Chapter 1
“Are you kidding me! We’ve been together for three years. THREE BLOODY YEARS! Engaged for two months and you still refuse to tell your parents!” Hermione was fuming.
“I will tell them. I promise, just give me some more time, please.” Draco said, practically begging.
“I’ve given you enough time! I understand the year I spent in America was hard for us, but we made it through. But it’s been almost six months since I’ve been back and you keep putting it off. I’ve told my parents. I even told Harry and Ginny. Of course they didn’t understand, they thought I had been under some kind of love potion. But nevertheless, I told them. Now it’s your turn.”
“Hermione, you understand that once I tell them they will disown me. Disinherit me. I will only be a Malfoy in name and that’s it.”
“I’m not with you for your money Draco, I make my own money, you make your own money. Why do we need their money? You told me when we first got together that you didn’t want to be under their thumb anymore. That you wanted to be your own man away from their influence yet you still let them influence you. For god's sake you can’t even tell them you’re dating someone, let alone engaged now!”
“You know you mean more to me than my parents, I would do anything for you Hermione but you have to give me some more time. I’m going over there at the end of the month and I will tell them we are together.”
“Will you tell them the extent of our relationship? Will you tell them that we are engaged?”
Draco couldn’t make eye contact with her, she knew. He would play it off as just a passing fancy, see how his parents took it and then go from there. Hermione felt that he would never put her first and it broke her heart.
“”That’s what I thought.” Hermione scoffed.
“Not everyone has such accepting and forgiving parents so forgive me Hermione if I’m a tad afraid of telling my parents.”
“It’s not even the fact that you’re afraid to tell them Draco, you let them tell you what to do. You wanted to be a healer, your father thought that job wasn’t good enough for a Malfoy so you chose something you don’t even like doing. Your mother wants you to accompany her to this gala and that fundraiser so you cancel our plans to go. You tell me you love me. That you would do anything for me, that you can’t possibly live without me. Yet you chose them over me. Every single time. For once Draco I just want to come first. I just want to be put above your parents and not have to feel like I’m fighting for your time. Can’t you see how much I’m struggling. I've lost weight since I’ve come back from America, I barely sleep because of the nightmares that occur. You used to be there for me, used to remind me to eat my lunch by sending me those cute notes, now I rarely even see you more than once every few days. You used to hold me at night, rub my back and whisper sweet nothings into my ear to calm me down from my nightmares. Now you are hardly ever here at night, always away with your father on another business trip or late night meetings. And when you are here you never hold me anymore. Anytime there’s a nightmare you turn your back and go back to sleep. If you’re falling out of love with me just tell me please. Don’t break my heart even more than you already have.”
Draco had nothing to say for a few minutes. Hermione quickly wiped the tears that had fallen, she was trying to keep them at bay and hold in her sobs but the longer he said nothing the harder it got. Finally he spoke up.
“You think you’re the only one who is struggling? You think I’m not hurting too!?” He yelled. “You don’t know how bad I just want to take you out around Diagon Alley, out for a fancy dinner without it being plastered all over the Daily Prophet. I want to show you off to the world. But I can’t.” He was angry and red faced. He was standing now with his hands at his side balled into fists.
“No Draco it’s not because you can’t, it’s because you won’t! You won’t pull on your big boy trousers and man up! You are a coward, can’t even face your own father for the girl you say you love so much! If you really loved me you would say fuck your parents and do exactly what you said. You would show me off to the world. But you are a fucking coward!”
“Fuck off Hermione, it’s not like that and you know it! There is so much more to it than that. You’ll never understand the pure blood ways, you’re just a muggleborn.”
“Fuck you Draco! Get out of my flat. If you really wanted to be with me then you would’ve found a way. I’m done, I can’t do this anymore.” By the end of her sentence she was no longer angry, she was exhausted and sad. She reached down to her hand and took off her engagement ring. Walked over to him, reached out his hand and set the ring inside. “You’re better off finding a pureblood witch you aren’t embarrassed about. I’ve loved you for three years, and I would have loved you till my last breath. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do us, anymore. You will thank me one day when you don’t have to hide your witch, when you find someone who is worth walking around Diagon Alley for. Someone you don't have to hide from your parents. You can show yourself out. I’ll pack up whatever belongings you have here and send them to you by owl. I would appreciate it if you did the same. Now please Draco, just leave.
She felt as defeated as he looked. He didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his hand around the ring and nodded his head. Before Hermione turned around she saw the tears fall from his eyes. She saw the sorrow in his face but didn’t comment on it. Their time was done. Now she had to figure out how to live without him. Once he was gone Hermione’s knees gave out and she fell to the floor. Her body was shaking as she began to sob uncontrollably. She knew she looked a mess, but it didn’t matter, no one would see her like this. He had broken her. She gave him his heart and he broke it. She would never be enough for his parents which meant she would never be enough for him.
Draco headed back to his flat and immediately to his liquor cabinet. He grabbed the biggest bottle of whatever he could find, which of course had to be Hermione's favorite tequila, and began drinking directly from the bottle. Three hours later and one entire bottle of tequila later, that’s how Blaise Zabini found him.
“Hey Draco, what in Salazar’s name are you doing on the ground?”
“M- my Herms….herms min kick out. No m-more jussss goness.”
“Draco, how much did you have to drink?”
Draco didn’t say anything but proceeded to lift up the empty tequila bottle, it slipped out of his hand and shattered all over the floor. Drunk Draco then decided to slam his hand down into the smashed glass and rub his hand in it. Not making a sound, but tears falling freely down his face. Blaise was beyond worried now, he had never seen his friend like this. He levitated Draco to the couch, cleaned up his hand and vanished the shattered glass.
Blaise went to collect a Sober-Up potion, a pain potion and a calming drought. He fed them all to a semi unconscious Draco. It took about 15 minutes and Draco was now somewhat more sober and much more calm.
“Mate, what in the bloody fuck was all that about?”
“I fucked up Blaise, like really really fucked up. I think. No, I know, I just made the absolute worst mistake of my entire life. And the thing is, even though I know how I could have fixed it, it’s something that will never be repairable.”
“You are making no sense Draco, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the woman I love. I was too afraid of what my parents would say, so she left me.”
“Who? I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”
“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you mate.”
“What? You’re telling me you were dating a muggle? Or maybe Hermione Granger? Because that would be even more unlikely” Blaise looked over at Draco and could see he had hit the nail right on the head.
“Oh fuck. The muggle?” Draco shook his head, Blaise’s eyes grew wide. “Granger” Draco nodded “Fuckity fuck, well that would do it. Now I understand where you’re coming from. How new is this anyway?”
“Over three years.”
Blaise spit out his drink and nearly choked.
“You mean to tell me that you’ve been with Hermione Granger for three years? And didn’t even tell me? Your best friend!”
“It was dangerous after the war. We didn’t want any targets on our backs so we kept it on the low. Then my parents came into play and you can guess the rest.” Blaise shook his head and Draco let out a breath. “She wanted me to tell my parents, I needed more time but she didn’t want to give it to me. I proposed to her two months ago and she said yes. But tonight, we got into the worst fight we’ve ever had.” Draco opened his hand to the ring that he had given to Hermione over eight weeks ago. Blaise looked at his hand and picked up the ring.
“It’s a beautiful ring, of course she said yes.”
“I had it custom made, I knew the moment I wanted to marry her nothing in the Malfoy vault would have been good enough for her, she’s special. Was special. She won’t want me back after this fight.”
“You don’t know that mate.”
“Yes I do Blaise. You didn’t see her face. She was broken. I broke her. She was my everything and I threw it away because I couldn’t man up and tell my parents. I let my parents win again. And I didn’t even mean to. Of course I was going to tell them. When I was ready, I was nervous.”
“I can understand that, I can’t imagine Lucius Malfoy would take well to you being with a muggleborn. But Draco, listen to me and listen to me well. You did everything you could when you were 16 to prove yourself to your family. You sacrificed your childhood to them, you let a mad man brand you because of your father and now you lost the woman you love because of your father. When is it your time to be happy? When do you get to make a choice for yourself? You know you are allowed to be selfish Draco. You are a good man and deserve an equally good woman, and that woman is clearly Hermione Granger. Please, don’t do this for me, or her, but for yourself. Let yourself be happy, let yourself live your life the way you want. You have sacrificed enough, when will it be your turn?”
Draco sat there quietly taking in everything that his best mate had said. He knew Blaise was right, it just took someone talking some sense in him to finally see it. He would do whatever it took to get Hermione back, she was worth it. He would be dead broke and she would still love him. He knew what he had to do.
“You’re right Blaise, tomorrow I’m going to go over and tell my parents all about her, everything from the beginning. They can either accept her or not. I will not push her needs aside any longer.”
Blaise patted Draco on his back before getting up. “Well it’s late and you need some sleep for your big day tomorrow. Promise me you won’t screw it up this time mate.”
“Oh I have no intentions of doing so.”
With that Blaise left and Draco got ready for bed. He took a quick shower, threw on the pair of pajama pants Hermione got for him for Christmas last year. She got them as a joke, they had little penguins with Christmas hats on them, she figured he would never wear them but to be honest, he loved them. He then slid into bed and fell asleep quickly.