, even though she was not really entirely happy, it was simpler. She found it easier because, there weren’t many variables other than her own emotions. And they were quite enough to be getting along with. Now that she was thrown into the tovarasi, she had to deal with nine other loud, damaged young people who were connected to her in a way that she couldn’t entirely explain. And her mind wasn’t reacting well it seemed. She couldn’t control their feelings or reactions at all and that infuriated her when she really thought about it. In the privacy of her own flat, she could say, think and do whatever she liked without having to worry about how that impacted on others. This freedom was exactly what she had left the Burrow to gain but instead she’d jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire, metaphorically speaking.

Unfortunately, Hermione didn’t entirely know what to do with this realisation besides grit her teeth and white knuckle it. She’d made her bed, or Teodora had made it for her, and she’d have to lay in it. She’d made the oath to remain loyal. So she’d be loyal to her tovarasi, even if that meant she went insane in the process.

At nine o’clock, the four young Gryffindors began to pack up their things tiredly, needing to get back to their dormitories before curfew. Hermione bade them goodbye warmly, hoping she’d been able to help lighten their load even a little.

She elected to stay behind in the library to finish her assignments, figuring Madam Pince would not mind.

After half an hour spent slumped over a potions essay, Hermione sat up, stretching her back and massaging her neck with the hand that was not splattered with ink. As she bent back to her homework, she noticed someone watching her.

Her head snapped up to see Malfoy leaning casually against one of the bookshelves nearby.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked.

“Long enough.” he replied cryptically.

He pushed himself off the shelf and walked towards her. As he did, she noticed him holding a satchel in one hand that looked quite heavy. Her eyebrows raised.

“Come with me.” he ordered, walking past her.

“You have it?” she asked in a low voice.

“Yes. But Pomfrey will have a fit if she sees this book in here.”

Hermione dumped her books and unfinished essays unceremoniously into her bag and followed Malfoy out of the library. They walked a little way down the corridor before he ushered her into a hidden alcove behind a tapestry.

The niche was about the size of a broom cupboard, with a slanted stone ceiling. Opposite the tapestry cum doorway, sat a window with a wide ledge looking out to the dark grounds.

Malfoy pointed his wand at the back of the tapestry as it swung closed behind him and muttered, “Duro.” turning the tapestry solid so they would not be interrupted.

Hermione added a muffliato before sitting on the window ledge and looking up at Malfoy.

“I didn’t think you’d actually bring it.” she said.

He shrugged, “Yeah, well, you don’t know me very well.”

Malfoy wordlessly pulled a large, thick, ancient looking black book from the satchel. He handed it to Hermione who took it eagerly and ran her fingers reverentially over the front cover which boasted the title Bastet’s Line in a fine, curling print. She opened it and gasped. The title page held only a few words. The title again and, underneath it, a name that looked handwritten but in the same curling print that was on the front. Gellert Grindelwald.

“Is this…?”

Malfoy nodded, “The original, yes. He gave it to my great Grandfather. It’s the only copy in the world.”

Hermione could not possibly comprehend what she was holding. The book must have been worth more than she could possibly make in a life time, not to mention written by one of the greatest dark wizards of all time. She could only splutter unattractively as she stared down at the cover in awe. “Oh my… This is… How did the Ministry not confiscate it?”

“Because anyone who was not given express permission to read it, by a Malfoy, would see it only as a grubby old potions text.”

Hermione flicked through to the first page, her hands shaking slightly. It was handwritten like the name inside the front cover.

“Bastet: Mistress of the Oracle, Great Conjuress of the Casket. The goddess to whom we pray when we raise our heads to the sky in search of answers. She holds dominion over our world, over sex, over magic, over fertility, music and healing. Oh, that I was born a woman, only then could I truly consider myself one of Her children. As a wizard, I am merely a servant.

“Daughter of the sun, She stands in defiance of grief.

“I am not a practitioner only a scholar. I have been gifted some of the magics I speak of in this text, but many I have yet to explore. Only a daughter of Her, a giver of life, may truly experience the light that She has to offer. I have seen with my own eyes, women of great supremacy practicing the spells and brewing the potions I have detailed within though most did not understand the power they held.

“To truly see our magic, to understand the greatest gift that has been bestowed upon us, we must connect with Her. We do this on Her Line. The Dividing Line. Every magic has limits, to stand on those boundaries with arms open, we may look upon Her in all her beauty. We may begin to understand the world we inhabit.

“If this text finds its way into the hands of a woman, I say this: your body is Her temple. Worship your body with your own hands, tend to the garden of your sexuality and you will find peace. Do this on Her Line and you will find enlightenment, power beyond the reaches of your imagination. You may allow another to worship Her through you and you will give him enlightenment as a gift, a gift that he must love and revere as he does your body and your mind. The highest peak of pleasure and power lies in wait for you, sister, if you will just turn the page.”

Hermione looked up at Malfoy, she was speechless. A fierce curiosity was coursing through her veins. She felt a great power pulsing out from the book in her hands. It wasn’t malevolent or benevolent, just raw, unadulterated power.

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, misreading her expression. “I can take it back if you like.”

“No!” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms protectively around the book. “No. I want to read it… I… I have to read it.”

He looked surprised, then worried. “Why are you so interested in this?”

Hermione decided she could be honest with him, he’d come so far as to give her the book, he deserved that much. “My flat. It lies on the Line.”

Malfoy looked shocked. “I wish you’d told me that before I gave you that book.”

“Why? Do you think it’s evil?” she asked.

He laughed harshly, “Well, I don’t know if you noticed Granger, but it was written by a man who is second in line to the throne of biggest bastards in wizarding history.”

“That doesn’t make it evil though…” said Hermione, not entirely sure she believed in her own words.

“Doesn’t it?” he asked, perplexed.

“No I don’t think so. Grindelwald was once Dumbledore’s friend you know, so maybe he wasn’t all bad… His writing doesn’t feel evil. Maybe a little, uh, ripe, but not evil.” she looked up at him eagerly, “Have you read it?”

He looked slightly wary of her enthusiasm, “Yes, I have.”

“What did you think?”

He frowned, “I’m sorry?”

She wondered if perhaps he was confused as to why she was being so friendly to him. She was too, but she cared more about the book and genuinely wanted to know his opinion of it. “I said what did you think of it?”

“I think it’s powerful. In the wrong hands, it could cause a lot of damage.” he said slowly.

She nodded, yes Graham had told her as much. “Should I be worried about any anti-muggleborn sentiments? I’ll still read it, I just want to know if I should brace myself.”

Malfoy continued to look confused at her companionable chatter. “No, it’s pretty tame in that department.”

She nodded approvingly and looked back to the book in her lap. She flicked through to a random page and the heading immediately caught her eye.

“The Virtus Lucis potion:

“Through the ages we have heard tell of wizards who could conjure light without aid of a wand. Though these tales have been converted into the stuff of legends, of myth, I have been gifted with this precious, invaluable endowment by a wise woman I met while travelling through Yugoslavia. Using blood harvested from the palms of my hands, this woman brewed the potion detailed below on Bastet’s Line. She gave me the gift of light. To hold the sun in one’s hands is a mighty power. A light when all others are lost.”

The text went on to describe how the potion was to be brewed but Hermione forced herself to stop reading before she became too engrossed. She looked up at Malfoy.

“Weren’t you tempted to try any of these?” she asked.

“Of course I was… But you read the introduction, ‘Allow another to worship her through you and give him enlightenment as a gift’. I couldn’t without a woman who wanted to, uh, give me the gift.” he replied.

She was pleased to see him beginning to ease into her company. He no longer wore the puzzled frown of earlier.

“Oh. Yes that would make things difficult by the sound of it.” Hermione took a deep breath. Teodora had advised her to show Malfoy her apology. Was this an opportunity to do just that? “Well… If you wanted to… I could… I mean, we could, you know. Try it.”

Malfoy spluttered, “Granger, I think you might want to read the rest of the book before you offer something like that.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Oh my god Malfoy, get your head out of the gutter. I’m sure there are potions and spells in here that we could explore without being…” she curled her lip in disgust, “physical intimacy. I meant we could research it together, if you like. Not as friends or anything, more like… Colleagues.”

He gave her a long, searching look. After a moment he muttered, “I’ll think about it.”

Hermione nodded approvingly and snapped the book closed before standing up. “Good. Well… I’d best be getting home.”

Hermione slipped the book carefully into her bag as Malfoy waved his wand and the glisseo spell disintegrated, enabling them to walk through the tapestry. Once out in the dark corridor, Malfoy immediately turned to return to the Slytherin dormitories. Hermione put out a hand to stop him.

“Malfoy? Thank you for trusting me with this. It… means a lot.” it sounded like a pathetic attempt at gratitude in her ears but Malfoy seemed to relax a little more.

“I’m not worried. I’m pretty sure if you damaged it, you’d throw yourself off the Tower of London out of remorse before I could even get to you.” he sneered.

Hermione laughed. “Bye Malfoy.”

She walked away from him, fully aware that he was staring at her retreating back in shock. Point one: Granger.

Hermione rushed home to her flat, eager to begin reading Bastet’s Line. It was getting late and, though she knew she had class in the morning, her hands itched to devour every page before breakfast, even if she had to stay up all night.

She made herself a cup of tea upon her arrival home, so overcome with excitement that she dropped the sugar bowl which splintered all over her kitchen floor. She looked at the mess for a moment before she took up her tea and returned to her lounge room. She could clean it up in the morning.

Her legs curled under her and her tea hung motionless in her hand as she once again, opened the front cover of Bastet’s Line.

As she read, the book’s power seemed to sink into her skin, warming her blood. Her heart beat rapidly. It was as if the book recognised her, it greeted her like an old friend.

Within minutes, Hermione began to realise that Bastet’s Line detailed magic she had never dreamed of. Not only were there potions such as the Virtus Lucis which gave the drinker the permanent ability to conjure light in their hands, but many others, that promised power unlike any witch or wizard in Hermione’s memory had ever possessed. Power greater than Voldemort’s, greater the Dumbledore’s, even greater than Grindelwald’s as, being a man, he would have been unable to cast many of the spells he wrote about or brew many of the potions.

Hermione couldn’t begin to understand why this invaluable source of magic had been contaminated by superstition. She learnt as she continued to read that the potions requiring sexual contact could not be brewed after rape, that the blood could not be taken forcefully if it was needed and by no means would it be profitable to coerce a woman into brewing or casting against her will. There was nothing evil about the text at all. Grindelwald described the magic conjured on Her Line as motherly, affectionate and powerful for woman. So why was it judged so harshly? And where were the great, powerful women who practiced it? Had it been a concept crushed under the thumb of male supremacy?

Grindelwald filled the first quarter of the book with detail of how he came to learn about Her Line. From what Hermione could gather, he had travelled extensively through Europe in his twenties and had come across many nomadic communities in the north where great wise women practiced the magic he spoke of. But he made a point of telling the reader that these women did not share their knowledge with each other, meaning that they did not know as much as he did after he had completed his research.

For this reason, Bastet’s Line was one of a kind, a book unlike any other, containing the most information on Dividing Lines that had ever been in one place. And there was only one copy. So that explained the lack of knowledge about the Line, but not the superstition.

Hermione’s interest piqued as he began to describe spells and potions in detail, complete with instructions. She found herself, once again, overcome by the power behind the contents of the book.

She read about the Occultus spell, which created an absolutely impenetrable protection around a home or dwelling, even going so far as to prove every other protective enchantment Hermione knew mute. The spell made the house invisible, invincible and unplottable. It even outweighed the Fidelus charm in effectiveness, because there was no fickle human to keep the secret. Occultus knew who was welcome and who was not. It was intuitive. It melded with the mind of the caster. It also created a Dividing Line where none existed.

She read about the Unum Cerebrum potion, which, if taken by two people, gave them a permanent connection to one another’s mind, allowing them to communicate with each other telepathically for the rest of their lives.

She read about the Sanare, a healing spell that could bring a person back from the very brink of death. No matter how grievous the injury. The spell quite literally knit the skin, the muscle and the organs back together if they’d been damaged. It purged to body of disease and infection.

There were some spells and potions in the book that Grindelwald merely spoke of but did not detail. And it was these that Hermione was most curious about. There was a spell that Grindelwald claimed would protect the caster from the Unforgivable curses. He spoke of hearing stories of magic conjured on Her Line that would gift a woman and her mate with everlasting immortality.

But what interested Hermione the most was a potion called the Zeitei Otrava which Grindelwald said meant the Goddess’ Poison. According to him, this potion was very real. He had taken it. Its purpose was to allow the drinker to quite literally see their own magic. Grindelwald described it as a feeling unlike he had ever experienced, being able to see his own magic melding with his surroundings, with people and other magic.

Hermione wanted, desperately, to experience this.

She began to feel nervous. She knew herself. She could not simply lay this book aside and continue with her life. She would have to experiment, she had to satisfy her curiosity.

No wonder Malfoy had questioned her motives when she had told him of her research. He had just given her a book that could give her power greater than any witch or wizard in history.

Hermione read on and on into the night. When her eyes began to sting, she would rinse her face with cold water and brew herself another cup of tea which later turned into coffee, though at no point did she feel tired. Her mind was running on the adrenaline that pumped through her veins consistently as she read.

As she finally reached the back cover, closing the book slowly, reverentially, she looked up out of her window.

The sun rose.

chester25 - I'm glad you like it! I couldn't stop if I tried :D

Kain - Wow. MAMMOTH REVIEW! Loved it haha. I found it interesting reading about your reaction to Hermione's burn! Because you had, quite literally, the exact same reaction that she did! You're really in the sphere of the story right now and I think that's fucking great!!

The tovarasi DO seem to have come a long way don't they? But have they really? Read about that in the next chapter! Hehe.

I have heard your request for Isobel becoming more centric and I fully plan to adhere to your request. She's by no means a central character, but I'd like to get to know her a little better too. So keep an eye out!

Thanks so much for the review, Kain. It's really great to see the story making you think so much! I hope you liked this chapter :D

Tori - Thanks for being so loving and delicate with your review. The last chapter was certainly not one of my favourites and I know what you meant by there was something missing. It felt a little empty to me to. But, hopefully, it was just that chapter and won't be a consistent theme in the rest of the story lol. You're not a bad reviewer at all, really. I'm really glad you were honest.

As to my little plug with the prostitute, it was most certainly a little bit of a cheap shot lol, but I just couldn't resist! It's not intrinsict to the plot or anything, just a little tongue-in-cheek fun :)

Thanks for the review, hope you liked this chapter!

B - All I can say is... You're questions will be answered soon! Hehe. Thanks for the love, really, and the great review. I hope you like this chapter!

dh_reader - Hehe I'm well aware I didn't answer all your questions!! All in due time :D

As always, many hugs to you for your lovely review! I'm feeding off your enthusiasm!! Let me know what you think of this one! xx

Carly - The tovarasi idea is something that was inspired by the way people in rehabilitation centres bond when recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. It’s a similar concept, you know? I mean, they’ve all been fighting their own wars and come together to heal by being open and honest and end up going through some intense bonding while inside as a result. So it's interesting to hear how you want to implement some of that in your own life! It's happening all around us, really.

Oh and yes, I also wish some of my high schools teachers were a little more like Teodora haha. Would have been so much easier!

two-Five-One - Thank you! I try to rock, but feel like I fail miserably most of the time haha. You can't follow stories on AFF but on fanfiction dot net, you can. This story is there too :)

The quote at the beginning of this chapter is from Ani Difranco's song Manhole. Her music has served as a huge inspiration for this piece. I own nothing. Thanks Ani!
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Victim of the Fall