AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This was my 1st of two entries for the 2016 DramioneLove Mini Fest (dramionelove . livejournal . com). This is a one-shot and is complete.
I worked from this prompt:
Prompt #79 - Local bookstore orders Draco's autobiography
Squicks/no-no content: EWE
Extra Requirements: Must be less than 1,500 words.
Thank you to my wonderful beta, "gjeangirl". Once more, you come through! MUCH appreciated!
Please review, if you would!
Disclaimer: "Harry Potter" is the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Books, and Warner Brothers. This fanfiction was written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Timeline: Post-Hogwarts, Epilogue compliant
Main Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy
Warnings: Memories of a broken relationship and a sexual interlude (implied), Considering committing infidelity (implied), Bittersweet ending
Summary: Draco's autobiography stirs up feelings in Hermione she hasn't felt in over twenty years...
Author's Notes: Title is a line from the song 'Human' by Human League.
SPACE OF EMPTINESS
By: RZZMG
The past should stay in the past, Hermione thought as she watched her ex-lover quietly from the shadow of his study door.
He was working behind his massive oak desk, his head bent over a pile of busy parchments. An expensive feather quill sat in its ink pot nearby, ready for his use.
She took a moment more to observe him in silence.
He wore his hair long now and neatly tied back at his nape, and a widow's peak was beginning to form at the front, just as his father's hair had done at the same age. His angles were still just as sharp as they'd been in his younger days, however, his mouth still as full, his focus just as absolute, and he continued to don the all-black ensemble of his youth. By the light of the nearby fire in the hearth, she could see that the cloth he wore was tailored to accentuate his lean, well-maintained physique, and that it was expensive—a soft velvet with silver embroidery at the cuffs and around its high Mandarin collar.
He was older now by nearly two decades, but Draco Malfoy still had the power to capture her attention as nothing else could.
"You never changed the wards," she softly informed him. "So, I let myself in."
His hand paused in reaching for the quill, and her eyes were immediately drawn to his gold wedding band with its flamboyant, oval-cut emerald. An heirloom of some long-dead Malfoy relative, no doubt. The dark green gem reflected the firelight in its well-cut facets, conspicuously reminding all that Draco was a married man.
The spells also woven into the ring to remind him of his vows to Astoria, however, could not control his reaction to her. Recognising her voice, his jaw clenched, his cheeks rouged, and once he'd controlled their slight trembling, eventually his fingers curled inward into a fist that he dropped into his lap as he sat back to regard her in his doorway.
Her eyes dipped to the pile of papers before him, to avoid falling into his intense, silvery gaze as she once had. The new view only brought up other painful memories, however…
They'd had sex for the last time right there, on that very desk, the afternoon he'd asked her to be his mistress, rather than his wife. It had been angry, raw penetration, brutally honest and violent enough to leave bruises on her hips and thin trails of blood down his back. She'd never come so hard in her life, and he'd never kissed her again.
She briefly closed her eyes, trying to will away the longing that accompanied those thoughts. They were nearly staggering in their power to still wound her, even after all these years…
"I read your autobiography," she said, more to fill the silence than to say anything important. "It was…honest."
He tweaked one dark gold eyebrow at her. "For public consumption, yes," he countered with a bitter smirk. "But surely you noticed the lack of…private content…in the chapters detailing the after-war recovery years."
"Of course, and I thank you for that discretion."
His mouth lost its interest in mockery and instead became a thin, unforgiving slash across his sharply handsome features. "Is that what you came here to say, after all this time?" he asked. "Did you come to thank me, Granger?"
"Weasley," she reminded them both, looking away, towards the window that provided a lovely view of the back gardens of Malfoy Manor. Outside, the spring rain fell in relentless sheets, melting the last remnants of winter's snow that covered the ornate fountain and the hybrid roses. "And yes, I did. I came to thank you for not…"
Her pause to find the right way to phrase what she wanted to say so as not to offend was interrupted by his harsh laughter.
"For not telling the world about us," he suggested, dark and biting. "For not outing you and ruining your golden reputation."
She turned on him then. The fire of her resentment had never quite been extinguished, and it roared back to life now. "You chose to do this to us, Draco, not me! Don't you dare blame me for refusing to be your secret on the side!"
He wanted to say more; she could see how it cost him to bite back on a riposte that would surely do great damage. In the end, he simply sighed, the glittering hate dying in his eyes, his shoulders going slack with defeat. He stared out the window now, too, his expression filled with a lifetime of exhaustion and regret. "It seems, I am and always have been exceptional at hurting you," he finally said in the ensuing silence. "I thought that in writing the book—in at least this one thing—I would manage not to. I'm sorry for that failure, too, Hermione."
His frown was deeply grooved, lining his face, making him appear older than his forty years. Despite his beauty now, he wouldn't age well, she thought, imagining him at fifty, at seventy, and one-hundred. His life's sadness ran too deep for him not to reflect such pain upon his features.
"I should never have let you go," he confessed in a raw, pained voice. "I miss you every day."
And that was the closure she'd really needed.
She looked once more around the room she'd come to know so well in those two years they'd snuck around to be together, its Floo entrance blocked and turned so now it was a working fireplace instead, the rows of books lining the ancient shelves, and the desk with its pile of memories…
"That time, those days we had together," she began, backing towards the door and the way out, "I didn't want to share them with anyone else, not because I was embarrassed, Draco, but because those memories are the only thing you and I will ever have that are ours. They're all we have left of each other, and I want to keep them for us alone. It's selfish, I know, but then…I suppose I've always been selfish when it comes to wanting you all to myself."
He sighed again, glancing over at her, and nodded once in understanding and in agreement.
"Goodbye, Granger."
She didn't say goodbye, merely gave him a small, sad smile that she hoped conveyed everything in her heart. Then, she turned and walked out, refusing to look back, just as she had all those years ago.
The moment she arrived home, she slipped her plain gold wedding band back onto her finger, burned Draco's book, and even made love to her husband later that night. Every day thereafter, she reminded herself of the first line of that infamous autobiography that had nearly ended her marriage:
The past should stay in the past…
~FIN~
Final Author's Notes:
A sad Dramione, but I'd wanted to write a story that wasn't fluff for this first entry, since my 2nd piece for the fest is a romantic comedy. This was the drama-angst submission.
No sequel planned. I like it as-is.
I hope you enjoyed it, despite its somewhat depressing nature. Please leave me a review, if you would be so kind, and let me know your thoughts!
XOXO,
RZZMG