Disclaimer: I do not own any characters. They are property of JK Rowling and publishers. I do not own the song My Mistakes Were Made For You. The song is property of The Last Shadow Puppets and related persons.
Warnings: Language, sex.
Summary/Notes: When Draco sees Hermione at Platform 9 ¾ , he reflects on their relationship. Written for the DM/HG Fic Exchange ("Shine a Light") in Fall/Winter '08.
-x-
I knew I should have had Astoria bring Scorpius to the train. Seeing her there at the Hogwarts Express platform, her wedding band glinting in the sun, brought back a painful flood of memories of years long gone.
It was my fault, really-- after all, I was an arrogant Slytherin bastard. The Gryffindor Princess was never to blame. No, not Hermione Granger.
If I could have kept my fat mouth shut, maybe I wouldn't have ruined everything. Then again, maybe there was not anything to ruin in the first place. Maybe we just weren't meant to be together in the end.
I still remember when she came to me the first time. It was right after Potter had defeated Voldemort finally.
-x-
I was sitting in the Great Hall with my parents, unsure of what to do with ourselves, when I felt someone's hand on my shoulder. Startled, I looked to find her there, concern on her face. No, pity. Instantly, I was defensive.
"What do you want, Granger?" I asked her, the words harsher than I intended.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Malfoy," she said, her voice quiet in the hall.
Why was she doing this? Didn't she have to take care of Potter?
"I'm fine."
She seemed to hesitate for a moment, words hanging on her lips, but when I turned my attention back to my parents, she eventually left and made her way back to her friends.
-x-
I did not see her for several months after that. I often saw her picture in The Daily Prophet, attending a gala this day and an interview the next, but I never saw her face-to-face. However, while I did not see her face in person, only in the crowd of pictures, I could tell something was haunting her. It showed in her eyes. They were not the eyes I remembered from our childhood, fierce and knowing. They were full of pain now, a pain that comes from the death of so many and never quite goes away.
During these months, the Malfoy name was reduced to a mere hint of its former glory. No longer did it send Ministry employees scrambling to do our bidding, or allow entry into exclusive boutiques or restaurants. We still had money, of course, but what good is money when there is nothing to buy?
Many of my former housemates wanted nothing to do with me. Similarly, I wanted nothing to do with most of them. They could do nothing for me. With this mindset, I began to withdraw more and more from society. No longer were the papers filled with stories about the antics of the young Malfoy heir.
I was what they would call a social recluse. I preferred to call it being highly selective with whom I spent my time.
For some reason, after several months of almost never leaving the manor, she sought me out again.
-x-
At first, I tried to ignore the knock on the bedroom door. Pulling the blankets over my head, I willed the noise to go away.
After several glorious moments of silence, I thought whoever it was had gone away. Then, the knock came again, harder this time.
"Draco, get out of bed. It is nearly noon," my mother's voice sounded through the door. "And besides, you have company," she added, before walking away.
Ugh, grand. I groaned as I tossed back the blanket and stumbled out of bed. "Company" was never anything good where my mother was concerned. After the war, witches and wizards across the nation realized how quickly life could end and were getting together left and right. I had joined in this craze, once. My mother was sorely disappointed when the relationship blew up in our faces. She had only seen the change in me that took place when I was involved with Hermione. What she did not see was that most of these relationships ended up blasted to pieces.
Not bothering to even brush my hair -- maybe I would scare the young witch away -- I made my way downstairs, ready to face the attention of another young girl who had obviously not caught on that the Malfoy name was not what it used to be.
When I entered the parlour, I stopped dead in my tracks: Hermione Granger was sitting there, on our sofa, waiting patiently. She looked up and I realized I was still standing in the doorway like I had been Petrified. Forcing myself to fake a smile, I moved towards her.
Fuck. Why was she here? I couldn't deal with her, not yet. Not when the pain was still all too real. I sat down on the seat opposite her, not saying a word.
-x-
What I should have done was tell her to get the hell out.
What I did instead shocked not only me, but also the entire wizarding world: we ended up in a relationship. Or, as best a relationship as two broken people can have.
Caught up in the windstorm of the public eye, her relationship with Ronald Weasley had hit a rough patch that seemed it would never end. Deciding she had not experienced enough relationships to settle down with him, she told him that she needed time apart. Somehow, that time apart turned into time with me. We both knew it wouldn't end well-- how could it?
-x-
It was not a relationship based on affections, or at least not affections of everlasting love. In fact, we must have spent ninety percent of the time arguing. Although, the post-fight makeup sex was worth it. The smart little witch was even more talented in bed than in school.
"What the hell do you want from me, Granger? Diamonds? Clothes? Books? A whole fucking library?"
"Fuck off, Malfoy. You know I'm not interested in having my affections bought. You think everything can be solved by buying me a present. Let me let you in on a little secret -- that may have worked for Daddy and Mummy Dearest--"
"Don't talk about my mother like that. I'm warning you."
"Warning me? Oh, Lord Malfoy, please bestow kindness upon my poor soul. I did not know my place."
"Christ, Hermione. I don't know what you want from me. I have given you everything I can. You probably deserve everything and more, but this is all I have to give."
-x-
It was always Malfoy with her, ever since school and that first day when she all but ploughed through me and whisked me off into some twisted version of a relationship. I remember the beginning of our relationship. We went to dinner, spent time in Diagon Alley browsing the shops, and tried to rebuild our lives from the ground up. We were doing what everyone else was trying to do.
But everywhere we looked -- left, right, up, down -- the relationships came crashing out of control, a boulder falling down a mountainside: impossible to stop with a disastrous end.
We tried to make it work. I did so many things for her, trying to make the relationship last. Everything I did, I did for her.
-x-
"Don't you get it, Granger?"
"Get what?"
"You know, for someone so smart, you sure aren't very bright," I snapped. As if she did not know; she just wanted to hear me say it. "I did this, all of this, for you. I didn't want to join Voldemort because I knew you wouldn't forgive me as long as I lived. And then, this… This relationship, if you can call it that, has been me trying to make it up to you, those years in school when I treated you like shit and called you Mudblood."
She flinched at the word. It wasn't directed at her, but it stung nonetheless.
-x-
That night, we let out our frustration and pain the only way we knew how: sex. Our clothes were ripped to shreds, tossed to the floor and forgotten. We had barely made it to the bed, the blankets rumpling beneath us.
It was not pretty. It was not gentle and slow lovemaking. It was rough, purely animalistic fucking. Her nails raked down my back, leaving bright red scratches in their wake. I bit her neck, leaving a mark there, claiming her as mine. She would yell at me for that later. Right now, she was too busy writhing beneath me to notice or to form a coherent thought.
Sometimes I felt like we used sex as an escape: we were so caught up in it that we could almost forget all the emotional and physical scars the war left behind.
-x-
It was after one of these rough sessions that everything changed. We were laying on the bed, our limbs entwined and our bodies slick with sweat. Exhausted and on the edge of sleep, my mind lost control of my mouth.
"I love you, Hermione." Shit. Fuck. Bugger. Had I really just said that? What was I thinking?
I waited for a response, hoping she was asleep and hadn't heard my confession. Several minutes passed, and I thought I was safe.
"Draco," she started. She never called me Draco. I waited for what was next. "I'm getting back together with Ronald."
That was not what I had expected. At all.
"What do you mean you're 'getting back together with Ronald'?" I spit out. Defensive walls began to construct themselves at lightning speed inside my mind.
"You know this, whatever this is, isn't going to work out between us, Draco," she said quietly. "All we ever do is fight. That isn't what I want in a relationship."
"And what do you suppose the Weasel can give you that I can't? I don't know if you're aware of this, but this bed cost more money than he will ever see in his entire life."
"And you said I don't get it, Malfoy. Obviously, you still don't get it, either. I want someone who will give me everything--but not material things. I know you can do that, but that doesn't make a person happy."
She was right. I didn't get it. My father always bought my mother trinkets, and she seemed fairly happy with her life. At least, I thought she did. Maybe I was missing something all these years.
-x-
She left me after that. I guess it shouldn't have shocked me, but it didn't hurt any less. My mother was the worst to deal with-- she had all but adopted Hermione into the family, although it was more out of a desire to see me get married than out of affection for the witch.
Two months after she left me, her engagement to Weasley was announced in the papers. When I got the wedding invitation in the mail, I thought seriously about going but decided that getting piss drunk on Firewhiskey that night was a much better option.
When she appeared there at Platform 9 ¾, I wondered about what could have happened between us had our relationship worked out in the end. It never would have--we were just following the flock of new relationships--but it didn't hurt to wonder.
After a curt nod in the direction of her, Potter, and Weasley, I let my gaze linger on her for just a moment more. She looks towards me and I see that the haunted emptiness that once hid in her eyes had all but disappeared from her body. I feared that the hollowness had transported to my own eyes over the years.