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Chapter 25:

Hermione had just finished examining Draco for either a concussion or a brain injury, due to what she assumed was his odd behavior, however, he still wasn't convinced that this little 'scenario' was genuine. He still thought she was completely aware of what she was doing. She was trying to teach him a lesson of some type. She was trying to out master the master, but she was in for a rude awakening. She may be smart, no one could deny that fact, but when it came to lies and deceit, Hermione Granger 'no hyphen' Malfoy had nothing on her husband.

She lowered her hand from his forehead and asked, "How's Pansy these days?"

"Ugh, how the bloody hell would I know," he said back. Why would she ask him that?

"You don't know how your own wife is?" she asked.

Draco backed his chair away from the desk so quickly at that comment that it toppled over again, and for the second time he landed on the floor. "MY WHAT?" he shouted.

"Your wife," she said slowly. She backed away from him and looked out the door of the Auror's office. She said, "Harry? Harry, are you still out there?"

"What did you just say?" Draco asked, standing up from his place on the floor.

"I was just calling for Harry, in case you needed restrained. You're acting very strangely, Malfoy." She walked back into the room.

"NO!" he clarified. "Who did you say was my wife?"

Hermione stared at him peculiarly, backed out of the room again, looked down the hallway to the left, then to the right, took out her wand, and said, "Harry, where are you?"

Draco rushed up to her, pulled her back into the office, and slammed the door shut. "This has gone on long enough, Granger! Stop it right now! It's over! You've taught me a lesson. I forgot our wedding anniversary, and so you thought you would do one more little fantasy spell, pretend that the Weasel forgot your anniversary, and in the end, I'm supposed to learn some moral life lesson someway, and I get it. I've learned my lesson, but seriously, you didn't have to marry me off to Pansy! Also, how can you still question the fact that we are meant to be together? Do you regret marrying me that much that you're looking for someway to get out it? I'm starting to think that's the reason you need even more assurances, but I'm over it! Now let's wake up, so that we can go back to bed and get some sleep!"

"Draco, let go of my arm," she said, "or I'll be forced to hex you!"

"Right. You're going to hex your own husband because he's on to your little ruse. Even you wouldn't do that, Granger." He held onto her arm tighter.

"Malfoy, let me go now!" she ordered.

"How about, no! Go on, hex me, Granger. Go on, I dare you" he goaded.

So that's what she did.

The next thing he knew, someone was patting his cheek. He opened his eyes. He stared up at an ugly, mint green ceiling, in a small, mint green cell somewhere, and Hermione was patting his cheek, and urging him to wake up. He sat up, held his head, because of the pain, and looked around. He wasn't back at the cabin…on no, that would be too simple. He was still locked in the same nightmare, in one of the holding cells that the Aurors used when they arrested people. He tried to sit up all the way, but Hermione was next to him on the small cot, by his hip, and she pushed on his shoulder to force him to lie back down.

"Don't get up yet, Malfoy," she urged. She pushed his bangs off his forehead and said, "I didn't mean to hurt you, especially as you seem to be suffering from some sort of malady or mental illness, but you frightened me."

"I frightened you?" he asked. "I'm sorry. How did I frighten you?" He didn't mean to scare her.

"Well, you grabbed my arm, and you were holding it so tightly, and you wouldn't let go, and you were saying all sorts of crazy things, such as you and I were married, and that I was trying to teach you a lesson," she explained.

He moaned and closed his eyes. "Did Potter arrest me?"

She explained, "I couldn't find Harry. I think he must have already left for the evening. I levitated you in here. You aren't arrested, but would you please let me escort you to St. Mungo's? I'm very worried about you."

He pushed her hand off his forehead, swung his feet around her body and sat up next to her. He said, "That won't be necessary." He wasn't sure what to think now, because he was certain his wife would never go this far to teach him a lesson. This was just merely another one of her fantasy spells, which he was slowly ruining. He wouldn't be surprised if they both woke up from this spell and she ran away from the cabin screaming for help, or in the very least, divorced him as soon as they got home.

He looked over at her and said, "I was just having a laugh at you. I'm fine. I'm married to Pansy. You're married to Ron. Life's peachy."

"It was a joke?" she asked, dubiously. It was obvious that she didn't believe him.

He sighed and said, "Yes, just a cruel, mean spirited joke, which I thought was on me, but apparently is on you instead." He stood up and said, "I don't know what to do now."

"About what?" she asked.

"I was talking to myself," he said. He looked at her quickly and said, "That doesn't mean I'm crazy."

"Okay," she said, still not believing him. She stood up and added, "Well, if you won't let me take you to St. Mungo's, will you at least let escort you home?"

He didn't know where he lived in this distorted reality, so he shook his head no. "You go on home, Granger. Go back to Weasel."

"Didn't you hear me tell Harry that I'm leaving him?" she asked.

"Right, right," he said. He sat back down beside her on the small cot. "He forgot your anniversary, and for some reason, that's reason enough to leave him, right?"

"No, that's not enough of a reason," she said.

"It's not?" he asked. Then why did she leave HIM this weekend? What else had he done that had been so wrong? Yes, he had talked to everyone but her about their problems, and yes, he had been avoiding her to some degree, and yes, he hadn't been there emotionally for her, and gee…he would have left him a long time ago if he was her. He took a deep breath in and said, "If that's not the only reason you're leaving him, then what else has he done? Tell me. Sometimes it helps to talk things out."

"I should be talking to him, not you," she said.

"True, but he's not here, and I am," he said. "Plus, I really want to know. You see, I left Pansy, too." There. He could leave his fake wife if she could leave her fake husband.

"Oh, Draco, I'm sorry. I had no clue. Why?" she asked. She reached over and took his hand. He looked down at their clasped hands and he felt such love for her.

He looked up at her and said, "She's been keeping things from me, for instance, she tried to get pregnant without telling me, even though the doctors told her that she shouldn't get pregnant."

"Really?" Hermione asked. She bit her bottom lip and quizzed, "What else?"

"Well, she's been very unhappy lately, and she's unwilling to talk to me about it, and though I've tried to talk to other people about it, I haven't talked to her. Every time I do try to talk to her, she gets angry with me, and it hurts so much when she's angry with me, and it seems that she's angry all the time."

Hermione looked down at the floor. "Is there anything more?"

"She wants to continue her education, but she thought I wouldn't like that, so instead of talking to me about it, she just assumed she already knew the answer, so she took it upon herself to just not do it, even though I would have been supportive, I would have!" He stood up quickly. "I hate that she thinks I wouldn't support her. I hate that she's so sad. It makes me sad to know that I make her sad."

Hermione looked up at him pensively. "Maybe you're not the reason she's sad. Maybe she's sad for other reasons, and she's taking it out on you."

He started to pace around the room. "It's true, it's not easy to be married to her, and I do love her, I do. I realize that I'm not the easiest bloke to be married to either. I also realize that I'm very selfish, and that she probably does try to talk to me sometimes, and I'm often dismissive of her, and make light of things. I make jokes out of everything."

"You do?" She stood up as well.

"Yes, and I don't mean to do that. I really don't," he said. He took her hand again. She looked down at their grasped hands, and then back in his eyes. "I realize that I think of myself before I think of her, and I'm really sorry about that now. I even forced her to move from a house that she loved, without giving it due consideration."

"Ron did that to me, too," she said back.

"Ron's an arse," Draco said with a smile.

"It sounds like you are, too," she said with a smile that matched his.

He pulled her slightly closer to him and said, "Here's my worst fault. I forgot my anniversary, too, but Granger, that doesn't mean that I don't love my wife. It means I'm a man, and I don't always even know what month it is, let alone what day it is. Sometimes I don't even remember to put clean pants on under my trousers, but that doesn't mean that I don't love my wife."

"It means you're a moron, and perhaps a bit unsanitary at that," she teased, one side of her mouth pulled up in a grin.

"I'm very hygienic, and I'm not a moron, just a man, but a man in love," he said. "Isn't that enough, Granger? Isn't it enough that I love my wife, and that I would lay down my life for her and my child and that I would never hurt her on purpose, and that when she cries, or is in pain, so am I? Isn't that enough?"

Hermione started to cry. Silent tears ran down her face. "It sounds like you should go back to your wife, Malfoy."

"And maybe you should go back to your husband," he said to her in return. "His faults can't be that bad."

Hermione let go of his hand and sat back on the cot, and began to cry harder. He sat beside her, pulled her into his arms and said, "Won't you forgive your husband, Granger?"

"I can't," she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I can't tell you," she said. "Not now, not after everything that you just told me about your wife. I wasn't going to tell you anyway, but after everything you just said to me, I really can't tell you now." She wiped the tears from her face, and extricated herself from his embrace. She stood, and he followed. She walked back into the main Auror's office, and he stood in the doorway between the two rooms, watching her.

"Sometimes things aren't as hard as they appear, Granger," he said. "Tell me, why can't you forgive your husband?" In his heart, he was thinking, 'Why can't you forgive me?' He forgot that Weasley was her husband during this fantasy.

"Because he's been having an affair," she said. "He's betrayed me in every possible way. I think I could forgive everything else, but that."

Hermione hung her head, placed her hands on her face, and cried harder. He rushed to her and said, "Hush. I'm sorry. I didn't know. Are you sure?"

"Yes, although I don't know who he's cheating with, I know he is, because I found a letter that he wrote to her. He says that he loves her. He said in that letter that he loved her in a way that he's never loved me." She placed her head on his shoulder and he stroked her hair.

Then he knew…this would have happened anyway, even if she had married Weasley. Ron still would have cheated on Hermione with Pansy, just as he had in real life when they were dating, and somehow, someway, Hermione still would have found herself drawn to Draco, just as she had in this fantasy. He would have comforted her, and they would have still fallen in love. He hadn't messed up everything after all.

Then, he got a dastardly, 'Dracoish' idea. He was going to speed this fantasy along a bit. He said, "I think you need to sit down. I have something to tell you." He pulled her back into the little holding cell, and sat with her on the small cot. They sat side-by-side, he held her tightly in his arms, stroked her back with one hand, and his other hand came around to cup her cheek.

This was just a fantasy, but he knew in his heart that if this had been real, Ron and Pansy would have still fallen in love, just as surely as he and Hermione would have still fallen in love. Therefore, he held her hands in his and said, "Hermione, I think I might know with whom Ron's having an affair."

She looked him straight in the eye and asked, "Who?"

"My wife, Pansy."

Hermione pushed on Draco's chest, and in her surprise at his statement, she fell off the cot and onto the floor.