A/N: Hello everyone, a reviewer has brought it to my attention that some of the content of this ficlet was triggering for them. I'd like to apologize to that reviewer as well as anyone else so affected for not including a trigger warning for the nature of the relationship. My ignorance about labelling triggers should not be to the detriment of anyone's enjoyment of fiction.
TW: Draco has unaddressed anger management issues.
It was the third time this week that he'd lost his temper with her resulting in the current state of the flat. Their sanctuary. It was virtually unrecognizable, so unlike the cosy space that she had painstakingly cultivated. And for what? Because she was going to lunch with Ronald Weasley. Again.
"I'll be going to lunch with Ronald tomorrow," she'd said with her back to him, slowly removing the emerald studs that he'd given her. The most recent in a slew of physical apologies.
"Why the fuck would you be going anywhere with him?" he couldn't stop the anger that bled into his tone, the jealousy that warped his mind and sharpened his tongue.
"Draco, we've been over this. Ronald is my friend and might I remind you that we often work together. Besides, Ginny cancelled at the last minute and it would be rude for me to stand him up when we've had these plans for some time now."
"So you're keeping things from me now?" It wasn't a question so much as it was an accusation. It was a loaded question and he knew it. His eyes tracked the motion of her hand stilling above the jewellery box, took in the stiffening of her spine.
"Draco, I don't have the time to tell you about every little thing that comes up in my life. Ronald is my friend and-"
"Don't fucking give me that shit, Granger."
The sound of her mouth snapping shut around the rest of her sentence was audible even from where he was across the room and he waited with growing anticipation for her response. For the fiery sting of her ire that never came. She'd stood perfectly still for but a moment more, and then suddenly she was gone.
And why? Because of Ronald Weasley.
The first time that she'd left in the wake of his insurmountable rage had been for an excruciating 45 minutes. Her departure made itself known in the loud crack that reverberated around the sitting room. He'd immediately panicked that he'd finally proven everyone right. Had lost the one person who he knew he didn't deserve. Yet she'd come home and he'd apologized with the worship that he showed her body. With tongue and teeth and desperate pleas for her to stay, just stay.
What should have stopped him had only been a catalyst for his decline into further fits of rage, into the never-ending anger just beneath his skin. Sometimes she rose to the bait, knowing full well that he was goading her but she was just like him in that way. She was always up for a good fight.
This time had been different. She hadn't raised her voice, hadn't lost her patience, she'd been suspiciously calm, provoking the sadistic part of him to dig deeper, to prod more at the weak points, to pry open the calm of her disposition to see the pulsating, bleeding fire that he knew was just below. Just like him. Instead, she'd left, a small bag in hand, without so much as a backwards glance.
That had been two days ago.
On the third day of her absence, he'd swallowed what was left of his pride and made his way to the Potter residence, an ostentatious bouquet of white tulips in hand. Potter didn't bother to hide his opinion on the matter. His disdain as clear as the silvery, infamous scar on his overblown head. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was getting Granger home. The moment he saw her left him winded. Every single emotion he'd dealt with in her absence rushing to the fore, overwhelming.
No emotion slipped by her guarded expression, but the tightening of her hands on the rails gave her away. The longing to touch her, to have her back made his skin itch, his jaw clench.
"Who's there Harry?"
He tore his eyes away from Hermione to see none other than the giant ginger oaf lumbering down the stairs, coming to a stop just behind her. It was clear that Weasley had spent the night.
"What the fuck is he doing here, Granger?"
He barely registered shouldering his way past Potter and into the foyer. Or the way the shorter man was trying to run interference. Her clothes were rumpled, the lines of sleep still creasing her puffy face and her hair a veritable nest. She looked as she always did when he'd ravished her, the knowledge of his revelation unleashing a surge of magic that turned his carefully crafted apology to a mass of burnt petals and smouldering leaves.
"Oi, fuck off Malfoy!"
"Ron, Draco, stop, just stop!"
He wished that he could have heeded her cries. Wished that his anger hadn't propelled him rushing past her to throttle Weasley.
For once he wished she'd stop him.
He'd come home the following evening with a strange sense that something was awfully wrong. Spell after spell had revealed that no one was currently there. But Hermione had been. He didn't need a spell to tell him that, the faint smell of her favoured perfume still clung to the air long after she'd departed.
The perfume that usually sat on their boudoir.
The quiet that ensconced the flat was unnerving. He felt exposed and vulnerable in the nothingness, stripped of the layers of balmy contentment that she brought. Gone was the easy comfort that came with her aimless prattling about the latest discovery that she'd made between the pages of some long-forgotten tome. The incessant purring of the squash faced orange terror that she insisted was a cat. The little noises that breathed life into this prison.
He began to resent the fading sunlight each evening, a reminder that he ought to return to the emptiness of his apartment. To a place that was no longer his home.
On a night with too many drinks and too little caution, Blaise had told him that he was better off for it. Granger didn't deserve him if a little tiff could send her running back to Weasley, Blaise had said. Not the stuff good brides were made of he'd asserted, as they downed another whiskey. In his drunken stupor, Draco had nodded along. Afterall, no one but him would know that he was lying to himself.
Lonely nights with the scent of her rapidly fading on their sheets led to dreams of how they'd been, how they'd reconnected after all these years. She'd testified at his trial, never one to let 'an innocent' such as himself suffer for the sins of his sire. Her honesty and conviction though once abrasive had been alluring. So against the grain that he'd been bred and raised to follow. In truth it was her ruthless righteousness, burning as bright as the anger that festered inside him that had trapped him.
Insinuating himself in her life should have been harder than it was. He was an almost convict with a ruthless father and prejudiced upbringing. A self-proclaimed snake more ambitious than kind. Often in those early days, he felt stripped of all pretences when she looked at him, those big amber eyes looking beyond the well-crafted face he showed the world. And yet she never tired of him.
Until she did.
As the days away from her bled from one into the next so too did his melancholy into contempt. Hermione was supposed to be stronger than this. She wasn't supposed to give up on them. Why did everyone else get unlimited access to her, unlimited forgiveness but he was fettered. The extent of her absolution concrete, finite.
Seeking her out while in his current state of mind probably wasn't advisable but anything was preferable to the yawning maw her absence had created.
Despite the hour, he knew he'd find her stashed away in the back of the shop she shared with Longbottom and Severus, meticulously researching something or the other that would no doubt add to the absurd profitability of the apothecary that the three unlikely business partners ran.
"What on earth are you doing here, Draco?"
He'd wandered to her office, tucked away from prying eyes and nosy customers without realising, occupied as he was with how unfair the whole thing was.
She looked tired, dark smudges making the thin skin beneath her eyes appear almost purple. The glasses she wore only as the evenings wore on and her load grew heavier perched on her nose.
This was how he loved her best, wrapped in the safety of her passions, buried in a project that lit the fire inside her that illuminated her eyes.
"I've missed you." He knew he sounded as desperate as he felt, but it didn't matter. None of it did if he couldn't have her back.
"We can't keep doing this. I can't keep letting you do this to me."
It was hard to accept that there was nothing left of their relationship to salvage and so he didn't. Getting Hermione to accept that would be difficult to be sure, but doable. It had to be.
The party at Blaise's manor was decadent. There was no shortage of liquor or women or borderline debauchery. Just as it should be to usher Pansy out of her until now, mostly single life and into years of what was to be wedded bliss with none other than Ron Fucking Weasley. That had been a shock to be sure, finding out that for the past several months the red-headed thorn in his side had been dating his dear friend in secret. On her own orders, Pansy had informed him, something about not wanting to convolute things, what with Draco having dated Pansy throughout their teenage years and Weasley panting after Hermione. He couldn't exactly fault her reasoning. He'd wanted to keep Hermione all to himself when their romance had started.
It made sense now, Hermione's insistence that they were just friends, would be nothing more than just friends. Afterall, to hear Pansy tell it, it was Granger's impeccable taste that had ensured her engagement ring wasn't a gaudy red and gold monstrosity. A beautiful emerald and silver band that he couldn't help but think would look much better on Hermione's hands.
Stumbling through the fireplace drunk off his arse was only getting harder the older he got. A crease in the rug sent him sprawling to the floor. He was grateful that Hermione wasn't here to see the depths he'd sunken to. He'd need to go see her in the morning. Just as soon as he could kick his arse into gear.
The morning after Ron's engagement party rolled around bright and filled with the snores of far too many red-headed men. In the mayhem, she'd managed to secure herself the coveted position on the lone couch in Grimmauld, many of the others sprawled on the floor and in uncomfortable little mismatched armchairs.
Ron's words from the night before came to haunt her as she attempted to stretch the bone-deep weariness from her sore muscles.
"You ought to give him the opportunity to change Mione."
"I'm not a rehabilitation centre Ronald. As much as I love Draco, I can't - I can't just let him use me."
"But have you truly given him the opportunity to change Hermione, helped him to understand that he even needs help?"
"He's not a fucking child Ronald. I shouldn't have to guide him through his bullshit. I won't be his punching bag, I won't."
"Far be it for me to take up for a tosser like Malfoy but he's had a rough go of it from what Pans has told me. You of all people know how the war's fucked us all over. How it muddled things up up here," he said, tapping the rim of his beer bottle to his temple.
"I'm not saying let Malfoy walk over you, Mione. Merlin knows I wish you'd fallen for any other bloke. Just, you know, if you love him, as you clearly do, help him find the tools to get better, you know?"
A watery smile and a quick nod were all Hermione could manage as Ron engulfed her in a tight hug. She knew that the war had impacted them all psychologically, Harry was still in rehabilitation for his almost crippling PTSD and Ron himself was on a strong dose of anti-depressants that her apothecary produced. How it had escaped her notice that Draco hadn't dealt with his demons was beyond her. Ron was right. She didn't have to let Draco walk all over her, but she could help him on the path to recovery. Maybe then they'd have a real chance at something.
Grabbing a fistful of floo powder she called the address of a place she'd had every intention of leaving behind her.
The apartment was deathly quiet. She wasn't sure that Draco was even there, knowing full well that Pansy's engagement party had also been the night before. The sound of the faucet down the hall alerted her that he was in their room. Before she could lose her nerve she crossed the distance to the bedroom. She found Draco propped up on the bed, hand fisted in his blond hair.
His head snapped towards her at the sound, eyes widening in surprise.
"Hermione."
Her heart thundered against the confines of her ribs at the sound of her name on his lips. It had been so long since she'd let herself think of him. So long since she'd indulged in all that she felt for him beyond the crippling pain at being apart from him.
The sound of the bathroom door opening dragged her attention to her left, to the startled blue eyes of Astoria Greengrass.
"Hermione,"
She'd never known that it was possible to actually feel your heart break. To feel as the tissue and muscle and sinew tore itself apart. Not until now. She was vaguely aware of movement in front of her. Of a tangle of limbs and fabric moving as though through a syrupy haze.
She didn't trust herself with her words, didn't trust herself at all. So without breaking Astoria's gaze, she vanished.