Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

**Touched by angels though, I fall out of grace

I did it all so maybe I’d live this everyday**





--





Both men squeaked in disbelieving unison. Hermione stared at both of them levelly, waiting for someone to steer the group back to logic, and decide what they wanted to do. When all she got was Harry and Draco staring at each other, she sighed.





“Alright, so what are you going to do?”





“Wh- when?”





“She found out yesterday. While you were out...”





She glared at Draco on the last sentence, and he would have glared defiantly back, but he was severely worried for his position. He was counting on the three of them coming to an agreement, with Harry bouncing between the two of them, but this could change everything. He glanced nervously at Harry, suddenly feeling very small. He tried to shrink back into the sofa, when Harry didn’t even look at him.





“Will she see me?”





“I… I don’t know. I think so, she seems like she wants to. But Harry, you HURT her. You LIED to her.”





Harry looked down, ashamed that things went the way they did.





“I know,” he whispered.





He glanced at Draco sideways; the blonde just fiddled with his fingernails.





“Hermione, can I have a… a moment with… with Draco…?”





He looked up through his eyelashes, and Hermione nodded. As pissed off as she was, she still understood. She got up, and made for the door, grateful for the opportunity to get out of the flat that smelled of sex and testosterone and two of the most beautiful men she’d ever known. She stood on the step staring at the sky, giving them the privacy they needed.





“Draco…”





“Harry, if you need to just go to her, and forget about me…”





His voiced choked on the words, but he forced them out.





“Draco, I don’t want to, we’ve been over this. I still want you, if you’ll have me.”





“But what about the baby?”





“I…” Harry hesitated, not wanting to say anything that would hurt his lover, “I will marry her. That is… if she still wants me… I mean, I have to protect their future. Now that she’s carrying my child I have to think about that.”





Draco nodded that he understood. His eyes welled with tears, but he blinked them back.





“Draco, what does that do to you.”





“It… It makes me afraid. I’m afraid it would mean we couldn’t have each other anymore.”





“It doesn’t have to… I want to talk to Ginny. Explain myself, explain everything... I want this to work, but I can’t just leave her like this.”





He searched Draco’s face for anything he might be trying to hide.





“Can you deal with this?”





Draco stared at the carpet. He bit at his lip, chewing nervously at the most delicious part of his pout.





“Harry, I have a confession.”





Harry stiffened, not exactly liking the sounds of that.





“What do you mean?”





“Well… I’m… I’m an adult now, and… well, I’m still a pure-blood. My family needs me to marry and make an heir for the Malfoy line.”





Harry was confused at first, but the meaning of Draco’s words slowly dawned on him.





“You mean…”



“Yeah… In fact, they’ve already found someone. She’s from Eastern Europe. Her father was on the faculty of Drumstrang. Our families are close as far back as anyone can remember. They owe us a debt, and my mother and father decided the best way to collect was to marry me off to them.”





“When were you…”





“I wasn’t! I wasn’t even going to meet with them. I haven’t met her yet. I know her father, I mean… I met him when I was young. But I was just going to ignore them. I’m happy now, that’s all I cared about. But… well, they’re all really upset about it.”





“When were you going to tell me?”





“It didn’t- it didn’t seem an issue. I didn’t even think about it until just now.”





Harry stared at the man he loved in wonder.





“Would this really work?”





“Well, this marriage would only be for political strategy. Carry on the family name, and all that. There’s no love between us like with you and… and Ginny.”





Harry looked thoughtfully into space. The idea seemed almost ridiculous, but it was a fantastic solution to keep everybody at least sated, if not even happy.





“Draco, come with me. I have to go talk to her. I need you there with me.”





“You think she’ll listen to anything you say if she sees me there?!”





“Hermione will protect you! Come on!”





He grabbed his hand and tugged him up, and towards the door. Hermione was already opening the portal, waving them out. Harry grabbed her hand too, and twisted on the spot, carrying his friends with him.





**





He spun wildly on the spot, losing his balance and falling on Draco as he appeared beside him. Thankfully Hermione was much more graceful and she remained standing, and her offer of a hand up was refused on account of “she needs to save her strength”.





“Hermione, just protect Draco. I need him here.”





Hermione nodded, giving Draco an odd look, almost as if she couldn’t figure out why she was going along with the charade, but consented anyway.





Harry ran into his friend’s house, shouting into the air.





“Ginny? Ginny, baby, I need to talk to you.”





“Don’t call me baby.”





The icy reply came from directly beside him, and Harry jumped out of his skin. He rushed towards her, but she backed away, hitting the wall behind her.





“No, don’t touch me.”





“Ginny, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you, that’s why I never said anything.”





Ginny’s icy gaze was enough to put a fire. Harry almost shivered from it, but he needed to get through to her.





“Ginny, I love you! I always have. Please, just listen to me.”





“I don’t want to hear it.”



“Ginny I still want you. I’m not just doing this to make you feel better. I could never do that. I respect you too much.”





“So what was that little thing with Draco, then?” she snorted.





“Draco… I…”





He was suddenly unsure that she would understand what he felt. He had to try, though. He had to make her see what was going on, had to accept him back into her life.





“I love him, too.”





She stared at him incredulously.





“You WHAT?”





“I know, it’s crazy, and it took me forever to understand it, but it’s the truth. I couldn’t choose one of you over the other. It would be break me in half. I can’t just leave you and have just him. It wouldn’t be enough for me. I need you. I would do anything for you, to make you happy.”





“And Draco?” she hesitated.





“He… he completes me.”





He stared at her, and she stared back, both ignoring the utter cliché-ness of the last line spoken. Ginny could see that it was the truth, and it hurt, but she could also see that living without her would break Harry.





“Harry, I don’t think I can share you with him.”





Harry stared hard, not wanting to believe it was the truth. He couldn’t choose, there was no way he’d be able.





“What if you never had to see me? What if you never spoke about me?”





Ginny whirled around to see Draco trying to make his way around a very obstinate Hermione, her arms stretched in front of her to protect Draco in case Ginny lost her cool.





“What?”





“It worked well enough for the two of us. Harry never mentioned you, and I sometimes even forgot that I had to share him. If everyone knows about it, the tension would be gone. It would be even easier.”





Ginny gaped at Draco as he defended their common lover.





“You mean you support this?”





“I have to. I love him.” He glanced quickly at Harry, half a smile threatening the corner of his lips. “I would do anything to make him happy. Even leave if I had to, but that would break both of us.”





Ginny couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but she saw the looks in both of their faces. She saw the desperation in Harry’s eyes, and knew that he was telling the truth. She didn’t like it, and it almost made her feel dirty, but she knew what Draco said was also true. She loved Harry desperately, and would do anything for him to be happy. Even leave him. But if they all left each-other, where would they be? If they could all find a way to co-exist in some manner, then it might work, if they all played the game right.





“We’d never have to talk about him? You’d pretend he didn’t exist when you were with me?”





She searched pleadingly in Harry’s eyes. Harry stared back, a smile slowly spreading across his face. He shook his head slowly, side to side.





“You’d never even know he was there.”





--





**And we\'ll love again and we\'ll laugh again

We’ll cry again and we\'ll dance again

And it\'s better off this way

So much better off this way**



A/N:

Now that you have read my version of events between the end of the last chapter and the epilogue, re-read the epilogue, thinking about the twist this provides. I think it makes everything much more bearable, while still not changing anything Ms. Rowling directly implied. I know, I\'m sorry, I still had to marry Harry and Ginny, and it truly pained me to do it, but it was the only logical way to do it.



It also pained me to make Draco as weak and sappy as he was, but again, unrequited love can really screw over somebody’s sense of self worth… I promise in my other stories he is strong and snakey and evil and delicious, just as he should be