Title: Demolition Lovers 2/3
Author: Empath Apathique
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J K Rowling. No profit is being made.
Rating: R
Warnings: Very bad language that girls supposedly should not use, and allusions to lots and lots of hot monkey sex.
Notes: It took a very long time for me to post this chapter, and I apologize for that. No internet access absolutely sucks. A huge thank you to everyone who reviewed, and everyone who simply read and didn't review. I appreciate the time you all have taken out of your lives to look at my baby :)
Summary: Words didn't mean anything. Only a man who was absolutely sure of what he wanted—or was far too comfortable where he was—could tell a woman that she was the only woman he'd ever love then run off to bed another.
- - - - - - - -
"Are you happy?"
"What?"
"You heard me, Draco."
"Why are you asking me that?"
"Because I am. Now, answer."
"You know I'm not happy."
"Not even a little?"
"Don't play this game with me, Hermione."
There was a pause. "I'm sorry."
"It's not okay."
"I know."
"None of this is. Not with me."
"I know."
"You know what I want."
"Yeah," she said softly. "I know."
- - - - - - - -
It was never discussed, his need to explore, but it was something they had both acknowledged—him sooner than her. He was young, rich, handsome, and intelligent. Women were throwing themselves at him left and right. It was easier to resist the lure when they were abroad in France—isolation tended to make people band closer together—however it had been nearly impossible to discount his urge to "explore" when he got back to England.
He had a great relationship with Hermione—loved her as best as he knew how—but there was always a what if with him. What if there was something—someone—else. Something better than this.
Their relationship fell apart shortly after they returned to home.
They got an apartment flat together in a small, Muggle suburb a few minutes from London. They both found work at the Ministry; Hermione as a paper pusher in Department of Muggle Relations—which had absolutely nothing to do with what she'd studied in school—and Draco as an International Relations representative. His was a job of professional wining and dining, and Draco excelled at it. They both were never home—she because she worked her bum off and he because… well, because he was kissing arse—and they hardly ever saw each other. To top it off, he began sleeping around on her; Draco was never one to let a what if remain as such, and absolutely had to find out if there was anything more to life than what he already had.
He'd go to work, do his job, then go out with whomever he was negotiating with that evening; sleep with the different diplomats or, if they were male, diplomats' daughters he met, still coming home to her later that night—or early the next morning—to lay in her bed.
It hadn't gone over well with Hermione, to say the very least. Because of their ridiculous similarities and their uncanny ability to communicate with each other without saying much at all, she'd taken what he hadn't said as indication that they both wanted the same thing. They hadn't. He wanted to enjoy his life. To him, that meant messing around. She began to wonder if she truly knew him at all. But she did know him, and she realized that she'd begun to let her feelings for her cloud her judgment. He loved her but she wasn't exactly sure if it was in the same way that she loved him. She was a friend—his best friend—and a damn good lay. They got along wonderfully when they weren't fighting, and living together those months had proven that, despite the fantastic rows they had, or how many things were broken, they made good flat mates. He had a place to lay his head, a warm and willing body to put his ahem, and a little lady so in love with him that she waited on him hand and foot—no matter how much she tried to make it seem otherwise.
He was comfortable where he was, and because they'd never given each other titles or made any promises, he felt it was perfectly within his rights to sleep around on her. Only, he wasn't sleeping around, cheating. You could only sleep around on a person you were in a relationship with that you both acknowledged. And the only relationship they had according to him was a friendship, fuckship. It wasn't the kind of relationship she thought they had; the kind of relationship where there was one man and one woman with the possibility of joining in holy matrimony somewhere along the road.
Her pain was indescribable, but she blamed herself for that. Draco Malfoy had never promised her anything, save perhaps that he was her friend and always would be (and she'd only gotten that admission when he'd been very, very drunk one night after finals their first year at Uni.) It'd hurt, but she dealt with it the only way she knew how—by sucking it up and being strong. She continued on. Only, she gave him notice that he needed to move out, claiming that she needed her space. He saw it as a lie from the beginning, though he moved out as she wished. She began dating seriously again for the first time in years, and even though there was a tangible ache in her chest whenever they met up for lunch or one of the other "friend" things that they did—they hadn't slept together since before he'd moved out—she could deal with that. She could deal with the nights she cried herself to sleep, or the mornings she had to force herself up and out of bed because she could hardly deal with him not being there, because at least she still had him. She couldn't even count the number of women she knew who had been in love with a man who wasn't in love with them and were forced to let him ago. At least Draco was still her friend. She wanted more from him—so much more—but she could deal as long as she still had him.
It was then that she realized how much freaking space he took up in her life. There was Draco, and then there was Draco. And more Draco. And more freaking Draco.
With Harry and Ron having their own lives and wives and professions, there wasn't much room left for her. They'd been growing apart for years, her relations with Draco Malfoy being one of the main reasons for it. While they were still in school, they'd thought that she and Draco were only friends and Hermione was glad for it; they would've been apoplectic if they'd know all of what they were doing. Her schooling in France had pretty much killed the friendship. She hadn't talked to them in years.
She had her colleagues from work, and a few girlfriends she wasn't quite as close to as she could be, but honestly, she really didn't have any friends. Draco was all she had. She was his best friend, and he was hers. She was just in love with him, was all.
And they she met Terry Boot.
Terry was… Terry was cool. He was handsome, intelligent, and had enough of a mystery about him to keep her interested. She didn't feel for him half of what she felt for her best friend, but she reasoned that it was because she and Draco set of blaring red lights on the Compatibility Scale, and, in general, that tended to be a once in a lifetime thing.
Terry had been in their year back at Hogwarts—a Ravenclaw—though Hermione had never known or even noticed him. He'd noticed her, of course. No one was willing to admit that they didn't know who Hermione Granger was. Forget that she'd been Harry Potter's best friend—her hair was an atrocity known to every man, woman, and child on the campus. He'd always thought her pretty, he claimed, though never felt he was in a position to approach her. It wasn't until the Ministry's Muggle Integration Celebration—a celebration of the advances made in blending the cultures and lessening the fear between the two groups—that he had. He had congratulated her on the award she'd received that evening for the informational seminars she'd set up a few years before for the parents of Muggleborn children. (Draco liked to say it was a clear warning sign of what shite was going to becoming of the relationship. Those seminars had brought her nothing but trouble.) They ended up talking for half the night.
Terry was an excellent conversationalist. Perhaps not as witty as Draco—and definitely lacking his smooth-as-silk tone—but Hermione genuinely enjoyed talking with him. They had common interests, and she found his job as a researcher at a pharmaceutical company in Surrey interesting. They never ran out of things to talk about on their dates, albeit they were heavy and sometimes boring things. Their conversations had the propensity to leave her fatigued with an aching head, and Hermione sometimes longed for a simplistic conversation on the inane things going on in their lives at the moment without it turning into some huge, challenging debate. But Terry was not the kind of man who talked about inane things, and Hermione wasn't the kind of woman who tried to change a man. She simply dealt with his seriousness—the same way she tried to deal with his jealousy, and how completely maddening he could be when he began to whine over the tiniest of things.
Hermione hadn't spared Terry's jealousy and whiny nature much thought initially; after all, Draco possessed them in abundance no matter how much he tried to deny it. But Terry Boot and Draco Malfoy were completely different men. While she had noticed all of his unattractive traits while they were dating, she hadn't seen the true monster he was until they were already married.
While Draco's jealousy was reserved to rigid posture, glares, and—if applicable—pulling her into his arms, Terry would just stand and watch the behavior that was twisting him into all sorts of odd angles, his face blank as ever. And then, later, when they were alone, he would tell her in a very calm voice that he had been offended by her actions and was very disappointed. She would try to explain that she hadn't been doing anything wrong however he would never hear anything of it. In Terry's book, simply smiling at a joke a male coworker of hers had made was considered flirting. He always accused her of errant behavior when she'd done absolutely nothing wrong, and then hold up a hand in a gesture to get her silent when she tried to explain what had happened.
And, well. No one was going to shut Hermione Granger up with a hand. She'd start yelling then, and the smarmy bastard would actually have the nerve to walk away from her! She'd follow him, of course—because she was Hermione Granger and if she had something to say to you, you were damn well going to listen. And you know what Terry The Unbelievable Arse would do next? He'd go in their room, close the door, and lock her out.
And damn him to hell, but he was a smart fuck. No spell she tried would unlock the damn door. She'd played around with the idea of blasting the thing down, but it was her bloody flat. She would be the one billed for charges if she destroyed it, and Hermione didn't want to give Terry the satisfaction of seeing her lose her cool in such a… explosive—and expensive—manner.
He was another man who thought she had no impulse control. She wanted to kill him in an entirely different way than she wanted to kill Draco.
She'd slept on the couch in the sitting room more times than she had fingers and toes before she swallowed her pride and—though it was a subconscious decision at the time—went to Draco about it.
- - - - - - - -
"Why do you want me to spend the day with you?"
"It's Valentine's Day."
She snorted. "As if you really gave a horse's arse about that."
He playfully smacked her on the bum, and she yelped. He tutted at her patronizingly. "Language, darling."
"Oh, now you complain about my language," she grumbled. "You seemed to get off on it last night."
"Yes, well, that was last night. I don't want to hear any of that from you now."
"I fail to see the point you're trying to make."
"Are you going to talk dirty to me now?"
She snorted again. "Definitely not."
"Well, then it's definitely unacceptable."
Hermione laughed despite herself.
"You do realize that the longer we lie here, the later we are for work, right?"
"I already told you that I didn't care. But, from the sheer number of times you've brought up the time, I know you do."
"Of course I do."
He sighed. "Getting up, then?"
She drew in a deep breath through her nose, taking in his scent. She released it quickly, and he shivered when it blew against his neck. She smiled, and kissed the pale skin. "Not just yet."
- - - - - - - -
She blamed herself partially for what happened next.
It was a matter of pride and miscommunication. Looking back at it now… well, fine. She blamed herself completely for what happened next.
But he hadn't made it easy. In fact, he'd only made everything worse.
He was just so sensitive—such a freaking girl.
But she was a bitch. A big one. That was indisputable.
- - - - - - - -
Because the blond bombshell had told her she was making a big mistake by marrying Boot, Hermione hadn't initially told him about her marital problems. She had absolutely no doubt that he would be there for her—which, seriously, was what she needed. It sounded petty to call it a pride issue, but that was completely what it was about—her pride. She always had a particularly sour taste in her mouth when he was right and she wasn't, but for awhile Hermione wasn't sure if she could bear for him to be right about this. He was right, but to let him know it… she didn't think she could ever do that. She'd avoided him dutifully after her wedding sending him quick missives that things were great and she was completely busy and would get back to him later. He'd known something was up, but Hermione didn't think he suspected that her marriage had gone down the commode shortly after she'd said "I do."
Four months into her marriage she was haggard with frustration. Five months in, she was ready to kill herself.
Besides, how were you supposed to tell the man you wanted to be with—who loved you but didn't want to be with you back—that the man he'd explicitly told you would make you miserable was, in fact, making you miserable?
Merlin, it hurt just thinking about it.
It was about more than just her pride though; it was about his. They both knew she was trying to get over him. It was nothing but sheer rotten luck that the first man she happened to pick to spend the rest of her life with was a complete and utter dud. Draco's head was already far too big as it was. If he had anything else to be smug about, it was bound to explode. And she found his head far too pretty to let that happen.
Not that she was saying that Draco delighted in her pain. Well, okay, she was saying that, bust she didn't really believe it. Not really. She knew him well enough to know that he'd be deeply concerned for her. Her wouldn't point and laugh at her until later. She was just willing to convince herself of anything to avoid talking to him.
It was just so wrong—so unfair. Why wouldn't she find herself a nice, pleasant loser to settle down with? Other women seemed to find them in abundance—guys they loved, but loved the security they provided more. She and Terry got on well as friends, but sweet Circe, couldn't she be romantically compatible with more than one person? She'd said before that she and Draco sent off blaring red lights on the Compatibility Scale, but couldn't it be that way with someone else? Not blaring red lights again—God only granted individuals few favors in life, and between wishing for Voldemort's defeat, to get accepted into Madame Boudoir's School of Applied Transfiguration, and to always have Draco in her life (stupid, stupid her. She should've wished to keep him permanently locked in her closet), she figured she'd used up all her favors with the big guy long ago—but still. "Jackpot" couldn't be the only level on the goddamn scale. Couldn't there be something else, something more subtle? Something in the middle?
If there was, either Hermione simply hadn't found her middle guy yet, or Merlin had decided to forgo making her one. Either way, she was pretty fucked.
Then, one night about five months after her wedding, she had gotten particularly pissed off after an argument between her and Terry. And she just… snapped. Terry had told her she was spending too much time at work and not enough time at home attending to her "wifely" duties. They'd slept together about four times since their honeymoon. Each time had occurred in the week directly following the holiday.
It hadn't been much of an argument. It had been more of Terry telling her something in that infuriatingly calm manner that he did and her screaming in his face. That made it sound like it was completely her fault but really, it wasn't. If you actually heard the things he said to her—"Hermione, you were five minutes late today", "Hermione, my steak isn't cook fully through", "Hermione, you didn't starch and iron my breeches this week", "Hermione, are you having an affair with Neville?"—you'd understand why she was so upset with him.
She hadn't had sex in months. She absolutely couldn't stomach to sleep with the man. If she were counting back to her last good shag, then… well. She hadn't had good sex in over a year. For him to stand there and complain to her—the self-proclaimed sex fiend—that he wasn't getting enough had sent her positively over the edge. She could've strangled him that night. She hadn't—to hell with the bastards who said she and no impulse control—and in an impossibly rare occurrence, she walked away from him.
Without even thinking, she went straight to Draco's flat. It said something about their relationship that in spite of her pain and need to keep her problems—this problem—from him, she went straight to him anyway.
- - - - - - - -
"Mrs. Weasley has invited me over for tea next Wednesday afternoon."
"What?" she exclaimed.
"Mrs. Weasley invited me over for—"
"No, I heard you, but—what?"
"That's what I said."
"Did you accept?"
"Of course."
Hermione groaned. "Why?"
"Because I think she's plotting against you, and I'd love any helpful hints I could get on ways to entice you into a nice, long, inescapable relationship with me."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm in that sort of relationship with you already."
"You know what I mean."
- - - - - - - -
That night—yes, shit always happened at night with them; good grief—was agonizing, to say the least. She had a key to his flat, and given that his wards were automatically configured to allow her into the dwelling, she let herself right in.
She didn't question whether or not he'd be home—it was two in the morning, but Draco was known for keeping later hours at times—or if he was busy. She didn't even question if he'd been alone or not. All she knew was that she had to get away from her husband—that she had to stop hiding the fact that she was unhappy. She needed to talk, to cry—to be held by someone who would hold her while she sobbed and ask questions later.
She needed Draco.
The entire flat was dark when she came in. Hermione didn't bother with turning on any lights. She could hear a faint murmuring coming from the direction of the bathroom, and with a single-mindedness she regretted to this day—impulsive indeed, it seemed—she'd marched straight to the door, only beginning to consider the possibility that he may have had a guest when she hard the husky tone of his voice and an undeniably feminine laugh. And, given the time of night it was, his visitor was very much into entertainment of the horizontal sort.
Hermione had walked in on Draco plenty of times before. No surface was off limits in his mind, and because she never had the decency to knock, she often found him engaged with one of his many lady friends on unorthodox places such as the kitchen table, or counter, or bathroom wall, or—her favorite—the entryway floor. He was out on the town often, however it suddenly hit her then that he could get married. He could find a woman he could settle down with, be with. Fuck, he could find a woman he loved more than he loved her.
It felt as if someone had shoved a knife straight through her chest. White-hot pain seared through her, and she could feel all hope she'd found in the world after she'd realized he didn't want her seep like blood out of the proverbial wound. She couldn't breath, and all she could think of was how wrong this was, of how wrong she had been.
She thought that all because he was her somebody, she should automatically be his. But life—the bloody world—wasn't like that. Couldn't be halfway fair at all.
All because he set off blaring red lights on her Compatibility Scale didn't mean she did the same on his. And it was such a sad realization, because mother always told her that people came in pairs; that they were lost for awhile when they were born, but when they found each other, they would know—in their hearts and souls and with every breath they took—that they were meant to be. Mother had also told her stories of brave knights and princesses throwing long flowing locks of hair out of towers for their saviors to climb up, but still. With all her heart and soul, Hermione had believed this—that Draco was the one for her.
And what fucking shit that was. A woman fell in love with a man, a man fell in love with her, then man fell in love with someone else—fell in love with someone else more.
It was too dramatic to even be a soap opera. It had to be Hermione's life.
She remembered stumbling and bumping into a picture frame on the wall, causing it to fall and shatter. She could hear the startled gasp from Draco's female friend; could practically feel his wariness from his stony silence. Hermione took a step back, the glass from the broken frame crunching under her shoe. The bathroom door opened then, and she was momentarily blinded by the light. She put her hand over her eyes and took another step back.
"Granger?" He sounded surprised, relieved, and confused all at once. Hermione squinted at him, his figure very blurry to her eyes. He was too big, too bright—the light seeming to reflect off the exposed skin of his arms and torso, off his hair. Almost like an angel, she thought. Always there, but always out of reach. Her vision clouded even further, and his image began to fade. She blinked, and it was then that she realized she was crying. "Granger, what's—?"
"I'm sorry, Draco," she said quickly, cutting him off. Her voice was strained and heavy with tears. "I didn't know you had—" She could see a dark-haired woman peek out from the bathroom door "—company." She waved tremulously at the woman, forcing herself to smile. The woman stared, and Hermione shook her head and took another step back. "I-I'll come back later." Hermione turned on her heel and started back down the hall.
She had to get away from here. She had to get away from here.
She had to get away from here—now.
She managed to get to the kitchen before he grabbed her arm. She tried to pull away, however she knew better than to believe that she could escape his grip. She used to take pride in the knowledge before, however now it was a very scary thing.
She'd be in the same situation with him for the rest of her life.
Oh, God.
Hermione could feel that stabbing pain in her chest again. Her eyes screwed shut, a pained expression coming over her face as she tried to breathe.
"Granger?" Granger, Granger, Granger. What the bloody hell did he want? Why wouldn't he stop saying her name?
And it wasn't even her name! Not really. He didn't feel comfortable calling her "Hermione" on a day to day basis. Yeah, he sure loved her.
"Come on," he said, his voice easy and good-natured. He pulled her back towards him. She hadn't the strength to put up any resistance, and came crashing into his chest. He caught her easily. "Don't be like that. You've seen me entertaining far too many times to be shy about it now." He looked down at her with a familiar lazy grin on her lips. It seemed to drive the knife deeper into her chest and she released a pained sound. The grin disappeared from his face immediately, and he looked down at her, puzzled. "Granger?"
She tried to turn away, pull away, however he held her firmly in place. "It's fine, Draco. We can talk about it tomorrow, okay?"
He touched her cheek then, an almost horrified expression coming over his face when he realized his fingers were wet. "What happened?" he asked tersely, all traces of amusement now gone from his face, voice.
"I told you already—it's fine." She tried to pull away again, this time using more strength. She could smell his scent coming off him in waves, and it was bloody fucking intoxicating. Her need to flee increased, rising with her silly contradicting urge to just bury her face in his chest and cry until all the bad things went away.
His grip was unyielding and his eyes unreadable as they stared into her clouded brown irises. "It's him, isn't it?"
Shock raced through her like a bolt of lightning. "What are you talking about?"
She said it far too quickly for it to come off in the baffled manner she was aiming for, and, as expected, Draco wasn't convinced by her mediocre performance.
He sent her an incredulous look then released her, sighing as he ran a hand through his hair. "I knew this would happen…"
She was really confused now. The possibility of him knowing what was going on suddenly dawned on her, and fear washed over her like a vat of cold water. He couldn't know—he couldn't. She'd never been a convincing liar, and she hadn't spent much time with him over the past months in fear that he'd be able to read the truth on her skin. But she'd made sure not to let anything slip when she was around him. She'd spent hours in the mirror practicing faces and smiles and laughs and the easy statements she'd use to avoid his questions.
No, he couldn't have known. He had to be confused.
Hermione took a moment to compose herself. "I beg your pardon?"
"This—you coming here crying. I knew it would happen eventually." She felt frozen in place. Sweet Merlin, he could know.
Hermione could feel each individual degree her body temperature increased, sweat accumulating on her forehead and beneath her armpits as her hands grew slick with the salty liquid. Her thoughts were a repetition of exclamations to the deities above for mercy, and vaguely she recognized that she was probably in the beginning stages of a panic attack.
Draco smiled at her patiently, putting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing in what she assumed was supposed to be a comforting gesture. Even in her crazed state, she wanted more than the simple touch; her insides squirmed with the need to launch herself into his arms and stay there for the rest of her life.
But, oh. He was talking.
"…because things have been going smashing between you and Terry lately—"
Wait… Hermione blinked a few times, and her confusion returned in full force. "What?"
"—so I know this must be a shock to you. Bet you never dreamed the two of you would have a disagreement in all your lives—"
"What?"
"—but real couples fight, Granger. You know that. You'll call him a right prat and hate him for a few hours, he'll apologize, and things will be grand for the two of you again—"
Wait, wait, wait. Hermione's brows furrowed in confusion. Was he serious? "Draco—"
"It's perfectly healthy for couples to disagree—that's what you would tell me if I—"
"Draco—"
"—not that I would be in this situation. McGonagall will let her hair down and dance the Merengue with Hagrid when I barge into you're your house at two AM crying over some broad, but—"
"Merlin, Malfoy, shut up!"
"What?" he asked, feigning ignorance for a moment and then smirking at her when he couldn't any longer. "Okay, I was being patronizing. I'm sorry." She continued to look at him as if he'd just asked her if she knew the muffin man. He sighed again, serious. "I was serious about what I said, Granger. Fighting is normal for couples."
"You…" Hermione said slowly, disbelievingly. "You have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Oh?" He arched a brow in question. He could sense her hostility, and didn't seem pleased by it. "Please enlighten me then, Drippy." He reached around her to the counter and handed her a napkin. She snatched it from him angrily, and he glared at her. "Look," he said grumpily, "I know you're upset, but you barged into my house in the middle of the night ruining my nighttime tryst with Camille. You don't have the right to snatch things from me."
Hermione wiped her nose and glared at him angrily. "Oh, forgive my poor manners, Master Malfoy. I forgot that I wasn't supposed to disturb the Lord of the Now Nonexistent Manor Because Your Madman Father Blew it Up when he's having a… a booty call with one of the many gold digging bints on his speed dial." She said the last part especially loud, hoping that Lady Camille heard her.
There was a distant gasp, and Draco looked back to the direction of the hall. He grabbed Hermione's arm and dragged her into the foyer, his eyes narrowed in anger when he finally looked at her. "Yes, and now that you've shouted loud enough to wake the bloody dead, do you mind telling me what your problem is?"
"What problem?"
"Don't play dumb with me, Granger. The problem that's brought you here at this ungodly hour of the night. I doubt it's for the same reason you used to visit me at two in the morning for, seeing as you're currently chained up in your happy old shoe with Boot and I already have entertainment for the evening."
"You're despicable."
"Don't spit names at me for making assumptions—"
"That's the fucking problem, Malfoy. You're making an assumption. You're always making assumptions."
"What can I say?" he said airily. "If it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck—"
"You're wrong."
"Am I?" he rejoined heatedly. "So you're not here because of a fight with Boot? You're not here because things aren't how you want them to be—how they should be in your eyes?"
Hermione was struck by a chord of truth in his words. "You don't understand…" It was obvious he had no idea what he was talking about, and yet he still somehow managed to get the story right anyway.
This was why he made assumptions, a voice in the back of her head told her—because he could get away with it.
"I understand perfectly, Granger. Have you forgotten how well I know you? I know that we haven't had much contact in the past months—"
Hermione took a step away from him, shaking her head at his words. "Stop." She absolutely did not want to hear this. She could tell by the tone of her voice what he was getting to, and she didn't think she could bear to hear it aloud.
Yes, she'd been ignoring him.
"—what, with you being busy being married and the like—"
Yes, she'd hurt him.
"Draco, stop." His words brought back the stabbing pain from before, and she felt positively sick. She wrapped her arms around her abdomen, resisting the urge to double over.
But God, couldn't he see? Didn't he understand?
"—playing the role of the happy housewife and all that—"
She had too. For the twisted reason her tortured mind came up with, he couldn't know.
She took another step away from him, finding her back flush against the door as she shouted, "Stop! "
"Why?" he snapped angrily, closing the gap between them. "Because I'm right? You've been avoiding me for fucking months, Hermione. You haven't been listening to me for months. I like to exist under the pretense that we are still friends, and you are going to listen to me now."
"Please—"
"Shut up, Hermione! For once in your life just shut up and listen to someone!"
She made a choking sound in the back of her throat, and she realized that she was crying again.
"I know you," he told her, voice low and gruff, heavy with his anger. "I know you like I know how to read and write, tie my shoes, spell my name. I know you like my face—like I know your face. I know you like you know Hogwarts: A History, like I know Weasleys have red hair, like I know I know my father is an arse and everyone's glad he's in jail. I know the way you talk, the way you laugh; the way you bite your lip when you're nervous, and each and every sound you make when I'm driving you over the edge. My knowledge of you is engrained, natural—easy. I know you better than I know myself, and I know that you've been avoiding me for the past months because I don't fit into your new, happy life."
Her eyes went wide, and she forcefully shook her head in the negative. "That's not—"
"Shut up!" he bellowed, cutting off her words. "Why won't you shut up? Why aren't you listening, Hermione?"
His voice seemed to vibrate through her, turning her insides to something she could no longer recognize. She momentarily shrank away from him in an uncharacteristic show of fear.
His face was pink with exertion, and his eyes nearly black with rage. She could honestly say that in all the time she'd known him, she'd never seen him this angry. She didn't know what she was thinking, or what he was thinking, or what the hell was going anymore. All she knew was that he needed to calm down.
"Draco, please." She reached out to him, her fingers brushing softly against his cheek. "Please calm down."
He slapped her hand away from his face, stepping away from her. "Draco—" She matched his steps and reached out to touch him again. His eyes flashed and he pushed her away from him, her back hitting the door with a i thud /i that seemed impossibly loud in the quiet house. Her teeth rattled together from the impact.
"Don't touch me!"
She couldn't define exactly how she was feeling at the moment. It went beyond shock, beyond fear. This had never happened before. He—he had never—
Hermione only realized that she'd stopped crying when she felt tears prickle in her eyes again. She stubbornly blinked them away. They would get her no where right now.
"Don't," he said again. "Just don't."
"Why not?" she asked meekly, still leaned against the door. The spot on her head that had made contact with the door began to throb.
"Because I'm tired, Granger. I'm fucking tired."
"What are you talking about?"
He looked at her incredulously. "Why?" he said angrily—seemingly to himself—as he turned and walked away from her. "Why don't you listen to me?"
"I was listening to you!"
He turned and stalked back towards her then. "Then why don't you know?" he said. "Why do you need to ask?" She didn't respond. "I know you, Granger. I fucking know you. You decide to forget about me while you gallop off into the sunset with your gallant fucking husband, but at the first sign of trouble, you come running back again. The only fucking reason you're here now is because you're having problems with your fucking nobody husband."
She was so shocked she couldn't even form a reply. Tears were streaming freely down at her face as she stared at him, defeated. "Just… stop," she said miserably. "Please, Draco. Stop."
"You've never been able to deal with things on your own," he continued, heedless of her pleas. He was telling the truth, she knew, and his words cut straight through her. Only her sense of pride kept her from hanging her head in shame. "You're as ignorant as a schoolgirl when it comes to relationships. You've run to me with every problem you've ever had with a man, expecting me to hold you and to touch you and to magically make all the shit in your life disappear." He looked at her as if he'd just realized she had an abnormal growth coming out of her nose, and didn't want to be associated with her because she did. "That's what you want now, isn't it?"
Yes, she wanted to scream. Yes! "No."
"You're a liar." He said it with so much conviction it scared her.
"So what?" she snapped. "So what!"
"Don't you get it? This is what I mean, Granger. It's always the same with you. I'm done. I won't let you use me again."
And, whoa. Wait just a second. Everything—her heart, the world, i time /i —seemed to stop, and Hermione had to replay his statement over in her mind again to be sure if she'd heard him correctly. Even after she did, she wasn't sure that she'd heard him right. There was a very long pause before she responded. "Excuse me?" she said, her expression, voice, stance—everything—screaming of her bemusement.
"You heard me," he repeated lowly. "I won't let you use me. My purpose in life isn't to be at your beck and call, dropping everything because you need a quick shag to make you forget that your life is shite."
"Use you?" she repeated, flabbergasted. "Use you? Are you—what are you—" She was so angry she could barely breathe, let alone articulate what she was thinking.
It was as if the Gates of Hell had just been opened. Something snapped inside of her; something broke—something died. And, just like that, she stopped caring. About him, and her, and this stupid, fucked up association they tried to call a friendship. She was beyond how could yous, how dare yous. She was beyond pain, and beyond tears.
At that moment, she honestly felt—believed—with every fiber of her being that she hated him.
"Are you serious? You've used me for years, Malfoy, and I never said a word about it!"
"Oh, don't come at me with that, Granger! Our arrangement was mutually beneficial. You were the one who came to me whenever you fucked things up with your boyfriend at the time and expected a shag to make it better."
"As if you didn't come to me as well!"
"I never pretended to be in real relationships. My partners knew that it was an open relationship. You led your guys on."
"You're a liar!"
"You're a tease!"
"You—" she said pointing at him, looking at him as if she hadn't known him nearly all her life. "All you care about—all you've ever cared about—is sex!"
"This is telling me a lot about our relationship if that is coming from my best friend."
"That's my point, Malfoy. I am your best friend. You're a narcissistic pillock who only cares about his pretty face and where he's getting it from next. You'll never find anyone good enough—that you'll love enough."
"Oh, that's rich coming from a woman who has no grip over her emotions whatsoever, has cheated on every single boyfriend she's ever had, and couldn't make a good decision if it stood in her face and shouted 'pick me'!"
"Screw you!"
"Oh, sod off, Hermione." He turned his back on her and began walking away again. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but don't you dare think that I'll stand here and let you insult me because you've had a fight with your beloved and life suddenly isn't the happy place you make it out to be."
"You don't get it at all!" she shouted at his back.
"No," he said, stalking back towards her and getting in her face. "I do get it. I get everything. That's the fucking problem."
She wasn't the least bit intimidated by his nearness this time, her fear of him having evaporated with any concern she may have had for his person. "If you understood half of what you thought you did, Malfoy, you wouldn't be the arsehole you are."
"Maybe I like being that arsehole."
She shook her head in disgust. "Just like your father…"
Even though she wanted nothing more to hurt him, she knew it was a low blow. But she had to say it. She needed to. Because when people are hurt and angry they have a need to make someone else just as hurt and angry as they are.
His body went rigid, and she could see the vein in his forehead practically throbbing with restrained rage. "Get out," he seethed.
"Gladly."
She had never heard a door slam quite as loudly in her entire life.
- - - - - - - -
TBC
