AN: A million apologies that I did not update last week! Please do not put a curse upon my family! To make up for it, I will publish a teensy weensy epilogue soon, which I was not originally planning. Heck, I wasn't originally planning that this would become such a big thing for me. Your support means so much and I love you guys. It's because of you that this fic has more views than one of my M-rated fics.
Hermione awoke in one of her least favorite ways: with ruined mascara crusted onto her cheeks and mixed with her cheap pink lipstick. She sat straight up in bed, anticipating the rude call of Rocko but actually sighed when she realized the bird was still back in Hawaii. Hawaii. Everything came crashing back to her as she poured herself a bowl of Wheaties. She even missed that jealous chick, Zelda.
Usually, she liked making lists to sort out her priorities, but the only problem on the list that did not involve Draco was Crookshanks, so even though the sun had barely risen over London, she threw on some slacks and drove to the pseudo-slums where Ron lived. Passing by a drunk, she clip-clopped up the stairs in her Jimmy Choo heels, an upgrade from the terribly uncomfortable strappy sandals from yesterday. She still had cuts on her feet from wandering the parking garage with Draco.
Taped to Ron's door was an eviction notice dated with tomorrow's date. When Hermione knocked, the door swung open. The toerag had not paid his bills! What was wrong with him? And where was he! He had her cat! "Ronald!" Hermione screamed the vacant drywall. Nothing was left in the apartment apart from some newspapers even though Hermione was pretty sure that none of the furniture actually belonged to Ron. At her incessant screaming, something rustled in the bathroom and she rushed towards it, acting on impulse, with only her car keys to protect her.
Thankfully it was Crookshanks who lay curled up in the shower curtain. Hermione scooped him up in her arms and cuddled him to her face even though he smelled like spilt beer and cigarette smoke. Great, now Ron was smoking! Thinking of the apartment's next unfortunate occupant, she hung up the fallen curtain before escorting her cat to the door without bothering to look for leftover food in the disgusting hovel.
She heard clip-clops on the stairs and stopped at the threshold to avoid being seen, but the door was still open. The visitor shouted, "Ron, are you back now? Ron, baby, I am so sorry that I did not come back last night, and I know you called to break up, but I thought we could-oh!" She dropped a bag of groceries when she practically ran into Hermione at the top of the stairs. "Sorry!" The blond model scrambled to pick up a bag of apples as Hermione launched into apologies, too.
"I'm Heidi." The girl extended a French-manicured hand. "We got off on the wrong foot the last time we met. I was terribly hungover. Do you remember me?"
Even though the girl was now fully clothed in a black pant suit with ruby necklace and a shopping bag balanced on her hip, it was impossible for Hermione not to remember her. "Yes, I'm Hermione."
Heidi nodded. "I know. Ron talked about you an awful lot. Speaking of which, where is he now?" She ducked her head into the empty apartment as Hermione stepped aside in guilt.
"Oh, gosh!" Heidi dropped the bag again as her hand flew to her mouth in shock.
Hermione pointed to the eviction notice and cuddled Crookshanks closer to her. "I'm sorry."
The other girl started pulling at her perfectly straight hair with her perfect nails and muttered, "He always said that he was going to move out, but I thought at least he would tell me! I knew we had a fight when he found out that I had slept with that Sam guy, but it was just once! I never thought! No! How long has this been here? She redirected her anger to the yellow slip of paper as tears started to fall onto the dusty ground. Hermione untangled a hand from Crookshank's fur to hold the other girl's hand and lead her down the stairs to her car where she calmly started the engine while the model cried.
"You loved him too, didn't you?" She asked Hermione as she smeared her makeup in trying to wipe away the tears.
She shrugged, somewhat in shock at this crazy turn of events. "Once I did, but someone helped me realize that it was time to move on."
Heidi raised her eyebrows but could not hold the pose long before lapsing into tears again.
"Men suck," Hermione announced with her hands in the air while they were at a red light. Even Crookshanks meowed in agreement. "You think they like you and then they abandon you. You take them for a nice guy and then they won't tell you why they almost died in a dark alley before you saved them!" She climbed out of the car once at her apartment and left Heidi to follow at her leisure which she did, if only to hear the rest of Hermione's story.
"You're not just talking about Ron anymore, are you?"
Hermione sighed with her key in the lock. She had severely underestimated this girl. She had smarts. "No, let me start at the beginning." She let them all three into the apartment and put on the kettle for breakfast tea. "I work with a man named Draco at a travel agency. One of our clients gifted us a trip to Hawaii. During the trip, Draco would not stop bugging me about my past with Ron after I found out that he had been disowned under mysterious circumstances and turned to prostitution to survive. Then, on the last day of the trip, I saved him from being beaten to death in a dark alley and he wouldn't tell me what was going on." She opened the pastel drapes in the sitting area and curled up on the white couch that matched the pine flooring. "We had good times, though. Saw some sea turtles. Went to a volcano. Spent a lot of time on the beach."
The hot pink kettle whistled a happy tune and Hermione sprung up before asking Heidi what flavor tea she preferred. The blond responded gray and started cutting one of the apples from her bag.
"But the bad outweighs the good right now, and the worst part is that I have to go back to work on Monday."
Heidi shrugged as she cut out a bruised part of the apple. "You could take a day off," she suggested, but Hermione laughed at it as she poured the hot water.
"I don't really take days off of work. The vacation was a huge decision for me." She dropped two tea bags into rainbow-striped mugs on the formica counter. "Maybe a bad decision. I don't know."
Heidi grabbed her hand before she could grab the pot of sugar from a shelf above her. "If you had fun with this guy, it was not a bad trip. If you learned something, it was not a bad trip. And if it was not a bad trip, you should not let anything keep you from working. I get the feel that you're one of those people who actually like working."
Hermione blushed but nodded before presenting her guest with some lemon juice before realizing that she had not breakfast food that was edible after the week long vacation, so they reclined on the plush couch with just tea.
"But the worst part is... I think I started developing feelings for him. Which is weird because we were always enemies in school, and I had never thought of him like that. It hurts, but I have to let that go, just like I let Ron go."
Heidi opened her pinkish lips to say something but closed them before deciding to add, "You will do what you have to do. You are a very smart girl for your age." She sipped her tea without realizing how many times Hermione had heard that before.
The bookworm was about to run to the corner store for some fatty ice cream before settling down to watch a chick flick with her new friend when a sea turtle floated into her room in a a blue-grey orb of light. Heidi looked over the edge of the couch and shrugged, explaining, "I know about the magic stuff" as the patronus started to speak.
"Hermione, it's me, Draco. We need to talk. Please come to work on Monday. I can explain everything now. Please trust me."
The turtle vanished in a wave of light and Hermione stood there, shocked. "Wow. He once told me that he had never produced a patronus, but now he can, and it was a sea turtle which I kept talking about in Hawaii."
Heidi slammed her rainbow mug onto the glass coffee table and threw up her hands. "Well, then it's settled! You have to go to work on Monday, now!" Hermione blushed.
Usually, Hermione did not care what she wore, especially to work, but as her feelings for Draco repaired themselves and even grew every time she thought of the implications of his patronus, she grew more and more sure that today's outfit would have to be stellar: something sexy, but not slutty, classy, but not pretentious. She wished that Heidi was still there to help her, but the other girl had left that past night to go find Ron and do some explaining just like Draco.
Crookshanks batted at the hem of a short skirt that she had bought on impulse when shopping with Ginny for the last time before she got married. Hermione scooped up the cat to think clearly and then swiftly put him on the bed to avoid getting covered in cat hair. It was 6:50. Work started at 7:00. Even if she apparated, she would need to choose something fast.
The cat jumped down from the bed and ran in front of her as she took a step towards her meager closet. Hermione tripped over his striped tail and flailed her arms forward to avoid falling flat on her already self-conscious face. Her hands grabbed onto the sleeve of something silky that almost slid from her grasp as she stood up. The silky sleeve belonged to a dress she had bought to wear when she told her parents that she had erased their memories.
Well, today could turn out to be another important milestone in her crazy life, so the lacey orange sherbet dress with soft sleeves seemed suited for the day.
Crookshanks ogled her as she slipped into her nicest, white lace strapless bra for before sliding into the dress and throwing on a pair of flats that she rarely wore because they hurt her feet; she spritzed on some perfume for good measure. The cat meowed her right as she popped out of sight.
The whirl of apparating could not compare to how Hermione was feeling as she landed in her stark white office with its huge windows and pictures of travel destinations. Draco did not even have to look up as she arrived because he had already been staring at her desk since he got there, waiting for her to show up. Hermione muttered a hello and immediately cast her eyes downward to avoid his blank, blue stare.
"Hey, Hermione." He stood up at his desk, looking dashing in a classic black button-up and grey slacks. Then he sat down. "I have some things to tell you. I have not been entirely truthful with you. You may want to sit down."
She swallowed, clutching at her neck for some imaginary necklace to fiddle with to calm her nerves. Her trembling fingers pulled out the dormant desk chair, and she slid into it with her hands now in her lap where he could not see her shaking.
"There are three main things we need to discuss, or, rather, that I have to tell you. 1. Why I was disowned. 2-"
"I thought it was because you saw the error in your ways and-"
"No," Draco whispered, just barely shaking his head, not resorting to his usual anger when dealing with Hermione's interruptions as he had done while they were at Hogwarts. "2. The circumstances that led to us going to Hawaii. 3. Who those men were in the alley that beat me up."
Hermione bit her lip to keep from interrupting. The sound of his voice had become soothing especially when he spoke at such a subdued tone with no frustration in his speech, maybe just more... anxiety.
"I know I said them out of order, but it may make the most sense to start with number two." Both of the adults had dealt with countless people in their lives and careers, but their was a strange silence that covered them and brought a dark tone to the usually light office. Hermione thought to turn on the lights, but they were already on. "So, the trip. Mr. Zabini was never going to Hawaii."
"But you were on the phone with him, and-"
"Fake phone call. It was a spell I picked up. So, I really planned the whole thing. The planes, the room, the dinner. I apologize for the annoying bird and the carnivorous luau. I had no idea."
"It's fine." Hermione shrugged even though her mind was turning flip flops as she thought of possible reasons that would make Draco create a fake trip. Did he really want to get to Hawaii that badly? Then why had he taken her?
"Thank you." He placed his hands on top of his desk and then let them fall to his sides as he continued, "I planned it to spend time with you. Which leads me into number one, no, wait, three. Number three: those men were Death Eaters who beat me up for the same reason my parents disowned me and also for the fact that I was disowned."
Hermione swallowed, lowering her eyes from his straight gaze that had barely shifted since her arrival.
"Which brings me to number one. When I was in Italy with my parents, I decided that I wanted to tell them something. As you may know, I was destined to marry the Greengrass girl. I like Astoria, but I could never envision a life with her that would give me any happiness. I told them that I did not want to marry her, and they almost laughed it off. They asked who I would marry instead. They thought there were few other eligible girls, so when I said, "Hermione Grainger," they stopped laughing. They really stopped laughing when I told them that I loved you."
I loved you. I loved you. I love you. I love you.
Finally, Draco broke his gaze and walked around his desk to the middle of the office where he stood with his hands spread wide in hopes of acceptance. "That's the trifecta. I guess I'll be going, then. I'll leave the company if you don't want to deal with all this baggage." He let his hands fall to run them through his silky hair and turned to walk away.
Only in his wildest dreams could he have guessed what happened next, and his dreams were very wild sometimes.
Hermione flew from behind her desk to where he was standing to strangle him in a hug and bury her face into the collar of his shirt. His arms relaxed around her.
"I love you, Hermione."
She looked up at him, hazel meeting blue like how the land meets the water. "I think I could fall in love with you, Draco."
He laughed. "That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me."
Draco grabbed her under the chin with his pureblood fingers and brought her lips to his in a tentative kiss, afraid that she might pull away due to his forwardness, but instead she returned the feeling and pressed her lips into his.