Well, it was official. Hermione Granger still thought he was the scum of the earth and not worth her time. Despite the fact that she had to be incensed about her picture in the paper she wouldn't even do him the courtesy of a face to face meeting. Who knows, maybe she thought he orchestrated the whole thing somehow. What mattered is that after all these years, all the charity work he had done, and the community building, all the damage control to his reputation. It all counted for nothing. She couldn't get past his childhood indiscretions. She wouldn't even tell him to go to hell. Not a thank for you for the flowers. Not a request for more information. Just a 'no thank you' and a dismissal.
It was either fall into a bottle and drink himself to oblivion or do something productive. And he didn't drink like that anymore. Socially, he'd toss a few back. But the days of knock down drinking till he was drunk and disorderly were behind him. Still, days like this, he missed the long slow pull of numbing alcohol. He had told himself it wouldn't affect him. He had told himself he could indulge in the fantasy and then go on the next day like nothing had happened. He didn't know why he lied to himself. He never managed to really believe his own lies anyway.
Well, if he wasn't going to drink himself into a stupor he had better figure out what to do. Hermioine didn't want to meet with him and there was no sense in sending himself back into a love sick tailspin over it. He'd known she despised him. It was no surprise. So, a brutal reassessment of the to-do list. He needed to break up with Daphne. He didn't need to be considering marrying her when it had taken nothing but the right set of eyes to lure him to another's bed. He needed to hire someone discreet to look into who might have been impersonating Granger and get to the bottom of why. He needed to get into the office and make up for all the work he had blown off Monday.
And he would. He would get out of bed any moment and spring into action. He stared out the window at the courtyard outside and thought about all he was going to do and didn't move a muscle. Maybe tomorrow.
Hermione opened her eyes with a frustrated sign. Her bed was the mattress lacked the deep comfort of her old broken in one she had left behind. Her sheets were too starchy, her blanket too heavy. But these slight annoyances were not what was keeping her up. Her dreams had been all tangled limbs and gray eyes and heated friction. She might not remember the sex with Draco while awake, but apparently her subconscious was absolutely fixated on it. She lay in bed, frustrated and tired, a familiar tension in her thighs and a low throbbing ache. Would it be so bad to rub one out so she could get some sleep?
She let one hand ghost over her chest and found her nipples still a little sore and sensitive. Still, she couldn't help a gentle little twist, a little pull, feeling lusty enough to enjoy the sensation.
She let her eyes flutter shut and shifted her hips. Let her mind wander to fuzzy memories of deep warm wet kisses and hands on her hips and thighs and breasts. He'd had a heavy touch on her breasts, insistent tugging and raw fascination. She roughened her touch to mimic vague memories and parted her thighs enough to let some of the bedding in between, starting up the natural motion of her hips and rocking her body in time to her pants, letting the heavy blanket give her a little light friction where she needed it.
So what if she was indulging a little bit? She didn't have a boyfriend/fiance. She was completely unattached. No one ever needed to know that she had tossed off to thoughts of Draco Malfoy in the privacy of her own bed in the small hours of the night. At least one benefit to being alone in her empty new flat. She had never really masterbated much living with Ron because he always seemed to know and then want sex. So it was nice to be alone, able to move in the bed, let out a quiet gasp, and know that no one would hear her.
She was just pushing one hand firm and steady down her body and sliding under the waistbands of her pajamas to get a little more serious about the friction when a loud pounding on the front door of her flat had her ripping her hand out of knickers guiltily. Another round of insistent knocking had her rolling out of bed and grabbing her robe. The only people who knew where the location of her new flat were Harry and Ginny so there must be an emergency. Sans slippers she rushed to the door before the knocker could pound a third time.
She was not pleased to find a disheveled drunken Ronald Weasley on her threshold. For a heartbeat she considered slamming the door but then got a better look at him. One eye swollen shut and already blackening, split lip, bruised jaw. "Jesus Ron!," she exclaimed, pulling him inside with one hand and shutting the door with the other. He was unsteady enough on his feet that she knew he'd been deep in his cups. "Have you been fighting?"
She noted his pained walk and his ripped shirt as she herded him into her living room and pushed him down on the deep gray sofa that had come with the flat. "No," He protested and she gave him a look before he relented. "Well, Harry had a go at me until dad pulled him off, but I didn't do any fighting."
She sighed annoyed. She didn't need Harry to go beating up poor Ron, she was perfectly capable of fighting her own battles. Still, she should have expected it. She knew how protective Harry could be, and the instinct to defend had only increased with the birth of his daughter. "How did you find me?" she asked as she went to prepare an ice pack. She hadn't unpacked her things yet so he would have to settle for yesterday's blouse wrapped around raw ice.
He accepted the pack gratefully leaning back with a feeling groan. "I had to come, I needed to apologize," his voice had a slight slur, and he was madder than an old hatter if he thought she would be accepting a drunken middle of the night apology when he could barely string two thoughts together.
Hermione glanced at her watch with a grimace.
"You needed to wake me up at six in the morning to apologize?" She asked tartly, already done with his shenanigans and deciding whether she should put him out despite his drunken state or if she should let him sleep it off on her couch.
"Yes!" Hermione was a bit startled when he jackknifed into a sitting position and fumbled for her hand. "I have to apologize right now because I'm being admitted into rehab at 8 am and I don't know how long they will keep me. And I had to agree to go into a sexual assault education program right after or mum wouldn't let me back into the house so I don't have much time. And I have to say I'm sorry because I'm an idiot."
He was crying now and not aware of it. Snotty nose and slurred desperation and a grasp on her hand that was just a little too tight for comfort. "I didn't think it through. We'd had sex loads of times and I was drunk and I didn't think about how I was violating your consent and I have to make sure you know that I know how wrong I was and that I will never ever be so stupid again,"
He lurched forward to lay his head on her shoulder.
"You believe me, don't you Hermione?" Obviously Ginny had been lecturing him because she didn't think that Ronald had ever thought about anything quite so complicated as consent. It was a lovely apology. Unfortunately, she doubted he would even remember it in the morning. Still, she was a bit floored that he had agreed to rehab, much less a sexual assault education program. Ronald avoided education and self reflection at all costs. He snuffled into her hair and let out half a snore.
Annoyed and overwhelmed Hermone eased him off her shoulder and transfigured a couch cushion into a blanket for him. She pulled off his half laced trainers, threw the ice pack in the sink, and tucked him in before going to get her wand to send Harry a message on where he could collect his wayward friend. She wouldn't want him to miss that 8 AM appointment.