Treat You Better- Shawn Mendes
I based most of this one on the video, which made me cry the first time I saw it because I am a sucker for Shawn Mendes. Draco is Shawn, Hermione is the girl (duh) and Ron is the abusive boyfriend. I actually strongly dislike the concept of Romione, no matter how canon it is. So yeah. This is my first "abusive boyfriend" Dramione and my first Dramione too. I don't know how to write this stuff so I tried my best. I'm not that good at fluffy-ness so… Yeah. Hermione is a little OOC
Also, I'm sorry if there's already a Shawn- based fiction written already, I didn't mean to plagiarize anything. Tell me if I did, and I'll instantly remove this. Okay?
The day was bright, the sun shone on them and the birds chirped. It was moving day, and they had boxes plied up in this big, beautiful apartment she had bought for both of them to share.
Hermione had never been happier as she unpacked her clothes, pictures, some random ornaments and decorations. Yes, she and Ron had only been dating for a month now, but it felt like the right thing to do. Ron loved her and she loved him. And they had known each other since they were eleven. You could say this was more than the average relationship.
A few weeks passed when it first happened. Their first fight. It wasn't a bright day at all. It had been raining heavily since morning, but the weather wasn't unusual as this was London.
She didn't remember what the fight was about. But she never forgot how the tempers were rising, how he had come back drunk after a long shift with Harry, how his hand rose. In her memories, it always happened slowly, and she saw it move, unable to defend herself at all. She remembered how the impact shocked her to the core, how her body didn't respond for a few seconds. And that was all the time he needed, using her frozen state to land another slap.
And another.
Then a punch.
She fell.
A kick. One more. It didn't stop.
She didn't know how long it lasted. She just lay there, in shock, thinking it was a dream, that this man, the man she loved- he couldn't hurt her; he was supposed to help her. He was supposed to be her strength, wasn't he? He was supposed to help her up, not push her down, wasn't he?
She remembered the next morning, how she woke up with bruises all over her, she remembered how he was already up. He pleaded for her to forgive him, saying he didn't know, that he was drunk and he had had no control over his actions.
Hermione, surprisingly, forgave him. Looking back on all the days he had come home late and drunk, she marveled at how she hadn't just hexed his arse off. She wondered why the hell she had just let it happen and why she never fought back.
But Hermione, you see, was tired. She was tired of fighting, of the war, of being strong. So she decided at the worst time possible that she would become passive. At her own expense, too.
Every night, she convinced herself that Ron loved her, that it was just the alcohol abusing her, not him.
Every morning, she went to work with concealment charms all over her.
Hermione had opened up a library, in which both muggle and magical books were sold. It was here that she met the reformed Death Eater, Draco Malfoy, who came to the shop on the same day her and Ron had first fought.
"Granger, good to see you after such a long time. Typical that you'd be working at a library, though."
She rolled her eyes. After a year of working with Draco, she now was used to his teasing. He had switched sides during the war, helping Harry and Hermione find the horcruxes when Ron left them in the middle of the woods. When Ron came back, he was furious at seeing Draco working with them, but in the end he decided to "let him stay".
"I'm not just working at the library, Malfoy; I bloody well own the shop."
Malfoy's eyebrow rose. He nodded; bought the books he was looking for, and then left.
He came back every day, sometimes to buy a book, sometimes to just sit and read. Hermione got used to his company quickly, and found herself constantly talking to him, telling him random stories off the top of her head.