Trigger warning: brief mention of miscarriage

—

1.5 years after the war:

She ended up in Spain for a while after that steamy night with Charlie. They left on great terms and even shared the occasional letter while she traveled. Ginny was beside herself with amusement that Hermione had had a one night stand with her brother and wouldn't stop teasing Hermione about the fact that Hermione only liked Weasley men. Joking that her sexual experience was 100% Weasley. Which was, in fact, true.

Hermione didn't feel guilty about it, after all, every witch deserves to have a bit of a wild period, but she was starting to worry about herself. She was floundering. The travel only did so much to help her forget the war. She was restless and couldn't stay in one place for too long. She constantly needed different distractions and the distractions she took up, weren't always the most positive. She was at least that self aware.

She wasn't the same, and she didn't really know who she was anymore. Nothing brought her out of the loneliness that had taken over her. She made rash decisions without thinking things through. Gave into vices without being logical, partied with strangers, drank heavily, and acted foolish, living excessively for no reason.

Or else she went to the opposite extreme and isolated herself completely for weeks, not eating, not showering, not speaking to a soul, only reading book after book after book and drinking only coffee to sustain her. She alternated lifestyles so quickly, you'd think she had multiple personalities, but really she was just searching for something to make her happy again. Neither lifestyle satisfied her. When she acted free and partied she desperately wanted to be alone but when she was alone she wallowed in the fact that no one truly loved her or cared enough about her to be with her. Both choices left a deep longing that bore into her bones. An itch she couldn't quite scratch. There wasn't a chance of her trying to find a balance to it all. Logically she knew she needed to, but instead she kept making those same choices over and over again, making her miserable.

She was quite sure she was depressed and that only furthered her anxieties. The wizarding world didn't have therapists and it wasn't like she could seek out a muggle one. Honesty was a factor in healing she was quite sure. So she ignored it, and floundered, and self medicated, and binged on excess, before quickly depriving herself into her isolation. It was not healthy behavior, but a pattern she gave into for months. She didn't even recognize herself as she acted and knew younger Hermione would kick her fucking arse, but she didn't care and the apathy was maybe the worst part.

The celebrity only made it worse. She stopped writing Harry altogether. Frankly, she needed a break from him. From them. From everyone she knew. Wasn't there anyone that didn't care about her golden trio status and her part in the war. That kind of celebrity was everything she hated. No one ever saw her as just Hermione. Not that Hermione even knew who she was anymore.

Hermione lay on the beach in Valencia reading when a shadow crossed over her tan skin. She looked up towards the figure and was blinded by the sun. She stood up and took off her sunglasses.

"FUCK! Hermione?" The figure said leaning in to get a closer look.

Hermione blinked recognizing the figure at once.

"Hello Pansy."

—

1.5 years after the war:

Suffice it to say Pansy did NOT save her. If anything Pansy made the situation worse. The brunette Slytherin loved Hermione's new apathetic wild side, laughing her arse off at every outlandish "UnHermione" thing she did.

The only positive thing Pansy seemed to bring to the table is that she would no longer let Hermione bury herself in isolation or wallow in her misery. Pansy completely ignored Hermione's need to be alone.

The second sentence out of Pansy's mouth had been, "You look like shite Granger."

Pansy waved her wand over Hermione until she was clean, her hair looked great, and her book was thrown into the ocean.

"Hey!" Hermione protested.

"You've read it a million times anyway. Get over it." Pansy pointed her wand at Hermione.

She surveyed Hermione with a deep calculating eye. "What in Merlin's name am I going to do with you?"

So they started traveling together. Every morning Pansy would ask, "On a scale from 1- shite how are you?"

"8.5," she'd reply, "8.5" every time. Turns out Pansy was suffering from her own shite and empathized with Hermione greatly. They didn't mention the war, or Harry, or Pansy's break up with Draco, or Hermione's with Ron. Or parents of any kind. Instead they DID.

Every day was something different. Like Hermione, Pansy didn't seem to want to stay still. They traveled all over Asia together learning to speak different languages and cook different cuisines, then Africa where they went on a month long safari and worked at an African elephant sanctuary to help rehabilitate elephants, then Australia. The day they observed Hermione's parents from afar was the day Hermione replied "straight shite" to Pansy when Pansy asked, "On a scale from 1- shite, how are you?"

Pansy just hugged her and sat with her until Hermione portkeyed them to France, without another word, they moved on. The south of France was lovely, and Hermione needed to be there to replace memories of time spent with her parents.

"So a couple of my friends have a yacht they rented for the weekend, are you interested?"

"Sure, of course, but only if they have champagne," Hermione grinned at Pansy.

"Theo practically lives off champagne. There will definitely be champagne," she grinned.

"Theo? Theo Nott? From school?" Hermione asked.

"Yes." Pansy replied, daring Hermione to make a biased comment about Slytherin.

"Oh! Okay. Sounds good, I've never really met him before." She sounded thoughtful, "I look forward to it."

—

Present day:

Hermione woke with what felt like a hangover. The events of yesterday playing over and over in her mind. She felt a sense of relief at her secret finally being revealed to her closest friends but a sense of panic at what the day held.

She had to swallow her pride to meet Draco at the ministry and convince him to postpone the wedding and to apologize to him. The truth was that she did see a future with Draco. He understood her and made her feel happy, but it was just a crush, a small crush that could be nurtured into love if ever she finally let Theo go.

She supposed she would have to meet with Theo as well, which was her worst nightmare come true. Not to mention explaining to Draco exactly what went on with Theo, reliving her break up, reliving the miscarriage, reliving the pain.

She sighed. "Might as well make a list to fix all my fuck ups" she mumbled quietly as she got out of bed. She still had an hour before she was to meet Draco.

My fuck up list:

Apologize to Draco, explain Theo

Talk to Theo- cry a million tears

Yell at Harry some more

Forgive Harry

Move on and be happy with Draco

She bit the end of her quill thinking. Adding one more item to her list:

Figure out how to get along with my in laws

There. That was better. Nothing like a good list to ease some of her anxieties. She showered, throwing on a plain set of black robes, and headed to the floo.

"Ministry of Magic!" She shouted.

Draco was standing in the entrance wearing beautifully tailored dress robes the color of onyx. The color was harsh against his skin and when Hermione looked into his eyes she saw anger and pain peering out at her. Standing next to him was Narcissa, dressed in the palest pink, she looked refined and her expression was guarded.

"Draco," Hermione said rushing towards him. "I'm so sorry,"

"The least you could do is dress up for our wedding day!" He snapped. She pulled him towards the edge of the room.

"I don't want to get married today." She said softly, her eyes pleading for forgiveness. "Can we just go somewhere to talk about this."

"You know, your apology really means shite to me right now. You don't want to get married, Fine! Tell me when the big day is and I'll show up like a bloody whipped idiot." He was almost shouting now.

A throat cleared. "Perhaps we should consider this another day, seeing as there is somewhat of an audience including the press, might I recommend Draco darling that you give Hermione her engagement ring and answer a few questions before going somewhere quieter to discuss this?" Narcissa spoke calmly, always the ever Slytherin, using her cunning to turn the situation around.

Draco looked furiously at his mother, "of course mother," he roughly grabbed Hermione's hand to face the press.

The next few moments consisted of brilliant acting Hermione thought. Draco smiled and romantically got down on one knee, she squealed and took the ring from him, he twirled her around in his arms. Her heart broke a little at the way THIS would be their proposal story. They answered a few questions for the Prophet, smiling at each other in between each question. Then he kissed her hand and flooed away as quickly as humanly possible.

—

"You'll have to forgive Draco dear. He's never taken rejection well." Narcissa said looking at Hermione with an odd expression about her.

"It wasn't rejection…" Hermione started before Narcissa cut her off.

"Dear, would you accompany me to brunch? There is much I wish to say to you."

Hermione hesitated. Then remembering her list, "alright Mrs. Malfoy," She said before following her out of the ministry.

They were seated at a very nice restaurant in a private corner, and after ordering coffees Narcissa spoke, "I'm very dear friends with the Parkinson's. Did you know that?"

"Yes, Pansy mentioned it." In reality Pansy had many expletives to say on the subject but she didn't think that was going to win her any points to bring up.

"Ah, yes, well, as much as Pansy tried to run away from her family that year, they did keep quite close tabs on her. Did you know that dear?"

"Um, no, actually I didn't know that her family contacted her at all during that time."

"Oh no dear, they didn't contact her, they kept tabs on her. Quite the difference, I assure you. I was surprised to learn of the closeness between the two of you… and Theodore." Narcissa paused to survey her.

Hermione shifted in her chair and took a long drink of her coffee, trying to figure out how to respond.

"I don't mean to pry Miss Granger. It really is none of my business. I'd rather share with you a story of my own, if you don't mind."

Hermione nodded.

"After I graduated Hogwarts, I was betrothed to Lucius. We had a typical pureblood courtship, and all I can say is that I was indifferent to him at the time.

Oh he was wealthy and attractive of course. Everything I was raised to believe mattered, but I didn't quite feel affection towards him at the time. I was angry, truth be told, about the match.

I moved into Malfoy Manor, the summer before we were to be wed, it was vacant at the time and needed a complete overhaul to become my taste. I worked tirelessly with the manor's elves to get it ready.

Lucius and his friends would come and go, and it became sort of a meeting place for the burgeoning Death Eaters, not that I was aware of that aspect at the time. My sister frequented, of course, as did the Lestrange brothers, and others. One particular man started coming by a lot. My dear, how much do you know about Professor Snape?"

She choked. Snape? Professor Snape? Was Narcissa about to tell a torrid tale of a romantic love affair with Professor Snape?

"Well, nothing really. He was sort of private, wasn't he?"

Narcissa laughed then, and clutched her chest, with merriment in her eyes.

"Yes, Severus was quite a private man."

She looked off in the restaurant for a moment before continuing, " I can imagine you're putting two and two together so I'll cut to the chase, Severus and I had a beautiful two month affair in the manor.

He was tasked with brewing potions for The Dark Lord, and he needed a private brewing place, which the manor provided. Well, anyways, I won't go into the details about what happened. I'll just say this, I know what it's like to be conflicted. I know what it's like to be in love with one man, and marry another. To have no choice but to move forward with a plan not of your own volition. To settle for what you can have, and bury part of your heart forever."

Hermione cleared her throat, "Mrs. Malfoy, if I may be frank, I do believe you have the parallels of our stories incorrect. While I don't deny a past and love for Theo, and while I don't deny there are some similarities to our situations, and perhaps that I will always love Theo, there is a very big difference between your story and mine.

I genuinely adore Draco. I see myself married to him, and I am happy, we're a good match in fact. I just, never had any closure with Theo, and he's extremely angry with me for what happened between us. I don't know if I can move forward in my relationship with Draco until I deal with the mess from my past and my emotions that go along with it. Now I can tell Draco has put up a wall, he's just as angry with me as well. I'm not sure if he'll trust me enough to be okay with my relationship with Theo." Hermione sighed into her hands, surprised at how easy it was to talk to Narcissa.

Narcissa smiled with genuine affection, "I am truly happy to hear you say that. And I have a plan. A plan for you to deal with Draco."

She looked so angelic when she schemed thought Hermione. "I would be very grateful for your help Mrs. Malfoy."

"Narcissa, please."

"Alright, please call me Hermione."