When Dark Met Darker

by maggierose99

Hermione's story didn't end the way it was supposed to when Voldemort was defeated. There was no time for a happily-ever-after with her budding career, emotional stress over the loss of her parents' memories, and Ron's descent into a number life. She was in a dark spot, and then she met someone darker. Dramione. Rated M because that's how Dramione should be.

1. Chapter 1

The heroine wins.

In all of her muggle fairy tales - the ones her mother used to read to her under the thick afghan that smelled like Grandma Granger's ragged old armchair - the beautiful princess never failed to win her prince and find the sort of happiness that lived through the ages. She beat the dragon, rose above her stepmother and stepsisters, defeated the very forces of evil that had made her life a living hell during her pre-prince era.

The prince changed everything, made the princess's life golden, managed to look good while in the throes of passion and the heat of battle.

And they both lived happily ever after.

Hermione Granger had never used to be a cynical creature, and she was never much prone to sarcasm during her formative years, but a lot had changed since she finished her seventh year at Hogwarts and somehow she stopped believing in fairy tales. She didn't stop believing in them in the way actresses at the beginning of romantic comedy movies stop believing in them. Her love for fairy tales wouldn't be stoked by the entrance of her prince thirty minutes into the movie. The magic surrounding the tales and the senseless hope that all would work out in the end was something she could never get back. She had enough real magic to last her a lifetime, leaving her with no need for fictional magic, and the senseless hope had gone out the back door years ago along with an old mattress and a pair of dress robes that no longer fit her right.

Princes are sometimes just dicks with nice hair. And no one looks good while in the throes of passion, much less in the heat of battle.

But what Hermione knew down to the very core of her being was that not all heroines win at the end of their stories. In fact, she recognized with some pain that not all stories came to an end in the same place as the author's last word.

Hermione Granger had lost. She had lost horribly. She had no prince and she held no false hopes that one would ride along on a sweaty white horse to save her from her demons.

She didn't want that.

And that's not what she got.