my_thestral (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
my_thestral) wrote2013-12-24 10:43 am
my_thestral) wrote2013-12-24 10:43 am
Fic: Choices (9)
Author's note: Eh,I decided to get all Christmassy early and post Part 9 of Choices before the year closes. I've got another chapter already written, but it needs some revising in my head, so I'm comfortable with posting it and hopefully I can start the next chapter some time soon - not this year, not with having time off and having kids around, it seems.:) This one was hard to write for me, because I find Hermione hard to write - I'm not too handy dealing with any of the female characters, save for Molly Weasley (well, I practically am Molly Weasley in my everyday life, I know what she's all about!). But it's done and I don't know how to do it better, so it is what it is - totally unbeta-ed, so you can get a full frontal view of my shameless abuse of English language. Merry Christmas, everyone! :)
Word count: 6785, this part
Pairing: Ron/Draco, some mention of Ron/Harry
Rating: Is there one for mushy? Nah, let's stay at R, though not this part, not really
Disclaimer: if you don't know whose it is, google it; not mine. Money - burn, baby, burn... never made any with this, never hope to - even if I did, it would end up back in the capitalist system, spent on some useless Chinese toys
Hermione Granger Weasley has been staring at the Prophet for hours. She could no longer see the shocking images on the front page with fat black letters announcing that “The Minister’s husband crossed to the other side!!! – Read Rita Skeeter’s exclusive insight and background to a scandalous relationship, more graphic photos on page 2”.
Her impressive mind was unusually scattered, as if it couldn’t decided if it wanted to play the images of happier times, tainted with the bitter thoughts of what a disaster her marriage turned out to be, or perhaps plan what to do next, where to go, who to turn to. All avenues seemed closed at the moment. For Ron to do that… it was unthinkable, as reckless as her husband always was, it just seemed he would never stray so far from what was good and right just out of spite. And Malfoy… and bloody Malfoy!!! She let her face sink into her hands when she thought how brilliantly she’d been played. The bastard!
She should have known a trap when she saw one, he was too bloody compliant when she asked for a proof of the rumours he so subtly but unmistakably hinted at when they casually – nothing casual about it, she knew that now! – met in a Ministry diner and he unexpectedly asked if he could join her at the table. The master manipulator he was, the blond was fully aware she won’t do anything in so public a place when he told her – in a voice as casual as if he was discussing the weather – that he admired her handling her husband’s “marital transgressions” with so much grace.
It took everything she had to invite him to privately discuss the matter at her quarters as she had no idea what he had been on about – while, in fact, she never felt more like screaming in her life. Even the thought of Ron, her Ron, her husband who never failed to show her he loved and wanted her, sometimes even a bit too much for her to take on – even the thought of him sharing his affection, his warm heart-stopping smile, his big hands on another’s skin… she couldn’t handle it, she wanted to hex the sneering blond into oblivion just for introducing the idea into her head!
Except deep down inside she already knew what Malfoy so smugly threw under her nose. She wasn’t blind and she wasn’t called the smartest witch of her generation for nothing – on more than one occasion she had quickly looked away when Harry’s hands lingered just a tad too long on her husbands muscular back for it to resemble simple friendship. She willingly closed her mental eye to the hungry looks from the green eyes as if Ron was Harry’s to have and she more than once told herself through the gritted teeth that Harry was just starved of affection and that was that. Ron was belonged to her, he had made his choice and nothing Harry did could change that.
But now she was no longer the only one in on the joke. Malfoy knew, god knows how he found out and why he bothered, but he knew and he offered to show her the proof. She could hardly say no to that, since she asked for it herself and once she saw it through his memory – she saw that hungry mouth of Harry’s devouring her Ron, she saw her beautiful dominant husband push him against the wall and take what was clearly his to have – once she saw it, she could no longer erase the images from her mind, she could never go back to not knowing.
Back then she had felt like crying, she felt like physically punching Malfoy into his smug narrow face, she felt destroyed, worthless and beyond everything – livid. It was as if her ignorance of many years demanded a pay-back with a vengeance and once Malfoy hinted that her husband might “be at it” in those very moments when they were having this conversation, when she believed him safe at home and playing with kids – that had infuriated her to a point that she left the Malfoy sitting in her office without another word and apparated straight to her home to see the truth with her own eyes, to face Ron with it, to have him deny it like she hoped he could. But she couldn’t have what wasn’t there to begin with.
Merlin knows how much Malfoy must have paid to get this right, but Ron was indeed home, not with the kids, but with Harry and what she saw - … Even when she tried to close her mind to it she still couldn’t get rid the offending images of Ron, her Ron, her always eager but gentle husband, standing behind Harry in all his naked glory, pounding into him with all his might, with a face so hard it was almost brutal, his blue eyes feral and ablaze with an infernal glow she’s never seen before; and Harry, wearing an expression of pain and absolute pleasure blended on his face so far gone he barely looked conscious, mouth blabbing something about allowing him to come, begging him to fuck him harder, to punish him… she just screamed to stop them and she couldn’t stop herself from screaming for a while. Ron did it for her, in the end, throwing a silencing spell at her.
And her life, next to perfect just moments before, seemed to have dissolved to nothing before her very eyes. Ron stubbornly refused to let Harry go –“I will let him go when HE asks it of me” - and he proved completely unreasonable when she threatened him to take the children away. He merely looked at her with his eyes as hard as sapphires and smiled a small and dangerous smile she saw him use on the people he brought in as part of his job.
“Oh, don’t you even try that on me! We both know you’re in no position to take care of the little ones. You’ve sacrificed this family to your ambition as much as I did to keep what Harry and I had since we were 16! Everything was fine, just bloody fine, until you took on this job without even consulting me, as if my opinion was worthless, because, frankly, to you it always was. I was just a perfect fuck-toy, always available to play with should you feel like it; a faithful hubby who was happy to take care of your kids while you were out there making a career for yourself, a perfect side-dish once more. Perfect modern fucking family!
Well, I’ve had enough of it! If you even think about stopping me from seeing my kids – who, by the way, barely recognise you in your three-dimensional form, they’re so bloody used to seeing you in the newspapers, but hardly ever at home – if you even think about going that way, I’ll be the one asking for divorce and I don’t care who I drag down with me! I’ll tell them fucking everything – how I yearned for Harry since I was in my teens, how I wanted to do the right thing and be a good husband, but my career-obsessed wife would never give our marriage a chance – do you really want something like that soiling your reputation, throwing your ambitious career in a less than flattering light?! And trust me, I’ll do it, I’ve got nothing to lose – if you fire me, everyone will say you had done it out of vengeance. I’ll fucking go and clean shelves for George if I have to for the rest of my days, but I will not see my kids become strangers to me. No.You.Don’t!!”
She had given in at this point, finally seeing the reason behind his words, and though it had hurt so much she could barely breathe at that moment, she had collected her wits about and asked him as coolly as she managed:
“So what do you propose?”
Ron’s expression softened a little, when he realized she wasn’t going to oppose, but the darkness still hasn’t left his face entirely:
“I don’t have much of a say, do I? I reckon you can’t stand the sight of me at the moment, especially if Harry keeps coming around – and he will, don’t you doubt it! – so if you’re fine with it, I’ll go get myself a place to stay over the night. But I’ll have my parents deliver the kids here every day, just like they did up until now and I’ll come back here from work to stay with the little ones, tuck them in, like they’re used to. If you don’t want the divorce, don’t worry, I’m willing to keep up the façade for as long as you need me to. But I want to have a life of my own, Hermione. Too long I’ve spent dwelling in the dark, always someone’s shadow. I’ve long stop wishing for the fame and the spotlight, but I would appreciate some warmth, someone to love me for me, not to make me feel like I’m merely a convenience.”
“Well, I hardly think this is Harry, then,” she had told him coldly, willing to hurt him, hoping she would, so he would at least feel a fraction of how worthless he made her feel. How dare he fight for the children and not for his chance to stay with her?! “If you hope to step out of the shadow, then he’s not the one, Ron. There is no way out of he shadow he casts. Why do you think I was asked to become a Minister in the first place? Because Harry had – not so casually, it seems - mentioned it on several occasions, to all the right people, that he couldn’t think of a better person for the job. Looking back, perhaps he did it with a plan to get me out of the picture, knowing I’d never pass up an opportunity like that – it was him, after all, who called me with the job offer - but I can’t really say that I’m sorry, whatever his motives. I love my job and you knew before you proposed to me that I wanted a career.
But I suppose we’ll see soon enough if you’re worth to Harry as much as he’s clearly worth to you! I have every intention of informing Ginny of this little affair of yours – I could never look her in the eye again if I didn’t! – and then Harry can count his lucky stars if he’s even given a chance to choose between you and the life he has with her. And husband dear, I wouldn’t be so cock-sure of your chances, with family and his reputation on the other side!” she had spat at him and felt a perverse pleasure to see him go a shade paler.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, his crystal blue eyes just a shade darker and a small wrinkle by the mouth testifying to his distress. “He’ll never choose me with those options at hand, you know that as well as I do – there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to keep the kids. But I can’t go back to lies either, Hermione.”
He had looked her straight in the eye with these words, his blue eyes so sincere and clean she felt a sudden jolt of pain, regret and shame of having turned his feeble self-esteem against him and hurt him.
“I can’t go back to cheating you, cheating myself of a better life,” he said simply.
And deep down in her heart she knew he was right. She, too, had wronged him; it was not only him who was being hurtful. She realized she never put him first, as she should as a wife, she never sought his advice when it came to work, though he was one of the best in his field and a brilliant strategist, she had never trusted him blindly and believed in him unconditionally as she did in Harry, she never thanked him for always being there for her and her ambitions, she never expressed her admiration for him rising up to the role of a father as splendidly as he did – she had always treated him as a given, as if he was always going to be there because she was simply the best he was ever going to get.
She never thought he could leave her. And now when he was about to… She didn’t know how to function without a thought of him being around, without a warm bed to return to, without the comforting thought of the kids slumbering happily in their little beds, safe in the hands of a father that was more than capable of handling them alone. Her world suddenly became rocked upside-down at the concept of Ron leaving and it took all the pride she had not to tell him she forgave him and begged him not to leave. Instead she pressed her lips together tightly, too hurt to tell him she understood and she made a short thing of their goodbye instead:
“Well, good luck with that, Ron. I’ll expect you out by Friday.”
He looked at her with sadness in those beautiful brilliant eyes and spoke softly:
“Suit yourself. I’ll be back to get my things tomorrow afternoon and I’ll stay with the kids until you’re home every day. If you ever need a friend… I’ll be there, every day. Goodbye, Hermione.”
And he left. And she crumbled, right there and then. The sound of his disapparation was all it took to have her on her knees, crying a bloody river. She knew then as she knew now that it was wrong to have him leave without a proper goodbye. They both needed a friend more than anything in the days that followed; Harry gave him up, just as she predicted – but then again, not really, if the rumours she finally allowed herself to hear were true; while she somehow stumbled forward, feeling every bit like a mere ghost of herself, lost and hollow. She found out she did not really know who she bloody well was in the morning, when she woke up to an empty bed.
Hermione Granger Weasley never woke up to an empty bed, there was always a warm, overwhelming presence wrapped around her, his body never more than a touch away and she had problems figuring out on which side of the bed she was supposed to get out of, with him gone as her compass. It had irritated her so, that in the end she had shrunk her bed to a single one and then cried over it some and expanded it once again into its original size. At least that way she could pretend she would once again wake up from this nightmare and Ron would still be there. She found out she couldn’t do without hope.
Having lost both of her friends at one – things between Harry and herself were just too damn awkward - she dug herself into her work, trying to ignore the dreadful thought of coming home to the sleeping kids and an empty bed, because it had made her ambitiousness feel shallow and it only served to make her see how much she had lost and traded away. She missed him, God how she missed him! She missed everything about him, every little thing that made him her husband… his passion, his insatiable sexual appetite – Merlin, was he ever the animal in bed, how could she ever thought she wouldn’t miss it! – his warm strong fingers rubbing the muscles around her tired strained shoulders after an exhausting working day, the warm scented baths he liked to spoil her with, the Sunday breakfasts – and then some! - in bed, the stupid odd things like the scent of his shaving lotion, his scattered toiletries all around the bathroom, finding pieces of his clothing in the most impossible places…
And it was worse every time she caught a glimpse of him at work, because her heart felt about a ton heavy and she had to look away quickly to stop herself from launching at him and demanding of him to come the hell back to her, because he had no business being anywhere else! And sometimes in the evening, with kids already tucked in before she got home, the scent of his presence still in the air, she found the weight of an empty home unbearable. It felt as if a house lost its pulse with him gone, as if it was no longer a home, but merely a place she came to stay in at nights, hardly better than a hotel. And in those moments she missed her friend Ron the most; too many times she burst into tears uncontrollably just wishing him by her side already, to come to her rescue, to end this nightmare. She could almost picture the awkward blush spreading to his cheeks if he caught her crying, she could nearly feel his clumsy embarrassed hug in the face of girly emotion and she knew he would hold her through it nonetheless.
“Oh, Ron, what have we become?” she thought to herself miserably, staring at a happy face in The Prophet, smiling gently and possessively at Malfoy, at bloody Malfoy, of all people!! Ron she knew would never… he would never ever have anything to do with Malfoy, he wouldn’t touch him with a rack, how on Merlin’s blasted earth had he ended up looking at the poisonous blond as if he wouldn’t trade him for the world!? She was almost tempted to believe the delusional Skeeter’s writing of illegal magic being used to make him go along with it, but she knew Ron too well: that smile was only in place because he got exactly what he wanted.
And when another one of the million memos this morning floated in and opened itself in front of her, informing her politely, that her husband asked to have a word - she realized that what she wanted were answers. She desperately needed some sort of explanation to find her footing again, to see how to handle this. Because at this point she didn’t know how to feel, how to act, how to bloody turn not to hurt herself further and do something she would come to regret. So she scribbled her reply and waited, trying not to think, not knowing what to expect.
So it shook her unexpectedly and to her very core once the door opened and a tall figure stepped in, lingering by the door a moment too long as if not certain how to proceed. The shock shot right through her chest, the pain suddenly so acute she almost forgot how to breathe. She forgot how overwhelming his presence was from up close, how easy it was for him to take up all the remaining space, how perfectly built he was to shake her out of her very skin and leave her feeling vulnerable and defenceless. He was just bloody gorgeous, wasn’t he, leaning against the door; tall, all-encompassing and just radiating warm life, river of flaming hair slipping out from a disorderly pony-tail, eyes as sapphire blue and as mesmerising as they were ever going to be - a perfect picture of paradise lost. And while her heart was shattering in a million pieces and she struggled with feeble attempts to breathe, just bloody breathe to make it through those unbearable moments keeping them apart, he crossed the distance between them with two strides of his long legs and suddenly she found herself immersed in his warm embrace and finally she allowed herself to fall apart at long last. She realized she missed him far more than she ever came to hate him.
He didn’t mind the sobbing this time, he held her through it like she knew her best friend Ron, the one she knew since she was 11, always would. He just held her, anchoring her, stilling her dissolving world for a moment and only now she became aware how acutely she missed this, his physical presence, his big bear hug, submerging her into that incredible warm scent that smelled every bit like home to her. She knew she would have to let go eventually, but at the moment it just meant the world to her that he came because she knew how badly she needed him to come and make things right between them. They always communicated better without words and his quiet “I’m sorry, Hermione, I never meant to hurt you”, was not necessary, she knew he didn’t. It was just Ron, her Ron, hurting her nevertheless because that seemed his bloody job in her life!
It took a while for her to come together enough to speak, but none of the usual post-tears awkwardness applied between them, not this time. He was just as fine with her not talking as he was when she finally managed to open her mouth for something other than crying. And once she started talking, she found out she could barely stop, words pouring out of her like waterfall, poignant with bitterness seeping into her voice uninvited, but unavoidable.
“What the hell is this, Ron? What on Merlin’s bloody earth is going on?! A warning would have been nice, to say the least! You and Malfoy…”
“I had no warning,” he interrupted her, seeing where this was going and not willing to have it end the same way as last time. “And Malfoy… he loves me,” he added matter-of-factly as if those words had the power to explain it all and take away the misery. But certainly not the misery Hermione felt.
“Of course… he loves you!” she all but screamed, sarcasm oozing out of her voice. “That’s why he went and ruined our lives!” And then a sudden realization froze her world momentarily, leaving her mind blank - until all things fell into place with startling clarity and suddenly she could make sense of it all.
“Oh my god… Of course…. he loves you,” she uttered, her brilliant mind playing her one flash of memory after another of young Malfoy at Hogwarts staring at Ron in cold disdain, smirking at him, spitting venom and taunting him, provoking him into an umpteenth brawl, staring, always staring with those cold grey eyes and never ever leaving him alone, following him around like an annoying shadow you can’t get rid of. Of course he bloody well loved him, no Malfoy would have ever invested all that time and energy into someone they didn’t care about! And of course the whole world would think it was Harry he was after, no one would bother to look slightly to the side and behind Harry; no one would ever come to suspect that it was an inconspicuous side-kick, an awkward gangly boy in faded second-hand robes that captured the attention of the heir to the most prominent pureblood family in England rather than the Saviour himself. Harry was just too good a cover.
And then after the war the blond bastard came and asked for a job at the Ministry, when everybody knew Malfoys just didn’t work, and it almost make her bark out a bitter laughter when she remembered she was the one that supported his application and vouched for him, against Ron’s will – “oh, no, not the Malfoy bastard, he’ll be nothing but trouble, you’ll see!” – but she was so taken with the spirit of creating the new unity for the wizarding England and having Malfoy on board fit so perfectly into this picture…
And god knows how much resources he must have invested to find out about them, about Harry and Ron having… – no, she didn’t want to think about that now –and when he did, when he got his perfect undisputable proof, she was his first and most vulnerable target and that incredible reckless bastard didn’t give two shits about her position as a Minister! He must have either thought this through really carefully, planning every last detail, making him a bloody genius – or the waiting has made him so incredibly desperate he just decided to fire all of his weapons at once and to hell with caution! It gave her the shivers to think, how much he must love him, then, how deep have the roots of his unrequited obsession spread in all those years of hopeless neglect. Of course he loved Ron, nothing else could explain the nightmare they were living through.
But Ron being Ron, always a little less than sure of himself, misunderstood her silence for disbelief and said in a quiet, but determined voice:
“I know it’s hard to believe… I found it almost impossible to believe at first myself… I…you know how I get, always thinking people are pulling my leg because I’m just to thick to notice… so I challenged him time and time again and he rose up to the challenge every single time, Hermione… he went out with me, just me, no other mates around, for everyone to see and that before there was anything serious going on between us, just to show the world he was not ashamed to be seen with me! He told me – and showed me! – more than once what he truly feels about me and Merlin, that man can talk! He could talk an Eskimo into buying ice, but it’s not only his words… it’s how he says things, that really got to me… made me forget my suspicions that this was all just some giant elaborate hoax to humiliate me. He made me feel like a million galleons worth, Hermione, and I’ve only been around him for less than two days!
And then Harry found out about us becoming an item – oh, it’s a long story, I’ll let you in on the details later – and he went and did this to us, this whole newspaper set-up… you didn’t really think it was me, looking for attention, did you? I’d never do something like that to you, to us. But my point is – when this whole affair exploded into something public, Draco really came through for me, he didn’t even bother looking for excuses, he simply acknowledged us, something Harry never had and never would have done in all our years together! He’s just putting everything on the line for me, he’s…”
“Ron!” she cut through his words, looking at him properly for the first time and was almost saddened to see how hurt he looked when he thought she found it so hard to believe someone could love him unconditionally. “You don’t have to say more. I believe you. I do. Malfoy loves you. It’s the only explanation. Besides… I know he does,” she allowed a small memory creeping back into her head. “I saw it… I saw it in his head when he let me use legilimency on him, I just didn’t know what it was that I saw back then… I saw your face, one image after another, floating around in his mind… “ She shut up abruptly at this point cause her astute mind finally put it together into what it was that she saw. It was a room, it must have been, with walls covered in Ron’s pictures, magazine scraps, drawings and paintings, Ron’s image plastered all around, a shrine dedicated to her husband.
“At the time I thought I was projecting,” she proceeded quickly, so he might not begin to wonder what exactly it was, she was remembering. “I thought it was just me, seeing your face because my mind was so focused on you, but I distinctly remember I saw this first and then he closed his mind to me. It must have been his thoughts then, his memories…”
Her voice trailed off again, when more and more images floated into her head… a broken wand, the very one Ron destroyed in the second year, how could she ever forget it, they all tried fixing it so many times… an old broom… Cleansweep, was it? Ron’s first… it must have been, it still had Fred’s name scratched upon it, Ron never did own anything new… boxes and drawers of other junk, everything Malfoy must have collected over the years that once belonged to Ron. And she only saw a small glimpse of it before he all but threw her out of his head. She didn’t know why but for some reason she didn’t want Ron to know what she saw, it was sad and not just a little scary.
“I could not make heads or tails out of it at the time,” she said with a knot in her throat. “I had other things on my mind. But this man,… he’s obsessed with you, no need to tell me that. He’s desperate after all these years… Ron, this is not right, perhaps you should reconsider…”
“But you see, that’s why he’s exactly what I need, Hermione!” Ron interfered feverishly. “I want someone like that, someone exactly like that! I was never special to anyone, you know that better than anyone else – not to my mother, clearly not to Harry, not even to you – everyone around me always felt it was OK, just bloody fine if they side-tracked me for something of higher value, someone more important. And all this time I wished for nothing else but for someone who’d sell their bloody soul for me, just me! Around him I feel loved, perhaps for the first time in my life, unconditionally.
And that’s why he’s so right for me, you should see - I mean, of course you shouldn’t, not really, how could you want to, that was… that was just such a “me” thing to say - but do take my word for it for once: the second we touch something just slips into place and… I can’t explain… we feel like one. Sex is… oh, you don’t wanna know, but it’s not just that, he just feels right next to me, like a long lost piece of this weird abstract puzzle found its way home…
And believe me, I know how out-of-this-world this sounds, I’ve been through it in my head so many times since it first happened that I almost broke my brain over it, but I still could make any sense of us –except that it feels as if we were made for each other. I have no proper explanation, just that… it feels the way it should feel with you. And that’s why I’m here today, Hermione. ”
He looked her straight in the eye and continued with his quiet determined voice:
“I’m here to make things right between us, to give us a chance of a new beginning. Things haven’t been right between us for years, what we had going on with Harry would never have happened, if they were, but I finally had enough of it. Perhaps we never should have married each other to begin with, but for my part, I don’t regret it. I got to spend some of the most wonderful years of my life with the most brilliant girl on the planet and she gave me my two little rays of sunshine – how could I ever regret that? But since things have gone awry between us, I’ve missed my friend Hermione far more than I ever missed my wife. And I want her back. I want my friend Hermione back, no matter what happens to us. Can I have her, Hermione? Can I have my friend back? I know I have wronged you and believe me, if there was a way I could spare you the pain I’d go out of my way to do so, but my mother used to say that new beginnings are like birth, they never come without a fair amount of pain.
So I’m here today to put our marriage behind us and to turn a new page of our friendship. Will you follow me through my new life, Hermione, as a friend… or will you make me let go of you completely?”
He stared at her with his brilliant clear blue eyes, like he hasn’t done in years – no deceit, no more lies, just her friend Ron asking for her support because for once it was him who needed what he had given away so generously to his friends in all their years together. She never loved him more than in those moments and she found out she had no heart to deny him.
“I missed you, too, you pillock,” she hugged him fiercely and when he closed his strong arms around her into a wonderfully warm bear-hug, she tried not to choke on bits of her heart still clinging to him desperately. “And I will give you your freedom… it’s yours to have anyway… I can’t tell you where to take your heart, Ron, but I do hope you find love… I know how badly you need it… even if it’s with a mad dangerous creature like Draco Malfoy… Merlin, who ever would have thought…” she laughed through the tears that started running down her cheeks once again unabashed and uncalled for.
And when she felt his chest rumble around her in the echo of his own laughter, she felt she found her grip in this new reality once more. With him laughing like that, his arms wrapped around her, everything was going to be OK.
“Yeah,” he mumbled with no small amount of embarrassment. “Who would have thought… the ferret… ruining my life like this, just like he used to, nothing new about that… And then the git jumps at me from the shadows with all his overwhelming love and he finally knocks me completely off my feet… You should see him, Hermione, he really does love me, he really does!”
“Oh, Ron, wish you were not as thick when it comes to feelings!” sighed his still-wife. “You’re like the easiest person on the planet to love, everybody bloody loves you, everyone does!”
“If you say so…” mumbled Ron, a little flushed with embarrassment at her unexpected compliment. And then his eyes brightened with the most beautiful glow of happiness. “But not like he does! You should see him, Mione, his eyes shine like silver, it takes one touch to turn him into this purring kitten, he’s really into me…”
“Too much information,” Hermione turned her nose up, not sure he could handle an image of a beaming Draco Malfoy right about now. “I know you’re eager to patch up things between us right now, but I don’t think there will ever be any love lost between Malfoy and I, Ron, no matter how hard you try. I can’t stand the look of him, since… well, forever, but particularly since he went and tore us all apart like he did, with a mark of his usual arrogance and selfishness all over it. I know it was probably for the best in the end, but still… to go and do something like that with a complete disregard for anyone’s feelings but his own…”
“I think he might have something to say on the matter,” Ron said quietly. “I brought him along and he’s got a thing or two to say to you, if you’re willing to listen.”
Hermione just stared at her husband in disbelief at what he was asking of her. She didn’t want to see Draco bloody Malfoy, well, maybe she did, but just as a pile of ashes at her feet! She would hex the bastard into the Middle ages if he was to appear in front of her right now, he couldn’t possibly have the audacity… or did he really have a death-wish?!
“Ron, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she tried in her most calm voice, but even she could hear the edge of rage cutting through the silken surface of her imparted politeness.
“It’s the only way,” her husband said with his typical stubbornness and she had a sudden flashback of what their arguments were all about – she wanted something and she sank her teeth right into it while he wouldn’t back down a hair’s width. “It’s not easy for him to do this so at least show him the courtesy of hearing him out. You hear out criminals and all kinds of scum all the time, you can do that. You can do it for me and that’s the last thing I’m going to ask of you.”
“Yeah, well that scum effectively stole my husband and ruined my life, possibly my career - not your everyday criminal, is it, Ron?!” she said sarcastically and with no small amount of anger in her voice, but he looked at her with his calm blue eyes and said:
“I know I’m asking a lot. But it’s for a good reason. If I’m keeping this man, he’s going to be around our kids and I don’t want you poisoning their ears with bitter words about each other. Best get it out in the open, say what you’ve got to say to each other and close the case, as we say in the Auror department.”
“It’s not that simple,” she tried, but she recognised that look of sheer determination, when he closed his head to any other thought and purpose than his own and she knew she could either deny him and risk an all out war – or go along with it, suffer through whatever Ron was making the blond say – she had no doubt he had to twist his arm into doing this, the man was no fool! – and hope to have a clean start some time in this hell of a morning. She had to re-think her life, her career, most of her choices and right now, with that look on Ron’s face, Malfoy was standing in her way.
“Alright, then,” she conceded. “I’ll hear him out. But don’t get your hopes up. And don’t you think I’ll cover for him if he’s done something I’d rather not know about!” she warned him, this time dead serious. “ I’ve looked into his head and I known what he’s capable of, I’ve known since we were children, so that risk is on you, Ron. I’m not going to compromise myself further by sticking out my head for your boyfriend - especially since it’s a bloody Malfoy, obsessive, dangerous, annoying… well, Malfoy, there you have it, all in one word! - I’ve got enough on my plate as it is!”
And her soon-to-be-ex-husband just nodded solemnly and simply said:
“Thank you. You’ll always be my champion, Hermione.”
“Oh, Ron… I thought that was Harry, you silly…” she said, just to say something, not to have those stupid unwanted tears well up in her eyes once more.
“Always was, always will be,” said Ron with a small sad smile. “He’s out there on a crusade, dead certain I need saving from myself… and in most cases he would be right, but not this time. This is not his fight, not any longer, not since he chose everything he’s become over being with me. Draco didn’t. He pledged it all away to be with me and that’s worth everything in my books. Just… hear him out, he might surprise you yet.”
“I doubt that,” Hermione thought sourly, dead-set on getting rid of the annoying blond as fast as she could so she could jumpstart what was left of her career and her life, but she had too much presence of mind to tell Ron that, his bull-headedness would cost her nothing but precious time.
“Well, I suppose you better send your lover-boy in, then,” she sighed resigned to her fate and decided to make a short show of it. “And Ron,” she added in an after-thought. “Please be careful, he’s… I don’t trust him,” she couldn’t bring herself to use the words like “possessed” “obsessed” and “a right lunatic” that came to mind. Only when Ron nodded and she was to find herself alone with the Slytherin for the first time since their encounter at the diner, she realized how on edge was she set by the images she saw in his head. The infernal man might be in love with her husband, there could be little doubt about that, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. Draco Malfoy was a man to watch and to watch oneself from. After all - not everyone could have survived the Dark Lord’s embrace and lived to tell the tale.
~ End of Part 9 ~
Next: Choices, Part 10/1
See also:
( Choices, Part 1 )
( Choices, Part 2 )
( Choices, Part 3 )
( Choices, Part 4 )
( Choices, Part 5/1 )
( Choices, Part 5/2 )
( Choices, Part 6 )
( Choices, Part 7 )
( Choices, Part 8/1 )
( Choices, Part 8/2 )
Word count: 6785, this part
Pairing: Ron/Draco, some mention of Ron/Harry
Rating: Is there one for mushy? Nah, let's stay at R, though not this part, not really
Disclaimer: if you don't know whose it is, google it; not mine. Money - burn, baby, burn... never made any with this, never hope to - even if I did, it would end up back in the capitalist system, spent on some useless Chinese toys
Hermione Granger Weasley has been staring at the Prophet for hours. She could no longer see the shocking images on the front page with fat black letters announcing that “The Minister’s husband crossed to the other side!!! – Read Rita Skeeter’s exclusive insight and background to a scandalous relationship, more graphic photos on page 2”.
Her impressive mind was unusually scattered, as if it couldn’t decided if it wanted to play the images of happier times, tainted with the bitter thoughts of what a disaster her marriage turned out to be, or perhaps plan what to do next, where to go, who to turn to. All avenues seemed closed at the moment. For Ron to do that… it was unthinkable, as reckless as her husband always was, it just seemed he would never stray so far from what was good and right just out of spite. And Malfoy… and bloody Malfoy!!! She let her face sink into her hands when she thought how brilliantly she’d been played. The bastard!
She should have known a trap when she saw one, he was too bloody compliant when she asked for a proof of the rumours he so subtly but unmistakably hinted at when they casually – nothing casual about it, she knew that now! – met in a Ministry diner and he unexpectedly asked if he could join her at the table. The master manipulator he was, the blond was fully aware she won’t do anything in so public a place when he told her – in a voice as casual as if he was discussing the weather – that he admired her handling her husband’s “marital transgressions” with so much grace.
It took everything she had to invite him to privately discuss the matter at her quarters as she had no idea what he had been on about – while, in fact, she never felt more like screaming in her life. Even the thought of Ron, her Ron, her husband who never failed to show her he loved and wanted her, sometimes even a bit too much for her to take on – even the thought of him sharing his affection, his warm heart-stopping smile, his big hands on another’s skin… she couldn’t handle it, she wanted to hex the sneering blond into oblivion just for introducing the idea into her head!
Except deep down inside she already knew what Malfoy so smugly threw under her nose. She wasn’t blind and she wasn’t called the smartest witch of her generation for nothing – on more than one occasion she had quickly looked away when Harry’s hands lingered just a tad too long on her husbands muscular back for it to resemble simple friendship. She willingly closed her mental eye to the hungry looks from the green eyes as if Ron was Harry’s to have and she more than once told herself through the gritted teeth that Harry was just starved of affection and that was that. Ron was belonged to her, he had made his choice and nothing Harry did could change that.
But now she was no longer the only one in on the joke. Malfoy knew, god knows how he found out and why he bothered, but he knew and he offered to show her the proof. She could hardly say no to that, since she asked for it herself and once she saw it through his memory – she saw that hungry mouth of Harry’s devouring her Ron, she saw her beautiful dominant husband push him against the wall and take what was clearly his to have – once she saw it, she could no longer erase the images from her mind, she could never go back to not knowing.
Back then she had felt like crying, she felt like physically punching Malfoy into his smug narrow face, she felt destroyed, worthless and beyond everything – livid. It was as if her ignorance of many years demanded a pay-back with a vengeance and once Malfoy hinted that her husband might “be at it” in those very moments when they were having this conversation, when she believed him safe at home and playing with kids – that had infuriated her to a point that she left the Malfoy sitting in her office without another word and apparated straight to her home to see the truth with her own eyes, to face Ron with it, to have him deny it like she hoped he could. But she couldn’t have what wasn’t there to begin with.
Merlin knows how much Malfoy must have paid to get this right, but Ron was indeed home, not with the kids, but with Harry and what she saw - … Even when she tried to close her mind to it she still couldn’t get rid the offending images of Ron, her Ron, her always eager but gentle husband, standing behind Harry in all his naked glory, pounding into him with all his might, with a face so hard it was almost brutal, his blue eyes feral and ablaze with an infernal glow she’s never seen before; and Harry, wearing an expression of pain and absolute pleasure blended on his face so far gone he barely looked conscious, mouth blabbing something about allowing him to come, begging him to fuck him harder, to punish him… she just screamed to stop them and she couldn’t stop herself from screaming for a while. Ron did it for her, in the end, throwing a silencing spell at her.
And her life, next to perfect just moments before, seemed to have dissolved to nothing before her very eyes. Ron stubbornly refused to let Harry go –“I will let him go when HE asks it of me” - and he proved completely unreasonable when she threatened him to take the children away. He merely looked at her with his eyes as hard as sapphires and smiled a small and dangerous smile she saw him use on the people he brought in as part of his job.
“Oh, don’t you even try that on me! We both know you’re in no position to take care of the little ones. You’ve sacrificed this family to your ambition as much as I did to keep what Harry and I had since we were 16! Everything was fine, just bloody fine, until you took on this job without even consulting me, as if my opinion was worthless, because, frankly, to you it always was. I was just a perfect fuck-toy, always available to play with should you feel like it; a faithful hubby who was happy to take care of your kids while you were out there making a career for yourself, a perfect side-dish once more. Perfect modern fucking family!
Well, I’ve had enough of it! If you even think about stopping me from seeing my kids – who, by the way, barely recognise you in your three-dimensional form, they’re so bloody used to seeing you in the newspapers, but hardly ever at home – if you even think about going that way, I’ll be the one asking for divorce and I don’t care who I drag down with me! I’ll tell them fucking everything – how I yearned for Harry since I was in my teens, how I wanted to do the right thing and be a good husband, but my career-obsessed wife would never give our marriage a chance – do you really want something like that soiling your reputation, throwing your ambitious career in a less than flattering light?! And trust me, I’ll do it, I’ve got nothing to lose – if you fire me, everyone will say you had done it out of vengeance. I’ll fucking go and clean shelves for George if I have to for the rest of my days, but I will not see my kids become strangers to me. No.You.Don’t!!”
She had given in at this point, finally seeing the reason behind his words, and though it had hurt so much she could barely breathe at that moment, she had collected her wits about and asked him as coolly as she managed:
“So what do you propose?”
Ron’s expression softened a little, when he realized she wasn’t going to oppose, but the darkness still hasn’t left his face entirely:
“I don’t have much of a say, do I? I reckon you can’t stand the sight of me at the moment, especially if Harry keeps coming around – and he will, don’t you doubt it! – so if you’re fine with it, I’ll go get myself a place to stay over the night. But I’ll have my parents deliver the kids here every day, just like they did up until now and I’ll come back here from work to stay with the little ones, tuck them in, like they’re used to. If you don’t want the divorce, don’t worry, I’m willing to keep up the façade for as long as you need me to. But I want to have a life of my own, Hermione. Too long I’ve spent dwelling in the dark, always someone’s shadow. I’ve long stop wishing for the fame and the spotlight, but I would appreciate some warmth, someone to love me for me, not to make me feel like I’m merely a convenience.”
“Well, I hardly think this is Harry, then,” she had told him coldly, willing to hurt him, hoping she would, so he would at least feel a fraction of how worthless he made her feel. How dare he fight for the children and not for his chance to stay with her?! “If you hope to step out of the shadow, then he’s not the one, Ron. There is no way out of he shadow he casts. Why do you think I was asked to become a Minister in the first place? Because Harry had – not so casually, it seems - mentioned it on several occasions, to all the right people, that he couldn’t think of a better person for the job. Looking back, perhaps he did it with a plan to get me out of the picture, knowing I’d never pass up an opportunity like that – it was him, after all, who called me with the job offer - but I can’t really say that I’m sorry, whatever his motives. I love my job and you knew before you proposed to me that I wanted a career.
But I suppose we’ll see soon enough if you’re worth to Harry as much as he’s clearly worth to you! I have every intention of informing Ginny of this little affair of yours – I could never look her in the eye again if I didn’t! – and then Harry can count his lucky stars if he’s even given a chance to choose between you and the life he has with her. And husband dear, I wouldn’t be so cock-sure of your chances, with family and his reputation on the other side!” she had spat at him and felt a perverse pleasure to see him go a shade paler.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, his crystal blue eyes just a shade darker and a small wrinkle by the mouth testifying to his distress. “He’ll never choose me with those options at hand, you know that as well as I do – there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to keep the kids. But I can’t go back to lies either, Hermione.”
He had looked her straight in the eye with these words, his blue eyes so sincere and clean she felt a sudden jolt of pain, regret and shame of having turned his feeble self-esteem against him and hurt him.
“I can’t go back to cheating you, cheating myself of a better life,” he said simply.
And deep down in her heart she knew he was right. She, too, had wronged him; it was not only him who was being hurtful. She realized she never put him first, as she should as a wife, she never sought his advice when it came to work, though he was one of the best in his field and a brilliant strategist, she had never trusted him blindly and believed in him unconditionally as she did in Harry, she never thanked him for always being there for her and her ambitions, she never expressed her admiration for him rising up to the role of a father as splendidly as he did – she had always treated him as a given, as if he was always going to be there because she was simply the best he was ever going to get.
She never thought he could leave her. And now when he was about to… She didn’t know how to function without a thought of him being around, without a warm bed to return to, without the comforting thought of the kids slumbering happily in their little beds, safe in the hands of a father that was more than capable of handling them alone. Her world suddenly became rocked upside-down at the concept of Ron leaving and it took all the pride she had not to tell him she forgave him and begged him not to leave. Instead she pressed her lips together tightly, too hurt to tell him she understood and she made a short thing of their goodbye instead:
“Well, good luck with that, Ron. I’ll expect you out by Friday.”
He looked at her with sadness in those beautiful brilliant eyes and spoke softly:
“Suit yourself. I’ll be back to get my things tomorrow afternoon and I’ll stay with the kids until you’re home every day. If you ever need a friend… I’ll be there, every day. Goodbye, Hermione.”
And he left. And she crumbled, right there and then. The sound of his disapparation was all it took to have her on her knees, crying a bloody river. She knew then as she knew now that it was wrong to have him leave without a proper goodbye. They both needed a friend more than anything in the days that followed; Harry gave him up, just as she predicted – but then again, not really, if the rumours she finally allowed herself to hear were true; while she somehow stumbled forward, feeling every bit like a mere ghost of herself, lost and hollow. She found out she did not really know who she bloody well was in the morning, when she woke up to an empty bed.
Hermione Granger Weasley never woke up to an empty bed, there was always a warm, overwhelming presence wrapped around her, his body never more than a touch away and she had problems figuring out on which side of the bed she was supposed to get out of, with him gone as her compass. It had irritated her so, that in the end she had shrunk her bed to a single one and then cried over it some and expanded it once again into its original size. At least that way she could pretend she would once again wake up from this nightmare and Ron would still be there. She found out she couldn’t do without hope.
Having lost both of her friends at one – things between Harry and herself were just too damn awkward - she dug herself into her work, trying to ignore the dreadful thought of coming home to the sleeping kids and an empty bed, because it had made her ambitiousness feel shallow and it only served to make her see how much she had lost and traded away. She missed him, God how she missed him! She missed everything about him, every little thing that made him her husband… his passion, his insatiable sexual appetite – Merlin, was he ever the animal in bed, how could she ever thought she wouldn’t miss it! – his warm strong fingers rubbing the muscles around her tired strained shoulders after an exhausting working day, the warm scented baths he liked to spoil her with, the Sunday breakfasts – and then some! - in bed, the stupid odd things like the scent of his shaving lotion, his scattered toiletries all around the bathroom, finding pieces of his clothing in the most impossible places…
And it was worse every time she caught a glimpse of him at work, because her heart felt about a ton heavy and she had to look away quickly to stop herself from launching at him and demanding of him to come the hell back to her, because he had no business being anywhere else! And sometimes in the evening, with kids already tucked in before she got home, the scent of his presence still in the air, she found the weight of an empty home unbearable. It felt as if a house lost its pulse with him gone, as if it was no longer a home, but merely a place she came to stay in at nights, hardly better than a hotel. And in those moments she missed her friend Ron the most; too many times she burst into tears uncontrollably just wishing him by her side already, to come to her rescue, to end this nightmare. She could almost picture the awkward blush spreading to his cheeks if he caught her crying, she could nearly feel his clumsy embarrassed hug in the face of girly emotion and she knew he would hold her through it nonetheless.
“Oh, Ron, what have we become?” she thought to herself miserably, staring at a happy face in The Prophet, smiling gently and possessively at Malfoy, at bloody Malfoy, of all people!! Ron she knew would never… he would never ever have anything to do with Malfoy, he wouldn’t touch him with a rack, how on Merlin’s blasted earth had he ended up looking at the poisonous blond as if he wouldn’t trade him for the world!? She was almost tempted to believe the delusional Skeeter’s writing of illegal magic being used to make him go along with it, but she knew Ron too well: that smile was only in place because he got exactly what he wanted.
And when another one of the million memos this morning floated in and opened itself in front of her, informing her politely, that her husband asked to have a word - she realized that what she wanted were answers. She desperately needed some sort of explanation to find her footing again, to see how to handle this. Because at this point she didn’t know how to feel, how to act, how to bloody turn not to hurt herself further and do something she would come to regret. So she scribbled her reply and waited, trying not to think, not knowing what to expect.
So it shook her unexpectedly and to her very core once the door opened and a tall figure stepped in, lingering by the door a moment too long as if not certain how to proceed. The shock shot right through her chest, the pain suddenly so acute she almost forgot how to breathe. She forgot how overwhelming his presence was from up close, how easy it was for him to take up all the remaining space, how perfectly built he was to shake her out of her very skin and leave her feeling vulnerable and defenceless. He was just bloody gorgeous, wasn’t he, leaning against the door; tall, all-encompassing and just radiating warm life, river of flaming hair slipping out from a disorderly pony-tail, eyes as sapphire blue and as mesmerising as they were ever going to be - a perfect picture of paradise lost. And while her heart was shattering in a million pieces and she struggled with feeble attempts to breathe, just bloody breathe to make it through those unbearable moments keeping them apart, he crossed the distance between them with two strides of his long legs and suddenly she found herself immersed in his warm embrace and finally she allowed herself to fall apart at long last. She realized she missed him far more than she ever came to hate him.
He didn’t mind the sobbing this time, he held her through it like she knew her best friend Ron, the one she knew since she was 11, always would. He just held her, anchoring her, stilling her dissolving world for a moment and only now she became aware how acutely she missed this, his physical presence, his big bear hug, submerging her into that incredible warm scent that smelled every bit like home to her. She knew she would have to let go eventually, but at the moment it just meant the world to her that he came because she knew how badly she needed him to come and make things right between them. They always communicated better without words and his quiet “I’m sorry, Hermione, I never meant to hurt you”, was not necessary, she knew he didn’t. It was just Ron, her Ron, hurting her nevertheless because that seemed his bloody job in her life!
It took a while for her to come together enough to speak, but none of the usual post-tears awkwardness applied between them, not this time. He was just as fine with her not talking as he was when she finally managed to open her mouth for something other than crying. And once she started talking, she found out she could barely stop, words pouring out of her like waterfall, poignant with bitterness seeping into her voice uninvited, but unavoidable.
“What the hell is this, Ron? What on Merlin’s bloody earth is going on?! A warning would have been nice, to say the least! You and Malfoy…”
“I had no warning,” he interrupted her, seeing where this was going and not willing to have it end the same way as last time. “And Malfoy… he loves me,” he added matter-of-factly as if those words had the power to explain it all and take away the misery. But certainly not the misery Hermione felt.
“Of course… he loves you!” she all but screamed, sarcasm oozing out of her voice. “That’s why he went and ruined our lives!” And then a sudden realization froze her world momentarily, leaving her mind blank - until all things fell into place with startling clarity and suddenly she could make sense of it all.
“Oh my god… Of course…. he loves you,” she uttered, her brilliant mind playing her one flash of memory after another of young Malfoy at Hogwarts staring at Ron in cold disdain, smirking at him, spitting venom and taunting him, provoking him into an umpteenth brawl, staring, always staring with those cold grey eyes and never ever leaving him alone, following him around like an annoying shadow you can’t get rid of. Of course he bloody well loved him, no Malfoy would have ever invested all that time and energy into someone they didn’t care about! And of course the whole world would think it was Harry he was after, no one would bother to look slightly to the side and behind Harry; no one would ever come to suspect that it was an inconspicuous side-kick, an awkward gangly boy in faded second-hand robes that captured the attention of the heir to the most prominent pureblood family in England rather than the Saviour himself. Harry was just too good a cover.
And then after the war the blond bastard came and asked for a job at the Ministry, when everybody knew Malfoys just didn’t work, and it almost make her bark out a bitter laughter when she remembered she was the one that supported his application and vouched for him, against Ron’s will – “oh, no, not the Malfoy bastard, he’ll be nothing but trouble, you’ll see!” – but she was so taken with the spirit of creating the new unity for the wizarding England and having Malfoy on board fit so perfectly into this picture…
And god knows how much resources he must have invested to find out about them, about Harry and Ron having… – no, she didn’t want to think about that now –and when he did, when he got his perfect undisputable proof, she was his first and most vulnerable target and that incredible reckless bastard didn’t give two shits about her position as a Minister! He must have either thought this through really carefully, planning every last detail, making him a bloody genius – or the waiting has made him so incredibly desperate he just decided to fire all of his weapons at once and to hell with caution! It gave her the shivers to think, how much he must love him, then, how deep have the roots of his unrequited obsession spread in all those years of hopeless neglect. Of course he loved Ron, nothing else could explain the nightmare they were living through.
But Ron being Ron, always a little less than sure of himself, misunderstood her silence for disbelief and said in a quiet, but determined voice:
“I know it’s hard to believe… I found it almost impossible to believe at first myself… I…you know how I get, always thinking people are pulling my leg because I’m just to thick to notice… so I challenged him time and time again and he rose up to the challenge every single time, Hermione… he went out with me, just me, no other mates around, for everyone to see and that before there was anything serious going on between us, just to show the world he was not ashamed to be seen with me! He told me – and showed me! – more than once what he truly feels about me and Merlin, that man can talk! He could talk an Eskimo into buying ice, but it’s not only his words… it’s how he says things, that really got to me… made me forget my suspicions that this was all just some giant elaborate hoax to humiliate me. He made me feel like a million galleons worth, Hermione, and I’ve only been around him for less than two days!
And then Harry found out about us becoming an item – oh, it’s a long story, I’ll let you in on the details later – and he went and did this to us, this whole newspaper set-up… you didn’t really think it was me, looking for attention, did you? I’d never do something like that to you, to us. But my point is – when this whole affair exploded into something public, Draco really came through for me, he didn’t even bother looking for excuses, he simply acknowledged us, something Harry never had and never would have done in all our years together! He’s just putting everything on the line for me, he’s…”
“Ron!” she cut through his words, looking at him properly for the first time and was almost saddened to see how hurt he looked when he thought she found it so hard to believe someone could love him unconditionally. “You don’t have to say more. I believe you. I do. Malfoy loves you. It’s the only explanation. Besides… I know he does,” she allowed a small memory creeping back into her head. “I saw it… I saw it in his head when he let me use legilimency on him, I just didn’t know what it was that I saw back then… I saw your face, one image after another, floating around in his mind… “ She shut up abruptly at this point cause her astute mind finally put it together into what it was that she saw. It was a room, it must have been, with walls covered in Ron’s pictures, magazine scraps, drawings and paintings, Ron’s image plastered all around, a shrine dedicated to her husband.
“At the time I thought I was projecting,” she proceeded quickly, so he might not begin to wonder what exactly it was, she was remembering. “I thought it was just me, seeing your face because my mind was so focused on you, but I distinctly remember I saw this first and then he closed his mind to me. It must have been his thoughts then, his memories…”
Her voice trailed off again, when more and more images floated into her head… a broken wand, the very one Ron destroyed in the second year, how could she ever forget it, they all tried fixing it so many times… an old broom… Cleansweep, was it? Ron’s first… it must have been, it still had Fred’s name scratched upon it, Ron never did own anything new… boxes and drawers of other junk, everything Malfoy must have collected over the years that once belonged to Ron. And she only saw a small glimpse of it before he all but threw her out of his head. She didn’t know why but for some reason she didn’t want Ron to know what she saw, it was sad and not just a little scary.
“I could not make heads or tails out of it at the time,” she said with a knot in her throat. “I had other things on my mind. But this man,… he’s obsessed with you, no need to tell me that. He’s desperate after all these years… Ron, this is not right, perhaps you should reconsider…”
“But you see, that’s why he’s exactly what I need, Hermione!” Ron interfered feverishly. “I want someone like that, someone exactly like that! I was never special to anyone, you know that better than anyone else – not to my mother, clearly not to Harry, not even to you – everyone around me always felt it was OK, just bloody fine if they side-tracked me for something of higher value, someone more important. And all this time I wished for nothing else but for someone who’d sell their bloody soul for me, just me! Around him I feel loved, perhaps for the first time in my life, unconditionally.
And that’s why he’s so right for me, you should see - I mean, of course you shouldn’t, not really, how could you want to, that was… that was just such a “me” thing to say - but do take my word for it for once: the second we touch something just slips into place and… I can’t explain… we feel like one. Sex is… oh, you don’t wanna know, but it’s not just that, he just feels right next to me, like a long lost piece of this weird abstract puzzle found its way home…
And believe me, I know how out-of-this-world this sounds, I’ve been through it in my head so many times since it first happened that I almost broke my brain over it, but I still could make any sense of us –except that it feels as if we were made for each other. I have no proper explanation, just that… it feels the way it should feel with you. And that’s why I’m here today, Hermione. ”
He looked her straight in the eye and continued with his quiet determined voice:
“I’m here to make things right between us, to give us a chance of a new beginning. Things haven’t been right between us for years, what we had going on with Harry would never have happened, if they were, but I finally had enough of it. Perhaps we never should have married each other to begin with, but for my part, I don’t regret it. I got to spend some of the most wonderful years of my life with the most brilliant girl on the planet and she gave me my two little rays of sunshine – how could I ever regret that? But since things have gone awry between us, I’ve missed my friend Hermione far more than I ever missed my wife. And I want her back. I want my friend Hermione back, no matter what happens to us. Can I have her, Hermione? Can I have my friend back? I know I have wronged you and believe me, if there was a way I could spare you the pain I’d go out of my way to do so, but my mother used to say that new beginnings are like birth, they never come without a fair amount of pain.
So I’m here today to put our marriage behind us and to turn a new page of our friendship. Will you follow me through my new life, Hermione, as a friend… or will you make me let go of you completely?”
He stared at her with his brilliant clear blue eyes, like he hasn’t done in years – no deceit, no more lies, just her friend Ron asking for her support because for once it was him who needed what he had given away so generously to his friends in all their years together. She never loved him more than in those moments and she found out she had no heart to deny him.
“I missed you, too, you pillock,” she hugged him fiercely and when he closed his strong arms around her into a wonderfully warm bear-hug, she tried not to choke on bits of her heart still clinging to him desperately. “And I will give you your freedom… it’s yours to have anyway… I can’t tell you where to take your heart, Ron, but I do hope you find love… I know how badly you need it… even if it’s with a mad dangerous creature like Draco Malfoy… Merlin, who ever would have thought…” she laughed through the tears that started running down her cheeks once again unabashed and uncalled for.
And when she felt his chest rumble around her in the echo of his own laughter, she felt she found her grip in this new reality once more. With him laughing like that, his arms wrapped around her, everything was going to be OK.
“Yeah,” he mumbled with no small amount of embarrassment. “Who would have thought… the ferret… ruining my life like this, just like he used to, nothing new about that… And then the git jumps at me from the shadows with all his overwhelming love and he finally knocks me completely off my feet… You should see him, Hermione, he really does love me, he really does!”
“Oh, Ron, wish you were not as thick when it comes to feelings!” sighed his still-wife. “You’re like the easiest person on the planet to love, everybody bloody loves you, everyone does!”
“If you say so…” mumbled Ron, a little flushed with embarrassment at her unexpected compliment. And then his eyes brightened with the most beautiful glow of happiness. “But not like he does! You should see him, Mione, his eyes shine like silver, it takes one touch to turn him into this purring kitten, he’s really into me…”
“Too much information,” Hermione turned her nose up, not sure he could handle an image of a beaming Draco Malfoy right about now. “I know you’re eager to patch up things between us right now, but I don’t think there will ever be any love lost between Malfoy and I, Ron, no matter how hard you try. I can’t stand the look of him, since… well, forever, but particularly since he went and tore us all apart like he did, with a mark of his usual arrogance and selfishness all over it. I know it was probably for the best in the end, but still… to go and do something like that with a complete disregard for anyone’s feelings but his own…”
“I think he might have something to say on the matter,” Ron said quietly. “I brought him along and he’s got a thing or two to say to you, if you’re willing to listen.”
Hermione just stared at her husband in disbelief at what he was asking of her. She didn’t want to see Draco bloody Malfoy, well, maybe she did, but just as a pile of ashes at her feet! She would hex the bastard into the Middle ages if he was to appear in front of her right now, he couldn’t possibly have the audacity… or did he really have a death-wish?!
“Ron, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” she tried in her most calm voice, but even she could hear the edge of rage cutting through the silken surface of her imparted politeness.
“It’s the only way,” her husband said with his typical stubbornness and she had a sudden flashback of what their arguments were all about – she wanted something and she sank her teeth right into it while he wouldn’t back down a hair’s width. “It’s not easy for him to do this so at least show him the courtesy of hearing him out. You hear out criminals and all kinds of scum all the time, you can do that. You can do it for me and that’s the last thing I’m going to ask of you.”
“Yeah, well that scum effectively stole my husband and ruined my life, possibly my career - not your everyday criminal, is it, Ron?!” she said sarcastically and with no small amount of anger in her voice, but he looked at her with his calm blue eyes and said:
“I know I’m asking a lot. But it’s for a good reason. If I’m keeping this man, he’s going to be around our kids and I don’t want you poisoning their ears with bitter words about each other. Best get it out in the open, say what you’ve got to say to each other and close the case, as we say in the Auror department.”
“It’s not that simple,” she tried, but she recognised that look of sheer determination, when he closed his head to any other thought and purpose than his own and she knew she could either deny him and risk an all out war – or go along with it, suffer through whatever Ron was making the blond say – she had no doubt he had to twist his arm into doing this, the man was no fool! – and hope to have a clean start some time in this hell of a morning. She had to re-think her life, her career, most of her choices and right now, with that look on Ron’s face, Malfoy was standing in her way.
“Alright, then,” she conceded. “I’ll hear him out. But don’t get your hopes up. And don’t you think I’ll cover for him if he’s done something I’d rather not know about!” she warned him, this time dead serious. “ I’ve looked into his head and I known what he’s capable of, I’ve known since we were children, so that risk is on you, Ron. I’m not going to compromise myself further by sticking out my head for your boyfriend - especially since it’s a bloody Malfoy, obsessive, dangerous, annoying… well, Malfoy, there you have it, all in one word! - I’ve got enough on my plate as it is!”
And her soon-to-be-ex-husband just nodded solemnly and simply said:
“Thank you. You’ll always be my champion, Hermione.”
“Oh, Ron… I thought that was Harry, you silly…” she said, just to say something, not to have those stupid unwanted tears well up in her eyes once more.
“Always was, always will be,” said Ron with a small sad smile. “He’s out there on a crusade, dead certain I need saving from myself… and in most cases he would be right, but not this time. This is not his fight, not any longer, not since he chose everything he’s become over being with me. Draco didn’t. He pledged it all away to be with me and that’s worth everything in my books. Just… hear him out, he might surprise you yet.”
“I doubt that,” Hermione thought sourly, dead-set on getting rid of the annoying blond as fast as she could so she could jumpstart what was left of her career and her life, but she had too much presence of mind to tell Ron that, his bull-headedness would cost her nothing but precious time.
“Well, I suppose you better send your lover-boy in, then,” she sighed resigned to her fate and decided to make a short show of it. “And Ron,” she added in an after-thought. “Please be careful, he’s… I don’t trust him,” she couldn’t bring herself to use the words like “possessed” “obsessed” and “a right lunatic” that came to mind. Only when Ron nodded and she was to find herself alone with the Slytherin for the first time since their encounter at the diner, she realized how on edge was she set by the images she saw in his head. The infernal man might be in love with her husband, there could be little doubt about that, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. Draco Malfoy was a man to watch and to watch oneself from. After all - not everyone could have survived the Dark Lord’s embrace and lived to tell the tale.
~ End of Part 9 ~
Next: Choices, Part 10/1
See also:
( Choices, Part 1 )
( Choices, Part 2 )
( Choices, Part 3 )
( Choices, Part 4 )
( Choices, Part 5/1 )
( Choices, Part 5/2 )
( Choices, Part 6 )
( Choices, Part 7 )
( Choices, Part 8/1 )
( Choices, Part 8/2 )