Happy Birthday, Ev'rdeen

. . . . . . . . . . .

"You're dating Malfoy?"

Hermione turned in the street, the force of her spin pulling her fingers out of the hand of the blond in question, to see Ron Weasley standing outside the Quidditch shop, his eyes narrowed in disbelieving accusation.

"Ron!" A smile spread across her face, tweaking her lips up, crinkling her nose and bringing a happy light to her eyes. "I haven't seen you in forever! What an unexpected – "

"Malfoy?" Ron asked again, shifting what looked like a wrapped broom from under one arm to the other and struggling to keep his grip on a few other bags. "I mean, I know we split up, 'Mione, but you can hardly be that desperate."

"Nice to see you too, Weasel," Draco Malfoy drawled.

"Shut up, ferret," Ron snapped. "Explain this, Hermione."

The smile had fled Hermione Granger's face and been replaced with a look of some irritation and not a little hurt. "I'd forgotten what you can be like, Ron," she said, her throat so tight the words came out stilted. "Though, since we broke up because, as I recall, you wanted freedom to sow wild oats in as many fields as possible, I don't really see why the discovery I'm with someone else should be such an unpleasant shocker to you. I mean, you didn't really think I was going to sit around wearing the willow for you forever, did you?"

"Ron found fields willing to accept his plow?" Draco Malfoy asked, looking down at his hands as though examining his cuticles. "That surprises me."

"War hero," Hermione explained shortly.

"Ah, yes." Draco murmured. "Though, didn't he abandon you in the woods? Fighting evil was so unpleasant and all."

"He came through in the end," Hermione muttered.

"At least I wasn't a bloody Death Eater," Ron snapped.

"True, that." Draco said, his shoulders stiffening under the admittedly just accusation. No one, he thought, will ever believe how much duress I was under. How unbearable it was, how I nearly broke living with that monster. He glanced up at Hermione, standing with her own shoulders tightened against the hostility of her old friend, a hostility she faced whenever someone new discovered she had forgiven him, that she'd slowly fallen for him, that she'd saved him. No one but her, he thought. Thank all the gods for Gryffindor courage. Thank them all for her unrelenting stubbornness.

"A situation about which you know nearly nothing, Ron," Hermione said.

"Still, dating the bastard, Hermione? Even you can do better," Ron said with a sneer.

"Even me?" Draco could watch Hermione make the decision to give up on mending this particular fence. "Even me." She tipped her head to the side and slowly pulled off her glove and held out her hand, the diamond sparkling in the winter light. "Though, I should correct you. We aren't 'dating', per se. We're planning a wedding. Should I assume you don't want an invitation?" The last was said with obvious malice.

Ron stared at the rock on his ex-girlfriend's hand with first shock, then horror, then obvious resentment. Even with the generous payout from the Ministry thanking him for his war service he'd never be able to afford jewelry like that.

"It was in all the papers," Draco said, forcing an idle tone. "Malfoy heir to wed war heroine and all that. I'm surprised you missed it."

"Ron doesn't read much," Hermione said, lacing her tone with what Draco considered a delightful combination of pity and cruelty. Oh, she really was mad at the git. Furious, even. Hermione considered people who didn't read painfully, inexcusably dull; it was, to her mind, the worst thing she could say about a person.

"So," Ron said as his temper, his jealousy, his resentment all went spiraling up and up, "you went for the rich boy, who cares how evil he was? There's a word for that, Hermione. It's 'whoring.'"

That's when Draco hit him.

It was over almost as quickly as it started, Draco shaking his hand and Ron, packages dropped, holding his own hand to his bleeding, possibly broken, nose. Hermione was looking at Draco with amusement. "You aren't supposed to hit people with a closed fist, you know."

"Muggle fighting," he muttered, still shaking his hand, "not my strongest skill." He paused. "How do you know that, anyway?"

"Learned it the hard way when I punched you when we were kids. Let me see." She took his hand and ran her fingers over it, looking for broken bones, doing a quick wandless healing spell on some broken skin. She turned to Ron, still standing there stanching the blood flow, watching them. She slipped her glove back on and murmured, "Well, as lovely as it was to see you, Ronald, I think we have to be going. We have a dinner reservation and, frankly, you're unpleasant to be around." She turned to Draco, "Shall we?"

"My love," he held out his arm and she took it and they walked away, leaving the other man standing alone in the dimming light, his nose dripping onto the snow.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N – Just a reminder to please PM me if you are a regular reviewer and want to get in the queue for your own drabble. Please give me at least a week's notice. Thank you!