Title: The Longest Night
Pairing: Draco/Hermione & Hermione/Ron
Rating: M for language and mature themes
Period: Post Hogwarts… could be considered epilogue compliant
Summary: Hermione comes to him in the middle of May.
A/N: Unbetaed so all mistakes are my own. Point them out if you see them and remember that I love reviews.
Written for the plot_bunny_love challenge on lj. Prompt was the longest day of the year.
She comes to him in the middle of May. Some years later than others, but it never fails that Hermione'll arrive one night at Draco Malfoy's office without owling ahead and wait until he's ready to leave. When he leaves with her, and he always does, they go to his flat the one that he has in London in an effort to reclaim the sanity he'd lost during his marriage.
He holds her close after they fuck and then she, it is always her, leaves the bed and puts on her robes. She goes home to her family and he lies there.
It took him three years to see the pattern. She comes the day after the victory celebration and doesn't return after the summer solstice. For six years she has been coming to him.
On that day, the one he knows she won't return to his office or be lying in his flat, the sun takes it time setting. It waits for her to come until it can hold out no longer. Resigned, it dips beneath the horizon leaving him alone glaring up at the moon thinking of her.
She returns without fail the next May her face more worn and his hair thinner they fall into bed together that anniversary night. She sighs dramatically and rises as soon as they're done. It's customary the first night and he allows her to leave without protest.
It's later, when he spends hours holding her, kissing her skin and basking in the warmth of her body that he breaks down. He begs her to stay like a child, pleading until he has done what he's tried to reverse forever, and she leaves. She returns sometimes the next day other years the next week but she always comes back. She never stays.
Her motives aren't suspect, long ago he's dispelled the myth that theirs is an arrangement of anything other than passion. Love may take courage but even she isn't courageous enough to love him. At night when she returns to her family, while he, guilt ridden cannot, he admires her ability to pretend even when it scars him. He imagines her crawling into bed with her husband, her mind not on her marriage but far away and Draco wonders what she remembers.
Most clearly he remembers the fights. The ones in June are most prolific. He knows what is coming and try as he might he cannot prevent it.
"I love Ron," she protested after his begging had become incessant and he knows he's made a mistake in questioning her marriage. His may be a farce, but hers is rooted in something much deeper than guilt and attraction. He's not sure if it is love, but he knows that she will never leave it. It doesn't stop him from fighting.
"I make you happy," he argued even when she denies it and shakes her head, "Then why are you here?"
"Does it matter?"
"You're reasons don't matter to me. I would do anything for you."
"Anything?"
He nods.
"Then forget me."
He snapped at her blatant disregard for him and all that he's sacrificed for her.
"Don't you love him? Or is that he's horrible in the sack? Are the brats getting to you?"
Her face hardened with every word that spilled from his mouth.
"Is it the guilt that you're alive? Or the fact that your life is so utterly boring that you wish you were-"
She slapped him hard across the cheek. His hand instantly flies to his face to cradle the cheek. A handprint remains for hours later.
She left that night in early June only to return once more on the longest day of the year. She doesn't whisper an apology and he knows that if he were to turn her down she would go and never come back. Instead, he accepts that he crossed a line that night. He remembers each button he's pushed and the reaction that she's given and he takes her back into his bed secure in the knowledge that all she is given is all she is willing to give. That is what he remembers at night when she's gone back to her family and he lies alone counting the days.
It came about by accident that he learned about that day, the longest one in June. She arrived in scarlet dress robes her hair pulled away from her face and icing on her neck last year. When his tongue tasted the blue sugar, licking it away slowly she softly whispered.
"Tomorrow is Hugo's birthday."
There was no explanation on why they celebrated early only another pushed button that he will never forget. She came twice that night clinging to his body fiercely as though she were a woman sentenced to death. He doesn't tell her that they need not end every year in June, ever month can be sinful. He lets her walk away and the next day he watched the sun taunt him before leaving him alone with the moon and the memory of the taste of her lips.
That year her little girl was eleven, the same age as his own son. He watched with mild interest as she touched her husband and ignored the bitter flame of jealousy that grew within him.
She returned in late December, he remembers it clearly because it was the longest night of year as he held her close and they fucked on the couch. When she rose he handed her the plain ministry robes she had worn to his office. She took them and let them slip through her fingertips back onto the floor. Naked, she walked into his bedroom and lay upon the bed. As she pulled the duvet over her body he followed her.
"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle" she quoted in a soft voice.
And he knows that they have just lit all the months on fire and he doesn't care. That night she stayed and it was the longest night of the year.
A/N: Quote is from the list of prompts given to me at the Completly randomated challenge at HPFC.