World: AU
Type: One-Shot/Drabble
Rating: T
I wasn't sure where I was going with this, to be completely honest.
I just started and it took off with a life of it's own. I'm sorry if it feels rather rushed.
It was never meant to be as long as it ended up being,
honestly it was supposed to stop as just a one-night happenstance,
but evolved to something much more. this has not been edited;
Red
.
.
Their eyes meet as she enters and she saunters to the bar, all long legs and a slanted smile he can't seem to tear his gaze from. She sits on the stool beside him and grabs the drink he already ordered, soft, slender fingers wrapping about the neck. The bottle tips and the night begins.
It is supposed to be a celebratory evening; her humanitarian project is officially funded, his company just acquired a partner that would secure Malfoy Enterprise's continued financial success, but it quickly diminishes to nothing more than faint remnants of a frivolous night. One drink turns to two, turns to three, turns to six, turns to seven and then they are dancing with the music that is too loud, bodies bumping against the end of pool sticks as the strangers maneuver around the fringes of the dance floor.
He barely has time to think that the floor space is poorly managed before she is up against him and he is pushed into the side of a pool table and the balls roll on impact and he just barely hears the sounds of angry voices and hands shoving as he his helped outside. The only thing he is aware of is the woman in his arms, claiming every bit of his mouth, his jaw, his neck, with her lips.
She is fire in his grasp: burning, thriving, and dangerous.
They stumble into the back seat of a taxi and that is all he remembers until they reach his home. Or is it her home?
Fleetingly, he realizes that he shouldn't be doing this: she will leave on her humanitarian mission within the year- he's engaged -but as her teeth nip into the sensitive flesh at the base of his neck he forgets it all. He forget that they've tried this already, tried to be together, but her work always came first. He forgets their fights, the heart ache, the insecurity. How can he focus on anything other than the way she's sliding her fingers around his belt, loosening it for him.
A groan escapes her as his hands tug back her unruly locks. Air? Who needs air when his breath gives her life?
She kicks off her shoes, stumbling over them, klutz that she is, but his arms steady her, as they always do. His grip leaves fire in its wake and they continue that way, a tangle of limbs moving through the shadows, bodies having memorized the path to the bedroom- his, she realizes absently after catching a glimpse of a picture with him and a rather stunning woman with midnight hair. The woman's name is somewhere in the back of her mind but before her senses can return he is kissing down her neck, between her breasts, down, down, down to her practical cotton knickers and then without preamble, he tugs to her feet, hands immediately wrapping about each thigh.
He presses hungry, depraved kisses to her skin and his name, like a prayer, spills from her lips. She falls back onto the mattress, eyes closing as the sweet sensation of his tongue takes her to heights she had long since forgotten, and loses herself, every part of her, to him, all of him.
It has always been that way between them; earth-shattering, mind-blowing, all hesitation and fear and regrets lifted and suspended as their souls reacquaint themselves.
Come morning it all comes crashing down.
She's always the first to wake, the first to curse, the first to pry their limbs apart. He wonders if it's simply because she's the lighter sleeper or if he just doesn't have it in him to move away from her.
He watches her back, bare and freckled, as she tugs on her underwear and stands, snatching he bra from the lamp on the bedside.
"Astoria's in Paris with her mum," he says, an invitation he knows she will deny.
Hermione looks at him as she secures the clasp on her bra, tugging her curls free from the straps. "Have you told her the good news?" She asks conversationally, reaching into the side-table drawer for something to ease the headache. She finds it there, their usual bottle, missing exactly enough pills to mark each tryst over the past two years. It's half empty.
"Somehow, I doubt she'd be as thrilled about this as we are."
His tone is dry, and she glances up at him, arching a single brow, before closing the bottle and tossing it his way. He catches it. His reflexes were always so quick, even in the early hours of the morning.
"Yes, I've told her," Draco says, properly sitting up to place the bottle on the table and reaching for the glass of water neither of them remember getting the night before. "She's the first person to know."
Hermione tells herself it doesn't sting. She has no right to be stung by those words, afterall. "Good," she answers, unsure of what else to say. Only he could ever catch her off-guard, leave her without her wit, without her mind. As he reclines along the head board, usually sleek hair in strands over his eyes, she once again searches for words. She was hardly shallow, but anyone would be hard-pressed to deny that Draco Malfoy is fit as-
"Stay."
She blinks. "What?" Did she hear him right? He's never asked her, not so outright, and certainly not after she's already side-stepped the first invitation.
His eyes are level, steady, sure as he rises from the bed, the sheets falling from his form and revealing the marks she's left. "Stay."
It's his voice, that soft, vulnerable tone that gives her pause. Everything in her body is telling her to leave. Nothing good can come from this. She leaves in three months, he gets married in eight. What were they doing? What was he playing at?
"Booked a venue, yet?" She says instead, taking a step away.
Draco approaches, unafraid- what was he doing? This wasn't how their morning went. "The Opera House," he answers, gaze trained on her face, unblinking, unyielding, in capturing her eyes. They are toe to toe and she tilts her chin up to catch the lowering of his head. She thinks he will kiss her, and she is ready to slap him, to play the indignant woman who is trying to leave and how dare he try whilst sober and when they know neither of them should be doing this at all?
She is wrong and selfish, she knows, but it is easier to be affronted and deny than to face this side of herself.
But he doesn't kiss her.
"Stay," he whispers.
She closes her eyes.
"Ma biche." His hand is at her cheek and Hermione bites her lips, leaning into the touch despite herself. But this is wrong. So, so, so wrong. And Hermione isn't the type of woman who does this. Except she is and the truth screams at her in the morning light. There is no alcohol to blame, no catastrophe to hide behind. Both of their lives are exactly where they should be, so why then was it so hard to stay away? They had done this, they tried, it was a train-wreck of biblical proportions.
When she finally looks at him, he must see the decision in her gaze because he steps away, hand falling to his side. He doesn't ask her again, and he doesn't follow her as she leaves the bedroom, gathers her items strewn along the hall, and lets herself out.
.
.
They don't see each other again after that, not until her going away party.
Of course she is there and looking stunning in scarlet. And of course he is there with Astoria at his arm. The women greet each other, no hint of animosity- Astoria is grace and civility and he wonders if even a tiny part of her suspects. She smiles at him and he matches it, together they are devastatingly beautiful and Hermione immediately excuses herself to greet new guests.
She tells herself she will not succumb.
She tries not to eavesdrop, really. It was an accident, she was trying to get some fresh air, but she hears them before she sees them.
"Why won't you choose your groomsmen?"
"It's not that simple."
"The friends you have you can count on a single hand."
Silence.
"I need to know how many of my friends to ask." It is Astoria, her voice calm and elegant even in frustration.
"Ask them all, whoever you want, it doesn't matter."
"Is it because of her?" Astoria is pacing, hair billowing behind her. Draco stands, hands in his pockets, regarding his fiancee with a look Hermione knows is exasperated. She can tell just by his posture. "Choosing a date alone was like pulling teeth," the woman whispers, "I thought it would be easier after that, but this whole thing-" she spins to him then, arms stretched out as if awaiting an embrace, "-why did you even ask me to marry you?"
The whole world stills and Hermione strains her ears. Draco's lips part, about to answer, when a hand at her shoulder makes her jump and she gasps, spinning around to see her best friend.
"Come on, Hermione, we're doing toasts!" Ginny exclaims, tugging the person of honor away from the gardens. "And it's my turn, and it's going to be really embarrassing."
Hermione doesn't see the way Draco's eyes linger on her retreating form, but Astoria does.
.
.
When she catches her plane, leaving for an estimated three months, he is not there to see her off. She hasn't seen him since the garden. Belatedly, she wonders if he will call her, text her; he does not.
As her eyes take in the runway while the plane takes off, she tells herself time away is exactly what she needs.
She is refreshed, renewed, finally doing something good with her life and for the world. It takes all an alarming fifteen months to complete their mission, and she tells herself she is not eager to return home to see him. Excited to see her friends, of course. She corresponds only with a select few and has not had the courage to inquire about a certain blond; she is grateful no one mentions a thing. It is only to Ginny that she admits her worst decisions, needing someone to know her, all of her, the way he does. Perhaps then, she wouldn't feel so inexplicably attached, so hopeless without him.
In her final letter to her friend, written the night before she leaves for home, she confides that she loves him, that nothing is clearer in the world.
The letter is long forgotten by the time she arrives, the welcome party to rival a royal's.
.
.
She doesn't hear from him, she supposes that is for the best. He is married and she has moved on. But when she comes home one day, almost three weeks after returning to London, there is a basket in front of her door. Her eyes narrow on the gift and she approaches it warily. There is no note, but she knows immediately who it's from. An elegant M is emblazoned on the ribbon that adorns the handle. Inside are her various favorite snacks; sour things that make his tongue dry, chocolates "too sweet for any self-respecting adult," and chips that are "surely made to torture one's enemies they are so spicy, are you mad, woman?"
As her eyes take in each and every silent memory, she feels something inside her crumple.
But she is stronger than this.
She has moved passed this.
Chocolate eyes harden, turn resolute, and she snatches the basket, fully intending to return to sender.
.
.
"What in the seven hells are you playing at, Malfoy?"
He is in the middle of a call when she barges in, security and secretary be damned. His jaw drops at her intrusion, the sight of her flusters him, her reddening face, the anger emanating from her curls.
"Weasley, I'll have to call you back," Draco says.
Ginny's voice responds, "Luck on that, mate. I'll see you Friday, Hermione, love," before the click of a call ending leads to silence.
"Weasley and I were just-"
"Sod it!" Hermione rushes on, dropping the basket onto his desk. "What is this?"
"A basket," Draco responds dryly, "with sweets too sweet and snacks too spicy for ordinary human beings." Before she can reply, he goes on, standing from his chair, leveling her with a gaze so heavy she can feel the weight of it in her bones. "But you are hardly an ordinary human being, are you, Granger?" There is something in his voice that sets off warning signals in her brain. He eyes her like prey, moving around his desk to approach. His movements are slow, measured. "What's wrong with it?"
She regathers herself, blinking out the stupor, and manages a glare. "Everything. What kind of message do you think this sends?"
Draco shrugs, "That I recall various ridiculous details about you, about us; that I recognize your oddities and accept them, that even after all this time, I know exactly the kind of basket that would be your undoing."
Hermione is taken aback that he might admit all of that so readily. Does he not understand the implications of such a gift? "And what does your wife think of such a present?"
This is when Malfoy sighs, leaning back against the edge of his desk, basket peeking from behind him. "Wife?"
She frowns then. "Yes, your wife!" Hermione shrills, out of patience, out of her mind.
Draco studies her, the shape of her face, the set of her brow, the tenseness in her jaw; he, by contrast, is all ease of limb. Without a word, he reaches into his jacket pocket and withdraws a sad excuse of a letter. It is wrinkled and stained a most curious red, but even from where she stands she sees her handwriting on the envelope, Ginny Weasley in slightly smudged ink.
Heat rises in her cheeks. "Where did you get that?"
"Now don't go blaming her just yet," Draco says, taking his time to withdraw the letter. He unfolds it meticulously, as if it is the most precious thing in the world. "She didn't hand this to me of her own accord."
Without him reading aloud, she knows which letter it is. She is falling, her stomach lurching, the wind roaring in her ears.
"But I was there when she received it, dinner with Potter, you know. And she promptly dropped a bottle of a rather fine wine I brought over for the evening. Surely I couldn't simply ignore that sort of a reaction from Ginevra and...convinced her to let me see it."
In his mind's eye he can recall the evening with perfect clarity: Ginny gasping at the confession, everything written on her face. He knew who the letter was from, he'd know Hermione's hand writing anywhere, and he needed to know the contents.
"Convinced," she repeats, doubtful. She wonders just what could convince her best friend to betray her so, but then he is moving towards her again, procuring another letter from his breast pocket. This one sealed in a sleek black envelope, the writing on the front addressed to Insufferable Woman in silver ink.
"Yes, convinced," he assures, handing her the envelope. "I suppose I told her the right thing. Here's hoping I say the right thing again."
Surprisingly, her hand is still as she accepts it. Silence surrounds them as she slits it open and removes the letter. She unfolds it and in his infuriating hand is one word: Stay.
Hermione scoffs, the breath leaving her in a shuddering gasp. "What?" She wants to cry, wants to scream, wants to shove him and destroy his things. She does none of these and only stares at him.
"Astoria and I didn't get married," he says quietly. "We couldn't."
"Did she call it off," Hermione hedges. She needs to know.
Draco's hand reaches out to smooth back a curl from her cheek. "No," he whispers, silent affirmation that he was the one who couldn't go through with it. The implication weighing on her shoulders that he was unable to uphold the sham of an engagement, a relationship. In that single word are all the things that has gone unsaid for months, years.
"This doesn't work," she insists, hyper-aware of his finger tips, of his proximity.
"Doesn't it?" He says in turn, regarding her with a look she has never, in all this time, forgotten. She dreams of it constantly. The way it makes her glow from the inside, glowing embers from a fire not quite extinguished.
"No," leaves her mouth just as he leans in. And she slaps him. A furious red hand is imprinted on his cheek and they are both shocked.
But she is a different woman now. She will not succumb, she has moved on.
"We don't work. I'm too wrapped in my career. You're too..." too much of a flirt, she wants to say, but it makes her sound so frustratingly insecure, "...jealous," she says instead, recalling his distrust, his suspicions.
"We're not the same people as we were," he declares.
"You're right," she concedes. "I'm not the same woman."
This is what she tells herself as she leaves his office.
.
.
It arrives in burgundy red, sealed with the Malfoy emblem and addressed to Miss Hermione Jean Granger in scrawling elegant print. She knows that script, knows he wrote it, and wonders if he hand-addressed each and every invitation.
She has been traveling, always somewhere new: building houses, cleaning water supplies, establishing schools, fighting for the oppressed. Her work has gotten her name tossed into the hat for the Nobel Peace Prize. She gives so much, all of herself, to her career, as she's always done; she's hoped that by losing herself entirely in her work she might forget, she might heal and move on and look back at everything she's left behind in London with rose colored frames.
Two and a half years and still he makes her breath catch.
Occasionally she'll hear about Malfoy Enterprises, about Britain's number one bachelor. Whenever she visits, she both worries and hopes she will see him. She never does, and she she is both relieved and disappointed every time. Her visits home are few and far between, often only happening when duty calls. The engagement part for two of her best friends, for instance.
She knows Ginny will ask her to be maid of honor, and she knows Harry will ask Malfoy to be best man. They've discussed this at length and decided Ron would have plenty of opportunities to fill that role afterall. Ginny warned her, but Hermione would not let her friend down for anything. Either of her friends. And so she marks attending for the Christmas Engagement Gala. December is still three months away but already she feels her insides turn to lead.
Of course, it comes all too soon, this party. And as she greets her best friends, her breath hitches when someone arrives fashionably late. No lady on his arm, no ring on his finger. His eyes are on her the moment he enters, and the entire room falls away.
The distance between them shrinks and he stops just short of barreling into her, the breeze from his approach playing at the curls framing her face. She's already had a few glasses of champagne by that point, which is why her expression settles into a scowl.
But he is not afraid.
"You never responded," he accuses.
She knows immediately what he's talking about but feigns ignorance.
"Did you even read them?" He inquires.
"Yes," she lies, eyes hardening at the awkward confrontation. "Perhaps you should mingle with the guests," she suggests icily.
He sees the deflection in her gaze and does as she asks, the Malfoy his his blood not allowing him to be rude. As he disappears into the crowd, she makes her escape. But he knows her. He hasn't seen her in years, but he knows her, and he finds her as she makes her way down the long hall towards the grand foyer.
"Stay."
His voice echoes around her and the young woman freezes.
"Please," he continues. Hesitantly, he approaches her still form. "Hermione."
It has been so long since she's heard her name on his lips, and she hates herself for relishing in it. When she turns to face him she is struck dumb by the sincerity in his eyes.
"I wrote you. I wrote you every day," he begins, but she steps away. "Stop," he orders, "stop running. What are you so afraid of?"
"You," it is torn from her mouth before she can stop herself and the hand that reaches out for her stops in mid air. She will never tell him how he has hurt her, how their relationship destroyed her but also how it continues to torture even long after the fact. Draco Malfoy was bad for her, he reduced her to the worst version of herself, and she hated who she becomes when she's with him, and hates that she can't seem to help but want him.
"I'm afraid of you, too," he reveals, and she trembles, the object of his acute attention. "You don't think you terrify the bloody hell out of me?" A sad excuse of a laugh, his hand through his slicked hair, loosening the locks. "You're a right terror," he admits. "But you give me life. You make me feel. Good, bad, everything in between. Without you, I've been living a caricature of what my life could be. We were young and broken when we happened all those years ago. Neither of us properly healed, neither of us truly understanding or willing to see that we were both shattered. Neither one of us willing to recognize that we were both in the wrong, that maybe just maybe, we weren't perfect. Not perfectly detached, not perfectly adjusted."
In her mind she can recall how she felt, she was certain she was holding him at arm's length. They were free to do as they wished, they were nothing serious afterall. Neither wanted to acknowledge the fact that that had changed.
"But Hermione, we've grown up. We've evolved and become ourselves apart from each other, healed on our own, not needing to rely on someone else to help keep us together. I want this." His words are a rush, a desperate, quiet, plea. She had never seen him so vulnerable. His hands cup her face and she can feel the sheen of tears threatening to fall and holds them back with all her strength. "Don't you?"
It is a soft whisper, delicate, almost as if he forced himself to finally ask. She can see he has put all of himself out there for her to accept or refuse.
She studies the look in his eyes, a gray darkened by the regret she sees, red-rimmed from unshed tears, fatigue. He is exhausted. He is tired of this game, of the chase, of the carefully constructed pretenses, and, she realizes as she takes him in, she is, too.
So, so tired.
Hermione closes her eyes and feels her tears trail down her cheeks, and nods.
"What?" Draco presses, unsure of her response.
"Yes," she says, softly at first, then, "Yes. I do," she declares with more conviction. "I do, I want this," she cries then, "I want this, I want you, I-"
He kisses her, swallowing her declarations, and in that one gesture all of the weight on her soul gave way to a soaring kind of elation that could make her burst. Her hands tangle into his hair and he pulls her near, arms loops about her waist, lifting her to her toes. Then his kisses are spattered about her face.
"I love you, you insufferable woman," he mutters affectionately. "You swotty, proud, liar—you didn't read a single letter did you?" At her guilty expression he laughs. "I've told all of this to you before," he says, "if you had just read them maybe we could have fixed this all sooner."
Hermione swats his arm but remains in his hold.
In his eyes she can see his thoughts. Stay. With me.
She answers with a kiss.
"About bloody time!"
They spring apart when Ginny finds them, the bride-to-be laughing as she nears them, waving about a bottle of red.
"This calls for a celebration, eh?" And she proceeds to drop the bottle, spilling the expensive cabernet at their feet.
"That's it, no more fine wines for you," Draco laments.
Hermione just laughs, taking Ginny back to the main room. For a moment, Draco simply watches her, unable to keep the smile from his lips. Then chocolate eyes met his from over a single, bare, freckled shoulder. "Are you coming?"
He grins and follows. He would follow her to the ends of the world.