A/N: It took me two years, but here's chapter three! Forgive me?
Chapter Three
"Have you seen this rubbish?"
Today's issue of Witch Weekly – opened up to a small yet attention-grabbing blurb on page 17 – was slapped down on the counter in front of them. Over their beers, Harry and Hermione found themselves staring at a candid picture of Ginny and Malfoy exiting some posh restaurant in Wizarding London, accompanied by the caption: Letting Bygones Be Bygones: Could this be the next wedding of the decade?
"I can't even – I don't even want to touch it," Ron said, grabbing a rag off the counter and furiously scrubbing his hands with it.
"She looks quite happy," Harry calmly observed.
Ron threw down the rag. "Don't make me punch you, mate," he said, very seriously, "because – make no mistake – I will."
"She's a grown woman, Ron," Hermione half-heartedly reasoned, taking another sip from her beer. She wondered if it was still too early to order the next round. "She's shown she can clearly make her own decisions."
"Bad decisions!" Ron yelled. "She's shown she can clearly make bad decisions!"
"You're going to give yourself an aneurysm," she said.
"I'm hoping I do," Ron said, his face flushed and his blue eyes shining with anger. He sighed and slumped down on a stool beside her. "Just so I wouldn't have to stand by and witness this unholy union," he grumbled.
Harry passed him a cold beer from behind the bar. "Relax. It's not like they're getting married."
"I wouldn't put it beyond them, after Dean and Pansy. It's a twisted universe we're living in now." He turned to Hermione. "Can't you talk some sense to her, Hermione? Like, I don't know, do some strange woman-to-woman thing where she siphons out some of your common sense?"
"That's not really how it works, Ron." She closed the magazine, hoping the saying Out of Sight, Out of Mind was at least somewhat true. "And I'm sure it isn't serious. You know Ginny. She has quite a rap sheet of famous dates – no offense, Harry."
"Please, speak freely at my expense," Harry said.
"And Malfoy can't commit even if his precious little blond coif depended on it," she continued. "Between those two serial-daters, I'd be surprised if they even lasted a few months."
"That's already a few months too many," Ron muttered. He took a thirsty gulp of his beer, while Hermione also tried to rub the photo of Malfoy and Ginny away from her mind. A part of her had wished whatever paparazzi had snapped this photo of them had the mercy of catching them at a less flattering angle. The Beauty and the Rat Bastard, she thought to herself. Now there's a more appropriate caption.
Ron continued to bemoan his little sister's sanity and allude to ways he could possibly kill Draco Malfoy in a manner that would fit the way his existence still poisoned their lives. Hermione left at a quarter to nine, made a pot of tea, changed into her pajamas, and got into bed.
She stared up at her dark ceiling, feeling the minutes tick by, her head still crammed with thoughts. Slowly – and with a newfound vengeance – memories were beginning to arise, as if Malfoy's sudden reappearance had triggered some kind of mental erosion.
We were at war, she told herself. Nobody knew up from down. We took what we could get. We did what we could to survive.
ooo
Three and a half years ago
"Stop."
She froze, looking up at him questioningly. When she grabbed her cup to sip from it, she realized her tea had gone cold. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, thinking.
"I can hear you," he drawled. "The gears in your mind grinding, going into overtime. Overanalyzing."
She scoffed. She wanted to glare at him, but even the sight of him unnerved her, and what they had done was still too fresh, so she busied herself with drinking her cold tea. She'd always hated cold tea – she'd rather drink from rain gutters – but it was better than having to see the reason why her conviction was now pricking her like hot knives. God, how she hated him. But now she hated herself more.
"What we did – it's never going to happen again," she said, tersely. This time, she privileged him with a thorough glare.
He snorted. "Bloody hell, Granger, you can at least say it. We're in a goddamned war, your friends are being blown to bits left and right, you've possibly already signed your own death warrant, and you can't even say the word 'fuck'?"
She flinched. Just hearing the word made her want to bathe herself in bleach. She had a flash of his rough, scabbed hands down her jeans, his mouth on her neck. It opened something primal in her, and it made her feel sick. They were burying bodies every day, and talked about death like it was a fond mutual neighbor they'd all shared in the past. The last thing she needed was Draco Malfoy ripping off her panties in a broom closet, or cave, or wherever else their hunt for Voldemort took them – and her, letting him.
"Stop."
"You fucking prude."
In one quick draw, the teacup was on the floor, lying in shards within a growing puddle of tea. Her wand was pointed straight at his throat.
"The next time you come near me, I will personally make sure that you can never enjoy another orgasm again. Got it?"
He watched her with a look of half-annoyance and something else she couldn't read. On his face, she could still see the scar where Bellatrix's spell had hit him, two weeks ago. It was fading now, but still there. She wished it would fade quicker; she hated the reminders that he was as much in this war as she and her friends were. He was on their side. He never should have been allowed, but here he was. Here was where he had been. The most impossible of places. And yet.
And now he knew what she sounded like in her dirtiest dreams. He knew what the combination of dirt, blood, and her sweat tasted like. He had touched parts of her that had never seen the light of day. He had made her quiver.
"I hate to break it to you, Granger, but you killed three people today. Death Eaters, sure, but people nonetheless," he said. "You're delusional if having a mindless fuck with me is what's going to keep you up at night, feeling all twisted up. And, if it is – then I envy you, I really do. But wait a few more weeks, and then you'll see. That's when the real nightmares will come."
He began to walk out of the room, before he stopped. "By the way, the next time you use up all the hot water, I'll crucify you. That's a promise."
ooo
She knew when something was happening at the office. People were no longer yelling at each other and were instead passing along a revolving wave of whispers and wide-eyed looks. She had just shrugged off her coat and put down her cup of coffee when she realized what was happening.
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
A tall, chiseled head of blond hair was walking through the aisles of their cramped office. His designer suit and privileged swagger gave him the distinction of someone who clearly had no business being here. She felt as if someone had just Accio'd a fat stone into her stomach.
She watched him disappear into Wendelin Worthsbrook's humble office, along with a statuesque, snotty-looking woman trailing after him with a thin leather briefcase.
She must have watched that closed door from her desk for close to an hour, with a furrowed brow and a carousel of possible reasons why Draco Malfoy would be taking a meeting here. Perhaps one of his businesses had been accused of inhumane practice – she wouldn't put it past him. But if so, appeals were with Legal, on the second floor. Additionally, she would have heard of it by now. As much as she hated to admit it, the Malfoy name was still feared and respected, even after the war. Witch Weekly hadn't been lying when they had written that article about him; Draco had been busy these past three years, rebuilding his family's empire. Many suspected he was even wealthier now than ever before. Of course, his reputation as having been a "turncoat for good" hailed him as somewhat of a hero. She thought the label was laying it on a little thick, and yes, she was more than a little bit bitter about his exaggerated role in the war.
Just because you survive a war doesn't make you any less of a prick, she thought.
Finally, the door opened. Motion in their office stilled as he walked by, wearing his usual self-superior scowl, with his gazelle-looking secretary behind him. The second he disappeared into the elevator, Hermione had launched herself toward Wendelin's office.
"Worthsbrook, why was Malfoy on the third floor?" Hermione asked. She noticed that a large stack of papers were being magically filed behind her boss's head.
She looked tired. She imagined they all did. Their company was new, well-meaning, excruciatingly low on funding, and no longer as drunk on the idea of social and creature equality as it'd been on their launching day. It was general knowledge that after three years, they were on their last leg. If they didn't manage to make their numbers this year, the Ministry would be pulling their funding and closing them down for good.
"He owled for a meeting with me last week," Wendelin informed her, as her empty mug refilled itself with steaming black coffee. "About company acquisition."
She felt the blood drain from her face. "Tell me you're joking, Wendelin."
"I would, but it's as far away from a joke as it can possibly be. It's in paper." She motioned to the parchments still being filed away. "We signed the contracts today. Our firm is now officially owned by Malfoy."
"That's impossible. We're a public company – owned by the Ministry. That's why we've got such sorry funding for the past three years, why this firm's been wheezing to survive since day one. The only way Malfoy could have even entertained the thought of owning us is if—"
"The Ministry acquiesced us to him," she finished. "He put in a bid and they agreed to it. Frankly, I'm not surprised. Even with the whole equality-for-all sentiment after the war, the Ministry's always seen us as an eyesore. Face it: the only reason we even got our funding was because of your contribution to saving the world from a noseless tyrant. They were still sensitive about their image to the public, three years ago. Now they couldn't care less."
Hermione was shaking her head. She was getting angrier by the second. "There's got to be another way."
Wendelin looked at her with soft eyes. "Look, I know you don't like him, and I don't doubt he's the scoundrel you've often drunkenly vented he is… but would it really be so bad? He's got money, Hermione. He's giving us more than we need. He's making minimal changes, so we'll be doing things exactly the way we've been doing them – except a little more comfortably, and a little more efficiently. So would it really be so terrible if our struggling little firm was owned by him?"
"Yes," she was saying, already halfway out the door. "Because you don't know him."
ooo
"Miss Granger, Mister Malfoy's expecting you," his frigid secretary let her know, as Hermione stormed into the top floor of his building.
"Oh, shut up," she snapped, as she walked into his office.
The door promptly shut behind her, and it quickly gave her the feeling of being trapped inside a bubble. His office was soundproofed. She sarcastically wondered why that was.
The right corner of his lip twitched with amusement. "I take it you've heard," he drawled.
"Are you bored, or something?" she fumed. "This whole 'rebuilding the Malfoy empire' thing's gotten a little too dull, so now you're back to reminding earnest, hardworking people like me that the universe will never turn completely in our favor?"
"I see you've inherited Potter's flair for the dramatics over the last few years."
"Answer my question, or I'll hex the blond right out of you."
When he looked at her, she wanted to rip those steely, shaded eyes from their sockets. "As I recall, I don't have to answer your question. I own your company now – the only person that'll be getting any answers around here is the person whose name happens to grace the company logo. So why don't you just cut through all the fat and ask me the question that really brought you here, Granger."
She glared at him and imagined setting him on fire.
He continued on. "Which is if I bought your hippie little firm just to make you miserable." He paused for a moment, and she still didn't interject. "To which I answer: No. That part's just the perk."
"You're unbelievable, you know that?" she said, shaking her head. "We started this firm up by ourselves. We fought the Ministry to get it. We've bled to keep it from crashing into the ground. We do a good thing here, and I'm not going to let you ruin it."
In her mind, a memory flashed. It was him at the train station, on the last day of school, and the look he'd given her. She'd tried to throw that look away, tried to shrink it so that it would fit into the cracks of her conscience. But it grew hands and it burrowed itself someplace she couldn't grab it long enough to Obliviate.
He was looking at her that way now. It washed over her like an old habit, and it took her a moment to shake it away. You've already ruined so much else.
"Face the facts, Granger. Your sad little firm is now underneath the Malfoy insignia. Believe it or not, I am businessman. I buy things and I make them better. If you hate it so much, leave – that is, if you can stomach leaving your little baby to me."
The door behind her opened. "No? Then our business here is done. Leave."
She clenched her hands into fists beside her, wondering what her chances were of hexing him before he could defend himself. Finally, still feeling the heat radiating from the top of her skull, she turned on her heel to leave.
"Oh, and say hi to Ginny for me," he said.
"Fuck you," she spat. "Tell her yourself."
Once she crossed the doorway, she didn't care to look back and catch the smirk on his face.
ooo
Three and a half years ago
The duration of the war felt like a never-ending string of bad and worse nights.
That night had been a particularly bad one. They had been set up by a source they had trusted, and was met with a nasty ambush that led to a dozen deaths of their own. Hannah Abbott had been one of them. And Colin. And Cho. Along with so many others that she had spent exhausting, mind-numbing nights with – planning attacks, trying to cover up their tracks, reciting pep talks that had lost their vigor long ago. They had lost so many, and she was starting to wonder when it was going to end. Losing people was starting to become so normal. Expected. Now they buried bodies without flinching.
She had ventured off into the woods alone. She needed to be away from everyone, to gather her thoughts, to find some semblance in war to reaffirm that she was doing the right thing. This is worth fighting for, she said to herself. She thought of her parents who no longer had any memories of raising a daughter. If only other things could be so easily erased.
It was when she heard the snap of a twig behind her that she stopped. She stared at the darkness in front of her, the parts of the trees that were now scorched and gutted from wayward spells – evidence that horrible things had happened here. Would she ever be able to walk anywhere again that didn't have a horrible history? That didn't bear the weight of ghosts?
"Go away," she said. Her breath came out as a thick, white vapor. In the suddenness of the attack, she had forgotten to cast a heat charm. She had lost the feeling in her fingers.
When he didn't say anything, she said it again. "I said, go away." She could feel him there, watching her. Was this what war did to people? She felt him in any room, now. His presence was just that heavy. "I just want to be alone for a little while. Okay?"
After she didn't hear anything, she began to walk again. Then she heard it: footsteps, quickening in their stride behind her. Before she knew it, he had grabbed her and turned her around.
His face was luminous in the moonlight, which was ironic. Because he was just as covered in blood as the rest of them. There were identical bruises underneath his eyes that indicated just how much sleep they hadn't had in the past few weeks.
"I can't bury anymore people," she said to him, in a half-sob and half-shout. "I already feel too numb. And – it shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't feel like it's all just in a day's work." She began to weakly fight him off – she tried to – but in her struggle, her wand slipped from her grasp. "So go away. Leave me the hell alone!"
She hated him seeing her like this. How weak he must think she was, to let war get to her like this. This was happening to everyone, not just her, and she was the one who cracked first. Nobody would have even known if he hadn't followed her.
He was kissing her. She could taste the blood and smoke in his mouth, and she knew without having to ask that she tasted exactly the same way. They were at war. There was a chance they were never going to taste like pumpkin juice or butterbeer ever again, but she liked to pretend.
As he backed her up into a tree and began tearing away at her clothes, she imagined them someplace fond in her memories – the library, in corner of the stacks. She tried to see it in its last glorious state, not the obliterated ruins they all knew it to be now. It would have been normal. Two teenagers, not fighting in a war but in the midst of raging hormones, having sex, giving into their biological drives – a story told a million times over. This was what she thought of when she felt him enter her; still what she thought of when she bit against his shoulder to keep herself from moaning his name.
It was exactly what she needed and precisely what she didn't. She was beginning to be able to live inside that gray space of contradictions. She had no idea why Malfoy had chosen her, but she had chosen him back. She was scared to wonder beyond that. This was primal. It gave her a yearning glimpse outside of death and destruction. In the most perverse way, this was good.
She allowed herself to feel good while they fucked. If it really was so terrible, she reasoned, they would kill her at the end. It was as simple as that.
ooo
There was French music playing, which would have been a nice touch, had Hermione not spent the entire night agonizing over the new owner of her cherished firm and trying to figure out how to get out of Malfoy's contract. She'd had Wendelin let her take a peek at it. It was basically icon-clad. She had even tried to discreetly burn it, but he had thought of that too, and had set up charms to repel anything that could destroy it.
"He bought the firm," she said, lifelessly, as the waitress served her some tea, and Harry his breakfast plate. His eggs were piled high with his bacon extra crispy, just the way he liked it.
He shoveled food into his mouth, squinting at her. "Who did?"
"The devil. Lucifer himself ascended from the fires of hell to make me reconsider my purpose in life."
"How is it," Harry wondered aloud, "that we spent a few glorious years without a single sighting of that creature and now I can't even go an hour without someone mentioning his name?"
"He's a virus," Hermione said. "He's latched onto Ginny and now he's going to wipe us all out."
"Oh, I don't think it's Ginny he's latched onto. It's not her firm he's buying."
"She doesn't have a firm for him to buy. She gets five-star restaurants and her picture in Witch Weekly with Ron sharpening his knives to the image of Malfoy's face," she muttered, and Harry raised his eyebrows at her. "My point is, I'm confused as to why the rest of us have to suffer because of Ginny's new relationship."
"Don't say 'relationship' around Ron. They're already one argument away from being estranged."
She stared at him, shaking her head. "How do you not hate him?"
"Because it's exhausting, Hermione. Don't you ever feel that? I mean, don't get me wrong – sometimes, I do really hate him. I hate him for buying your firm. And there will always be the annoying little headache in the back of my skull whenever he pops up. But I'm retired from all that. I'm not going to pick fights," he shrugged. "And so far, it's worked quite well for me."
The way Harry looked at her made her feel guilty. It reminded her of why it was her hatred towards Malfoy seemed amplified. He reminded her of a time she wasn't proud of, a time she'd spent years trying to erase. She had to climb above that. Prove she was over it.
"And I know you hate the excuse, Hermione, but he did fight on our side."
She quietly scoffed. "That doesn't change anything, Harry. Our side was the one that won. He jumped on the life raft when it suited him."
"We were in the red for a while, too, remember?" he said. "There was a point in the war where it could have easily gone the other way."
She remembered that week. It was burned into her memory bank forever. That was the week she could feel them all splitting apart, like tree branches that had become too dry to stick together. Too dead. Too strained.
She shook it away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring it up." She started to dig into her breakfast with her fork, trying to forget about Malfoy and the unsettled feelings he still gave her. She would find a way to suffocate that feeling. She would.
"Sorry, sorry, I'm here," Ron was saying, as he sat down at their table, nearly spilling over their drinks. "Turns out, Ginny and I are estranged for the moment being," he said, as he grabbed a piece of bacon from Hermione's breakfast. "Which is just as well. I told her I wouldn't be speaking to her until she came to her senses and dumped Malfoy. And possibly committed to St. Mungo's. But only to run a few tests – you know, to make sure she's really there. Because I'm starting to doubt it, you know. I really am."
She would never admit it, but it made her feel a little bit better that Ron was taking Ginny and Malfoy pretty hard – granted, their reasons differed somewhat, but reasons were reasons. She could sympathize with Ron. After all, when he saw Malfoy, he saw everything that was (still) wrong with the world. And when she saw Malfoy, she saw that and more. She saw history that was in danger of surfacing.
She saw a problem.
Please review!
