Second Time Around

When Hermione came around she expected Draco to be there, but he wasn’t. She had a quick moment of panic which was quickly quelled by a gaunt looking Ron.

“Hermione, hey, it’s me. How are you?”

Hermione oriented herself. “I’m alright,” she said. She was stiff and her throat hurt, but nothing serious. “Where’s Draco?”

“Er, he’s filling out some paperwork with a Medi-witch. Do you remember what happened?”

She nodded. Vividly.

“Hermione, gods, I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry for everything,” he croaked, tears leaking from his red rimmed eyes. He looked horrible, his complexion pale and drawn beneath the freckles which had also seemed to lose their light.

“Ron…it’s alright. I know why you cheated. I know you love her-,”

“Hermione…it’s more…I screwed up, I didn’t know!”

He looked so utterly wretched Hermione had no idea what to do. “Ron, calm down. What are you talking about?”

“Ron, mate, you’re supposed to be in bed!” Hermione turned and saw Harry striding towards them. Looking at Ron she realized for the first time that he was in a hospital gown.

“Ron, what happened?” Hermione asked worriedly. “Did that bastard get to you too?” Oh, gods, what had she done? “Is Draco okay?”

Harry clamped a hand down on Ron’s shoulder who looked up at him pleadingly. “Draco’s fine, he’s just finishing up some paperwork. He’s going to be right mad when he finds out you woke up while he was gone. Had to practically drag him out there as it was.”

Hermione was still confused. “I’m sorry, I think I missed something. What happened exactly?”

“Er…” was Harry’s intelligent reply. “Look, we’ll explain everything later; we’re still piecing it together ourselves. Ron, come on, Healer Whitney’s been looking all over for you,” Harry urged, pulling Ron up who limped after Harry with a backwards look at Hermione. She wanted to know what had happened while she’d been stuck in that hole but a Healer came forth and took her vitals, handing her a potion to drink. She did so reluctantly and sat up when she heard Draco’s dulcet tones near her room.

“-for now, she could be awake any minute so if you’ll please excuse me-,”

He burst into her room and his grey eyes sharpened, widened. He hurried to her bedside and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

“You’re awake,” he said lamely. He seemed rather pale.

“I am.”

“How are you? Are you alright? Do you remember?”

“Yes, I remember and I’m just fine. Suffered worse from your aunt,” she said, hoping it would get him to calm down. But it just seemed to agitate him more.

“Is she is pain? Are her vitals up yet?” he asked the woman who was scribbling something down with an eagle feather quill.

“She’s doing just fine, Mr. Malfoy, and she just took a pain potion. Now, if you will excuse me,” the Healer said, looking beleaguered.

“Draco, have you been harassing the staff?”

He didn’t look ashamed at all and ignored her question. She took it for a yes.

“Hermione, look at me.” She looked right into his concerned eyes. “You’re alright?”

She smiled. “Yes. I’m really truly alright. How about you? I should be asking you if you’re alright. Draco, it was Wright, it was your boss, you have to watch out for him-,”

“Don’t worry, he’s been taken care of. I’m well aware it was him,” he said scathingly.

“Did he get to you? Draco-,”

“Hermione, we’re not going to discuss this now. Do I look hurt?” He spread out his arms as if showing her he had no abrasions.

“No. But you look tired. How long have you been here?”

“A while, I guess. Come, you need some more rest. Lay down.”

Eyeing him, she laid back against the pillows which he adjusted before taking a seat in a well-worn chair beside her and grabbing her hand with both of his. He brought it to his lips and held it there. He let go of his death grip with one hand to smooth back her hair. Her eyes fluttered closed with the soothing contact.

“Wait, I can’t go to sleep yet,” she murmured, that dark abyss calling to her. But she had something she needed to do first.

“Why is that?”

“I have an answer for you and I don’t want to let you from my sight until I give it to you,” she explained, opening her heavy eyes. The potions here were good. She smiled at his confused expression and spoke before he could ask. “I do love you.”

His expression softened. He leaned forward and kissed her softly. “I love you. Maybe I always have. But no more talking. Go to sleep, love.”

Blissfully happy if a bit sore, she let the potion do its work.

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When Hermione awoke again it was dark and Draco was sleeping in the rather uncomfortable looking chair, his neck at an impossible angle against the headrest. She started to sit up and a shadow in the corner moved. Her heart stuttered and she reached for her wand on the bedside table when the shadow started forward. Moonlight from the window washed over the figure and Hermione relaxed when she saw that it was Harry. He pressed a finger to his lips and pointed to Draco. She sat back as he snuck forward and silently took a seat on a chair to her right.

“He just fell asleep and good riddance, too. He’s been driving all of us mad,” Harry whispered.

Hermione smiled imagining what a fret Draco had probably been in. “What time is it?”

“A little after eleven. You just missed Ginny. She left to get the guest bedroom ready for you. She’s been worrying herself into a right fit.”

“There’s no need for her to worry,” Hermione said. “I’m fine. We went through plenty worse back at Hogwarts. If I can survive turning myself into half a cat I think I can make it through this.”

Harry chuckled. “We’ve all been worried. It’s been a long couple of days.”

“How’s Ron? Did Wright do that to him?”

“Partially. It’s a long story, Hermione. I’ll have to wait until Ron and Malfoy are awake to help me explain,” he said in a way that let Hermione know her curiosity was not to be quelled.

“But he’s going to be okay?”

“Yeah, he’d be fine if he would take the treatment and stop traipsing about.”

“Traipsing about?” she asked, curious.

“He’s been sneaking in here to check on you. He’s been worried out of his mind. Between him and Malfoy it was hard to get anything done around here. No one was allowed to see you for hours because Malfoy locked the doors and they were only unlocked when Ron threatened to break them down and passed out in the hall. It’s been a right circus around here.”

Hermione let out a soft laugh. “I’m sure I don’t know why. I wasn’t that injured, was I? I mean, it hurt and all but I was tortured worse by Bellatrix and I survived that, didn’t I?”

“There’s more to it, Hermione,” he said softly, glancing over to the still sleeping Draco. “Ron…he feels guilty…it’s eating him up. He thinks this was all his fault.”

“But that’s ridi-,”

Harry held out his hand to stop her. “I know it is but you need to wait until you hear the whole story. Anyway, you know how Ron gets. And Malfoy, I don’t know what’s come over him but he’s been like a madman running around here. This is the first time we’ve gotten him to sleep since we dragged you out of that dungeon. The Healers nearly kicked him out after they caught him with an owl for the fourth time.”

“An owl?”

“Yeah. He had someone find the papers Wright threw out about your case and had them re-drawn up. Ron signed them immediately and they were sent to the Wizengamot for review this afternoon. You guys should be divorced by the end of the week.”

Hermione contemplated this and the slight sinking feeling she had. She looked down at the ring on her left hand and fingered the indentation the ring had made over the years.

“It’s weird, you know? We’ve been together for so long it’s like…I don’t know how to feel now that it’s finally, really over. I mean, I’ve wanted it to be over for so long and I know it’s what’s best, but I still feel as if I’m closing a chapter in my life. The chapter of all three of us.”

Harry covered her hand with his. “Hermione, this is what’s best for everyone. Divorcing him will not change anything between us two, alright? Nothing can change that. Things will probably be a bit awkward in the beginning, but they’ll smooth out. They always do. You two have put us all in awkward positions before. It’s just a matter of whether or not you can forgive him of his actions.”

“A part of me does, the large part. But a part of me can still remember the pain I felt lying in an empty bed night after night wondering why he didn’t love me. The bruises he left on my face are gone now but the ones he left on my heart will take longer to heal, I think. But I’m trying. I understand now why he did the things he did. It’ll take some time.”

“As much as you need. No one deserves to go through what he put you through. It wasn’t fair and I know he regrets it. Oh, and you needn’t worry, he’s already spoken to Molly. She’s coming tomorrow to check in on you.”

“She’s taking it that well?”

“Er…should I lie?”

They both laughed softly so as not to wake Draco who had yet to move. Hermione looked over at his sleeping form, a sliver of moonlight fell over his platinum hair as his chest rose and fell. He was achingly beautiful even under the pallor of his skin and the bags that were evident beneath his eyes. The two friends were quiet for a minute and Hermione searched for questions Harry would be able to answer without resorting to the other boys.

“So I’ve been here a couple days, have I?” she asked, figuring it was a safe topic.

“Just two. You slept through the entire first day. Unless of course you count your little episodes,” Harry said and Hermione could tell the prat was trying to hide a smile.

“Episodes?” she asked, wondering if she even wanted to know.

“You, er…you sort of half woke up a couple of times thinking you were back in the dungeon and you fought the Healers tooth and nail…literally.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?” she asked, mortified.

“Well, let’s just say Healer Troy won’t be begging to care for you anytime in the near future.”

“Why?”

“You, er….you broke his nose in two places.”

“I WHAT?”

“Shh!” Harry shushed, trying to hold back laughter as Draco shifted position and slept on.

“He’s alright now, they fixed it up just fine but he hasn’t been back since. You should see your nurse now.”

“Why?” She had a feeling she should just stop asking Harry to reveal all this.

“You’ll see why in the morning when he comes to check on you,” Harry sniggered. Hermione couldn’t help but crack a smile.

“Seems you got your practice from the third year when you decked Malfoy. It was a perfect shot, you should have seen it!” Harry said, his laughter finally boiling forth and spilling over, his face red from trying to keep quiet. Hermione couldn’t help it. The idea of her decking a Healer right on the nose was too much. She laughed as well.

Hermione shushed Harry as Draco stirred, stretched and opened one eye lazily, gazing up at her. He sat up and scrubbed his face as Hermione grinned at Harry.

“We didn’t mean to wake you,” Hermione apologized as Draco stood and cracked his back. He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips, her heart melting at the contact.

“I could wake up to that sound every day of my life,” he murmured. Her heart did a little tap dance in her chest.

Harry cleared his throat and they looked at him. He stood and kissed Hermione’s forehead. “I need to get back to Ginny before she starts baking again. She does it when she’s upset now and my stomach can’t take it. She never quite got her mother’s skill at it,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be back in the morning. Get some sleep.”

“Thank you, Harry. Have a good night. I love you.”

“I love you too, ‘Mione.” And with that, he departed, grabbing a cloak off a hook by the door.

Draco sat next to her on the bed, his eyes taking in her features, one hand coming up to cup her face. She noticed that her hair had been braided and smiled at Ginny’s gesture. She’d always loved braiding her hair.

“How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” she said honestly. “A little sore but those Healers work miracles. How are you?”

“I’m fine. I’m not the one who was tortured.”

“You look like you were. Draco, you can’t do this to yourself. No one could have known. You can’t feel guilty about this.”

The look he gave her told her the missing pieces she didn’t know were what was haunting him. “Hermione,” he sighed, then just laid his head down on her shoulder. She brought her arms around him and urged him onto the bed so that he was stretched out beside her on the impossibly narrow mattress. She clutched him to her and played with his hair, soothing him from the pain she could see etched in his face. She didn’t ask him to explain, they didn’t talk. They simply laid there and took the comfort the other could bring. When Hermione started drifting off again she closed her eyes to the image of Draco sleeping soundly, safetly, in her arms.

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The next morning proved thoroughly exhausting. Hermione was woken at the crack of dawn by a beefy man who went by the name of Butch. Hermione could see why and laughed out loud when she remembered what Harry had said about her current nurse and the reason behind it. The dark man just looked at her and ordered Draco off the bed so he could give her a check-up. Draco stood by the man asking him questions until the man looked about ready to blow a fuse. Hermione sweetly asked Draco if he would fetch her a mug of tea just to get him out of the way. By the time he returned (in record time, she might add) the check-up was over and she was issued a potion to help her muscles along in their healing process. She was still very stiff and thankful to take the burning liquid and sit back with a mug of Darjeeling. The nurse claimed her fit to be released at noon but until then she wasn’t to exert herself.

Breakfast was brought in minutes later and Hermione urged Draco to eat his. He was reluctant until she reminded him that he had bugged her to eat excessive amounts at every meal for the past couple of weeks.

“It’s a good thing I did too,” he said, glaring at her. “When they brought you in they said you had an ulcer the size of a snitch. That’s why you were sick the other day,” he accused, his anger evident. Hermione said nothing. She had wondered why her stomach had been so upset. She figured it was stress and in a way, it was. But she had no idea it had been that bad.

They didn’t talk until Molly burst in twenty minutes later fussing and bustling with some flowers Bryce Rangston had sent her. He chatted away about this and that, stating that Fleur and Bill’s youngest son was rolling over and George had a new girlfriend.

“Molly,” she said, stopping the woman who was in the process of re-tying the bow on another bouquet Neville had sent over. She looked over at Hermione and she could see the tears in her eyes. Hermione slid off the bed and enveloped the woman who had been like a mother to her all these years. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry things didn’t work between me and Ron but you’re still my family.”

Molly let out a sob and Hermione let her cry on her shoulder until her weak legs couldn’t take anymore. She caught Draco’s eye who got the hint and hurried over to lower the hiccupping woman down onto a chair.

“I’m so sorry, Hermione!” Mrs. Weasley stammered while Draco helped Hermione back into bed. “If I had known…He told me everything, about the fights and the-the…” she pointed to her own face, not able to say out loud the actions Ron had made. “I slapped him silly, I did! He had no right to treat you the way that way! We’ve all seen it coming from a mile away but I never thought it would come to this! You should have gone straight to me.”

“Molly, you know I couldn’t. In the end he is your son, I’m only the daughter in law. Draco’s been wonderful,” she smiled adoringly up at him. “He’s taken great care of me. Please, don’t be upset. I’m not at odds with Ron. It’s not entirely his fault we didn’t work. We just never rubbed along the way we should have.”

“But that didn’t give him the right-!”

“No, I’m not saying it did. But I’ve forgiven him and am on the road to mending what he broke. You need to forgive him as well.”

Molly looked up at her with red rimmed eyes. “I feel like I’ve failed as a mother.”

“Oh Molly,” she sighed edging off the bed once more and ignored Draco’s death stare. She kneeled at the woman’s feet and laid her head in her soft lap. “You are the most amazing mother anyone could ask for. We are all lucky to have you and I’m so happy that I could call you mine for a while at least.”

Soft hands lifted her face to the delicately wrinkling one above her. “You will always be my daughter, Hermione. Nothing will change that.”

Relatively calmed, Hermione sat there for a while having her hair stroked by Molly. The room was quiet and she was content, all except for the cold tile under her bare legs and her sore muscles. And the fact that she needed to use the loo. Badly.

When she started drifting off, warm arms came around her and lifted her from the ground. Hermione was able to convince Draco to take her to the loo and he stood guard outside her door. When she finished, she begged for a shower. Draco had to ask a nurse who gave her permission for a bath only so she relented and sunk into a luxuriously warm tub where little feet came out of the tile and massaged her aching muscles. She loved magic sometimes.

Draco finally dragged her out after three quarters of an hour and helped her dress. She would have protested had her body not been warring against her. Healer Kenji explained that the potion sometimes made the muscles go into rest mode in order to promote healing and that was why she was so tired. Draco forced her into a quick nap and when she woke again, she had one final check-up and was told she was free to go.

As insisted by Hermione, they met at Harry’s house to discuss the preceding events. Hermione figured it was neutral ground and would serve to keep all relatively calm.

That was until it broke out.

Harry sat looking at Hermione from the chair settled to the left of her where she lounged back on the couch. Ginny was perched on the arm of Harry’s chair looking nervous. She had set out tea and cookies on the coffee table which no one had touched. Draco stood by the mantle, hands in pockets and Ron sat at the edge of an armchair to Hermione’s right, his hands clasping and unclasping nervously. Hermione watched as he swallowed several times before looking up at her. She wanted to comfort him as she had so many times over the years but held back.

“I guess I’ll start,” he said, rubbing his palms on his robes. “Well, that night when you left you know, I was a bit pissed, I wasn’t thinking straight. I was so angry,” he swallowed again. “That article came out about you and-,” he nodded to Draco who made no gesture to indicate he heard what was going on around him, just watched as if they were a fairly interesting sitcom. “I went mad, I went bloody mad. I thought you two were…and you know, that’s why you’d left me…Anyways, I went to see a lawyer, thought I could hurt you before you hurt me,” he said, shame lacing his every word, his head dropping with every sentence until he was speaking to the ground. “Wright told me he’d been trying to get rid of Malfoy for years, that he had a plan. I was angry enough to go along with it. He was going to send Malfoy some notes acting like a crazed fan of mine and try to scare you two into breaking it off. I was supposed to win you back, you know? He’d break it off and you’d be upset, you’d come right back to me. But I never knew…I never knew he’d take it this far.”

Ron sat back and scrubbed his face with his hands before sitting up again and looking at her. Hermione knew how hard he was working to keep under control. “I never asked him how he was planning on getting Malfoy to resign. It wasn’t important, I just wanted to get you back. So when I saw you together and after Malfoy told me,” Ron went red then and glanced at Draco as if he had said something he wasn’t supposed to but once again, Draco made no motion that he heard and continued watching Ron as if waiting for him to attack Hermione. “I knew you two were just like me and Rebekkah. I knew there was no point. I didn’t want to be married to you anymore than you wanted to be married to me. So I went to Wright and told him it was off, I wasn’t going to do it anymore but he was completely gone by that point. That’s when I knew I had stepped into something bad. I told him to call it off but he refused, said he’d been working too hard for it to end now. When I told him I wasn’t going to have a part in anything he did he-he,” Ron clasped his hand so tight the knuckles were white. “He brought out Rebekkah. He told me he’d kill her if I didn’t comply. I couldn’t let them hurt her because of me! I couldn’t! So I did it, I told him how to get into your office and what time you’d arrive. They set up a trap and when I went home that night I sent Harry a letter telling him to be at my place before they took you. They must have known I was trying to intercept you so Wright came with some of his henchmen. He beat the living piss out of me and left Rebekkah and one of the men who was to kill her if Hermione didn’t show up at the office. When the henchman left I knew you’d been taken but there was nothing I could do. He Stunned me before he went. Harry found me and I knew Wright would have taken Malfoy. I hoped we could find him, get the information of where he’d taken you. That’s when we found Wright in Malfoy’s office. He’d already Stunned Malfoy-,”

“Wait,” Hermione interjected, looking up at Draco. “I went through your office, you weren’t there. No one was.”

“He sent me that note, remember? He thought he could meet up with me after I’d found out that there had been no stabbing. You must have just missed him.”

“More like he didn’t want to foul up the plan so he let you go,” Harry said. “When I got his confession he told me he’d watched you go through the office. He was able to alert his men that you were on the way so they could station themselves. He was in there the whole time.”

Hermione shivered at the thought that he’d been watching her and wished he had intercepted her so Draco could have been free of all this.

“But why would he want to fire you?” she asked. “You’re his best lawyer!”

Draco leaned his shoulder blades against the mantle, a picture of the Weasley clan grinning a waving behind his blonde head. “He’s been trying to off me since the day I set foot in that office. He had a grudge against me the whole time.”

“A grudge? What in the world for?”

“Because I was a Death Eater. Because you got me off.” Hermione could see the fury building behind his eyes and knew they were in for a storm. “He was angry that my father had gotten the Kiss, my mother had gotten life in Azkaban and you were able to fix me a probation and release. So when you got me the job at the Ministry and yes, I know you were the one who secured it for me, it riled him. He’d had it out for the two of us so when I told him I was taking your case, he delayed it purposefully. I should have realized it then. Physical abuse is always bumped up. It’s supposed to be sent straight to the Wizengamot, so why had I not received any notice from them? But too bad you had me wrapped so tight around your little finger that I couldn’t do my job properly and I blame myself for that. I could have stopped everything right there, but I didn’t. He was debating how to go about using this against us when Weasley showed up with that blasted article. He was going to blackmail me into dropping the case by kidnapping you. When he cornered me in my office he showed me that handy coin you had invented in our fifth year for that little club you guys had. Every time I did something he didn’t like, he’d tap it and his brother-in-law would get the signal. That’s when they knew to torture you. I was the reason you were hurt, because I spent too much time talking. After so long I couldn’t take it, I let him Stun me and the next thing I knew Wealsey here was stepping on my calf. Wright was pacing so when his back was turned Weasley dropped his wand. I used it to take him out and Potter had the idea of drugging him with Veritaserum. Never told us there was a whole bloody process. I coerced Rangston into giving it to us and-,”

“What do you mean by ‘coerced’?” She eyed him wearily. “Draco Malfoy, do not tell me you hexed my boss!”

“Fine. I won’t.”

“He hexed your boss,” Harry told her. Draco glared at him.

“Draco! What did you do?”

“What I had to,” he thundered. “They were torturing you, damn it! I wasn’t going to stand by and wait for protocol and thank Merlin I didn’t because look what would have happened if I had!”

Hermione closed her eyes to the memory of that man slinking up her body, his filthy hands on her thighs…

“Stop it,” Ginny snapped. “Look what you’re doing to her!”

Draco cursed and began pacing, his hand leafing through his hair. Finally he said, “We’re finished. We can finish discussing this when she’s well.”

He started towards the fireplace but Hermione protested. “No! I’m going to hear this now! You’ve been dodging me for two days now I want to hear what happened!”

The boys all looked at each other and Draco conjured a stiff backed chair and sat upon it, looking at Hermione.

“He was keeping you in the house. Weston House. There was a floor below I had never known about. He sold it to me, the sick bastard. His brother-in-law was just a pawn, a name to hide his face behind. All they had to do was knock you out and Aparate to that room, the only room he allowed Apartition. He’s had the whole thing set up for years.”

They were silent for a minute, each thinking his or her own thoughts. Harry broke the silence.

“I did some digging,” he admitted and stood, going to a side table and grabbing some papers. He handed them to Draco and explained while Draco read. “Your father killed Wright’s family. His parents and his sister, his brother-in-law’s wife. Wright was at Hogwarts when it happened, the first time Voldemort came into power. He’s had a grudge against your family from the start. I also found plans for your demise. He was into some pretty sick stuff.”

Hermione felt ill. Really. She was going to be sick. The thought of what Wright had been plotting against Draco, what he might have done to him because of his father…because of her…

“Hermione?”

She heard the voice, heard the ensuing voices but she couldn’t answer them. Her stomach burned and she clutched it. Draco…she hadn’t helped him, she’d nearly killed him.

“Hermione!”

Draco grabbed her arms roughly and pulled her up against him. Something in his voice had her snapping out of it. She saw those deep, grey eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry.”

“No,” he ground out, his face twisted in pain and anguish. “No. Don’t you start. This is not your fault. You saved me. You saved my worthless life that day. Don’t you ever think otherwise. Get it the fuck out of your head. Now.”

His harsh tone and hard face grounded her more than anything. She cupped his face, her thumbs stroking the apples of his cheeks. His tight grip loosened so it wasn’t so painful and stared at her for a moment longer. Then he wrenched away from her.

“Take care of her, Potter,” he said before grabbing a pinch of floo powder and throwing it into the flames. He disappeared into them and Hermione hit her knees. Ginny was there instantly, holding her.

He’d left. He’d left her. He was finished, through with her. She knew it, had seen it in his face. She had known this day would come, the day when he would no longer be her lawyer, the day he would have no reason to be in her life any longer. But she hadn’t anticipated the pain it would bring.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Ginny said. Hermione allowed her to pull her up and walk her up the stairs to the guest bedroom she had stayed in too many times when the empty bed at home had been too much to bear. She lay there now and Ginny crawled in with her as she’d done so many times before. The only difference from that time to now was the name of the man she was crying over.

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A/N: Sorry, I know it took way too long to get this up. Hope you don’t hate me!

XOXO

RynStar15