New Rules

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Goldensnitch18

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Summary: Hermione constructs a new set of rules designed to keep her out of a specific brand of trouble named Draco Malfoy. Rules make her feel safe and comfortable, but she always seems to forget that she isn't very good at following them.

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Inspired by New Rules by Dua Lipa

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Disclaimer: I am not profiting from this story.

Anything you recognize belongs to the great and mighty JKR.

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Chapter One: New Rules

"For fuck's sake!"

Hermione lifted her head from her pillow, her mind still foggy from sleep, sex, and too much champagne. She knew what she would see before her brain could even open her eyes: a head with shaggy blonde hair on the pillow beside her and a small, irritated woman standing in the doorway, her hands in fists on her hips. Ginny's hair was stacked on her head, held in place by invisible ties. Her eyes blazed.

"I think that's my cue to leave," Draco murmured. He closed the space between them and kissed her softly below her ear.

"Probably," she agreed, feeling beyond guilty at being caught with him in her bed … again. This was, however, the first time he had been in her bed since she had sworn him off, knowing that this game they were playing was only going to end in her heartbroken and disappointed.

She watched him crawl from the bed, luckily with his pants already in place, and pull on his trousers. Ginny glared at him the entire time while she watched him collect his dress robes, tie, and wand. "See you later, Gin."

"Get the fuck out of my flat," Ginny snapped at him. She took a step into Hermione's bedroom and slammed the door behind her. "Really?" she asked.

Hermione pulled the blankets over her head and groaned. "I know."

"I thought you were done." Hermione felt the weight of her friend at the end of the bed and then the gentle tug of her blankets being pulled away from her face. She didn't want to face Ginny or what she had done, but the situation was beyond that now.

"I was. I am. God, I don't know. He's just …"

"Really bad for you." Ginny shook her head and sighed softly. "You know I don't care if you want to be with him, but you've said over and over that being with him isn't really an option. It just hurts you, and I hate seeing the aftermath over and over." Hermione knew she was right. Ginny knew better than anyone what Draco moving in and out of her life did to Hermione. She would get one blissful night with him, perfect in every way, and then weeks of doubt, anger, frustration, and regret before it was time to rinse and repeat when she ran into him again. She and Ginny had been living together for nearly five years, so her friend had witnessed the cycle each time Hermione lived through it.

"I know. I don't know what's wrong with me. He's a cocky, rude shit. He's incapable of being with one person. He's constantly making my work difficult. But, I just … I can't say no to him. Anyone else, but not him." Hermione groaned again and ran a hand over her destroyed hair. It was going to be a disaster to fix what they had done to it during the night. "I never should have let my guard down around him in the first place."

"Maybe you need to come up with some boundaries to help you avoid this." Ginny waved at the side of the bed where Draco had been sleeping a few minutes ago.

"Like rules?" Hermione asked, her eyes growing bright. That might just work. She was good with rules. Rules helped everything make sense. There probably wasn't much sense to be made from this disaster with Draco, but it might help her to actually move on with her life. After all, that was the goal. That had been the goal for the better part of a year now. Ginny had tried over and over to set her up with guys, hoping that she would find something in one of them that would help her to separate from Draco once and for all. So far, her efforts had obviously been in vain. Hermione had even gone to the dinner last night with a date. The thought of ending the evening in her bed with Draco hadn't even occurred to her. How did a strong, intelligent woman start the evening with a perfectly pleasant companion and end it with that asshole in her bed?

"Yes, exactly like rules," Ginny agreed. She stood then, moving over to Hermione's closet. "Is your dress in here?"

It took Hermione a few moments to realize that Ginny meant the dress she was wearing to the party at the Burrow today. "Shit, what time is it?" she asked.

"Half past eleven," Ginny called from the closet as the sound of sliding hangers began.

Hermione nearly flew from the bed and into the bathroom. She turned the shower on and turned to look at herself in the mirror. Some days, she felt beautiful and confident in her body. Other days, like today, she wasn't sure what in the world Draco saw in her, which immediately resulted in her being mad at herself for caring what he saw when he looked at her anyway. She shouldn't care. She shouldn't want him to see or feel anything when he looked at her, yet …

She was in love with him.

She wouldn't admit that to anyone. Ginny didn't know, or at least had never been told by Hermione. Draco was too clueless and self involved to ever figure out that another human being might have actual feelings for him. She shouldn't care what he thought about what he saw when he looked at her, but she did. Hermione sighed at her reflection and felt the water for temperature before stepping into the shower.

"Your dress is hanging out here. Do you need something for your head?" Ginny called from the bedroom.

"Yes. Please." Hermione called back, all too aware that the fog was turning into a full-blown headache now. The more she thought about Ginny's suggestion to make rules for dealing with Draco, the more she thought it might be the perfect solution, but what kind of rules did she need to put in place? As water poured down onto her and began the process of clearing her mind, she imagined the things that always lead to this, their nights together in her bed, and started to compose a list in her head.

Don't read his post. Draco was surprisingly eloquent in writing when he wanted to be. He sent her letters at work frequently; she wasn't sure why. He must enjoy messing with her mind. Mind games were one of his favorite things. That she had known for quite a while, before she started winding up naked with him on a regular basis. It was impossible to figure out his intentions ever because she was nearly always sure that he was playing a game of some sort or another.

Don't talk to him alone. That was how she ended up here on this particular morning. She could still see the smirk on his lips from the moment he had closed the space between them last night. His lips had gone straight to her ear, kissing her softly between words. "Let's get out of here," he'd whispered, and it had seemed like the smartest thing in the world to do at that moment with no one around to see them leave.

Don't answer his Floo calls. This wasn't a frequent problem. He liked to avoid contact with Ginny, even before she had been quite as adamant about him not being around. Despite Ginny's connection to him through Harry, she'd never fully trusted him. This was probably because he'd never fully committed to being anything with Hermione, and Ginny knew that Hermione wanted a partner, not a toy. Occasionally, he would decide that contacting Hermione was worth risking putting up with Ginny's attitude.

Don't let him in. This sort of went with the Floo, but also applied to the nights he showed up shitfaced at the front door after a particularly bad night at work, which led to her final rule; The most important one of all.

Don't be his friend. Hermione wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to figure out the parts of himself that were still hurting all these years later, because he was hurting. That much was clear to her, but helping him was killing her slowly. There was no just friends between them, and every time she watched him leave in the morning, a part of her went with him, chipping away at her own soul, damaging it. She had to love herself enough to force him to find another way to heal whatever was hurting him.

As she pulled on the dress she had bought with Ginny for the party today, she looked at herself in the mirror again, trying to see herself with only her eyes, to push away what he may think, and focus only on what was truly there. She ran over the rules in her mind as she put on her makeup and swallowed the potion Ginny handed her.

Don't read his post.

Don't talk to him alone.

Don't answer his Floo calls.

Don't let him in.

Don't be his friend.

She could do it. She was a smart, confident, independent woman, and she didn't need him or his games in her life. She could do it.

"You ready?" her friend asked.

"Yeah, of course. Let's go celebrate!" Hermione forced a smile. She really was happy for Harry and Ginny. They had been together since Hogwarts, working so hard to stay a pair as they each grew into their respective lives, and they were finally getting married. Harry had proposed just a couple of weeks ago, and Molly had insisted on having a celebration. Hermione was happy for them, but making the shitty decision to have Draco over last night and waking up to deal with the emotional consequences didn't really put her in the mood to celebrate an engagement.

XXX

"I'm sorry if I made you late." Hermione heard his voice in her ear before she even realized that he was there. She jumped, taking a step forward as she did her best not to spill any of her champagne.

"Fuck, Draco," she whispered as quietly as she could. Harry was standing at the front of the tent thanking Molly and Arthur for hosting. Hermione was hiding in the back, trying to avoid the very person who had found her.

"Well, I thought you would want to hear his speech, but we could slip off." His hand ran down the back of her dress until he rested it at the swell of her ass. She turned to glare at him, trying desperately not to draw the attention of anyone else in the room.

"Stop," she told him, and he pulled his hand back as he smirked at Ginny and Harry in the front of the tent. They both seemed so effortlessly happy. Hermione knew their relationship itself wasn't effortless. They both brought a considerable amount of baggage, but somehow they made it work. Hermione had never really been part of anything like that. Her own relationships seemed to get consecutively worse all the way up to whatever this wasn't with Draco.

"You've been avoiding me," he told her. He moved to stand beside her. As he watched Harry he lifted a glass to his lips and sipped at the amber liquid within. "It was nice to get reacquainted."

A shiver ran down her spine at the memory of him in her bed, his body moving into hers as she pulled him down, kissing him deeply. "I told you I was done," she reminded him as her skin tingled with the echoes of his fingertips.

"You are a very confusing woman indeed. You never seem to know what you want, Hermione." He was smirking now. The same damn smirk that he had perfected at Hogwarts. The same damn smirk that had driven her to terrible things behind closed doors.

The rest of the guests in the tent began to clap. A few people were whooping and cheering as Harry grabbed Ginny by the waist pulling her close to kiss her. Hermione joined the applause as she turned to Draco. "For the record, I'm very done. I'm not interested. It won't be happening again," she told him.

"If that is what you truly want," he told her.

"It is." She looked back up at her friends and watched as the began to move through the small crowd, greeting their friends and family.

Behind Draco, Hermione watched Ron walk into the tent. He gave her a small wave and joined them in the back corner. "Can we eat now?" he asked as he approached. He was wearing his Auror robes and looked exhausted.

"Long night?" Hermione asked him.

"Longest. Is Oliver here yet?" Ron turned to look around at the people in the tent.

"He's with Bill and Charlie," Draco said, pointing out their table.

"I better go see him. I'll see you two later." He said, and he left to make his way through the crowd.

"Do you think they'll make it?" Draco asked her, his eyes back to the couple.

"Yes." She was confident in her two friends. She had watched them grow up, watched them adapt and change and relearn who the other was time and time again as they transformed from children fighting things beyond their capabilities to adults following their own paths in life.

"Blaise is getting divorced," Draco said, a frown spreading across his lips.

"Hasn't his mother been married like eight times?" she asked. Clearly, the apple wasn't falling far from the tree.

"Something like that. But, then again my mother married once and look how that ended up." He sighed, and Hermione tried not to get sucked into his sad backstory. His father was in Azkaban, had been since the war. Hermione hadn't seen Narcissa once since. Not in person. Not in the papers. Not in a single current photo in Draco's office. They never talked about her much. Sometimes, Draco would reference her vaguely like this, but nothing anything of substance, nothing that might indicate what she was doing with her life now.

She was saved from having to come up with something to say by the appearance of Harry and Ginny. "Draco," Harry said joyfully as he hugged the blond man to him, clapping him on the back loudly.

"Congratulations," Draco told the couple as he pulled back from his partner. His wide smile held no sign of the doubts he apparently had about the decision Harry had made to spend the rest of his life with one woman.

"Thank you, Draco," Ginny told him. Her irritation with him was so well concealed that Hermione wondered what Ginny could be hiding from her. She would clearly be very good at it. "Hermione, my Mum was looking for you," she said, giving Hermione a smile.

Hermione could have kissed her for giving her the out to step away from the conversation. "I'll go find her then."

As she walked away, she heard Harry and Draco start talking work. "Might need to take a holiday during your honeymoon. I'm not pulling shifts with Norton."

"You can't do that. I need you in the department meetings," Harry told him, laughing loudly.

"Granger can handle the meetings. She'll keep us up to date," Draco insisted, and Hermione wanted to turn around and set him straight, but there was no need.

"I'm pretty sure Hermione has her own job to do," Ginny told them both, and Hermione felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for her friend once again. She had enough to deal with as Head of the Improper Use of Magic Office without worrying about leading up the Auror Department as well. Draco would just have to live with Norton while Harry was out.

XOXO

Meg