Prompt: HERA || MARRIAGE. FAMILY. CHILDREN.

Be here, by me,

Lady Hera, I pray

Who answered the Atreides,

Glorious kings.

-Sappho

Title: Gryffindor's Golden Girl(TM)
Rating: M
Word Count: 425
Warnings: Minor Character Death

Hermione snuck into Draco's flat and sneered. His wards didn't even alert him to her presence. Did he think so little of her that he'd stopped taking precautions?

She narrowed her eyes at the woman's wand lying next to his on the mantel. Seething with resentment, she holstered both and quietly headed upstairs.

Last month, Hermione's heart shattered. But the devastation caused by his affairs morphed into humiliation, knowing she'd ignored the signs.

All that was left was crackling fury.

She heard moaning as she approached Draco's bedroom.

Raising the nameless woman's wand, Hermione pushed the door open to see his long pale fingers digging into the flesh of shapely hips riding him. The vein in Hermione's forehead pulsed, and her throat constricted with unshed tears.

She couldn't help it. It hurt.

Gritting her teeth to hold back a sob, she hissed, "Avada Kedavra!"

Draco screamed, disentangling himself from the dead woman's limbs as she collapsed.

"Hermione!" he cried out in horror, scrambling off the bed. "What did you do?!"

"Did you ever love me?" Hot tears pricked her eyes. She didn't want to love him still.

"Yes!" His frantic gaze jumped between her face and the wand tip. "Of course I did!" Realizing his mistake, Draco staggered back. "I do!"

"You didn't," she ground out, unwanted tears spilling down her cheeks. "You loved the Golden Girl image. You loved corrupting me." Her chest hurt, recalling his passionate whispers and increasingly dirtier demands. Their relationship had been a hot, toxic mess.

She wished she didn't miss it.

"It was both!" His Adam's apple bobbed as Hermione stepped forward. "You wanted me to! Begged me!"

He alone understood her need to climb down from that golden pedestal. She thought he cared. It felt real.

"And now you're done and want to corrupt someone else," she choked.

"No," he pleaded, more calmly. "Hermione, you're not a murderer."

Gripping her wand, her knuckles whitened and he backed away. "You're not."

Draco clenched his fists, searching her face.

"You'll go to Azkaban," he warned.

"You don't know a sodding thing about me." He still thought she was this naïve little Golden Girl. Her skull throbbed with rage. "I planned this."

He blinked in horror, suddenly understanding the depth of her descent.

"The others don't mean anything! I lov–"

"Really?" her voice lilted with hope.

Draco's shoulders sagged in relief as she lowered the wand. He must think he won her over.

Her mouth twisted into a smirk once she saw that he realized where the wand was pointed.

"Diffindo."

Chapter end notes:

I know this isn't a drabble people want to read but COME ON GUYS.

HERA. THE PROMPT WAS HERA. (also, I don't do kid fics)

Lessons learned:

So I actually ran out of time on this one. I thought the deadline was midnight but it was 10 pm EST. I needed another hour, uninterrupted by kids. Things I needed to edit:

1) remove the use of 'Golden Girl' - readers understand I'm making fun of the nickname, no need to beat a dead horse. the title is enough

2) Hermione's emotions towards the end don't make sense. The sad rage was working. taunting him was jarring. It lessened the impact of the castration.

3) some clunky sentence structure here and there