I've been reading through a lot of one-shots lately, and so I decided to do another one. The great thing about one-shots is that you can give a ton of back story without having to take the time to do an actual fic. Plus, they're also great to write between stories or when you have writer's block. This one just came to me.
The Worst Best Day
A Story About Love, Betrayal and the Road to Healing
Early morning and the sun had just come over the horizon on the big city of London. It was a fresh spring day, not a cloud in the sky, which was a surprising feat for such a rain-drenched city. It seemed that the entire population was taking advantage of the beautiful day; people young and old were already crowding the streets at this early hour, bustling between shops and cafés, or simply taking a stroll to enjoy the crisp air and warm breeze.
One of these delighted people was Hermione Granger, a twenty-four year old witch and veteran of a war in the Wizarding World that had ended only two short years ago. Voldemort was destroyed and the world was safe again, though none of that mattered to the crowds she past who couldn't have had an inkling of how close they had been to death, to the entire extinction of muggles.
In a few hours Hermione was going to meet Harry Potter, his wife Ginny Weasley and her brother, Ron Weasley at a restaurant across town for lunch. But, right now, she was content to stroll the city and bask in the simple fact that she and her friends were alive. What more could she ask for?
As she past a shop window, Hermione took in her reflection. Six years ago she was still lanky and awkward, with bushy brown hair and no sense of style. But today, after enduring a terrible war, and then living in comfort for the past two years, she'd learned to shed her childhood and become a beautiful young, inside and out. Her hair was now a wave of silky curls that any date she'd been on since the war couldn't resist running their fingers through. And her lanky body had filled out and toned up from years of stress and hard work. Sometimes she and her friends went days without food or water, all the while having to trek across mountains and hide in caves to stay off the radar of the Dark Lord. She was now free to enjoy what her hard work brought her—but somehow she was happy, not truly. When she looked at Harry and Ginny, she saw what happiness was, what love was. When she looked at Ron she saw a true and loyal friend, even after their brief and disastrous go at a relationship after the war. She didn't see love when she saw Ron, not the love she needed. When she thought of love, she thought of only one person.
'Stop it," she demanded of herself, and slipped into the shop. It was a bakery, filled to the ceiling with cakes and cookies and the sweet smell of sugar and molasses. If it had been owned by a witch or wizard the treats would be floating across the room and dancing in their glass cases. This was a muggle shop, and Hermione went to the counter and ordered a good-sized pumpkin cookie with vanilla icing and a small cup of hazelnut almond tea.
Taking a seat at a table by the window, where the sun could warm her face, Hermione found her mind wandering. Still, after two whole years, she couldn't get the images of war out of her head. And especially not when she slept. Fragments and whole scenarios haunted her dreams and caused her to wake up night after night in a cold sweat, begging God to make them stop. And one incident inparticular was the worst.
It was what would be the last day of the war, the day Harry finally defeated Voldemort and freed them all from their pain and suffering. The trio was crossing a forest, thick with trees and bushes. They thought they were alone, miles from anyone, headed for a battlefield where sources sent them. But people had been misinformed, and the battle was on top of them before they knew it.
It took only what seemed like minutes for others to arrive: the Weasleys, every single on of them, and the rest of the Order members, ones that weren't off fighting in other battles. Young and old fought side by side. So many were lost that day. But it was in the finally moment of the battle that it happened.
"He-He's dead," Harry had whispered amid the commotion. Voldemort was dead, and for an instant the world stopped. Death Eaters and Order members alike halted mid-spell and stared at Harry, shaken and filthy, as he stood over the lifeless body of Lord Voldemort.
"Brilliant! Brilliant!" Fred Weasley had cried out, and rushed, with George, to raise Harry up on their shoulders the way they would have done at a school Quidditch match so many years before. But one anguishing Death Eater wouldn't accept defeat. With a final blow, a final cry, a green jet of light shot from his wand and landed square in Fred's back. He died instantly and painlessly.
Naturally, his death was the worst on George, who refused for a good hour to no accept his brother's death. But he knew, as well as they all did, that he was gone, but that he had died a hero, having saved so many lives during the war.
Hermione had never really been close to the twins, but trauma can bind people. Over the four years of the war, she learned so many things about them and about so many others, making close and unbreakable friendships. When Fred died that last day, everyone died with him. Every now and then when she sees George, when she goes into the joke shop to check on him, he's not the same person he once was. He can still laugh and be a joy to be around, but under it all everyone can tell just how much he misses his brother.
They never did found out who that Death Eater had been. He was wearing a cowardly mask, and fled before anyone could think to catch him.
If she knew, Hermione would exact revenge one hundred fold.
The instant Hermione saw her, she knew something was different. Ginny ran into her arms and they held each other the way old friends always hold each other. It had been a few months, what with Ministry business to attend to, since they had seen each other, since Hermione had seen any of them.
"What's going on?" were the first words out of Hermione's mouth as they sat at a table in the back.
"What are you talking about?" Ginny asked, though her cheeks were beaming.
"Harry?"
"What?" he asked, playing dumb.
"Will someone—"
"I'm pregnant!" Ginny blurted out, unable to keep it in any longer.
"Merlin's beard," Hermione gasped. "Are you serious?"
"Either that or I'm dying, because I can't keep anything down."
"Tell me about it," Ron groaned. "She spent more time in the bathroom at the Burrow last night than with mom and dad at dinner. It took her and Harry twenty minutes to tell them."
"I just can't believe it," Hermione sighed. "I mean, it seems just yesterday you two started dating back in Hogwarts. And now you're having a baby? I can't wrap my head around it."
"Well you better," Harry said in a mock-stern voice. "You're going to be his or her Godmother."
"No. No. Are you serious?" She was too excited to say anything else.
"Well duh. Who else could be?" Ginny laughed. "Phlegm?"
At this the entire table erupted into a fit of laughter. Though they had learned to appreciate and accept Ron and Ginny's brother's wife Fleur over the years, that didn't mean she was any less annoying.
"I wish Fred could be around for this," Ginny sighed, instantly changing the mood. "He always said that if I had children he and George would take them under their wing and make 'great tricksters' out of them."
"You know," Hermione said, not even attempting to change the subject that Ginny had so obviously chosen, "it's the second anniversary of the end of the war in four days."
"And the anniversary of Fred's death," Ron pointed out bitterly.
For the next hour the four friends argued and mourned over their lost companion. Ron was convinced that he could find out who it had been, and when he did would make them pay. As it was, he invested most of his spare time into searching for any clue in all the Death Eater files as to who the culprit could be. He even went so far as to pay them visits at Azkaban—which was under the control of the Order and very powerful wizards who took shifts keeping the dementors in check now that they were back on their side—though these "meetings" always ended in Ron getting kicked out and asked never to come back. The witches and wizards guarding the dementors, and so the prison, knew how he felt and that he only wanted answers, but it was their job to run an efficient prison and Ron's presence did not help.
Finally Harry and Ginny announced that they had to leave and see the doctor. Ron agreed in a huff that it was getting late, and retreated back to his apartment and stacks of files on Death Eaters. This left Hermione, bitter and alone, to walk back to her apartment on the other side of the city. At least it was a nice day.
She was drenched in rain from head to toe before she made it a quarter-mile. Somehow the day went sour, and so did the weather. Diagon Alley was only a few blocks away, which meant inviting witches and wizards, a world she knew and loved and felt phenomenally more comfortable in.
After five minutes of walking, cloak pulled up against the wind and rain, Hermione slipped into a pub. She'd only been there a few times in the past. No one she knew was in there now, but it was warm and dry and the bar offered butterbeer to drink. She ordered one and took a seat near the fireplace to dry off.
As she leisurely sipped her drink, warming her insides, she forced herself to not think of how the day had turned out. Instead, she focused on the blazing fire before her and the fact that when the rain let up she would be back home where her newest find at her favorite bookstore was waiting.
"What'll it be, sir?" drifted over the voice of a waitress. Out of shear curiosity and boredom, Hermione looked up.
"Firewhiskey," answered the cloaked man. She was about to turn back to the fire, when something dawned on her. That voice, it sounded so familiar, so intimate, as if he were an old friend or lover. But he was far too much in the shadows for his face to be seen, and maybe that's the way that he wanted it.
"Anything else?" the waitress asked, setting down the man's order.
"Bring another," he said, "in five minutes," and then Hermione knew exactly who it was.
Draco Malfoy, the last person she wanted to see.
Quickly, to avoid eye contact, she turned her head. But it was too late. He saw her, and there was no undoing it.
Flashback:
"This is insane," Hermione whispered, clutching his hand as they ran through the halls. If she were caught, if Harry or Ron or any of her friends saw them, she'd be dead. And with the map Harry possessed their discovery was inevitable. So there was only one place for them to go: Hogsmeade.
"Room for the night," her companion said when they reached a small inn in town. He paid in cash and off they went, teenagers in love. Though it was already Romeo and Juliet, though their affair was what anyone would call a tragedy. Only they were too young and blinded to notice.
"Draco," she sighed once they were behind closed doors. "I don't know if I can go through with this. If Harry—"
"Potter isn't going to find out a thing," he groaned, for what could have been the six hundredth time. They were always having the same argument, among others. A few months back, when Harry started suspecting Draco of being up to something, Hermione took upon herself to investigate him too. It turned out that Draco was on to them, but opted only to confront Hermione. He dragged her into the Room of Requirement, wand ready, and demanded that she leave him to his business. But, of course, he knew this wouldn't work, and it didn't, for in a matter of seconds the tables were turned and she had her wand on him, his lost in a shadowy corner.
For what seemed like eons they argued back and forth, Hermione accusing him of betraying mankind, and Draco accusing her of betraying the Wizarding World. She never did discover what he had been doing in that room—until, of course, it was revealed later that year—but decided then and there to stop him in any way she could. From then on she caught him off guard at every turn, shoving him into closets and empty classrooms to try to convince him to change his ways. And one fateful day, two months ago exactly from this night they'd snuck out, she had a break-through. She found Draco, alone and crying, in an empty classroom. Under a spell, she forced him to tell her what was wrong and found out what she least expected: he was terrified of becoming a Death Eaters not because he could die, but because he truly didn't want to be on that side, a side he never chose. When the spell broke he shoved her hard into the nearest wall and fled the room. The next day, when she was walking to the Gryffindor Tower on one of her breaks, he pulled her into a broom cupboard and kissed her before she knew what was happening. They'd been together ever since.
"I can't stand lying to my friends, Draco," she whispered into his chest, as they were curled together on the bed. Draco was desperate to sleep with her, as any man would be, but they never would reach that point. Every time they came close he would stop them and make some excuse, because in his heart he was guilty and refused to hurt her any more than he knew he would in the near future. "I'm with them everyday, and everyday Harry is determined to bring you down, and all I can think is how much I don't want him to find out what you're doing. I know you have to do it to save yourself and that you wouldn't had you the opportunity—"
"We both know that will never happen, Hermione."
"But what if it could? What if I talked to Dumbledore? What if the Order could protect you?"
"Can we talk about this later? I didn't pay for a room to argue with you."
"Alright," she sighed, and kissed him lovingly on the lips. "You win…again. But this isn't over, ok? I'm really scared for you, Draco. I…can't lose you."
It was the closest she'd come to telling him how she really felt, that she loved him and never wanted to be without him. She would never forget that moment.
End Flashback:
For two hours Hermione sat in front of that fireplace, the rain pouring buckets into the streets. And for two hours Draco sat in the booth, shrouded in darkness, his eyes fixed on her. But he wouldn't dare talk to her, would he? Not after all this time, not after what happened.
She can still feel the hurt from that moment so long ago when she knew her secret relationship with Draco was over. It was nearing the end of the year, exams were coming, but nothing was right. Harry was as obsessed with Draco as ever, and Draco himself was no nearer to renouncing the dark side than he ever was. There was only one thing to do, Hermione had reasoned, and that was to go to Dumbledore.
It took her an hour to climb the steps to his office, and, once inside, another two to explain her story and why she wanted to save Draco. As if turned out—though she was hardly surprised—Dumbledore knew everything and agreed to help protect Draco and whoever else needed protection from Voldemort and the Death Eaters.
Later that night she found him and told him everything. But he refused to believe it, that someone like Dumbledore would care about the son of a Death Eater. He left her in confusion in the empty halls, and two nights later he watched like a coward as Snape killed Dumbledore, then fled into the darkness.
For months straight she cried herself to sleep, wondering how she went wrong, how she could have believed he loved her. Though he never said it, she always thought he had. And she truly believed that he would have accepted protection from Dumbledore. But she'd been wrong, and the blinding hurt was her punishment.
When, the fall after Dumbledore's death, she came upon Draco in the woods in the midst of a battle, she knew then and there, had he chosen protection, chosen her, she would have spent the rest of her life with him. Tackling her to the ground and behind some bushes, he begged her to forgive him, that he would fight on their side now and be with her. With the simple Petrificus spell, she paralyzed him and ran back into the fight.
Today was the first time she'd seen him in six years.
The clock struck seven and Hermione decided that enough was enough. The rain wasn't going to stop any time soon, and Draco clearly wasn't leaving, so that meant that she was. She gathered her bag and pulled on her cloak that she'd long since discarded at the warm fireplace.
Instantly the rain soaked her to the bones, but she was determined to get home and away from the past, away from her nightmares.
"Hermione!"
She didn't even falter at his voice, as she'd been expecting it, and continued on as if she hadn't heard. But he wasn't giving up, not that easily. Draco grabbed her arm and, with sufficient force, pushed her into an alcove and out of the rain. Or at least as out of it as they were going to get.
"What do you want?" she seethed, not looking at him.
"To talk," he said as if it were extremely obviously. And then he added, "Merlin," in a whisper.
"Merlin what?" she spat.
"I forgot how beautiful you are. Even in the rain. It's been six years, but—"
"Are you going to get to the point? Unlike you, I don't enjoy miserable weather or miserable company."
"I didn't come to Diagon Alley to find you, you know," he retorted, his old temper flaring. God he wished he could just grab her and kiss her like he used to, before he screwed everything up. "I came for a drink and you just happened to be here. I never went looking for you, not once, do you know why?"
"No, but I could guess."
"Because I knew you wouldn't want me to. I wasn't going to put you through reliving the past, Hermione, but now that you're here I can't stop myself."
"Well get on with it, Malfoy. I'm listening. Maybe only for an instant, but I'm listening, so make it fast."
"You still don't know why I did what I did, do you?"
"Because you're an evil self-centered bastard who can't think for himself?" she shot back, then quickly added, "And a coward too, but I bet you already knew that. So why ask?"
"I did it because I had no choice."
"Ha! I don't believe a fanciful word that comes out of Luna Lovegood's mouth, Malfoy, but anything she says is fact compared to that rubbish."
"Ask me anything, and I'll tell you the truth. Anything."
"Fine." She crossed her arms and leveled her gaze. "Who killed Fred Weasley?"
"Hermione—"
"You said anything."
"I meant about us."
"Well there is no us, and this is what I want to know. Answer me now, or I walk away."
"Fine," he sighed, defeated. "His name was Dorjan Keegle, but he's been dead for over a year."
Hermione was more than shocked that he'd actually told her, and found herself at a loss. After a considerable amount of time, she forced herself to say, "Thank you," but looked away as she said it.
"You know I had no choice," he said, trying to touch her. But she flinched and jumped back.
"No, I don't. I don't know a thing about you anymore. Besides, I'm not discussing this with you. It's in the past, leave it there."
"But—"
"But what Draco?" she hissed, clenching her fists. "You want to pick up where we left off? If I remember correctly, we were eighteen and in the middle of a battle around the time I should have been starting my seventh year at Hogwarts. You pulled me aside and begged me to forgive you for what you'd done. But what you still don't realize is that I can never forgive myself for what I did! I trusted you, I lied to my friends, and I…I cared for you. I can never take that back, and even if they don't know and never will, I still have to carry it in my heart. Do you have any idea what that feels like!"
She was panting so hard from anger that she could hardly breathe. But if he had more to say, then she certainly did. Six years of things.
"I made a mistake," he said, and grabbed her arm, forcing her to look at him. "I was young and blind and stupid, but I never forgot you. I always planned to come back for you, to…to be…with you. But the war…it changed so much. I realized that you would never take me back after everything that had happened. But that doesn't change the fact that it was a mistake and nothing I wanted to do!"
"Yes, well, just because you made a mistake, doesn't mean I have to. We were through the second you joined Voldemort. Why can't you understand that?"
"Because I—"
"Don't you dare finish that sentence Draco Malfoy. Don't you dare do that to me. I spent six years of my life getting over you. I won't let you ruin that for me. I have a life with friends and family that I love. I don't need you, not now, not after what you did to me. I forgot about you a long time ago."
"Hermione—"
"You may not have wanted to do the things you did, but you still did them. And don't tell me it was about saving my life or yours, because you know damn well that the Order could and would have protected you had you been man enough to stand up for something. You were and are still a coward. You didn't cast the spell that killed Fred, but you might as well have, being on their side. You'll always be one of them to me and not a word you say can change that."
"This can't be it!" he cried out, shuddering, and if it wasn't for the rain she could have been the tears on his face. "Hermione!" He grabbed her again and pressed his lips to hers, tasting her sweetness for the first time in six years. His soul burned in that instant, and before she could get away, he let go and stumbled back, realizing what he'd just done. "I love you!" he all but yelled, though didn't dare move towards her again. "I loved you then, and I love you now, and I always will."
"How wonderful for you. Maybe one day I'll know what it's like."
"How can this be over?" And now she knew he was crying, but, surprising herself, she found that she didn't care, that it didn't affect her the way she knew it should have. She was truly over him now, and it had taken his prying, his declaration of love, for her to reach this point. "I know you love me too. I know you do. When you kissed me, all those years ago, I felt it. It was there, you can't deny that!"
"Did you really think you could have everything?" she sighed, and gave him the worst look she could have at that moment, a look of pity. "Saving your own skin all those years ago came with a price, Draco." As she started to walk away, a hidden smile playing on her lips, she pulled on her hood, leaving him behind, in the rain, in the past. "Me."
I hope people aren't too mad with my ending. I like to change things up every now and then, and happy endings are never my thing. I write them a lot in my fics, but its mostly because the readers like them. I'm a tragedy person myself, and so every now and then I have to satisfy that and write a tragic story. This one, though, I think is rather good considering the fact that Hermione and Draco don't end up together at the end. It might need some tweaking, like more flashbacks and more depth with their relationship, but hey, I wrote this in a few hours out of boredom. If, when I reread it at a late date, I find that it needs fixing I will definitely fix it. But, until then, it's as is and I hope you enjoyed it for what it was.
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