A/n: It's been a while, I know loves. I had to finish off the end of my junior year, and at least now I am prepared to start my college program in the fall! On top of that, my dance classes are getting intense and I misplaced the flash drive with this story on it for a bit. Sorry! Hopefully you will forgive me darlings. Thanks to my new beta MorbidKitten2!

They Decided it Then

He would never get away with doing this to them/

Two black Cadillac's waiting for the right time/

Right time

At first she didn't reach forward to grasp the paper at all, for she was unsure how she wanted to proceed. Why would Ron have owled Draco Malfoy of all people, when in life he couldn't stand the man? She couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. After several moments of hesitation, she snatched the document off the table and read the contents, unwilling to just pass up this opportunity:

Lavender~

Hermione froze, panic hitting her hard. No, this couldn't be the truth. There was no way he would owl her, right? Not after everything that happened in their childhood with that wench!?

I can't meet you tonight. Hermione wants me to go with her and the children to Harry's-

She stopped reading again, dropped her arms, and looked away. A pain was slowly rising in her chest, poking at her like knives to meat. Thoughts jumped around wildly in her mind as she thought of all the implications, and wondered if she really wanted to continue on reading this letter, but knew that she had to. It would be worse if she left her thoughts hanging in the air like this for too long.

Shoving down her worries for what the rest of it implied, cleared her throat for no apparent reason, and read on.

-To play with theirs. She hates when I disappear for lots of time, even though I'm an Auror. I can't just always sneak around! She's my wife Lavender above all else. What we have, it's special, but I can't always put you before her-

The brunette bit her lip, feeling the tears slowly welling up in her eyes. What that woman had been blathering about could not be true!

-And you have to understand that. I married Hermione because I love her, but I love you too. It's hard for me to be with the both of you; you must understand. I will come and see you sometime darling, I promise. Just remember to keep this between us.

~Ron

She threw the letter, not caring a bit about where it ended up on the floor. Turning around, she gripped the desk from behind, bending slightly as she let out a choked sob. She couldn't comprehend just what she was reading.

It couldn't be true. He wouldn't cheat on her!? Why would he? Throughout their marriage, he never showed a single sign of displeasure. Their sex life was fabulous; they clicked, and the children saw him as often as possible. They were a happy little set family. So why did he need something on the side? Why did he have to go behind her back all this time and lie and play her?

Another sob raked up her body, and she let go of the desk with one hand, sinking to the floor. Snapping her eyes shut, she attempted to calm herself by breathing in deep breaths, but only succeeded in letting out another sob. Her body gave in at that, and she flopped back against the desk, not caring that her head hit the hard wood. The tears were already eating at her.

He cheated on her; he took something perfect that they had together and threw it away by cheating on her while he was alive. And worse, Lavender had never lied- at least about fucking him. The child idea still seemed too far-fetched to her.

It was all too much for the brunette to take at the moment. Feeling overwhelmed, she made to stand again, deciding that she couldn't remain in that office another moment. Hermione just needed to get away from the entire situation and give herself a bit of space.

Half a second later, the floo roared to life, and her head snapped up. She had completely forgotten that Malfoy would be returning, and she would need to face him again. Once more gripping the desk, she tensed her body and faced away from him, suddenly horrified to look at him.

He knew Ron was cheating on her, and yet he failed to mention anything during the last few days that they were together! How dare he?!

"Sorry about that Granger, but I did have to- are you alright?" The blonde man behind her cut off mid-sentence, immediately noticing her stiff form. Wandering over to where she stood, he made to study her. "Is everything-?"

All at once, the woman whirled around on him, sending several papers into the floor. The tears that had been there only a moment ago were gone, replaced by a burning fire from deep in her soul. "You knew!?"

Draco frowned, looking confused by the question. "I knew what?"

She waved a finger at him, taking a step forward as he took one back. Obviously, he didn't do well with emotional women. "You knew Ron cheated on me and you didn't tell me?!"

"I knew nothing of the sort. Relationships like that really aren't things I try to concern myself in when researching a case. I leave that to the Aurors."

Her eyes darkened. "You're lying."

"Look, Granger, I understand that you're pretty emotionally torn up about things, but I didn't have anything to do with this nonsense you're going on about. I may not particularly like you, but I'm not that big of a jerk. I wouldn't want to have anything to do with Lavender considering how much I know that you can't stand her. I wouldn't even try and involve myself in things. That's way too much drama."

Hermione's eyes narrowed into slits, and she spun away from him, searching across the desk with her eyes, now insistent to locate that damn paper again. Finally she located it on the floor, and quickly snatched it up, turning on her heel to shove it into the blonde, her had smacking against his chest.

"You're a fucking terrible liar." She shoved past him, hurrying off to the floo. Without waiting to see if he had anything to say, she picked up some powder in her sweaty palms and called out a destination, refusing to look at him as she did so. As the floo network pulled her away from the scene, her emotions got worse.

Remaining in his office, Draco sighed as the woman disappeared. Declaring her emotionally unstable in his mind, he turned his attention back to the paper she shoved at him, a frown taking over his face as he read every word.

"What the fuck, Granger? I've never even seen this before!"

Hermione didn't return to Malfoy's office that following day. Her daughter tried to make her feel better by baking, and only succeeded in making an utter mess of the kitchen and nearly caught the house on fire. After that, the brunette made sure to cat spells on everything in the kitchen, just to be safe, before she cleaned the room.

Returning home last night, she found her emotions to be completely unstable. Her mind couldn't decide if she was distraught, angry, hurt or all of the above. She would go from crying to venting to worrying about completely unrelated things. In the morning she thought back to the previous events and worried a bit for her own sanity.

It just didn't make sense. How could Ron do that to her? How could Ron possibly think this was alright, and that he loved them both? It felt like a weight sat on Hermione's chest as she cleaned, like the world was crashing down on her once more. Certainly her husband's death was the most traumatic thing she had ever experienced, but learning the truth about his relationship status was fairly devastating as well. She loved him with all her heart, gave him everything, and in return he stabbed her in the back by seeing another woman. This was yet another thing added to her overworked mind that the girl simply couldn't process. It was all too much.

But Lavender, Lavender had crossed a line. She not only slept with her husband behind the brunette's back, but she also tried to say that she was pregnant?! Hermione wanted to ring her neck at that point; all she wanted to do was never have to involve herself with the woman again. Yet Ron's past fling kept appearing in her life, and the brunette wasn't sure she could handle that. Knowing what she did now, Hermione was pretty sure she would only see red if she encountered Lavender again.

A thought kept poking at her mind though. What if the letter was fake? There was always that possibility, and without Ron around to question about things she would have to go and speak with Brown, something she wouldn't do unless she absolutely had to.

Hermione stopped cleaning for a moment, resting her head against the cabinet. She felt so drained since yesterday's discovery- no, since she found her husband's body. Everything seemed to weigh her down those days, and she could only focus on her children to keep her going. She wanted to know the origins behind her husband's murder, but with each new thing she learned, she grew weary of what else was in store for her.

She didn't even want to associate with Malfoy anymore. Their relationship from the start was awkward, and after discovering that he was keeping things from her, she wasn't even certain that she wanted to deal with him anymore. It was probably childish, but Hermione couldn't help it. She was frustrated and hurt by the situation, and just wanted to be finished with it.

Groaning, she stopped attempting to get anything done and slid down the cupboards of the cabinet by her, sinking into the floor. Tired of trying to figure out how she felt about things, she rested her head in her hands, thankful for the moment that Hugo was still asleep and Rose was in her room. For a moment, she just needed a break.

No, I need someone to talk to. Sighing, she remained on the ground a moment longer before struggling to her feet, finally admitting that moping around about her confused emotions wasn't going to do her any good. Wandering to the dining room, she found a scrap of paper and quickly scribbled out a note.

Harry~

Would you mind stopping by today when you're finished with work? I need a friend.

~Hermione

It was short, sweet, and to the point. Hermione wasted no time grabbing Ron's old owl and sending the letter off, resting her head against the table when the bird was gone. Hopefully, she could get her thoughts straight once she spoke to someone, and finally start getting something done.

He was doing something really unorthodox for him, really unorthodox. Draco Malfoy helped no one unless he had to, or unless it suited him. While this action might be useful to him later on, he knew he was doing something out of character and that thought poked at his mind with every step. Merlin, what was wrong with him?

Lavender Brown really wasn't his problem, not when his boss had already stopped the newspapers from publishing anymore of her ridiculous stories. But the letter between this woman and Ronald Weasley was his concern, since it could interfere with his investigation. After several hours of thinking that morning, he decided that although this course of action was one he wanted to avoid, it was probably for the best that he did something about the current situation. When Granger didn't arrive that morning he realized that she truly did think she was hiding this from her. And why wouldn't she? It wasn't like their history was fabulous.

Yet he knew that he had to do something about the letter. After rereading it a few times at home, the blonde had decided that he had to go see the woman in question. He could simply write it off as part of the investigation and go no further than that in his reports, but he needed to know the facts behind it, and more so, why a letter addressed to Lavender wasn't in her procession to begin with.

So there he was, outside the door of someone he had only known as easy during school, a Gryffindor through and through, and the very woman that made Granger's skin burn. Hopefully, this meeting wouldn't take very long at all. Knocking twice on the door he stood in front of, Draco waited for someone to answer.

Brown answered the door a moment later, taking a step back when she noticed who it was. "Draco Malfoy? Oh no, you didn't bring Hermione along did you?"

"No, I'm here alone today," he replied, recalling that they saw Brown outside of Cho Chang's home just yesterday. "I came to speak to you actually."

Lavender rolled her eyes at that. "I'm not really all that interested in speaking to you Malfoy. Your department has cut off anything I can get published in a paper, and since the media's attention was the best leverage I had to get someone to listen to my case, I'm not too interested in conversing with you. Find someone else to bother." She moved to shut the door, but he caught the frame with ease and merely raised an eyebrow at her.

"We need to talk," he said, pointedly ignoring her last few sentences. "Something came to my attention today that I found rather interesting, and I think you're the only person who can shed some light on the subject."

"Well, what's that?" she asked, raising an eyebrow now. She watched as he silently withdrew something from his pocket, something that he handed to her. She snatched the piece of blue paper away immediately, seeming a bit offset by the scrap. When she unfolded it and read the contents however, her eyes widened.

"Where… where did you get this?"

He beckoned with his hand that they should go inside. "Actually, that's what I've come to discuss with you. Now do you really want to have this conversation in the hallway?" Shaking her head once, she stepped back and allowed him in, shutting the door behind him.

Draco took a seat on the couch, making himself comfortable as the confused witch read the note over again. When she did finally look back up at him, he couldn't honestly read what emotions were in her eyes.

"I'll ask again Malfoy," she said, her tone bitter, "Where did you get this? It's private!"

"That's what I thought," the blonde replied, shrugging his shoulders lazily, "But privacy isn't why I came down here today. Oddly enough, Granger found that note in my office yesterday, which is quite the oddity considering that I didn't even know it was there until after she finished reading it."

Lavender sank into a chair, her eyes growing wide. "Hermione read this too? Now she really will never listen to me!"

"Why would she to begin with, Brown? You two aren't exactly on good terms with each other."

"I need her to listen," the woman replied, glancing away. "I needed to speak with her about so many things, but if she found this I doubt she will be any easier to correspond with."

Draco nodded just once. "Indeed. But Brown, I didn't come here to talk about your problems. I'm here on business matters only."

Immediately, Lavender's eyes narrowed. "And what business do you have here? I haven't done anything illegal Malfoy, which means you can't peg anything on me. Whatever you're here for is probably some misleading link someone gave you to… something. I don't know, but whatever it is, will you please leave? I don't have the time for this." Despite her words, Lavender tucked the letter into a pocket within her clothes, something that did not pass by the blonde.

"I can assure you that this matter is in direct relation to you," he replied smoothly, never missing a beat. "You're aware of course that Granger's former husband is dead, right?"

"Yes," she snapped, "And I could name off a million suspects for you!" Shaking her head, she crossed her arms. "Since you know that I truly was involved with Ron, I may as well not hold the details back. Hermione got the soft side of Ron, the caring father and sweet lover. I got the rogue side, the sinister side, the side that enjoyed dark habits."

"And what "dark habits" did Weasley have?" the blonde asked.

The woman hesitated then, pursing her lips several times before responding. "Are you going to use this in a courtroom at all?"

"This is hardly a severe interrogation," Draco replied with a scoff. "Besides, whatever bad things you have to say would probably never be used to begin with. I am supposed to be figuring out who murdered him as well as Chang, not attempting to make him look bad."

Brown hesitated a moment longer before she said anything. "Ron liked to gamble. He would drink sometimes, and when he got too drunk he would get rowdy and make a lot of people quite mad. Hermione… Hermione is a gentle soul, and after the war she apparently wanted to settle down in life. Ron respected that to the highest degree and never took her anywhere or did anything with her that she wouldn't be comfortable with. But he wanted the adventure, and he wanted the life of a partier. When we ran into each other one day, I invited him out for drinks, knowing that he was married. I figured Hermione would have his head when he brought the topic up considering our past, and even before he arrived I expected to see the brunette woman in tow. He surprised me when he came alone, saying that he needed a night of adventure." She shrugged, looking away from the blonde's penetrating gaze.

"I wasn't attached to anyone, and I still had feelings for him that were buried until I saw him again. We drank, and things got out of hand. The first time was a mistake, and he regretted it. He loved Hermione so fucking much." Draco could hear the jealousy in her voice. "But he tried to convince me that he loved me too. We had the party life, and Hermione provided the home life setting he yearned for. When they had their second child he disappeared for a while, feeling obligated to be by her side during that time. He wouldn't stop talking about the baby! I admit I understand that people have a special connection to their children, but it was hurtful."

The blonde nodded once, quite uncomfortable now. He meant to go over and get a few specific answers, not listen to this girl spill out her entire soul.

Her hands moved to hold her stomach, and he raised a single eyebrow. She was going to bring this nonsense up again? "I found out I was pregnant a few weeks ago. Ron died two and a half months ago, and that's about how long I've been experiencing the symptoms. I'm using a concealment charm currently Malfoy until people actually start believing my words. Someone saw me the other day and when they realized the truth, they screamed so many horrid things in my direction that I had to hide the signs. I don't wish to be verbally abused over something I can no longer control."

"Do you expect people to be happy?" he asked, keeping his eyebrow high on his head as he spoke. "You're the other woman technically in this scenario; you're the one that knew this relationship was shit. Granger's the one that's going to get beat up emotionally, and if you haven't already experienced that, then you are in denial at what's going on around you. People don't usually side with the whores who help people cheat."

The woman's features flushed red. "I'm not a whore!"

"Well, that's how the tabloids will describe you if there is any truth behind this conspiracy. In fact, I think they have hinted towards that already. They can't use that specific word in the Prophet after all."

Insulted, the woman stood, marching over to a nearby room and she disappeared inside. The blonde waited patiently for her to return, knowing that his reason for being there wasn't quite yet complete. She returned with a few scraps of paper a moment later, stomping over to him so she could throw them in his lap.

"Am I still a liar?"

Curiously, Draco picked the papers up and studied them. Apparently, Brown was tired of being called a fake. She had a signed document stating that she was pregnant from one of the Healer's that Draco was fairly familiar with at St. Mungo's, along with several other papers regarding checkups and all those things that he was a bit familiar with from when his estranged wife was pregnant.

"Impressive, Brown. Once in a blue moon something honest does come out of your mouth. But you're still going to have just as hard of a time now that you truly are pregnant. Some of your better friends might hang around, but in the public's eye, you're still going to be the other woman carrying a dead man's child."

Her face heated up at that, but for once Lavender didn't have a comment to Draco's words. Though he was thankful for that, the blonde was slightly curious as to why it was so easy to get her to shut up with that single phrase.

"Why are you here?" she asked at length, her voice quiet. "What can I possibly do for you?"

"Well, you've already given me enough to not have to question you about anything concerning your relationship with the Weasel," Draco said, the sarcasm evident in his tone. "I originally came to discuss the note, as well as just a few questions about Weasley and Chang."

"Just make it fast," she snapped, pulling on the edges of her shirt. She was getting antsy, and he could tell that the topic was eating at her emotionally.

"Very well. When was the last time you saw Weasley alive?"

"About two hours before the reports started flying around about his death," she said, glancing away. "I tried to get into St. Mungo's to see him, but the Healer's refused me and I wasn't about to try and speak to Hermione."

"Did anything seem wrong with him?"

"He was agitated that day," the girl replied, shrugging one shoulder. "I just figured it had to do with work."

"Did he say anything to you that might hint at the fact that he may have known that he was going to die."

"Outside of his agitation? No, nothing seemed unusual about him. But like I said Malfoy, I could give you a list of people who would kill him just from our associations in the darker pubs. We couldn't just go anywhere, not when he was married, so we usually frequented the shadier taverns and that earned us quite a lot of looks. Anyone there could be the culprit."

Although the blonde didn't really believe that some random person from a club ended Weasley in the same grotesque way that it seemed that Chang was murdered, he didn't want to stomp the possibility. Brown had been interrogated before, but Draco didn't think that the reports did Brown any justice. She had a lot of different viewpoints that could be investigated, easily. She could be the key to a lead and no one even knew it.

"Why don't you write those names down for me?" he asked, pulling a bit of parchment and a quill from his pocket. Handing them to her, he took a deep breath. He still had so many questions to ask this woman.

If he was lucky, something useful would come out of it. Now if he could only figure out the connection between Cho and Weasley…

A/n: I know it's been a while. I actually had this chapter all typed up ages ago, but then I lost the flash drive for a bit, and now that I've recovered it its damaged. I'm getting a new one to transfer all my old files to and hopefully everything will still be good enough to use. Even though it's been a good while, will you spot me a review loves? I think I need some new inspiration!