Second Time Around

*Tissue Alert*


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Clutching the crisp parchment, Hermione attempted to still her quaking hands. Five small fingers curled around her left shoulder and she concentrated on that comforting touch. She breathed in, filled her lungs, breathed out. Laying the parchment down on the table before her, she turned to the woman next to her.

“Quill?”

Ginny started and hurried to a drawer in the kitchen, rummaging through it, pulling out old ink wells, crumpled quills, owl treats and a broken snitch. Finally, she produced a nice, self-inking quill and handed it to her best friend of thirteen years. She stood by nervously as Hermione placed the tip of the sharp quill to the yellow parchment leaving a small blot. She hesitated slightly, took another deep breath, and scribbled her name on the line: Hermione Jean Weasley. She had no sooner dotted her ‘i’ when the parchment disappeared and a new one popped into her hands. She read it slowly and handed it to the redhead. Ginny took it and glanced down at the words proclaiming Hermione a Granger once more.

“Are you alright?” she asked, as Hermione stared into space. The brunette nodded and turned to her, smiling.

“Yeah, I’m alright.”

And she was walking past Ginny, towards the staircase, and Ginny know she would hide in the guest room until she was ready to confront Harry. Ginny folded the parchment carefully and found an envelope to place it in. She scribbled what it was on the outside because she knew her friend always did that with important documents. She laid it on the kitchen counter where her friend could grab it at her convenience and Flooed to her mother.

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Hermione didn’t cry. In her mind she’d been divorced for a long time. She didn’t feel much of anything. In three hours Ron would be leaving for his ten day training session for the opening of the season in another month. Ginny had tried to scrub her own for Hermione’s benefit but she wouldn’t allow it. Ginny’s team had a good chance of pulling ahead this year and Hermione wouldn’t let her pathetic life affect the rising Chaser.

In three hours she would be packing the rest of her things and leaving the home she and Ron had been building on for five years. In three hours she and Crookshanks, who was prowling around in the attic, would be officially on their own. In three hours, she would have to confront the fact that for the first time in her life, she would have no one next to her when she woke up.

And she was alright with that. She was. She was a strong independent woman, not some simpering doxy who needed a man there at every turn. She could do it on her own and better than most. It didn’t matter that the one man she had really let herself get close to and opened her heart to had dropped her like a moldy sack of potatoes. It didn’t matter that she still had things at his mansion and that it would kill her to go back and retrieve them. It didn’t matter that it was physically painful to think of how close she was to living there with the best man she’d ever met. All that mattered was that he didn’t want her anymore and she was grown up enough to accept that.

Bullocks! she thought, three hours later, as she shoved the rest of her shrunken things in a carpet bag Molly had lent her. What right did he have to ditch out on her? What happened to all of his “I’ve been waiting for you” and “I love you” bullshite? How could he have changed his mind so quickly? One day he was bending over her bedside whispering words of endearment and worrying over her health and the next he was walking out on her. What in Merlin’s name gave him the right to think he could do that? That arrogant bastard, maybe he really hadn’t changed since their days at Hogwarts.

But fuck if she was going to let that be an excuse.

Hermione Apparated to the Ministry, not caring that it was Sunday and therefore nearly empty, not caring that the people who were there were looking at her oddly because she was wearing one of Harry’s old t-shirts and faded jeans or even that she was barefoot with wand-in-hand. She stomped her way to Draco’s office and, ignoring the questions of the weekend secretary, barged into his office and headed straight for the fireplace.

“Weston House!”

Hermione landed and looked around. The place was quiet, with an air of neglect. She stepped forward slowly and looked around. Where was Jadie?

Stepping out into the hall she could feel that there was something wrong. Something that made the hair stand on the back of her neck.

“Oh missus! Missus, there you are! Please, please hurry, Master needs you, he is very ill!”

“Ill?” she asked worriedly. She followed the elf to the office, her heart frozen in her chest. Had he gotten sick? Passed out? Hurt himself?

“He’s in here, missus. Please help, he’s been like this for days!”

“Days? Jadie, why didn’t you come get me? Or someone else?” she asked, nearing the office doors.

“He said not to, he made me promise!”

Cursing his stubborn arse, she pushed open the double doors to the office and looked around. She didn’t see him immediately and her fear rose. But a noise by the desk caught her attention and she hurried over, getting to her knees next to Draco’s prone figure sprawled out on the floor.

“Oh, gods, Draco!” she cried, hands fluttering to his throat to check for a pulse. It stuttered beneath her fingers and she let out a breath. She looked around to make sure he hadn’t been attacked and she realized that the whole place was a disaster, books strewn across the floor, shattered glass, overturned furniture, papers everywhere.

“Draco, can you hear me?” she asked. She needed to get them out of there before whoever it was came back. “Come on, wake up now. Jadie, go for help, go find Harry Potter!” The little elf scampered from the room with a squeal. Draco groaned and she closed her eyes to calm herself. He was alive.

“You have to be quiet, they could come back. Don’t worry, I’m here now,” she promised, angry at herself for leaving him when danger could still be out there. Did Wright have more associates than they’d thought?

“What-?” he croaked, raising a hand to rub his eyes.

“Did you see who it was that attacked you?” she asked.

“Attacked?” he slurred. “Whassu all’bout?”

“Did you see who it was who did this to you? They could still be here-,”

“I ask for cheese tuna and all I get’s a fuckin’ crossiant! Damn goat fag carpet!”

“What? Draco-,”

“What’er you doin’ here?” he said looking at her with bleary eyes. He started to sit up and fell back over. He pushed himself back into a sitting position while she looked on in disgust. The smell of liquor was heady, a bottle laying inches from his hand, completely empty.

He hadn’t been attacked. He was drunk.

“Draco, what is this all about?”

“DON’T call me tha’ name! You don’ know a haff ovit!”

“Listen, I’m not going to deal with this,” she said, disgustedly. “I just came here to tell you-,”

“Whassat? Whadyu come here to tell me then?” he nearly shouted, his eyes unfocused upon her, a look of revulsion on his ruddy face. Golden hair studded his unshaven face and oily locks fell over his eyes. Where once had stood a sophisticated, sweet, strong individual now sat a drunk, dirty and sullen deadbeat.

She took a deep breath. “I came to tell you-,”

He cut her off by rising heavily to his feet, swaying dangerously. He seemed to have forgotten she was there. He stumbled forward towards a bookcase where a row of books had been taken out and tossed haphazardly upon the floor. Her stomach clenched when she thought about the fragile spines of the precious books.

There seemed to be a door of some sort where the back of the bookcase should have been and he fished around until he found what he was looking for. Bringing the bottle out, he looked around before locating his wand on the floor by a leather chair which had been upended and staggering towards it. Hermione started forward to stop him but he grabbed his wand, tapped the top of the bottle and the cap flew off with enough force to knock over a cart horse. Hermione jumped at the loud pop and the ensuing crash as the cap smashed into a (surprisingly) still standing lamp and the magnificent clay structure shattered. Draco seemed unperturbed and lifted the bottle to his lips, chugging with abandon. Her temper, short as it was, snapped.

“Now, that is enough!” she screamed. Draco, having forgotten she was there, started at the sound. He turned unstably towards her and looked at her cross-eyed. She stomped forward and tugged the foul substance from his hands, unbalancing him in the process. He lunged forward and caught her shoulder to help straighten himself. She breathed in the stench of liquor and sweat and cringed, sickened. She shoved him from her and he windmilled his arms comically until he found some sort of stability. It would have been humorous if it wasn’t so pathetic. She waited patiently until he focused on her again, his eyes locked onto the golden liquid in her hand.

“Listen up, because I’m only going to say this once,” she snapped, bringing his attention back up to her face. “When this whole debacle started I was pretty unsure of my footing around you. You promised me you would get me through my divorce and you did. The papers have been signed and you are now in the presence of Hermione Granger once more. I thank you for that. For the rest of it, I am disgusted and hurt and disappointed. I thought you had changed, I thought what you felt for me was real. Now I know it was nothing but a sham from a very good lawyer. I should have seen through it. I didn’t and I blame myself. I know now you are nothing but a loathsome, infantile liar whom I had the imprudence to fall in love with.”

His jaw hardened slowly as she spoke, her voice strong and sure. Though her heart was breaking even as the words tumbled from her mouth, she knew they had to be said.

“I don’t know who you think you are but you have a lot of nerve to just walk away like that. You’re a coward, a quitter. I finally let myself feel again and you pull this? It’s despicable. I know you felt something,” she accused, his eyes refusing to meet hers now. “How could you just turn away and pretend nothing ever happened after all we’ve been through?”

He sauntered up to her until he was feet away. “You think that was easy for me?” he slurred. “It was what I had to do, Granger, there was no other choice!”

“Oh, bullocks!” she countered, wondering why she was arguing with a drunk. “That’s the most ridiculous answer I’ve ever heard. At least Ron attempted to make up good excuses. Go on, try me. Why would there be no other choice?”

He scowled and turned away, stumbling towards the door.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me!” she screeched. “I’m tired of watching men walk out of my life! You stand right there and give me one good reason-,”

“You want a reason?” he thundered, rounding on her. The look on his drawn face gave her a moment of panic but she knew he, unlike Ron, would never hurt her. “I’ll give you three. One, I was a Death Eater; you have no idea the shit I went through or did for that matter. Think I just sat to the side and twiddled my thumbs? Think again. I wasn’t the son of the Dark Lord’s right hand man for no reason. I slaughtered men and defiled women. I stood aside and laughed as children were raped and turned into animals. I watched as a woman screamed on the ground clutching her newborn son and do you wonder why she was screaming? Tell me, why was she screaming?”

“I don’t know,” she answered petulantly.

“Because she’d just watched her husband of seven years have his brains ripped out from his ears, that’s why. And you know who did that to him? Me. I did.” He pounded his chest with his finger, his eyes raving as his words twisted her stomach. “Because he wouldn’t tell me what I wanted to hear. I’ve seen and felt and done things you couldn’t even imagine! I know how to do spells that would make you sick just to think about and I’ve performed them. Bet you never thought about that when you decided to come to my rescue, did you?”

He stepped towards her, swaying in the process and Hermione stepped back, disgusted by the sight before her.

“Two, you are in no shape to be with another man right now. You just got a divorce, like you said. You signed the fucking papers this morning! What the fuck do you want with another man so damn fast, eh? Scared of being alone? Or just miss the sex?”

“Why you little-,”

“Three.”

He paused, his mouth closed, his bloodshot eyes settled on her red face. He breathed slowly through his nose, seeming to pull himself together. She waited with suppressed fury, her entire body shaking.

“You deserve to be with someone who can give you the life I can’t,” he said slowly, his voice calm and deep now. “I can never erase my past, I can never atone for the things I did. And I will never live it down. People may look over it, but my name will always weigh heavy on those who suffered from my family. Nothing I do or say will ever bring back those whom I or my father or my mother killed out of cold blood. No amount of hard work or success can cure the aching hearts of that woman who had to raise her son alone or that man whose wife never came home. And even now, years later, when I think it’s all been swept under the rug, it comes up and it hurts the one thing…” he stuttered, his red eyes filling with tears. “…the one thing that I care about in this life. And I can’t do that to you. I can’t let the things I’ve done affect you now. I won’t. So get out of here, go, go find that life you’ve always looked for and leave me be.”

He turned away from her and walked towards the bookshelf again. Hermione couldn’t move, she was rooted to the spot, her heart aching, her hands shaking, the one still gripping the whiskey cramping. Tears rolled down her face, tickling her cheek. She understood now. He blamed himself, that’s what this whole thing was about. She wanted to scream at him, hit him, curse him for thinking that way, for feeling that way. But that’s what he wanted. He wanted her to hate him. And she, as stubborn as he, would never give him what he wanted. So she dropped the bottle and when he leaned his hand against the wall in support, started towards him.

“Get the fuck out of here, didn’t you hear me? Get, out, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, GRANGER!”

She slid her hands over the soft fabric of his shirt, feeling the hard muscle, the quivering. His entire body tensed, quaking under the strain of holding back his pain, his anguish. She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his warm back. She didn’t say anything, simply held him and as he began sobbing, forced him around to face her. She cupped his tearstained, ruddy cheeks and looked deep into his eyes, those grey depths that held so much pain and condemnation. She finally understood him, finally understood why he did the things he did, why he became a lawyer, why he’d taken her capture so hard.

“Let it go, Draco,” she said, letting her words soothe the pain in his heart. “Let the past go. It can’t hurt us anymore.”

He tried to hold back the tears but they spilled forth anyway to mingle with the rest. Her own eyes filled and he let out a dam of misery. His knees gave out and she took his weight as they fell to the floor.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed and she took him into her arms and held him as she would a small child. He clung to her, buried his face in her hair. “It wasn’t supposed to touch you; it was supposed to be over. I don’t know how to live knowing it touched you. It was a mistake, I never should have…” He gulped, gripped her harder. “All those years ago…no matter what I do, no matter how hard I…it just keeps coming back. I’ll never be rid of it, never live a day not thinking about it, worrying who it might hurt next. Worrying that it might hurt you.”

“Draco, it’s over. Wright was only one man, one in thousands. You’ve helped so many people, you must know that. No one sees you as the little boy who made a choice to follow his parents.” She lifted his face so that he was looking at her and she could see the years of regret, of anguish. “You’re not that boy anymore. You’re Draco Malfoy, the man who got me through a sticky divorce, the man who made me see that I deserve more than a loveless marriage. You’ve spared countless lives; you’ve helped so many people through hard times. You are so much more than this.”

Hermione groped for his left arm and pulled back the dirty white sleeve. There, the faded mark lay; finger scrapes over the snake and skull. He’d been scratching at it, recently. She dusted her hand over it and he jerked. “It will never go away, Draco. Just like our past never will. But we can change the future; we can find that peace we both deserve. Don’t hide away from me, Draco. You’ve never brought me an ounce of pain since that day you decided to change your life. Not until three days ago when you walked out of mine. Open your eyes and look at the life you’ve built. Listen to what you’ve been telling me all this time. We’ve made it, don’t back down now,” she plead, her heart in her eyes as she swept the oily hair from his eyes, caressed his stubble studded face. “I need you now more than ever. I need you in my life, with me. You saved me, Draco. I can never repay you for what you’ve given me, but I’ll give you the rest of my life, if you’ll take it, to show you what you mean to me.”

He gripped her wrists and stared at her, fear masking his features. “What are you saying?” he growled.

She smiled. “I’m saying that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to start over; I want to try my hand at this marriage business again. Maybe I’ll get it right this time, who knows?” she chuckled softly.

His grasp on her tightened and his face twisted, his eyes closed. He leaned his forehead against hers and breathed. “I’ve waited so long, Hermione.”

“Then let’s not wait any longer. I’m not sure ‘Granger’ fits me anymore.”

He kissed her brutally. Her senses reeled and the spark that ran through her told her she was right. This was it, this was what she’d been waiting for, searching for.

“I finally found you,” she whispered.

“Didn’t have to look too far, did you?” he chuckled.

She shook her head with a grin. He kissed her again and she pulled away, scrunching her nose. “Not that I don’t love kissing you and all, but you taste pretty ghastly right now.”

Draco looked down at himself, running his tongue over his grimy teeth. “Not going for the drunken slob look, eh?”

“Not so much. Now get off your pitiful arse and clean yourself up. And don’t you ever let me see you like this again. It’s despicable.”

He shook his head at her and mumbled something along the lines of “Yes, ma’am,” before he took off, stumbling over his one covered foot. Hermione rolled her eyes as he tripped over the third stair and made his way slowly up the rest of them. While he was making himself presentable, she tidied up the office, slightly disgusted and slightly awed at the amount of destruction wrecked throughout three days worth of drunken stupor. While she’d pouted away in her guest room, he’d drunken himself through fourteen bottles of Firewhiskey, three bottles of claret and…Captain Morgan’s?

“I ran low. Muggle’s don’t have too bad a supply as it turns out,” Draco said as he sauntered in, freshly bathed, catching her with the bottle in her hands.

“You went over to the mainland in that state?”

“Like I said, it’s a real party town. They couldn’t tell the difference between a depressed wizard and a too-pissed tourist who couldn’t tell the difference between the selections.” He nodded to the label. “The pirate seemed a safe bet to me at the time.”

“Hmm,” was her reply. She tossed the bottle into the box with the others and tsked disapprovingly. “I never thought I’d see the day when Draco Malfoy would be reduced to this.”

“I never thought I’d see the day when Hermione Granger would tell Draco Malfoy, pissed or not, that she wanted to marry him. Seems this day has come.”

She turned to him where he stood with his wet blonde hair, black pajama pants and nothing else, looking more beautiful than she could have ever imagined.

“Do you still mean it?” he asked uncertainly.

“I do. Are you sober enough to give me an answer?”

“I am. And the answer is no.”

Her heart dropped to the pits of her stomach. Had she misread him?

“I see,” she managed, her throat not working properly. She swallowed several times before turning away from him.

“Do you?”

She laughed darkly. “I don’t really have a choice now, do I?” She walked towards the door, her feet moving on their own accord, her only thought to leave, to get out as fast as possible, but he caught her arm, spun her around.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, eyes hard, voice low.

“W-what?” Now she was at a complete loss.

“I’m not going to have a proposal out of your lips while I’m so blazed I can’t see straight. I want to hear it from you sober. Will you marry me?” The last four words out of his mouth came out gritted and harsh. Hermione could see it in his eyes. He was really, truly asking her to marry him. Draco Malfoy wanted to marry her. Her. Hermione Muggle-born Granger. Her heart tripped in her chest, her stomach twisted as she thought of endless summer nights lying on the beach in Greece, of holding a little blonde baby in her arms, of laughing over wine and humus, of heated arguments and passionate lovemaking. Of opening her eyes to see his steel grey ones next to her and knowing that, this time, she would not wake up wondering if he still loved her. She would know.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Yes what?” he begged, just as breathlessly.

“Yes, I’ll marry you. Yes, I’ll spend the rest of my life with you. Yes,” she touched his face. “I do.”

His hand came to cup the back of her hand and a grin erupted on his handsome face. Before she knew what was happening, he was swinging her in circles and Hermione was laughing ecstatically. She threw her head back and watched as the ceiling swirled before her while the sound of her fiancé’s laughter rang throughout the room.

And somewhere inside her, something locked into place. She’d found it, that missing piece. She’d always known she would find it, always knew it was there somewhere. She’d found her absolution.

The second time around.

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XOXO

RynStar15