A/N: So it's been a while... *hides blush. I hope it's worth the wait!
Heads up: Some moderate language in this chapter.
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"Hermione!" Ginny said, alarmed. She tugged her over the threshold, out of the rain. "What are you doing here? Are you ok?"
Hermione shook her head, but she was crying too hard to get the words out. Ginny gave her a little anxious shake.
"What's the matter?" she asked urgently. "Hermione, are you hurt?"
Hermione could tell she was really scaring her, so she made an effort to speak.
"I'm fine," she sobbed. "I'm fi-i-ine."
"Oh honey, you're clearly not," Ginny said. She gave Hermione's arms a comforting squeeze, then began untangling her from her sodden coat. "What happened?"
Oh Merlin, could she say it out loud? Could she admit how stupid she'd been? She covered her face with her hands, cheeks hot and wet beneath her fingers.
"It was Malfoy," she whispered.
Colour flooded Ginny's face.
"Malfoy," she ground out. "What did the son of a bitch do now?"
Oh god. Hermione squeezed her eyes shut in humiliation. A few more tears leaked down her cheeks.
"I – I slep," she choked on the word. "I – we… well, we… you know."
Silence.
After a moment, she peeked hesitantly through her fingers. She had hoped Ginny would fill in the blanks herself, but no such luck. The redhead was staring at her, eyebrows furrowed in total and utter incomprehension. It was, Hermione would reflect later, an expression she was far more used to seeing on Ron.
"We – we…" She made a couple of gestures that she hoped would get the point across, but goddammit if Ginny wasn't the densest woman in the world. "We… well… last night, I…"
No. She couldn't say it. Ginny would just have to never know.
Her bottom lip trembled.
"Oh Hermione," Ginny said and pulled her into a tight hug. Hermione sank into her gratefully, burying her face in her shoulder as she wept. "He didn't hurt you, did he?" Ginny asked, suddenly worried.
"J-just my p-pride," she sniffed, voice muffled in a cascade of red hair.
And maybe her heart, she thought woefully. Just a little.
Ginny hugged her for a moment more, then pulled away.
"It looks a little more than that, sweetie. What happened?" When all Hermione did was snivel helplessly, she shook her head. "I'm not going to drop it," she said sternly. "You came here to tell me, so you might as well do it. What happened with Malfoy?"
Oh sod it.
"I slept with hi-i-im!" Hermione wailed, then dissolved into a fresh round of sobs. Big, fat, ugly sobs that racked through her whole body.
Considering she'd spent the entire journey to Grimmauld Place dreading Ginny's response, she barely noticed as her friend clucked in a distinctly Molly fashion, took hold of her arm and began to steer her gently towards the living room.
"Harry!" she hollered up the stairs as they passed. "Harry, can you come down?"
That shocked Hermione into awareness.
"H-Harry's home?" she hiccupped, tears streaking down her face. "Why is Harry home?"
"We've got our first appointment at St Mungo's today," Ginny said, patting her belly. "For the baby."
"Oh!" Hermione stopped, stricken, in the hallway. She hadn't even considered Ginny would have plans.
"Don't be ridiculous." Ginny guessed she was about to turn around and made a grab for her. "We've got plenty of time. Now you're going to come into the lounge and Harry is going to make us a cup of tea and you're going to tell me all about it."
She made a wordless sound of sympathy as Hermione burst into tears once more.
Harry!" she yelled again, nudging her through the door into the front room. "Harry!"
Despite the near opaque wall of tears, Hermione somehow found her way to the sofa, where she sat and tried to calm herself down. Easier said than done, she realised soon enough. Her chest had gone into spasms.
Ginny bellowed her husband's name once more, until an answering thud upstairs had her satisfied he was on his way. Then she plonked herself down on the settee beside Hermione and regarded her with solemn eyes.
"Was he really that awful?" she asked.
Hermione lifted her head to stare at her, eyes wet and wide.
"What?"
"Well, I'd heard Malfoy was pretty good in bed," Ginny said baldly. "But considering you're now sobbing on my sofa, I'd guess he didn't quite live up to the hype."
"He – he…" Hermione stammered, entirely too shocked to cry. Which, if she were to be honest, was probably Ginny's intention.
"Oh Hermione." She took her hands in both of hers and gave them a squeeze. "I know you don't do this kind of thing, but it's not the end of the world. Really it isn't. You spend a lot of time with him – and he's an attractive man, if a bit of an arse. It was bound to happen eventually."
"Bound to happen eventually?" Hermione echoed faintly.
"Yes," Ginny said firmly. "Tell her," she said as Harry appeared in the doorway. "Tell her we were all expecting her to have sex with Draco eventually."
Harry nearly choked. Since he wasn't drinking anything, Hermione could only presume it was on his own saliva.
"You – you," he spluttered. "You did what with the ferret?"
Mortified, Hermione covered her face with a cushion.
"She had sex with him," Ginny said, and she couldn't see, but Hermione was sure she was glaring at Harry. "And now she's very upset about it, and desperately needs a cup of tea."
The last bit was rather pointed. Harry grumbled a bit, but withdrew; Hermione heard him tramp down the hall to the kitchen.
"And bring us some biscuits!" his charming wife hollered after him. "I'm training him for when I'm a beached whale stuck on the sofa," she explained to Hermione, who smiled weakly into the cushion but otherwise didn't lift her head. Harry's reaction had been humiliating – what she had truly dreaded the whole way here – and her cheeks were so hot she thought she might explode.
"You really thought I'd end up sleeping with Malfoy all along?" she mumbled after a moment.
"Not really," Ginny admitted, wrapping an arm around her. "To be honest, when you took the job, I rather thought you'd end up killing him."
Hermione lifted her head from the pillow with a scowl.
"I still might," she said malevolently.
Ginny laughed a little at her expression. Or perhaps it was at the mascara smudges – the cushion was covered.
"Honestly, sweetie," she said, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "It's not the end of the world. There are worse wizards to wake up in bed with."
Hermione blinked rapidly as she welled up once more. Merlin, she needed a chocolate bourbon.
"You don't understand," she said pitifully. "He lied to me."
And that's when it all spilled out – the whole sorry story.
The interview at the Ministry last Friday. How she needed a letter of recommendation. How she'd trusted Draco to write it for her. Last night in the bar. Then the harbour – oh Godric, the harbour – then the few lovely hours they'd spent in her hotel room (Harry came in with the tea and biscuits during a particularly descriptive sentence, and swiftly backed out, skin an alarming shade of green), and finally, the horrifying discovery of this morning.
"So I just packed my bags and left," Hermione finished tearfully. "Took the first flight back to London, then grabbed a taxi. And here I am."
Ginny didn't speak for a moment. Her expression was concerned, but there was something in her eyes, the slight hesitant twist of her mouth, that made Hermione feel defensive.
"What?" she sniffed. Ginny's face contorted in an expression she recognised as reluctance. "Ginny, what?"
"Well, I can't help think…" she began tentatively. A worried glance at her friend's tear-stained face and she started again. "I just wonder whether Malfoy really meant to send those letters. They were scrunched up in his pocket, after all - not strapped to an owl halfway to the Ministry."
"Of course he meant to send them!" Hermione said, indignant. "It's just the sort of thing he would do, the lying, selfish bastard."
When her so-called friend's face twisted again, she bristled.
Malfoy was clearly the guilty party here. She, Hermione, had been wronged – betrayed! Malfoy was cruel and arrogant and underhanded, and she had entirely expected Ginny to explode on her behalf. She'd been counting on it!
Apparently sensing her frustration, Ginny made an effort to look conciliatory.
"Okay, perhaps he did," she said. "What did he say when you asked him?"
Hermione opened her mouth to snap again, then paused.
"Well, I didn't ask him."
"You didn't ask him?" Ginny echoed. "What did you tell him you were leaving for?"
Hermione flushed.
"I – I didn't. I didn't speak to him."
"You didn't speak to him? Did you leave a note?"
She swallowed, and shook her head.
"So you left him asleep in bed without an explanation," Ginny said matter-of-factly. Shame burned in Hermione's cheeks. It sounded dreadful when she put it like that.
"I was upset…"
"Hermione, you left the country!"
Hermione stared at her in horror as she realised, for the first time this morning, exactly what she'd done to Draco.
She prided herself on being a fair, reasonable person, yet she'd jumped to such an appalling conclusion and she hadn't given Malfoy the slightest chance to defend himself. She'd slept with the man, for heaven's sake! And she'd left him in bed without a word.
And he was still her boss. The whole reason she was in Marseille in the first place was to support him in his appeasement of Benoît Gouin and his awful associates, and she'd walked out on him. Shirked her responsibilities. Let him down.
And then she'd left the country. She left him asleep in bed while she flew over the Channel.
Merlin help her, what had she done?
"I'm a horrible person!" she wailed, throwing herself into Ginny's arms once more.
She was certain she'd cried more this morning than in her entire adult life – and over Malfoy of all people – but she found herself in tears once more. How she had any left, she had no clue, but apparently she did, because they were soaking hot, damp and tinged with mascara into her long-suffering friend's sweatshirt.
"I-I'm sorry," she hiccupped. "I'm such a mess."
Ginny, bless her heart, only hugged her more tightly.
"You're not," she assured her. "And you're not a horrible person either."
"I am!"
"Oh, honey, you're not. You made a mistake, but so did Malfoy. I think you both deserve the chance to defend yourselves, right?"
"Right," Hermione sniffed softly.
Ginny replied with another squeeze. They lapsed into silence as Hermione gradually calmed down and the tears slowly subsided.
"You like him, don't you?" Ginny asked after another sniffly minute.
"I think I might," Hermione admitted. "Even if he is a bit of an arse sometimes."
Ginny snorted, a hideous sound that made Hermione huff on a laugh. After a pause, Ginny asked tentatively, "Would you – would you want to date him?"
Hermione thought about it for a moment.
"I don't know," she said honestly.
The redhead pulled away, a wicked glint in her eye.
"Dear Merlin, please let me be there when you tell Ron you're dating Malfoy."
Hermione felt her heart sink.
"He'll go ballistic."
"He'll have a heart attack," Ginny said gleefully. "Or an aneurism. Or both!" She flopped back on the sofa, staring dreamily at the ceiling. "It's going to be awesome."
…
Hermione stayed at Ginny's a little while longer, before Harry risked a head round the door to remind his wife they had to be at the hospital soon. Ginny insisted on apparating her home first.
"You're high on tea and chocolate bourbons," Ginny said when she protested, albeit half-heartedly. "You'll splinch yourself."
The argument was clearly flawed, but Hermione acquiesced nonetheless. Who was she to argue with the pregnant lady?
Harry gave her a hug before she left. He still looked a bit awkward, but then, he'd never been comfortable discussing Hermione's romantic relationships. Work, family, Crookshanks, he could handle. Anything past snogging, not so much.
"I hope everything works out okay," he said bravely. Hermione smiled and hugged him tightly back.
"Thanks. Let me know how it goes at the hospital, 'kay?"
"Of course." He slanted a good-humoured glance at Ginny. "If we ever get there."
She rolled her eyes.
"I'll be five minutes," she said, taking Hermione's arm in one hand and her wand in the other. "Got everything?"
Hermione nodded then, a moment later, felt that familiar pull behind her navel. They landed just inside the gate of her front garden, which Hermione had charmed to hide such arrivals from the prying eyes of her muggle neighbours.
She'd just caught her balance when Ginny whipped round, almost pitching her headfirst into the hydrangeas.
"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Ginny demanded as she recovered - just in time to see the younger woman stomp up the path.
"Who…?" Hermione turned too, and stopped, her heart leaping in her chest.
Because there, backed up against the front door, looking dishevelled, exhausted and increasingly alarmed as the youngest Weasley marched up the steps towards him, wand drawn, fiery hair flying… stood the man she'd thought she had the entire weekend to recover before she had to face.
Draco.
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A/N: Thanks for reading! I had a blast writing this chapter, especially Ginny and Harry, so please do drop me a review to let me know what you thought. Stay tuned too for a lovely happy ending x