Chapter 22
September 17, 2019
“I’m going to kill everyone who works here one day,” Pansy promised as they waited to get into Rayburn House Office Building in a never ending line of staff and interns. She was shaking her iced coffee in her perfectly manicured hand, exhaling like an angry bull every time they saw the police patting someone down inside who clearly had forgotten to take something out of their pocket.
It was remarkable how people acted like they didn’t know they needed to remove their phones and keys to make it through a metal detector without setting the thing off. It was also enough to make Pansy risk a very public and embarrassing arrest from one of the five cops on duty and in hearing range of the pair.
“Pansy!” Hermione smacked her friend, eyes shifting around nervously. The only person staring at them was a high school intern who looked disturbed at the outburst. They could deal with that much easier than someone with a gun and taser hooked around their hips. “You’re going to get arrested.”
“Thank God! I am ready and willing to be locked up, so long as I don’t have to go back to work.”
“You’re not happy to see Theo again?” Hermione asked, leveling her voice in a way Pansy seemed incapable of. “He was in the district forever.”
“And I thoroughly enjoyed a Theoless peace and an inbox that finally made its way down to zero!”
Hermione just patted Pansy’s shoulder, taking the hiss the girl shot her way in stride as they moved another person closer to being inside.
What she’d once found to be a comical coldness and emotional constipation was now disturbing. Pansy was going to screw everything up with Theo simply because she couldn’t process her own feelings.
Learning of Hermione’s engagement had only compounded Pansy’s internal struggle. While she had been initially overjoyed for her friend, she became withdrawn the next morning and had spent the last two weeks making snippy comments about how she didn’t want to live out her 20s without a single best friend.
She’d calmed down somewhat after Hermione snapped right back and said that she was more than happy for Pansy to find a best friend who better fit her needs, but then took to making comments about how a Vegas bachelorette party might have Hermione thinking twice about marriage before 25. Something about Thunder Down Under and a lap dance that Hermione didn’t want to touch with a fifty-foot pole.
As if she’d go to Vegas. Even mentioning the words ‘Vegas’ and ‘bachelorette’ in the same sentence would likely give Draco and Lucius fatal heart attacks.
Hermione was smart enough not to tell Draco what was going on over the past few weeks, though. The man would lose his mind if he knew that Pansy, who he always considered his staffer in his mind instead of simply seeing her as Hermione’s friend, had reacted with anything other than pure elation. He was far too black and white sometimes, and Hermione knew when to hide something from him. She only hoped that Pansy could keep her reactions in check once Draco landed in DC that afternoon.
Due to freak storms along the western seaboard that canceled flights in 13 states, including out of Seattle, Monday’s fly-in day was pushed to Tuesday that week. It gave Hermione and her colleagues an extra day of reprieve before settling back into the second week of the busy push before the end of the year. August recess had both moved at a glacial pace and flown by all at once, but Hermione enjoying the harried feeling a busy congressional schedule brought after a peaceful month and a half.
The morning flew by in the Jamesless office, and Hermione knew she wasn’t the only one relieved at both his absence and the fact that Tonks was too hungover to recount her weekend. Without the communications director’s babbling about this guy at that bar and their boss’ incessant questions about how their summers went, everyone was able to be surprisingly productive.
She was hyper-focused on writing up a debrief following a meeting with a local veterans group that afternoon when her personal phone buzzed with a second text from her grandmother. The woman had messaged her earlier, and Hermione ignored it, as she always did when she got communications that weren’t work related during her normal hours. If anyone really needed her they’d call, though a second text worried her a bit.
Her heart only dropped further when an email notification with the subject “Comment on father being relea…”floated into the bottom corner of her computer monitor. Without realizing what she was doing, she headed immediately upstairs and into Draco’s front office. She only startled back into herself at the sight of a wide-eyed intern at the desk where Pansy normally sat. If the boy’s shocked look was because she was shivering like she was freezing or because he was face to face with his boss’ partner, she had no idea.
“Is he in there?” she asked in a hoarse voice, trying to hold herself together.
The intern nodded before biting his lip, a flush building on his cheeks. “I will let the congressman’s chief of staff know you’re here, miss…”
It was a testament to how harried she was that she just walked straight into Draco’s office without sparing a thought for the poor kid who was just following protocol, not even feeling a sense of relief when she saw that he was in there alone with Adrian and Blaise. Her audience could’ve been so, so much worse.
The men all stood up immediately, looking up and down with concerned eyes as though they’d find her bleeding or limbless.
“Hermione?” Draco asked, looking torn between walking over to her and giving her space. The mortifying sob that bubbled up from her chest solved that internal conflict quickly, and the blond took a couple quick strides over to her before pulling her into his embrace and using his free arm to smartly shut the door behind her. During a session week, there was no telling who would walk into the front office, or, which she would realize later he likely feared more, when Pansy would come back to the office. “We’ll finish this later.”
“Heard,” Blaise replied quietly, and Hermione barely noticed that they were alone until Draco spoke again.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his gaze concerned even through her veil of tears.
Her chest swelled with fear, the panic of life finally coming to smack her in the face too much to bear. What a cute, little bubble she’d been living in.
She could handle the public’s scrutiny about her relationship knowing that Draco was firmly, obviously on her side, but this? The public learning of her family’s history? That would have any sane man running, especially one who had as much on the line as Draco did. He’d been a rock, unshakeable by anything and everything that had come their way. Hell, he’d only ever shown concern at her leaving him. Draco hadn’t thought twice about whether or not they were worth it, but when the question was whether or not she was worth it? She wasn’t naive enough to think that this wouldn’t be the straw that broke the camel’s back. No one would blame him for ending it.
A hand shaking her left shoulder brought her back to reality, Draco’s light, piercing eyes staring into her own with poorly-concealed fear.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, a little more frantically.
She took a second to assess herself, trying to regain control of her limbs and mind. She was on Draco’s lap, her legs thrown over the side of his plush leather chair in his efforts to pull her flush against his body.
“Shit,” she muttered uncharacteristically, realizing that she didn’t even know if she brought her phones with her. A small sigh of relief left her lips when she took a deep breath and felt the plastic pressing against her chest on her exhale. Quick thinking even in her panic, she’d shoved phones in her bra before leaving the office since her three quarter sleeved dress didn’t require a blazer. “Here.”
She shoved her work phone in Draco’s face, pulling up the email that she’d only read part of the subject of. Why did she need to know more? Clearly her grandmother’s texts had to do with what a reporter had discovered before she did…
“Your father?” he asked quietly, his voice devoid of emotion as he plucked her phone from her light grip and looked at the email.
Hermione didn’t even know who’d emailed her, whether it was someone pranking her or it was a legitimate journalist. All that mattered was that the walls were closing in, and there was no way out but through. The only question was whether or not she’d have anyone by her side when they did.
“Did you read this?”
She shook her head, handing over her personal phone where he could clearly see two texts from her grandmother on the front screen. The man was always in her business, so it was no surprise when he entered her passcode to check the texts. It wasn’t like she didn’t know his as well.
“Ah, hell,” he muttered darkly, rubbing his free hand down her back and pulling her face into his chest. It was a welcome embrace, one that she wanted to snuggle into and never leave. “Your father… he was released from prison yesterday. Your mother insisted that he stay with your grandparents, so he’s been resting there while they discuss next steps.”
“Next steps?” she laughed, a bitter little sound even when it was muffled against the man’s chest. “What is next?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Draco’s response was patient. “I was just letting you know what your grandmother messaged you.”
She nodded, silent as she waited for Draco to continue.
His fingers drumming against the wood of his desk were the only indication of his frustration.
“The email’s from a Seattle Times reporter, no one from DC, but a local crime reporter who was looking through the release records. They put two and two together and want a comment from you by COB. Clearly they’re not very good at their job if they think emailing your government email is the best way to get in contact with you, but that’s beside the point.”
“What’s the point,” she asked, pulling back from her little burrow in his suit jacket. “I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t. It’s going to get out whether or not I talk to them.”
You’re damned if I do and damned if I don’t, she left unsaid, more worried about Draco’s family’s reaction to what an article about her fucked up family meant for their relationship.
“Do you want to talk it out with your family? James and Remus? Me?”
She thought about it for a second, stomach sinking when she realized that her answer to the question was that she’d need to speak with everyone eventually. Her voice cracked as she explained to Draco that she needed to speak to her family to make sure she had the story straight; that she needed to talk to her office to make sure she even had the authority to speak to the press, as their office policy, like most Hill offices, was that the only staff member who could speak to the press in any capacity was the communications director; and she needed to talk to Draco to get his thoughts on what her next steps should be as well as whether or not his father needed to be brought into the loop.
Unfortunately, she was pretty sure she knew the answer to her final question would be yes. Lucius’ campaign ran their lives right now, and they’d only be in deeper shit listening to him rant and rave if they didn’t bring him in on the front end of the crisis. He made it clear already that he had, at some point, been furious that Draco was dating someone with such a broken family. Hopefully he’d calmed down a bit by now.
Draco held her tight to him as she called her grandmother back, the pair remaining silent while the older woman filled her in on what was going on and her grandfather interjected loudly every so often. It was a quick conversation, one that involved neither of her parents as they were both sleeping… Even though it was past noon in Seattle. If that wasn’t writing on the wall, she didn’t know what was.
“How do you feel?” Draco asked after they hung up, voice suspiciously flat.
“Like my life could’ve turned out a lot differently if I didn’t have to consider the wellbeing of the useless adults who were tasked with raising me.”
“You owe them nothing at all, but you just need to consider that there’s no going back once you alienate them. Not to paint them with a broad brush, but they don’t seem the type to easily forgive… even if you’re their child.”
Didn’t she know it. Hermione’s laugh was dry. “It’s either protect them or protect myself, and clearly they don’t seem to care about how their decisions affect me, so it seems like an easy choice. Does it make me an awful person that I don’t even really need to think about it?”
Draco’s response was instant, and he pulled her tighter to his chest as he spoke. “You’ve suffered for years from their selfishness, sweetheart. You owe them nothing at this point, not when you’ve come so far all on your own.”
“I was raised to think that adults always had your best interest at heart. It’s why I stayed with my parents until shit hit the fan; my grandparents said nothing was wrong, so I thought that maybe I was crazy, that nothing was wrong. I respected my parents as leaders only because I was taught to defer to them.
“Once, my mom called me and begged me to come home to keep her company while my grandparents were on vacation without her. I told her no, but she told me she feared she may hurt herself with no one around. So I get home, and she is asleep. Doesn’t wake up the entire time I’m there even though I missed a quiz in my intro polisci class to be there. The amount of times I put my life on hold for them, Draco? I can’t even count.
“I’ve been playing Twister with my emotions for years, trying to keep my hand on familial loyalty while my foot is halfway across the mat on self-respect. It’s impossible to do both at the same time. I’m terrified that if I give them an inch, I’ll be sucked right back into the middle of their toxic influence. Separate, they’re hard to take, but together? My parents are more toxic than I can take. I’m just done short-changing myself. I’ve come so far on my own and I can’t give it up.”
She let out a sob at the end of her confession, feeling a weight lift at the comforting knowledge that she’d have someone on her side if she cut ties with her family. She’d been alone for years, but always fell back on the thought that if she really needed her parents or her grandparents, they’d be there. Christmas had left her realizing how untrue that was; she’d been completely and utterly alone to deal with the anger and jealousy of not only her mother, but her grandparents as well. There was nowhere to turn in the house, leaving her with only one option… to head right back out the door. And since then? She hadn’t looked back.
Before that miserable few days, sparing a thought for whether or not they were truly there to fall back on would’ve broken her. Now, though, she knew the answer. But the truth was that even pragmatic, self-sufficient women needed reassurance that they weren’t alone. Now, only with Draco in her life, Hermione felt confident that she had someone who would fight for her as fiercely as she’d fight for them.
“No one would blame you for wanting them in your life, Hermione; I wouldn’t blame you for forgiving them every time they hurt you, even if it kills me to know that they have that power. But if you’re worried that you’ll have no one who will love you like your own flesh and blood and that’s what holds you back… You’re worrying about the wrong thing, darlin’. Pansy? That girl would do anything for you. Luna? Columba? The same. If you left me, that wouldn’t change. They’re your friends and they love you separate from us being together. And me? I don’t need to pledge marriage vows for me to put you first. For better or for worse, right?”
Giving into her immediate urge, Hermione pulled Draco’s head down to meet her own, pressing a series of kisses onto his lips.
“I love you,” she murmured into his lips, kissing him in between each word.
“I love you more,” he promised immediately, pressing a finger to her lips to stop her immediate protests. “No arguments, I’ll win every time. Politician, remember?”
She just frowned; he was right that he could argue his way to the top of any battle, even one he didn’t have a stake in, just because he could.
“What now?” He asked, steering them back to serious topics like the responsible adult he was.
Pursing her lips, Hermione thought for a second. It was a bit unbelievable for her to realize how calm she felt in Draco’s presence; she’d been ready to fall apart when she saw the email and texts first come in, but with him by her side? She felt like she could take this on.
“I need to tell Rep. Potter and Remus… Only Tonks is allowed to talk to the press, so I can’t really get around it.”
“So you’re going to talk to her?”
Her… Hermione hadn’t even gotten far enough to realize the reporter was a woman, not that it mattered.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “But even if a story comes out without my comment, I need to give them a heads up. What do you think I should do?”
“It’s not up to me because it’s not about me, sweetheart.”
Shifting a bit on his lap, Hermione bit her lip and looked up at him with a vulnerable, slightly ashamed expression. She needed him.
“I don’t know what to do,” the admission had her wincing slightly, even though she was in the presence of the one person she trusted with her life. She was never lacking for a plan A, B or C. But now? She was drawing a blank. “I am at a loss. What should I do?”
He looked pensive, shifting his legs so that he was leaning them back in his chair. She spared a quick thought for his legs that had to have been asleep by this point.
“Okay,” he agreed with a tight nod, his slightly stubbled chin rubbing against her curls. “Honestly? I can see this going two ways… James and Remus have no standing in telling you not to comment. This has nothing to do with James’ position, and all you need to do is play the family card if you truly want to say something.”
“And if I don’t want to say something?”
She didn’t. She really, really didn’t.
“You let my father and me handle it.”
That was something she hadn’t even considered as a possibility.
“What would you say?”
Draco hummed, “We’d promise them something they want to can the story.”
“Is that legal?”
“We aren’t offering them money or blackmailing them, Hermione. We just go above this low-rate reporter’s head to the editor-in-chief and promise them an exclusive on something with father’s campaign or our relationship, it’s perfectly legal and it will work.”
“And I wouldn’t have to tell James or Remus?”
“You wouldn’t have to tell them yet,” Draco emphasized the last word, which only solidified the pool of dread in her belly. “You can’t outrun your past, no matter how much I’d love to shove it to the depths of hell for you, sweetheart. But not even I’m that good.”
Her returning grin was weak. She hated to have anyone know about her life; not even Pansy knew the full extent of what she’d endured over the years, even after she had Google-stalked Hermione’s family and discovered that her parents’ dental practice had been defunct for years.
Telling Remus and James felt like admitting she wasn’t perfect to people who had no interest in knowing that. She wasn’t naive enough to think that her office truly cared about her personal life, and she’d already brought so much of that into the office. They hired her to work, not because they had a stake in what happened to her outside of the office. To know that the child of local criminals was working for them, and that James’ name would be dragged into the media when the story inevitably broke? It was almost certainly the final nail in the coffin of her employment.
She was close to a complete and utter breakdown at the thought of being unemployed without a hope for a job elsewhere in the Capitol. She was a risk, and she didn’t blame anyone for not wanting to stake their reputation on hiring her.
Draco handling this for her felt a bit like hiding like a weak damsel behind his name and reputation, but it also felt a hell of a lot like the out that she needed. She couldn’t avoid her past forever, but to have just a few more days or weeks or, hopefully, months of blissful ignorance? She’d do anything.
“You’d do that for me?”
The underlying question of whether or not Lucius would do it for her went unsaid.
“We would do anything for you, sweetheart. And if keeping this quiet a little longer helps father’s campaign, I can’t say it wouldn’t make him more willing to help.”
Hermione laughed, “Of course he’d find the silver lining in this for himself.”
“He’s a Malfoy, isn’t he?”
“Don’t throw yourself in with him, Draco. You’re selfless and far more altruistic than you give yourself credit for. I’d say you’re much more like Brax than your father.”
“Now, that’s the nicest compliment I’ve heard in days, sweet girl.”
She blushed, incredulous over the fact that Draco could still turn her cheeks rosy red and soak her panties with just a sliver of attention.
“Stop distracting me,” she pinched his bicep in reprimand before stiffening up. “My office doesn’t even know where I went…”
“You eat lunch at your desk every day and barely get up to use the ladies room, they’re going to live without you, Hermione.”
“I didn’t say they wouldn’t, I just said they didn’t know I left! And wouldn’t the fact that I’m always there make them worry more about where I went?”
“Text someone then and tell them you’ll be back soon.”
She did just that, telling Tonks she wasn’t feeling well and would be back soon. The woman immediately sent her poop and blood emojis followed by a string of question marks, and Hermione simply sent back a queasy cartoon face. Tonks could make what she would of it.
“Are you missing meetings?”
“Nothing that can’t be rescheduled. It’s a fly-in day, we were just discussing a few bills that other offices want me to co-lead.”
“Oh? Anything interesting?”
“Interesting? Yes. Interested in? No. Adrian was telling me that there’s a student loan forgiveness bill a Dem wants me to help lead the charge on.”
Hermione did a quick mental calculus on whether or not she had the energy to ask him what was so egregious about student loan forgiveness. She didn’t.
“I would ask more about that, but don’t have the energy right now,” she sighed, wanting nothing more than to take a nap. “Let’s circle back on why you don’t want to help cancel student loan debt later.”
Draco laughed at that like it was a funny joke, strumming his thumb along her cheek. “Absolutely, sweetheart.”
Swallowing down her annoyance and realizing that the student loan fight was far less imminent than her life and privacy being blown up, she knocked her head against Draco’s collarbone.
They’d figure this out, together.
xx
“Well shit,” Pansy remarked, pulling a perfectly manicured thumbnail between her lips to nibble on it.
That move alone was indicative of how worrisome her friend found the situation. Pansy ruining her fresh manicure was not at all comforting, despite the weight lifted after filling her in on everything that had been going on. Little by little, Hermione was feeling less alone.
“I knew your parents were fucked up, but this is worse than I assumed.” Pansy’s eyes flicked up to Hermione’s tear-soaked face, expression softening. “You are the most loyal person I know, sis, but at some point… at some point, as much as it blows, you have to realize that not everyone is worth your loyalty. Even those you call mom and dad.”
“How can I just let them go?” she whimpered, digging her palms into her eyes to try and stem yet another onslaught of tears. Her face was burning from the combination of makeup removal and nonstop crying, and she knew she’d look like a puffy mess in the morning.
“By realizing that you don’t need them as much as they’ve made it clear that they don’t need you.” Hermione winced at Pansy’s harsh words while the other girl plowed on, taking a scalpel to the most calcified, hidden places of her heart. “It’s not like they’ve been here for you in any sense that isn’t ceremonial, right? Now just take the knife to the rope and drop the dead weight… You deserve better than them, and now you have what you deserve. Stable relationships with people who would kill and die for you the way your family should.”
“Thank you,” Hermione whispered, crawling until she was leaned up against Pansy’s side and snuggling the prickly girl. It was a testament to the seriousness of the moment that Pansy only burrowed into her side, not complaining about Hermione’s sappiness.
“I have two awful brothers, it’s only right that I have one sibling I care about like I’m supposed to,” she could feel Pansy’s smirk against her temple and nudged her head gently into the girl.
“So you think I should let Draco handle it?”
“One thousand percent. If he’s offering, let him. There will be a time where this shit hits the fan, but I don’t think it’s now.”
The ominous words were a slight comfort to Hermione.
“It just feels kind of wrong, giving the reins on this to someone else,” she admitted. “I trust him, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to hand this off to someone else.”
“That’s what powerful husbands are for. Threatening and bullying people on your behalf. Why do you think my mother puts up with her asshole of a husband?”
“Love?” Hermione asked with a snort.
“Money and power,” Pansy continued like Hermione never spoke. “The love languages of every person on earth fortunate enough to receive them.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’m happy your mom isn’t miserable in her arranged marriage.”
“For the last time, it’s not an arranged marriage! It was an optimal match between two influential families.”
“Arranged marriage,” Hermione whispered.
“Stop your snarking and call Draco before he falls asleep! It’s already seven.”
“He’s 41, not 90,” Hermione rolled her eyes, pulling her phone out to text him anyways. He’d had an event that both him and his father were required at that night, something honoring the soybean farmers of America, so it made sense to ping him while he still had an eye on Lucius. She was a bit panicked, despite Draco’s confidence that Lucius would want to help her. She understood that her social standing reflected on him, but still… she feared that their relationship would always feel tenuous at best.
Hermione: Hope you’re having fun at your dinner.. I am fine with you handling everything if that still works for you.
Draco texted back immediately, like he’d been waiting for her to reach out.
Draco: Fun isn’t quite the word I’d use… Leaving soon, hopefully. Don’t worry anymore, okay? I will handle it, sweetheart. Everything is under control.
Hermione: Thank you. I love you.
Draco: I love you too. Go watch a movie and relax.
Hermione: Pansy and I are going to watch the Anne Hathaway movie you didn’t want to watch with me :( Will you call me when it’s done?
Draco: I refuse to watch something that has 13 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, even if it has Anne Hathaway in it. I will call you, but please don’t stay up waiting. You’ve had a long day.
Hermione clacked her teeth together in thought, equal parts wanting to stay up and hear what happened and wanting to get a good night of sleep. She knew she would be up all night if the Seattle Times refused to take Draco’s offer.
Hermione: Will do, I’m exhausted anyway.
Draco: Good girl. Love you, sweetheart, go enjoy your ‘slab of unfunny comedy.’
Hermione: Ugh, you would have the reviews memorized.
“Good?” Pansy asked when Hermione scoffed and put the phone down, unable to keep a growing smile off her face.
“Good as can be,” Hermione agreed, taking a deep breath. The anxiety in her chest wouldn’t loosen fully, not yet. But for now, she knew that she could rest in Draco’s bargaining prowess, and if not that, his ridiculous desire to shield her from anything that could hurt her. There was no other feasible option.
September 18, 2019
There were unspoken rules of the road in any congressional office, left out of the employee handbook, but followed to the T by everyone on the payroll. Every member of Draco’s team showed up 15 minutes earlier than their 9am start time, knowing full-well that their boss would be in promptly at nine. From when they were friends, Hermione knew that no staffer in Cho’s office left until the member had headed home from the office or finished voting, regardless of whether or not their presence was required. And in James' office? There were no lunch breaks on voting days. Sure, their handbook outlined an hour-long lunch break, but the words were just words.
When she was an intern, Hermione observed the way full time staffers would run and grab food from the Longworth Cafeteria, but they’d do just that… run. The fear of the congressman needing something, whether it was a serious question or just the desire to entertain someone in his office during a lull in his schedule, was visceral enough to keep them all chained to their desks.
Everyone had witnessed Remus’ rare fits of anger when someone was unavailable because they were eating lunch outside of the office. The man’s clenched jaw as he asked where Lee had been was enough to scare her away from ever leaving for lunch. She didn’t want to be relegated to the pits of mid-level committee staffer hell like Lee had been.
So she’d followed the unspoken rules… Until now. It took a bit of hyping herself up before Hermione spoke up.
“I need to head out around noon today for an hour or so,” she shared with the women in the back office. Step one: inform everyone who sat around her to make sure no one else claimed that they were leaving at the same time.
“Are you dying?” Tonks asked immediately, sticking her head into Hermione’s cubicle, eyes concerned.
“No,” she laughed lightly.
“A Draco Malfoy thing then? Fancy lunch with some gun activists?”
“Tonks!” Penelope scolded from her desk.
Hermione appreciated that.
“No, Tonks. We never ask where you’re going when you leave for hours at a time, do we?” Her sharp question was a little more word-vomity than she expected, but Dorcas and Penelope’s twin snorts made clear that her query wasn’t misplaced.
“Yeah, because I leave all the time. You never leave, so of course we want to know where you’re going. This is twice in as many days!”
“Just let Remus know, Hermione,” Dorcas chimed in, effectively ending the conversation. As cold as the older woman could be, Hermione appreciated her cut-to-the-chase leadership style.
“Will do, thank you Dorcas.”
Hermione sent him a Google chat, too much of a coward to head around to his desk, and that was that.
Only two and a half hours before she knew the details of Draco’s conversation.
xx
“Lunch with a pretty lady on a weekday? Must’ve done something real nice to deserve this,” Draco smirked, pulling Hermione tight to his chest as he offered her a hand out of the car.
“Let’s go inside, I don’t want anyone to see me skipping work,” she replied, a sense of guilt settling in her stomach when she realized her colleagues were working while she was enjoying lunch with Draco.
“Hermione, you’re allowed to take an hour to yourself every now and then… You know that, right?” Draco asked, pulling her back to peer into her eyes. Clearly he saw something making it obvious that she did, indeed, not know that. “Your life isn’t work, sweetheart. And your office can last an hour without you there. Take it from me - we have no guilt asking you to work an extra hour any day of the year, so you shouldn’t have any guilt at taking an hour for yourself either. Especially when it’s your birthday week!”
“Capitalism has its claws in me,” she sighed, pulling his free hand and starting the walk to his front door.
“Clearly. But just remember that the capitalists will take and take and take, so sometimes you have to dig your heels in before you give and give and give at the expense of your health and sanity.”
“Look at you,” Hermione mused.
“Don’t act so surprised, Republicans can be pro-worker too.”
Could they, though? She raised an eyebrow in question, getting only a pointed stare from the blond in return.
“I didn’t recognize the woman working in the restaurant, so I’m worried we didn’t get our spring rolls,” Draco sighed as he shook the plastic takeout bag he was carrying.
“They can’t keep giving us free spring rolls, they’ll go broke! It’s an inefficient business model.”
“Their favorite handsome congressman would disagree.”
The man wasn’t wrong; the ladies at their local Thai place really did fawn over him.
“Thank God, they’re in here,” he cheered as he ripped open the knotted bag. “Bowl or out of the container?”
“Container is fine, I don’t have long. What happened?” she asked, filling up two glasses of water and bringing them to the kitchen table.
“All business, isn’t she?” Draco teased, looking far more at ease than Hermione was. They were both relatively high-strung, so seeing him take this far less seriously than her was irritating.
“It’s not funny, Draco!” Hermione scolded, arms crossing her chest as she sat down. He was still standing up, looking down at her with searching eyes. If he found what he was looking for, she didn’t know.
“What did I tell you last night, Hermione?” he asked, not waiting for a reply. “I’m going to take care of you. That hasn’t changed.”
She appreciated the sentiment, but it still didn’t seem like he was understanding her frustration.
“I know,” she swallowed the lump in her throat, begging her tear ducts to hold out. “I trust that you will take care of me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what’s going on. I don’t want to be left out of things because you think I can’t take it. I can take it, Draco… I don’t want to feel like I’m not your equal.”
Draco ran a hand through his hair, signaling how frustrated her words made him. He sat down, though, not giving into his urge to pull her into his arms. She appreciated the show of restraint.
“You are right, Hermione. I want to shield you from everything awful that has been thrown at you and will be thrown at us, but it wouldn’t be fair for me to do so. You are my equal in my eyes, I promise. I just go into a he-man craze sometimes and try to keep you away from things that’ll hurt you.”
She smiled slightly, a light blush on her face as she spoke up. “Pansy calls it daddy Draco mode.”
The man raised an eyebrow at that, light eyes flicking up to meet her own. “She’s not wrong.”
Oh… Oh. Hermione gulped for a very different reason, rubbing her bare legs together and thanking God she was in a midnight blue dress.
“But,” Draco continued after a heavy silence she wasn’t brave enough to speak into. “Everything went fine. Father and I spoke to the editor-in-chief on the phone, he wasn’t even aware that the reporter had reached out and was angry about that which worked in our favor. It was a quick conversation after we promised them a campaign exclusive and said that we’d tip them off if and when I proposed.”
“I’m not sure why he thinks anyone would care enough about my engagement for that to seal the deal, but I won’t question it.”
“Hometown girl marries congressman, who wouldn’t want to read that page turner?”
She shot him a dry look, “I wouldn’t. Most people wouldn’t.”
“Don’t undersell yourself, sweetheart.”
“I’ll try… How did your father take it?”
Draco bobbed his head from side to side in a so-so motion. “He was upset that you’re dealing with this.”
She had to cut him off, waving her fork in the air, “Really?”
“You know that he likes you, he’s just awful at showing it. And it doesn’t hurt that he was able to take his stress out on an unassuming mid-tier journalist after a long day.”
“That poor man,” she sighed. “The editor, not Lucius.”
Draco huffed a laugh around his bit of pad thai, “I surmised. Do you feel better now?”
“I do,” she admitted. “The hard part will be talking to my parents and grandparents… Not that they ever cared to understand my point of view in the first place, but they’re going to be furious at me.”
“Not to be tactless, but will it matter? If they’re not in your life, then their anger doesn’t matter.”
“It feels too final to consider that the door to a relationship with them will close forever. I have hope in my parents’ recovery, I really do. I just don’t think I can be a part of their journey to wellness when all it’s done so far is cause me to close in on myself and hinder my own personal relationships.”
Draco reached his free hand across the table, rubbing her knuckles softly.
“I don’t think anyone can say that they are fully confident that ending a relationship with their parents is the right thing to do, but I’m proud of you for doing what’s best for you. I’ll be here every step of the way, okay?”
Her smile was shaky, “Thank you. I couldn’t do this alone.”
“You’re not alone, sweetheart. Brax was at last night’s event, so he knows what’s going on. He and grandmother want you to know that you’re welcome to spend the night at their place in Kalorama tonight. I was told to mention that there will be dogs and warm cookies for an early birthday celebration, if that sweetens the deal.”
“Yeah, what an incredible birthday week this is turning out to be! But yes, I love them so much… That sounds perfect.” she frowned. “I canceled on the girls yesterday and told them to plan on tonight.. I’m just going to tell them that we’ll meet up this weekend at this point. I don’t think I’m in the right mental space to be of any help to them intellectually or spiritually today.”
“They’ll understand,” Draco promised. “Just venmo them money for pizza so they don’t worry about dinner, okay? I’ll pay you back.”
“You don’t need to give me money for everything, Draco. But that’s a good idea, they’ll be more excited about free pizza than seeing me.”
She still felt guilty, but a little less so knowing that they would have a warm meal like she normally provided them on Tuesday nights. Better they not meet at all than have them experience Hermione at her worst.
He acted like she didn’t admonish him for offering money, as usual. “I’ll let them know to prepare for a sleepover. They will be thrilled. Let’s finish up so we can get you back to work before your office descends into chaos. God knows what they’re able to get done without you.”
xx
As the phone rang a fourth time, her hopes that she could delay this conversation reached an all time high. It was midway through the fifth ring that her mother’s haggard voice sounded.
“Hello?”
The woman sounded confused, like she didn’t have Hermione’s number saved in her phone.
“It’s Hermione,” she started stiltedly as she turned on speaker phone, not wanting to greet the woman as her mom.
“The first lady graces us with her presence!” the woman crowed through the phone, her voice harsh in a way Hermione had grown all too familiar with over the years. “Your father’s been heartbroken that you haven’t called since he got out, you know. I’m disappointed, and so are your grandparents.”
“He just got out, and a phone works both ways,” Hermione replied tightly.
“Why would we call?” the woman asked. “To hear how much better your life is than ours? How you went on a fancy trip with your senator boyfriend during a vacation from your fancy government job?”
Draco’s expression was tight when Hermione looked up at him. She wasn’t sure whether she was seeking his comfort or hoping he’d interject on her behalf. There was shame in having him here, having a man who had a picture perfect family listen to the brokenness of her own.
The fact that her mom didn’t even know that Draco wasn’t a senator shouldn’t have irked him as much as it did. It was a drop in an ocean of grievances and yet another reminder that her mom knew nothing about her life and didn’t care to.
“Is he there?” Hermione asked, ignoring the woman’s caustic comments.
“Where else would he be? You’re on speaker, say hello to your father.”
She took a deep breath, letting the finality of the moment sink deep into her bones. There was no going back now, but if she was honest with herself, every interaction she’d had with her parents had led to this. Eventually, all roads would have led to this fractured path that left Hermione Granger without blood relatives.
They’d been gone in everything but name for years, leaving a small middle schooler to scavenge food on her own and scrounge up loose change anywhere she found it to buy school supplies and other necessities that never crossed most of her fellow students’ minds. She’d dealt with the shame of perusing the lost and found in order to have enough notebooks for class and spent sleepless night after sleepless night thinking up excuses on why she couldn’t go to high school dances or attend school trips without ringing alarm bells in anyone’s mind. Someone, somewhere, a person far more forgiving than her would give their parents another chance. But she couldn’t, not when she was this hurt, not when their relationship had irreversibly gone from parents and child to parenting her parents.
“I’m grateful to have been born,” she started, already diverting from the carefully scripted words she’d run through in her head. “I’m grateful to have had a childhood with weekend trips to Pike’s Place and a library card and parents who’d help me bring as many books as I could carry back home. I’m grateful that somehow, by the grace of God, I was given the strength to take care of myself when both of you were unwilling to do so. That… that during the years you were present in my life you showed me what it was to work relentlessly to achieve my goals.”
“What-” her father’s voice interjected, the first time she’d heard him speak in years. His voice drudged up a long-simmering rage as she recalled the countless letters she’d written him without response in prison. That he’d rather be alone than respond to his daughter was yet another reason to end it here and now.
“Let me finish, please,” she croaked, already losing her will. Draco moved from her desk chair to sit beside her on the edge of her bed, gripping her hand like a lifeline. It helped her carry on. “I’ve been without my parents for years. I’ve done things that no kid should have to go through alone. I was just a little girl…”
Hermione let out a sob, covering her mouth with her hand.
The gap in her speaking went on for only a second, but it was long enough for her parents to chime in once more. She shouldn’t have been surprised that they were unwilling to reflect on what they’d done, and what she had naively hoped for them to consider… how it’d affected her.
“You have the audacity to call me for the first time in months just to, once again, relitigate everything that happened during the hardest years of our life?” her mom asked brusquely.
“This is the last time,” Hermione raised her voice above her mother’s. “This is the last time that we are going to speak until you find it in yourselves to put effort into our relationship. I can’t be the only one who cares… It’s ripping me apart. I love you… I love you both. I do, and I wish you well. But for my sake? For my health? I can’t put effort into relationships that do nothing but drain the life out of me. I can’t.”
“They hung up,” Draco’s voice was little more than a whisper as he kept his eyes fixated on the phone which was indeed back on her call history screen. Because her parents hung up, too childish and bullheaded to even hear her out. There was a time when she’d glowed with pride when adults told her that she had her father’s stubbornness and her mother’s single-focused drive. But now? She saw how toxic those very traits could be in adults who couldn’t see themselves clearly.
“Okay,” she nodded, feeling somewhat hysterical. “Okay.”
“C’mere,” Draco said quietly, not moving as she slumped over in a boneless heap on his lap. She had nothing left to give, and Draco took her for what she was. A broken mess who, despite it all, felt lighter than she had in years. “Everything’s going to work out, brave girl. You are the strongest person I know, and I’m proud of you… So proud.”
Draco’s hand started to stroke her hair, and he continued to croon softly as she came back to herself. It wasn’t until she sat up that she realized she had been crying silent tears.
“What do you need, Hermione?” Draco asked as she sat up. He’d had the foresight to bring a cool water bottle up, and she took a long gulp as he held it up to her lips.
What did she need?
“Let’s go see Brax and gran,” she answered, figuring that Draco’s grandparents, who were actually loving unlike her own, may be the only people who could make her feel better. And if not, they had promised cookies and dogs. She was already at rock bottom, so the only place she could conceivably go was up.
“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Draco pressed a kiss to her hair. “Sure thing.”
xx
It was only later, when Hermione was cocooned in at least three blankets knit by Draco’s grandmother while Draco hand fed her cookies and the dogs nestled up against her that she felt better.
“There’s a dear,” Livana ‘call me gran’ Malfoy cooed. “How are your cookies?”
“Amazing,” Hermione replied honestly after another gooey, warm bite. Gran had said something about sprinkling maldon salt on the top, which Hermione took to mean as a rich person’s flakey salt. Whatever maldon salt was, it made for the most delicious, salty and sweet cookies she’d ever had. “Thank you.”
“It’s the least we could do, finally having y’all over! A gal only turns 23 once. I know you have a nice little weekend planned, but we want to celebrate with you too, dear. Your schedules make it tough, though! I don’t remember Lucie and Cissa being as busy as you two are,” the woman frowned, a pitiful little expression.
“Oh Livy, don’t guilt the lil lovebirds,” Abraxas chuckled while booping his wife’s nose gently, receiving a scowl in return from the woman. “Besides, we’ll all be closer than a nesting hen and her chicks once primary season’s underway… We have nothing but time with these two.”
“And thank the good Lord for that!” Livana replied. “We need Hermione there to balance the scales back to rights.”
“Livy girl, it’s too early to get so worked up,” Brax warned with a wagging, playful finger.
“Balance the scales?” Hermione asked, taking the bite.
Draco grumbled a bit.
“The scales of sanity! Without Dove, we are outnumbered, what with Cissy, Lucie and our Dragon actin’ crazier than outhouse rats at even the smallest inconvenience out on the trail!”
Hermione couldn’t help her snort as she looked at Draco, who was turning bright red as his grandmother roasted him.
“Gran-”
“Oh no, you have no foot to stand on! Just wait until you hear him and his daddy sniping about the silliest things. I swear they live like fighting cocks in a tiny cage, not even the Lord above could talk sense into them.”
The woman continued her tirade with barely taking a breath. Hermione was living for the Malfoy family tea being spilt; it made her feel a little less inadequate on a day where she was at her lowest.
“Hermione, dear, did you know that my Brax ate some Carolina barbecue that had his stomach turning inside out minutes before his final event of the ‘74 campaign? Thousands of people were stompin’ and screamin’ and shakin’ the floor, but the only rumblin’ that we could hear was his belly. He looked at me and said, Liv, I’m not gonna make it three steps out there before I blow. You know what I did? I pulled the man into the bathroom, shoved some paper towels down his undergarments and shoved him on that stage. Not a hair out of place on either of us! Yet, our Luc can’t even see a cloud roll across the sky without losing his marbles and sending his poor wife spiraling right along with him.”
Thankfully, this time, Draco joined Hermione in her peals of laughter.
“My God, woman, can you ever tell a story that makes me look good?” Brax roared, wiping tears of his own from his eyes. “For the record, I only blew up a toilet after the event. Served ‘em right too, serving me rancid coleslaw.”
Livana seemed to be in her own world, shaking her head. “Where did we go wrong?”
“You don’t have to hang from a tree to be a nut, sweetheart,” Brax replied with faux solemnity. “Some people brew crazy tea all on their own.”
Hermione had to give a hearty amen to that. She was grateful to be curled up with a loving family who graciously folded her in as one of their own. It was easy to sink into the moment, but she still held herself with a bit of tension. Whether it was Livana’s cautionary tale on how Lucius would act in a few short weeks when primary season was truly underway or her own grim understanding of reality, she held herself with a bit of tension. This may be the calm before the storm, but for once, she was willing to breathe into it and patiently await the clouds with good company.