Always On My Mind

Draco sat in front of The Centaur sipping his beer, watching the May Day festivities. There was a band with live music, competitions and all the shops in Hogsmeade had their wares on tables in sunlight boasting sales. He was sitting in front of the new pub and talking with Blaise Zabini, his best friend since the age of twelve when he saw her back through the crowd. He’d know it anywhere. The familiar contours were well displayed by her cotton tank top and he watched as the little angle wings that were her shoulder blades poked out as she took out a hair stick and used it to secure her long ringlets into a semblance of a French twist. She shifted her weight and the skirt she wore swirled around her calves and something in Draco’s heart twisted at the memory of seeing those calves on a regular basis. He excused himself from Blaise and rose to say hello to her. After all, it had been almost a year and a half since they’d broken up and over five months since they’d last spoken. She was currently dating Weasley, but he was confident it wouldn’t last.

As he walked towards her he thought back to why they had broken up. At twenty six, Draco Malfoy was the most eligible bachelor in the wizarding society and he used that to his full advantage. The only time he’d been out of commission had been the two years he and Hermione had been together. At twenty three they had finally made a commitment to each other after sleeping together off and on for months at a time since their graduation from Hogwarts. Looking back, Draco realized that those two years had been the most relaxed in his life in his life. However, Draco Malfoy did not like to feel relaxed. He had to know what was on the other side and whether or not the grass was actually greener there. He’d broken it off with Hermione, moving out of their shared flat and back into the manor. He dated lots of women and enjoyed himself, but he never found that same sense of peace that he had when he was with Hermione. To say that she created a sense of peace didn’t mean that their life together had been routine or dull; it just meant that he was certain that she wasn’t with him because of his money, his connections or his looks. He could get a jar of acid thrown in his face, and Hermione would have loved his disfigured form as much as the chiseled face that got him so many women. Their relationship was often tumultuous and he loved it. She refused to back down if she felt she was in the right and she had the brains to verbally spar with him and back him in the corner. He missed her like crazy and was rather certain that she must miss him as well.

After all, Weasley never talked about books, only Quidditch and chess. She knew that they were wrong for one another; she’d figured it out her seventh year and run crying to him. His induction into the Order made him her confidante and her heartache made him her lover. She was the only one who knew him completely and he liked to think he was the same person for her. He hoped that she and the Weasel had already come to their breaking point and he wouldn’t have to wait until it was over to get her back. The thought of her with another man made his blood boil, it always had. The only thing that kept him from going ballistic was the fact that he knew her heart would always belong to him, first and foremost.

He’d made his way through the crowd while holding his imported beer in one hand. He could hear her voice and he could smell the earthy scent of her favorite perfume through the breeze and it made his cock twitch at the memory of having her writhing underneath as they made up after an argument. She was standing in front of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes talking to Neville Longbottom. As soon as Neville left, he put his hand on her shoulder, reveling in the silky touch of her skin. The second she turned around he stopped breathing and his glass hit the concrete with a crash, shattering it completely.
Hermione’s eyes lit up the second she saw him and she threw her arms around him. “Draco! It’s so good to see you! How are you?” Her eyes danced with happiness, but Draco couldn’t look at them. His eyes were glued to her five month pregnant belly.

Finding his voice, his words came out raw. ‘You’re pregnant,” he stated.
“Yes! Isn’t it wonderful?” she asked. He could only nod dumbly. His head was spinning and he thought he was going to be sick. For the past nine years he’d thought of her as his girl and there she was, displaying quite loudly the fact that she belonged to another man now.
“Are you married?” he asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. He wanted to hear all of it from her mouth.

“No, she said, rubbing her belly. “We weren’t engaged before we found out so we’re not going to rush things. We both couldn’t be happier, though. Ron’s ecstatic and he keeps treating me like I’m made out of glass. Are you okay?” Hermione looked at him concerned, touching his arm. He pulled away from her as if he’d been burned.
“Congratulations,” he said before turning around and walking quickly away from a confused Hermione.
His steps sped up as he neared the table where he’d been sitting with Blaise and put two gold galleons down. “Are you alright, mate? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” Blaise got up from talking to the redhead who had sat at the table next them, but Draco just pushed past until he reached the disapparation point. He closed his eyes and with a pop he was in Malfoy Manor.

He ran up the stairs to his study and slammed the door shut. Panting on the other side, he squinted his tear stained eyes and brought his knuckle to his mouth, biting it in an attempt to keep from crying. A low moan escaped his throat and he ran over to his desk and threw everything on it to the floor in a sweeping motion. He turned around to his business awards and picked up a glass one throwing it across the room watching it smash. He picked up everything within his reach and regardless of the value; he pitched it across the room to smash against the wall. When he was out of items he strode over to his book shelf and began pulling books out, throwing them around the floor, kicking them until he finally leaned against the wall, sliding downward until he sat on the floor. He put his head in his hands and cried.

She was pregnant. Ron Weasley was the father. Ron Weasley treated her like glass because HIS child was growing inside her womb. Draco leaned over and thought about the pain he was feeling and suddenly understood how people died of broken hearts. She was gone and he would never get a chance to call her his ever again. Weasley would do the honourable thing and ask her to marry him and because a child was involved, she would say yes. Once she was married, that would be it. Hermione was firmly against cheating and like the Gryffindor she was, she would be in it for the long haul and try to create a happy little family for her baby even if she didn’t love the father. Suddenly, Draco felt cold. What if she did love Weasley? What if while he was off ‘exploring his options’ she had explored hers as well and found the red haired man to be more of a match for her. After all, when they had split she had told him that she wanted children and a family. He had told her he didn’t know what he wanted. Looking back at the number of women he’d slept with over the past year, he suddenly felt cheap and shallow. Why would she want someone like him when she could have someone who only held out for the best, like Ron Weasley?

Thinking back to their encounter he teared up again as he realized that she hadn’t been the least been thrown by seeing him. Always before, if she saw him unexpectedly, she would stop and take two seconds to compose herself. Today she had greeted him as if he were only one of her old housemates from school. He no longer held any sway over her heart or her emotions and he had been the one to throw it all away, to try and put her on a shelf, because he wanted a seriies of quick shags. He felt stupid and foolish and utterly ashamed. He’d traded gold for bronze. Once again thinking of how he’d told her that he didn’t know what he wanted he thought of her radiantly beautiful face and the happiness splashing across it as she talked about her baby. He remembered the glow on her beautiful face and suddenly knew that what he wanted was for her to have that glow because of him. He wanted to be the reason her belly was full.
All Draco wanted was to start a family with Hermione and as he fell asleep on the floor of his study, cold and alone, he thought about the irony that all it took for him to be certain was to watch her start one with someone else.