This took me quite a lot of thought. I'm fairly certain I spent four times as much time planning this story as I did writing it. Hope the end result was worth it. Read and Review!
Disclaimer: I AM NOT J.K. ROWLING. Nor am I potatoes. That would just be absurd.
It was a freezing February morning when Hermione Granger finally broke.
The girl (neither of them remembered her name), hung over and embarrassed, stumbled out of the front door of their flat, mumbling something about being late for work. Hermione sat in the kitchen, drinking her coffee (black- she always liked it better that way for some reason) and watching the girl go. She started the countdown.
Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one-
Draco emerged from his bedroom door, exactly on time. Hermione held his cup of tea up for him (he didn't drink coffee- he'd never much cared for the taste of it) and felt it leave her clutched fingers. His touch graced her knuckles for a brief moment, and the spark made her flinch involuntarily.
"Something wrong, Granger…?" The dreary-eyed blonde asked, his white tank top and gym shorts clearly displaying the fact that he'd just stumbled out of bed. His hangover mirrored that of the girl who'd just escaped, and his hair was flying in all directions. If it were possible for a Malfoy to look vulnerable, this was it.
Which is probably why this happened next.
Hermione began to cry.
She looked into her coffee, looked at the table, looked at the clock, at the door, at the ground, anywhere but at Draco- he had an unnerving ability to figure out exactly what was going on in her head when he looked into her eyes.
"Why are you crying, Hermione?" He stood, his tea all but forgotten, stepping around to lay his arm around her shoulders, coming to rest on his knees beside her. "Did something happen at work? Did you have another nightmare?"
"No, I-I just…" She choked out. She stood, pushing his arm off of him and leaving her coffee on the table. "Why, Draco? Why, night after night, week after week? If you come home, you bring one of them with you. Most nights, you don't even come home, you go home with some- some-" She'd been drifting into the living room for most of her speech, never looking back at him, knowing exactly how he looked, having lived with him for two years.
Having been chosen heads upon their return to Hogwarts, they'd developed a living arrangement of sorts. Upon both taking positions in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, they had agreed that it would be easier and more cost effective to just get a shared flat and continue to live as roommates.
"-and when you come back in the morning, you look like- well, you look like shit, Draco. Is it because of the war? Why do you keep going out, getting drunk and having these one night stands-" And then she lost it. She collapsed onto the couch and buried her head in her hands.
Draco had never seen her look so vulnerable. She always took care of him; she always had a hangover cure and a cup of tea ready, always came and got him when he was too drunk to apparate, always got his things from his office when he was sick. She was supposed to be the strong one; while he went out and lost himself in the drink, she brought him back. Now it seemed she'd lost herself, and he felt completely helpless.
He sat next to her and wrapped his arms around her; she buried her face in his chest. Despite her advanced state of emotional collapse, she couldn't help but note in the back of her mind that he smelled fantastic.
What am I supposed to tell her? He mused. That I'm completely in love with her, and I've spent the last year trying to distract myself from her with these slags? Why is she so upset about this anyway?
"Hermione, we have work in half an hour… it's Monday." That was the absolute worst thing you could've said in this situation, you idiot.
"Yes, yes, of course." She straightened up, wiping her eyes on his hair. He pretended that wasn't incredibly strange- he also pretended that he didn't love it- and allowed her to slip from his grasp. "I'll get breakfast. We'll… talk about this more after we get back."
That evening, he returned from a long day of work, having not seen Hermione at lunch- very strange, since they ate together every day- and having not seen her during work hours- also strange, since their offices were adjacent. In fact, it was only when he was about to leave when he overheard his boss talking about his "best lawyer calling in sick today", and of course that meant Hermione. He'd rushed straight home from there.
He arrived to an empty flat.
There were four boxes in the middle of the empty room. Everything, every piece of furniture, every decoration, everything that wasn't bolted down, was gone. The boxes were labeled 'Draco's Things' in Hermione's handwriting. On top of them was a note, tear-stained in several places.
Dear Draco,
I'm sorry I couldn't do this in person. It was just too painful. I'm leaving. I've gone to stay with Harry & Ginny for a few days until I can find a new flat. I've instructed them not to tell you where I will be living from now on. These boxes contain everything in this home that was yours. There wasn't much; you left most of your things at the manor when we moved in, remember?
I love you. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say it, but it's true. To be honest, I've loved you since we were still heads at Hogwarts. It's too painful to see you with these other girls, and I've tried to be supportive, I haven't asked questions, I've taken care of you whenever you needed it, I've been everything I thought you wanted, and still you didn't notice me. You probably don't care; you make enough to pay the rent on your own anyway, and now you have more space to yourself. Good riddance, right?
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I'm completely, madly in love with you, and you'll never see me again.
All of my love,
Hermione Granger
His heart, long presumed destroyed during his Death Eater days, cracked, shattered, reformed, cracked again, and disintegrated.
The next day, he came into work to find that she'd transferred to the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Her office was left empty, like their flat. Like his heart. He spent the following weeks going through the motions. He went to work, did his job half-heartedly, came home, and collapsed on the floor of his still-empty home. Their home. Her home. He didn't eat, he barely drank, he grew thinner each day; he simply had no will to live without Hermione. He hadn't realized how much he'd depended on her presence until she was gone.
He still heard snippets of her, through gossipy coworkers. He heard her voice everywhere, though it was surely just a figment of his imagination. She was gone from his life. She'd said it herself, in her note. You'll never see me again. That note, that note that still rested on top of the boxes in his empty flat. Empty like his heart.
He didn't see her for two more months. The circumstances of their next meeting couldn't have been worse. Mostly because Draco was on the edge of a thirteenth story window. The window to her empty bedroom, in the empty flat she used to occupy.
He'd wanted to die in the most dramatic way possible, some way that would make even the Daily Prophet take notice. He'd wanted her to find out. He didn't expect her to show up.
He'd sat on the edge of the window for four hours, waiting for the courage to come to him to push off the side. Given that the window was on the thirteenth floor (the building didn't have a thirteenth floor; it was a magical floor), the only people that could see him were wizards and witches. And thus, a crowd of people who knew him all too well were gathered to watch Draco Malfoy, heir to a massive fortune, prominent wizard lawyer and former Death Eater, leap to his inevitable demise.
Someone down there was on the phone with someone else. This wouldn't be peculiar for any reason, except for the fact that that man was a wizard, and wizards didn't use phones.
Except the ones raised by muggles.
Potter.
Who is Potter calling? What other person with access to a mobile phone would care that a wizard is about to jump out of a window-
"Draco, what the hell are you doing?"
That answers that question.
"Hermione… I'm glad you came." He turned around, removing his legs from the sill so that his back was to the open window. "I had hoped you'd read about this in the Prophet, but I suppose this is okay too."
"I'll say it again. Draco Abraxas Malfoy, what the bloody hell are you doing out that window?"
"Attempting to convince myself to take the leap, Hermione. I've no reason to live anymore." Tears began to form in his eyes.
"Why is your flat still empty? Why do you look so thin? And what do you mean, you've no reason to live anymore?" She was both furious and hysterical. "Goddammit, Draco, don't I mean anything to you? Did you stop to think for one second how I would react to this? I lo-" She stopped abruptly.
"Say it, Hermione. Please." Tears streamed down his cheeks now.
"I love you, Draco. I love you so much."
He smiled. "I love you too. I always have." He leaned back.
"DRACO, NO, WAIT-" It was too late. He disappeared out the window-
And promptly floated in midair for several seconds, before reappearing on the ground, thirteen floors below, completely unharmed.
Oh, right… Magic...
Moments later, the crowd dispersed, grumbling anticlimactically. Even Harry Potter was nowhere to be found. Hermione Granger, however, burst through the door to the building, wand at the ready. She pressed its tip into Draco's throat.
"If you EVER scare me like that again, I will hex you so hard, you'll-" She was silenced by Draco's lips. Her mind went blank. She wrapped her arms around his neck and his own locked around her waist.
"Promise you'll never leave me again."
"I promise, Draco."
He kissed her again. His heart reformed.
"Promise you'll come back home."
"Why don't you move into my place? It's five doors down, and only has one bedroom. Besides, it'd be easier to move your things than mine."
"That is a brilliant idea."
He kissed her a third time.
"And the one night stands-" She started.
"Never again. I promise. They were only distractions from the perfect woman down the hall. You were all I ever wanted and so much more, Hermione-"
She kissed him this time. A small boy nearby went "ewww…" and his mother hurried him along.
"Can we go get something to eat now? I'm starving." He smirked.
"Actually, there's something else I'd like to do first-" She bit her lip. He grabbed her hand, pulling her towards the lobby of the building. "You don't have to ask me twice!"
"Wait, Draco, that's not what I meant-"
Forty minutes later, they lay panting atop her bed, stripped bare and covered in sweat. "You were right, that was much better than what I had in mind," Laughed Hermione.
"…Now can we get something to eat?"
"…No."
He sat up and stared into her eyes, his face contorted into a mix of confusion and rage. She grinned wickedly. "Oh, fine…"
"I love you."
"I love you too."