Hello! I'm posting again, though I'm not sure how many people still use this website.
I am pleased with this as drabbles go and despite not being a Dramione shipper I enjoyed writing it.
Enjoy :)
He catches sight of her across the pub and does a double take. It is the first time he has seen her since that memorial service where he kept his face hidden at the back of the crowd, silently mourning the people lost in a battle during which he fought for the other side. She sits, head down and legs crossed, at the bar itself. He is taken aback by her beauty for a few seconds and realises he is standing in the middle of a crowded room just staring at someone he has not seen in nearly eight years. She turns more towards him then and spots him, surprised to see his eyes are firmly set on her. Her brow furrows in the way it used to when he watched her during potions class and she was concentrating hard. Unsure what to do, he lowers his gaze to his feet momentarily, contemplating his options. He decides, possibly against better judgement, to go talk to her. After all, she looks lonely and, ultimately, so very beautiful.
"Draco." She states, more as an acknowledgement than a greeting.
The coldness in her voice surprises him. They were not friends at Hogwarts, he knows that, but neither were they enemies. They could possibly be considered enemies by default and he was often unkind towards her, but that was usually out of a teenage boy's idea of affection.
"Hermione," Draco says as warmly as he can, in the hope she will offer him the stool next to her.
"I don't know what you want, Malfoy," she spits, an uncharacteristic harshness to her tone, "but I'm really not in the mood. Please, just leave me alone."
He almost falters, finding it hard not to respond with something equally as unfriendly. "Hermione, I just came over to say hello and ask how you are."
"Right." Hermione replies without looking at Draco and gets up. "I need to go."
He stares at her as she stands and realises she is about five months pregnant, the bump still reasonably small but visible all the same. Draco is immediately reminded of his wife Astoria, laid up on the sofa at home, nursing her own pregnancy bump. In that second, he thinks of how much he would prefer Hermione to be the one in his home, pregnant with his child. He assumes the child she is carrying is Weasley's. He remembers reading in the Prophet that they had married not long after the Battle of Hogwarts, like so many others. Potter had also married, to the Weasley girl, which had been expected. To Draco, it seems unfair that they got their happy endings when he did not.
He watches Hermione walk away, wiping her eyes. He wonders what has upset her and feels a rush of anger towards Weasley, convincing himself that it must be the redhead's fault. Unsure if this is justified or just another of his prejudices, Draco drinks up and leaves the bar himself, heading back to Astoria and a life he loathes. As he apparates onto his doorstep, Draco wonders why he is married to Astoria, when he is still desperately in love with the mudblood he is meant to hate.
