Taking Advantage

Hermione stayed busy with the wedding preparations the next morning. By lunch time, she had decided on a guest list for her side of the aisle, a menu, owled Ginny and Luna to meet at Madame Malkin\'s at 2:00 to select robes, and was just walking out of the lovely stationary store in Hogsmeade where she had found the perfect invitations when she caught sight of her own face staring back at her from a newspaper.



The title, which read” Is the world ready for the first Muggle-born Mrs. Malfoy?,” was steaming a bit, and it was no wonder. Below the stock photos of Malfoy and herself, Hermione was shocked to see a shot of last night\'s hallway episode. There for the world to see, a tiny Draco held a writing miniature Hermione. At one point during the steamy snog, Hermione realized that she must have released her death-grip on Draco\'s robes because, as she watched, her left hand snaked across his ribs to the middle of his back where she grabbed another handful of the sinfully rich fabric. At that moment, Skeeter must have zoomed in, if such a thing was possible with a wizarding camera, because the picture suddenly narrowed to show only Hermione\'s hand, pale and delicate against the dark robes, and there, from its perch on her third finger, a certain gaudy Malfoy heirloom was impossible to miss., from the huge, sparkling pear-shaped diamond, to the tiny Malfoy crest pressed into the platinum band.



Hermione stared down at the same hand and the same ring and took a deep breath, trying to remind herself that this had been the plan. She and Draco had kissed for the express purpose of manipulating skeeter into writing that exact article, the article that would establish their relationship as fact in the minds of the wizarding world, particularly those who would soon be administering the marriage law\'s dictates. Hermione told herself that however real the kiss had felt, it had been an act. She was not a woman whose most private moments with her betrothed had been spied upon; she was a an actress, and there, on the cover of that rag that posed as a newspaper, was her stage.



At least her parents wouldn\'t be getting a copy, she reasoned before mentally kicking herself. Her parents! How could she have forgotten to arrange a meeting with her parents? What sort of daughter was she? Checking to make sure she had time before her next appointment, Hermione ducked into the Leaky Cauldron. For some reason, the cell phone her parents insisted she carry got reception from the back booth there, unlike most places in wizarding areas, so she planned to have a bite of lunch and arrange dinner that night with her parents.



A quick chat was all it took to assure her that her mother had heard nothing from Molly Weasley and would be ready to receive Hermione plus guest at seven sharp. Once that was taken care of, Hermione ordered her favorite fish and chips and started doodling wedding invitation ideas on a scrap of parchment until she had the wording just right. By that time her food had arrived, so she took a break to enjoy it before she was back to work, planning a wedding she still couldn\'t quite believe was happening.



She was so focused on her thoughts, not to mention her delicious lunch, that Hermione didn\'t notice her visitor until Ron lowered himself into the seat across from her.



“Hermione, we have to talk,” he sighed.



“Oh, gods, Ron. Are we going to do this again already?” she asked.



“No,” the red-head promised. “We\'re going to start over. Just let me talk for a bit, and I\'ll try to do better now that the shock has worn off a bit. Lavender told me that she was humiliated by my behavior last night, and I\'m just as embarrassed. I was jealous when I saw you together. You are my best friend, probably more so than Harry in some ways because I\'ve always thought... You know what I\'ve always thought.”



“Yes, Ronald,” she answered quietly. “I used to think it as well, but that was before you were with Lavender.”



“Let me finish, Mione,” Ron begged. “I know I\'m the one who put us in this situation, and I\'m sorry. I was jealous of you, of all the promotions you got one right after the next at Gringots. Merlin, how many times did Bill go on during Sunday dinner with the whole family sitting there about how you had broken the curse on yet another relic that had been making the rounds in your department for decades? Meanwhile everyone knows I\'m the one who works in his brothers\' store. Yeah, they let me manage the flagship store, and I do a great job, but would I have had that opportunity if I wasn\'t their little brother and if they weren\'t so busy expanding other areas of the business?”



“So you\'re saying you left me and have ended up engaged to Lavender Brown because she doesn\'t embarrass you?” Hermione asked in a deceptively quiet tone. “I\'ve got to tell you, Ronald; you aren\'t improving your situation right now.”



“Just let me... It isn\'t coming out right, Hermione,” Ron tried again. “I\'m just trying to explain how I feel. Just let me try to finish.”



She nodded for him to continue.



“I can\'t live up to you, Mione,” he tried again. “When I was with you, I always felt as though I wasn\'t good enough. I love you, and I want you, but I don\'t like myself when I\'m with you. I had to choose. Lavender was the solution. I\'ll always love you, but if I\'m with Lavender, I get to like myself as well as loving you. I chose you and me.” He paused. “There. That\'s probably the best I\'ll ever manage to say it.”



Hermione was quiet for a moment. “It sounds like marrying Lavender is win/win for you Ron. I guess I\'m the only one who loses, and I guess you\'re okay with that. You get your safe, unintimidating relationship, and I get left out in the cold at the mercy of the Ministry and its new laws. Great plan, Ron. You got to continue to love me from afar and feel like a man, and I got to spend over a year wondering why my best friend, the only man I had ever loved left me for a girl he had always said was ridiculous. How do you think that made me feel about myself?”



Hermione\'s voice was rising a bit, and she reigned in her emotions to keep this talk as private as possible. “You could have told me all of this last year. I didn\'t have to wonder what I\'d done wrong, but you were too busy worrying about yourself to wonder how our break-up made me feel.”



“Oh, Mione,” Ron apologized. “I never thought you would doubt yourself. I just thought you\'d know it was all my fault.”



“You never thought, period, Ron,” she answered, her voice rising again. “You apparently never thought of me as a real person with feelings of my own, but I am. I\'m a woman, just as much as your idiot fiance. Well, I\'m going to make sure I don\'t have another relationship like that again. From all appearances, Draco has already figured out exactly how real I am, and I\'m going to remind him every chance I get. At least he isn\'t afraid he might disappear in my shadow, and I must say that I like that about him.”



With that, Hermione gathered up her packages and stormed out. She had a wedding to plan.