Chapter 8
Draco was sure he had never reached this level of furiousness before. He was full of anger, radiating from every bone, muscle and tendon in his body. He could feel his magic crackling at his fingertips, and he was sure if anyone even looked at him funny they would be sent flying backwards and through the nearest wall.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. He sends a letter every so often to mum and dad, just letting them know he’s still alive and such. I haven’t read them since he made such a fuss at the engagement party,” Ginny stated with no remorse. “There will be one on the owl perch, it arrived yesterday, and I haven’t had the chance to set it alight yet. I’ll grab it and…” she trailed off, staring blankly at the wall. “I’ll need to tell Harry.”
“Let’s go. Grimmauld Place?”
Ginny nodded quickly, grabbing all of the evidence and her bag while Draco flung what seemed to be fifty galleons too much down on the table for their half-finished drinks. They got outside and he didn’t hesitate, immediately offering his arm to side-along Ginny to Grimmauld. The old blood wards were never destroyed when Harry became the secret keeper, so Draco still had access. He landed in the middle of the living room, narrowly missing the new coffee table. Since the last time he had visited, the place had been done up. Walls knocked down and painted, all new furniture. He didn’t recognise the place.
“What the fuck is going on?” Saint Potter emerged from the kitchen, wand in hand seemingly ready to attack whoever had entered with his wife in such a rush. Draco didn’t even make a move to pull his own wand out. He was completely at his mercy.
“I’ll explain everything in a second but please tell me you haven’t opened and hid Ron’s letter yet.” Ginny tapped her foot nervously.
“I don’t do that,” Harry said quickly.
“Yes you do. He’s your best mate. I’m not annoyed I just need the letter.”
Harry looked between the both of them, especially eyeing Draco carefully. He wasn’t a fool; he knew the Boy Who Couldn’t Die didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him. Maybe he was right to. He was standing by his best friend, and she deserved that. Merlin knew she deserved more. He pushed his own feelings aside for Hermione, as he would do for the rest of his life if the Gods permitted. “Potter, you don’t have to like me, hell you can hate me as much as you did in school for all I care. This is going to sound mad, crazy actually. But we know who fabricated the article in the Prophet.”
“What the bloody hell do you mean ‘we’?” He turned to Ginny. “You mean to say you’ve been working with him behind Hermione’s back?”
Draco sucked in a sharp breath. He didn’t see that one coming.
“Yes.” Ginny held her own, that was for sure.
“Yes?”
“Yes! Because I believed he never done a thing wrong and so did you for a while.” She didn’t stutter once. “Now, sit down so we can explain things!” Harry clamped his mouth shut at this and began to listen to his wife and Draco’s newly discovered information.
Once everything was in the open, tensions had faded and everyone’s blood pressure was a little lower, the three sat in an amicable silence with a strong drink.
“So, let me get this straight. Ron obtained photographs of you and Deakins’ assistant. He then sent them to the Daily Prophet and told them where to print them to make sure Hermione would see. Yes?”
Draco nodded slowly, nursing the firewhiskey Ginny had poured him. She done the same and then eventually so did Harry. “That is correct, Potter.”
“From Romania?” Draco could hear the scepticism in his voice. This would have usually annoyed Draco but for once, he couldn’t argue. It did sound absolutely mental.
“I don’t know how he done it; I don’t know why he done it. I just know he done it.”
Ginny buried her face in her palms on the table. “It makes sense. He’s never been a fan of the two of them, Harry. He could have easily hired someone over here or been here for all we know. I hate to say it… but I don’t know my brother anymore.”
Draco’s own heart lurched. He didn’t have a brother no, but he had a father who he had come to realise he had never known. He seen the man every day, talked with him, planned with him… tortured with him. Yet, he never truly knew the man behind the name of Lucius Malfoy. He was a stranger.
“Have you told the rest of them?” Ginny asked.
Draco was pulled from his momentary daydream. “Erm, no. I haven’t. I probably should so, I’ll get out of your hair.” Draco downed the last of his drink and then stood. He got to the doorway before turning back and looking at Ginny. “Thank you, Ginevra – Ginny.” He smiled sadly.
“Malfoy,” Harry called, just as he was lifting some Floo powder. “Would you like us to come with you?”
After another long drink of Firewhiskey, Draco contacted Theo and Blaise. They both hurried over, consoling Draco but congratulating Ginny at the discovery. Then momentarily wondering why Draco’s previous archnemesis was standing in his living room.
“I mean, am I surprised Weasley could do this? No. Am I surprised he did? Honestly, yes,” Theo said. “It’s just a bit of a mind fuck.”
“He doesn’t live here anymore?” Blaise questioned Ginny and Harry.
“Hasn’t since ’02. He went to work with his older brother. Hermione got letters every so often and then when I proposed he wasn’t best pleased…”
‘Wasn’t best pleased’ was an understatement. Their engagement party was huge, Narcissa had been at the centre of planning and in the process had apparently invited half of the entire wizarding population. Typical. Through his massive family, Ron had been extended an invite (from Hermione explicitly) and, well, he hadn’t taken it in the best way. By the time eight o’clock rolled round, Ronald Weasley was steaming drunk and mouthing off, resulting in a dragging out of the party and a firm word from the Weasley matriarch.
“He moved when Hermione and Malfoy started to fraternise for lack of a better word,” Harry clarified for the group.
“But… they were never actually together? Right?” Theo questioned. “That’s a grey area for us. We never asked and so it was never answered.”
Harry pushed his glasses up his nose. “There was a bit of a thing during the final battle. They broke something together and it allowed me to take Voldemort down. It was exhaustive and Hermione said they kissed afterwords. They tried to start something. It was awkward, trying to become more than something with friends when everyone just expected you to be together. She struggled and eventually told him she couldn’t do it. Hermione took it badly as well, in the sense of she felt like she had let them all down.
‘Ron took it roughly to say the least. He left and headed for Romania to work with Charlie. Kept in touch for a while. Lost it when Draco and Hermione got the headline on the Daily Prophet.”
“I thought he had gotten over her,” Ginny sighed.
“It’s extremely random, to be sure,” said Theo.
“It’s fucked.” Draco couldn’t hold his tongue anymore.
He knew all of this and hearing it nearly broke his heart in two again. She had done nothing to that man – that boy – and she had been put through the ringer. It infuriated him.
In that moment, he didn’t even care if he held her in his arms again. She just needed to hear the truth. Hermione needed to know that he had never betrayed her trust. For her to know that would let him sleep a little easier at night. To know that he had gotten to the bottom of a stupid fucking article written by a selfish bloke who couldn’t have her so decided to blow her life up.
Sensing a need for a topic change, Ginny started rambling about quidditch to Theo and Blaise, noting she hadn’t noticed them in a while. After the men caught up with Draco’s professional life and he done the same for them, they turned their attention to their other missing friend. Pansy had notified Blaise of a ‘family emergency’ she had been called away to but left any details up to the imagination.
“Where is she now?” Ginny asked, pouring them all a whisky.
“I haven’t seen her in a while. I sent her an owl last Tuesday and he returned home empty handed. She always has treats out on the perch, so by my expert detective skills that would mean the window wasn’t open which means she wasn’t in the premises," Theo delightfully explained.
“I don’t know, something seems off,” Blaise said. “If it was a family emergency she would have shared. She would have bitched and moaned and probably not gone to help her mother – presuming that’s who the emergency is about.”
Blaise was right. If something had happened to her mother, she wouldn’t have come running. She would have probably said good riddance. The relationship the two women had was rocky even before she had denied the arranged marriage with an elderly Russian. With her inheritance gone, Pansy had no real reason to even stay in touch with her mother.
"So, nothing since?" Theo asked.
Blaise regretfully shook his head. "Nothing. I sent her back a letter asking if everything was alright and to contact me if she needed anything. You know what she's like. Proud and stubborn. Come to think of it though, she had been off since you came back on the scene, Ginny. I know you don't exactly get on nowadays. Obviously, it wasn't anything to do with you."
“It’s definitely strange,” Theo sighed. “But the more pressing issue is… How will you tell Hermione?”
Draco hadn’t even considered it. “How do we tell her?” He echoed. His voice was small. Vulnerable.
And no one had an answer for that.
Three quarters of an hour later, the group had decided it had to be Draco. It wasn’t really up for debate – he knew it shouldn’t, couldn’t be any of them. It had to come from his words. As for the method… Draco decided it was best to do it over a letter. She would shut down, cry probably but most of all she wouldn’t want to be near anyone. He knew her well enough and that wouldn’t have changed in a million years. If he was honest with himself, he couldn’t say it to her face. He knew he couldn’t break her heart.
For all he was a dickhead, Hermione still regarded him as an acquaintance. She would never wish him ill, she was courteous when they were in the same place and most of all she would never, ever do this to him. Tear his life apart? Hermione didn’t have a nasty bone in her body.
By the time everyone had left, he was stuck in a limbo with his mind in a bit of a haze and his thoughts jumbled about. He stormed through the house until he got to the office. Really it was a spare room they had chucked a desk in, but it served its purpose. Hermione had gotten him into the habit of using muggle pens instead of quills and ink. He agreed it was less messy and took no time at all to dry so letters could be written and enveloped in seconds.
No words came to him. None. He couldn’t just scribble ‘Ron done this’, send her the evidence and be done with it. No, it needed to be handled sensitively and just overall kindly.
Draco must have sat for an hour before he finally took pen to paper.
-
My dearest Hermione,
I’ve never been good with words when it comes to emotions, and Merlin knows this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write. I couldn’t bring myself to say this to your face, and I hope that putting it all in this letter will help explain what I need you to know.
We found out who sent the photographs to the Daily Prophet. It was Ron. I know that’s probably the last thing you wanted to hear—and trust me, it was the last thing I expected. I’m enclosing the evidence so you can see it for yourself. He signed the letters anonymously, but the stamp… it was his. The handwriting, the communication with the journalist, it all points to him. We’ve pieced it together, and there’s no denying it anymore.
I wish I could tell you this face to face, but I didn’t know how. How do you break this kind of news? I didn’t want to cause you any more pain, but keeping this from you would be worse. You deserve the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
I don’t know why he did it. I wish I could explain it all and make sense of this for you, but I can’t. All I know is that this wasn’t about us—it was something bigger, something festering inside him. Maybe he’s hurting, maybe he’s angry, but none of that excuses what he did to you. To us.
I want you to know that despite everything, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, and I will do whatever it takes to fix this—if you’ll let me. You deserve honesty, and I’m giving you that now, even if the truth is ugly.
Please don’t think this letter is my way of avoiding the conversation. It’s just that I didn’t want you to hear this from anyone else. I needed you to see the evidence, to know that I’m telling you everything.
I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk. No matter what, Hermione, we’ll get through this.
Yours forever,
Draco
-
Draco’s owl had come back the following morning, holding a trinket and had been fed. But she hadn’t sent a letter back.
Four days later – still nothing.
Although it felt like his life had stopped, the outside world was still turning, and Draco still had a duty towards his team and his players. Unfortunately to the whole of England as well. The past two days of training had been robotic, he hadn’t focused on his game, on his tactics, on his passes. Draco continuously thought about Hermione – he was worse off than when she had just been his physical therapist. Gods, why couldn’t he leave it at that?
He got up early, drank a muggle protein shake that had surprisingly helped him a lot during recovery and grabbed his quidditch gear. He usually Flooed straight into the stadium but his head was a mess, and he needed to get focused if he was going to be ready for the opening game. The true training started now.
He apparated to a quiet car park ten minutes from the stadium. He was sure he was in wizarding territory because of the absolutely huge quidditch pitch a stone’s throw away but he was careful, nonetheless. The last thing he needed was to accidentally break the statute of secrecy accidentally. How could he improve his reputation and get his wife back then?
Draco realised that he had never walked in the front door in all his years of playing there. The changing room was empty so Draco surmised everyone must already be on the pitch. He pulled his jersey and cape on and took a minute to ground himself.
How was this his life?
He looked around the changing room, noticing more of the cubbies were full. Why were there so many people in?
Oh Draco, you idiot. In his mourning over his ex-wife, he had forgotten that children – children – were coming to the stadium. It happened every year, a fan day sort of thing for quidditch enthusiasts. Oh, how he couldn’t be arsed.
With a heavy sigh, he lifted his broom from the placeholder and walked out through the ‘backstage’ of the pitch. He usually liked to squint out the tunnel, see who was doing laps already on the pitch, who was passing a quaffle. Being one step ahead as Captain. But he had no energy for that this morning.
The closer he got, the clearer he could see a figure standing at the edge of the outside. He couldn’t make out a face at all but that hair – that hair was unmistakeable. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged on his lips. The closer he got it was clear. Hermione had come to the stadium.
The stadium he played in.
Where he was.
Had she come to see him?
Did she want Ginny?
A million questions ran through his mind, but he had no time to think about any of them. Getting closer he could hear small sniffles. Was she crying?
She obviously was. His heart hurt a little as she brought a hand up to her eye quickly wiping a tear away before he seen. But he did see. For the first time since they had begun their relationship, he did not have a clue what to do to make Hermione feel better. He didn’t know what she needed. Space? Time? A hug? He had no clue. It made him uneasy.
He slowed his walk down to almost millimetres per step. She did not make any attempt to come towards him until he had closed most of the space between them. She really looked like she did not want to be there, Draco could only admire the balls she had to appear.
Fidgeting with her hands, she took a step forward and brought her head up to look at Draco. She had been crying a lot by the looks of it. The whites of her eyes were red and bloodshot and that spark she always seemed to have had disappeared. He wasn’t sure he could ever forgive himself for the emotional turmoil she had been put through.
“Hello,” she whispered. Soft and delicate.
“Hi Granger,” Draco replied. He lifted the corner of his mouth a little and she seemed to visibly relax.
“I-I wasn’t sure if y-you would ever want to see me. Again. Af-after the way I’ve treated you all these, these months. I treated you so horribly and—”
Draco couldn’t think of anything else to do but grab her and hold her tight. “Don’t you dare, Granger. Don’t you dare for one moment apologise to me for anything. You hear me? Anything,” his voice said sternly.
Her whole body racked with sobs, her shoulders bopping up and down his chest. “I’m sorry, Draco. I’m so, so sorry.” She whispered the words over and over again, chanting them into his jersey.
“It’s okay pretty girl. I’ve got you; I’ve got you now,” he too chanted the words in a subtle state of disbelief.
They stood like that for a few minutes, letting her catch a bit of breath. She sobbed silently while Draco just stood enjoying her warmth and her scent. And her bloody wild hair, tickling the bottom of his chin – it was a perfect moment. The circumstances obviously were less than ideal but Merlin how he had missed this.
As if she caught herself, she pulled back and quickly wiped her face again like she was trying to remove any sign of her tears. Draco allowed her the space, unsure of the boundaries. “Are you alright?”
She nodded, huffing a humourless laugh. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine, I-I just don’t understand. I thought he had moved on, made a new life for himself and was happy or at the very least content. Ginny said he spoke to Bill a few times and he wasn’t doing well with the news of our engagement and thinks he went about creating a shit storm from there…” Hermione sighed, tears threatening to pour over her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Draco.”
She flew into his arms again, wrapping her own tight around his ribs. She had missed the feeling of it too – she must have. The fire in his soul relit with her very touch. “Stop apologising sweet girl, you have nothing to be sorry about.”
She let go reluctantly and Draco took the opportunity to steady her by placing his hands on her shoulders. “I never wanted to prove you wrong, embarrass you or anything of the sort. I just wanted to find out the truth. For us. For me. I never stopped loving you for a second pretty girl, losing you felt like a stake through my heart. I ached every day for you, longed every day for you. To be able to talk to you, smile at you. I would have been happy with a sideward glance, Hermione. After that first appointment I knew, I knew I had to have all of you back. Selfish as it was, I couldn’t be half the person I am without you. You make me whole, Hermione Jean Granger.”
She smiled the most beautiful smile he had ever seen, lighting her eyes up. “I can’t believe what an idiot I’ve been.”
“Hey, enough of that. I won’t listen to it,” Draco gently chastised.
Hermione nodded slightly, wiping her tears for the final time. “As you wish. I’ll go now, you’re late for training. But I’ll see you soon? Maybe?”
“Of course.”
Draco grinned like a schoolboy the full way through training, through his shower afterwards and the walk he took to the florist. He picked out a selection of many flowers, scribbling out a quick note and sending them off with his owl. She consumed all of his thoughts he even imagined her sitting watching him play. He hadn’t expected a reply, but when the owl returned with parchment, his heart nearly exploded with joy.
-
Draco,
Thank you for speaking to me. I wasn’t sure you would. If I was you, to be honest I don’t think I would be able to stand the sight of myself.
I want to take back all I said. Everything that was aimed to hurt you I regret saying. I know you probably don’t want to hear this, and you should be angry at me. Actually, furious at me.
I tried for so very long to forget those feelings I felt for you, but I don’t think I can do that anymore.
I just needed you to know that.
Love, Hermione
P.S. Barrel rolls during training to show off isn’t good for a healing muscle. Just an FYI…