You better do better than that
A/N written for dmhgfixexchange (free for all) just a warning complete angst, so if that's not your kind of thing perhaps avoid this.
For all those who dare to continue hope yall like it and review to let me know what you think.
Cheers
Disclaimer: Characters J.K. Rowling, Song lyrics (in bold and itallic): Hard Fi 'Better do better', inspiration : fic request from alex and song
You better do better than that
By Cedar1
He glared at the figure slumped on his doorstep. Head in hands, knees pulled up to her chest. The fact the lamp on his porch was the only source of light in the entire estate made it all the more dramatic, for she was bathed in its glow, like she was the star of some twisted play with the spot light focussed on her as she performed her most melodramatic piece. The nosy neighbours surrounding the flat had eagerly taken the role of the audience, their curtains twitching every few minutes relishing the show that was being played out in front of their eyes. He knew what they thought. That he was some sort of bastard that it was him that was in the wrong. If only they knew that it was the friendly, sweet girl who had always greeted them in the street who was the one that drove the pointed blade into his back, straight into his heart.
Her letter was still scrunched up in his fisted hand. The words blurring as the sweat from his palm seeped into the fibres of the paper. But it didn't matter, as they were already engraved on the inside of his head.
I'm sorry.
I'm so, so sorry.
It's over.
I'm sorry.
I know I was wrong.
I'm sorry.
I need you.
I love you.
I'm sorry, so, so, sorry.
Sorry. So fucking sorry. Fuck that. He had left her. Left her crying and broken, like she had done to him a month ago. She makes it sound like she suddenly had a vision that what she had done was a mistake. That she loved him. That she needed him. That she couldn't live without him. Draco smirked to himself. Nah. That wasn't it. The weasel had just realised what an annoying bitch she could be with her constant nagging, her persistent want to be the one who got the last word in any argument, her arrogance that meant that everything that was spoken from her lips was right.
You're back, sitting on my doorstep,
ah yeah like nothing happened.
Telling me you're free and oh,
can you see me again?
Yeah right, you've been kicked out,
do you think I'm that stupid?
You say you're free but didn't he just oh oh oh...
get tired of you kid
He watched as her hands moved away from her face to gather her unruly hair into a pony tail. The slim fingers working its way through the curls and knots, her mouth dipped in irritation at the pain that was her hair. No the Weasel had just cottoned on. Hermione Granger was a bitch.
He turned his back on the pathetic figure that was his ex-girlfriend. No she was a bitch, he was certain.
But then why couldn't he get her face out of his head?
Why was his flat still housing her toothbrush, her books?
When she had told him to meet her in the library that day he had been confused. Unlike her the Ministry's private library had not filled his heart with a warm glow, but only with a sense of claustrophobia and she knew that. But he went all the same, because she had asked him to. On entering he had caught sight of her immediately. Her beautiful hair was piled on top of her head like a crown, and he remembered just craving to drive his hands into it, freeing it, seeing it tumble on her shoulders the way he liked it. But he restrained himself, well just about. She had been surprised when he had placed his mouth on hers and allowed his tongue to slide along her bottom lip. When she had pushed him away he had thought it was because they were in a public place but he found out ten minutes later that it was because she had fallen in love with someone else.
He had wanted to scream in her face. Grab her by the arms and shake her till she begged for him to stop. He itched to slap that expression of fake sympathy off her face, to see it replaced with burning cheeks and red eyes, but he wouldn't let her see how much she had cut him up inside. So he had stepped forward and pressed her against his trembling body. He dug his fingernails into her clothes, hard enough to leave marks on her pearly white skin. She had struggled against the force he had applied but that only made him squash her further into him. With his lips grazing her ear he had asked her to shush, and gradually she did and lay still against him. Knowing he had her full attention he had spoken his last words to her, "Fuck you."
Then he left her and apparated home immediately. He sat on his unmade bed looking back at the reflection that stared straight back at him from the full length mirror. He didn't move for hours and didn't close his eyes for a minute. He just watched as his skin paled and his grey eyes became cloudy. Then it happened, a tear trailed down his cheek and dropped to form a wet patch on his trousers. Then it began; his descent into hell.
I could not eat for days,
I cried so much my face,
has never been the same...
And now you're back here with your lies.
I hope you realise...
Now she was back in his life again. Giving him love letters, declaring her adoration.
What did she think he was going to do, open the door, welcome her with open arms and say that everything was alright again? Well that wasn't going to happen.
He'd been labelled all of life as a piece of scum. And scum didn't have a heart. He had thought for a brief period that she had realised that that was just a myth, that even they had something that beat, and pounded away deep inside of them. But, she didn't or she wouldn't have gone.
When she left it was hell, his hell. Fuck he had been there in the past for so long that he had personalised it. Her leaving brought it all back to him. And he started thinking that may be she was right, that he wasn't worth it. That he was scum just like they had called him.
Scum.
Scum.
As they had beaten him to the ground, as they forced him to kiss their black robes. They had even called him scum as they hexed his parents in front of him, saying that it was because he was fucking pathetic scum that this was happening.
That he had no heart.
That he was nothing.
That's what they had told him when they had locked him up after the war.
When she left he started believing it again and he began to retreat back into those dark crevices in his head.
You think I'm gonna take you back!
You'd better do better than that.
I'll tell ya how its gonna be,
don't you never ever come near me.
Let me tell you how I've been:
I've been hiding from my friends,
hiding from the world,
hiding from myself.
"Draco. Draco." Her voice rang in his ears.
"Draco. Please. You have to listen to me." Her tiny fists hammered against the pine door.
"Draco. I love you. Please let me in."
I love you.
Was she saying that to him last week?
Did she whisper it in his ear?
Did she scream it out when she came on top of him?
Did she realise that every time she said those three words those images would rip into his thoughts, and tear his sanity into shreds. She had ruined him. She had had him in the palms of her hand and instead of protecting him with her soft warmth, she had squashed him. Flattened him for all she was worth. Pushed his heart out of his mouth and stomped all over it on the floor. And he couldn't forgive her for that.
You think you'll come round here,
start singing in my ear,
girl you damaged me,
I don't forgive so easily.
You better do better than that!
He walked over to the door and looked at her face through the magical glass that was set into the wood. He had the advantage of looking directly at her, whilst she could see nothing. Even with the tears running clear tracks down her cheeks she still looked like an angel. He placed a finger on the glass and traced the curve of her face. How could someone so beautiful do something so ugly. He remembered making love to her all those days ago, holding on to her as he pushed himself into her. Seeing her made him sick. He had the sudden urge to smash his fist through the glass and straight into her face.
Your face makes me want to be sick,
ah yeah it's a physical reaction...
You'd better leave because you see I
Can't; won't be blamed for my actions.
He had never loved anybody like he had loved her. Now, with the power of hindsight, he had been a fool. He had always known that in the end she would always return to him. Her and Weasley made sense. Her and Draco didn't. Theirs had been a relationship borne out of his madness.
He imagines them laughing at him together. Laughing at the heir that went mad.
Oh, how I ever loved you...
So dumb, how did I ever trust you?
But you and he laughed at me, oh
when you're laid together.
War had broken him in every way it could. His body had wasted from malnutrition and exhaustion from fighting on nothing. His mind was like paper confetti from the years that the Dark Lord had treated it like his playground, whilst his soul was something he didn't think he had any more. When they had won, and the Lord was dead, they rounded the rest of them like cattle. They treated them like it too. Shoved them into tiny cells, had them fighting over a bucket of rice. They hoped they would kill each other off, Darwin's theory on the survival of the fittest being enacted in the flesh. And guess what, the light side won again. Draco watched from his little corner as one by one the weaklings dropped like flies. In the end only five of them were left. Yet, as Draco confessed when they had questioned him afterwards, his surviving had been by default. For he had been too busy talking to his dead parents to get involved. Like he told them, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had been very chatty for the past five years.
Now Draco had always known he was fucked up in the head but it was probably at that point that they realised it too. Telling a seventeen year old boy to murder one man for the sake of two people he loved most in the world could do that. Then to see them killed in front of you hammered that final nail into that twisted coffin.
So the visits started. They believed only she could get him to open up for she had two strengths, one she was female and two she was intelligent. Clever bastards, always getting things right.
At first she would come to the cell and talk to him, like a human being, something no-one had done for a while. Then she began to get more serious and he had allowed her to sift through his memories and his thoughts. Each time she would ask for more and he gave it to her only on the promise that she would come back. The following year they shifted things to the ministry library. He hadn't liked the change for it brought him into contact, once again, with people who didn't think like her. Scum. He read it in their looks. When she saw him getting upset she would place her hands on his and calm him.
It took four more years to nurse him into sanity and he had thought that only she could keep it all held together.
Perhaps that's why she chose to be with him. Pity. Not love.
Perhaps that's why she found it so easy to cheat on him, and lie to him.
But what was so painful was that she had had him fooled, for all along he had thought she had loved him.
I gave you everything I had girl,
but you had to try and take some more.
You went behind my back girl,
cheated on me, I was the last to know.
Did everything we have girl,
meant nothing to ya,
well I was such a fool...
Now you come crawling back girl,
oh let me tell ya I am through with you.
And now here she was. On her knees, her palms flat against his door. But you know what; he finally knew something that she didn't.
He didn't need her any more.
All those visits, all those kisses, she didn't realise that she had given him something far more important than 'love' she had given him control. Whilst she was gone he learnt to curb those demons that sheltered in his head by himself, and lock them up so they wouldn't come out again. In truth he had waited for her to come back. Waited to hear those lies spouting from her saintly lips. Just so he could show her what a good job she had done in curing him.
Oh I'm back up off the floor,
and I won't get hurt no more,
I've been waiting for this day when,
you'll be back here with your lies,
I hope you realise...
He walked over to the fireplace and threw the letter into the flames, her words going up in smoke. Putting his hand into his pocket he took out the necklace he had bought her a month ago and tossed that into the fire as well. He watched as the solid silver was reduced to the molten liquid that trickled down the wood to coalesce with the ashes of the note.
"Happy Valentine's Hermione."
At the same time the light above the young witch's head turned off and she was left in darkness.
You'd better do better than that!
ooooooooooooooooooooooooo THE END oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
for alex
Three things you want your fic to include: tears, a library, and a Draco-Hermione-Ron triangle (it doesn't have to be the story, it can be afterward way in the future, or in the middle, or the beginning; just some type of mention somewhere.)
Three things you do not want your fic to include: Fluff, SexGod!Draco, and classroom projects that force them together