And What If They Were Lovers?
By ThatRomantic

Hermione reflected on their relationship as Ron was driving the family, minus Rose, back from King’s Cross. She always knew she had fallen in love with him for the wrong reasons—it wasn’t like they had ever had a civil conversation in their whole affair—but she loved him all the same.

She couldn’t help but think that he was a man now. She hadn’t seen him since the Final Battle, and she had not wanted to attend his trial for fear that she would break down into tears, but he had changed. The mask was ever present on his face but she knew he was happy, she could see it in his eyes; his beautiful grey eyes that she used to stare into endlessly in stolen moments of passion.

They only ever had the physical side of love; that was how it was with them. It was a world she was not ashamed to get lost in. It had started at the Yule Ball when Ron had shouted at her for being with Krum. She was crying on the steps leading to the tower; she couldn’t go up them because that would mean facing Ron, she couldn’t go down them to the Ball because she had mascara running down her face. Then he came. There he was, in all his pureblood glory. Glowing. He bent down to her ear and whispered breathily, sending shivers down her spine.

“You know, I was looking around the hall, Granger, and came to the regretful conclusion that you are the prettiest Mudblood at this thing.� She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry harder, it sounded so ridiculous that Draco Malfoy was almost giving her a compliment, but she was also insulted, it wasn’t until what he said next that she made up her mind. “Whoever made you cry so unattractively; deserves a slap like the one you gave me in third year.� At this she smiled and looked up at him through the cloudy haze of her tears. The next thing she knew she was pinned to a wall with his tongue down her throat, his hand in her knickers and her fingers around his member. That was how it started.

She would tell the boys the believable story that she was going to the library and they’d sneak around behind everyone’s backs. At first she felt guilty about what she was doing, but it was soon remedied. She lost her virginity to him in February during her fourth year. She was 15. She remembered it vividly: in the dungeons on a desk top. It started slow because he didn’t want to hurt her, but after their first time it was generally a lot rougher. Fifth Year came and went in a blur of skin and sweat but they used the Room of Requirement instead of classrooms, which she admitted was comfier. They even fell asleep in each other’s arms a couple of times. On one of the very few times they had talked as lovers rather than enemies, he told her that he’d wanted to kiss her since she hit him in Third Year. She still remembered the exact words he spoke to her. “I wanted to grab your arm, pull you in and kiss you until the cows came home.�

Sixth Year was when it got complicated. She realised that somewhere between the beginning of Fifth and the end of Sixth she had fallen in love with him. They didn’t see each other as much that year, he was busy with his ‘duties.’ When they did see one another he used a concealment charm on the tattoo on his left arm. That was why she refused to believe what Harry and Ron were saying about him. I would know, she kept thinking, I would see the mark on his arm. When she found out it was him that had made the attack happen that year she cried herself to sleep for weeks afterward.

It was then that she started questioning the dilemma-that-was her love life. She was in love with two different men for completely different reasons. Ron was a good friend and she had actually had a conversation with him. Draco was her comfort when Ron had hurt her; she had run to him just after the canary incident and they had made love. That was the best time, she had decided afterward, because she had put the love that she held for both of them into one physical motion and it took her to heights she had never been before.

When she had cried in the tent after Ron had left it wasn’t just because he was gone, but because the only other man who may have been able to comfort her was not there either. So she, selfishly, cried because after having two men to love she had none.

She had no regrets about their relationship. She had no regrets about marrying Ron. She had loved them both and still did on some level, but with Draco she knew it could never be. She loved Ron, truly loved him, she loved their beautiful children, she loved their house, their car, their town, their friends. It wasn’t until September first, Rose’s first day, that she realised she had missed Draco Malfoy’s touch. That was why she had told Rose to be friends with whoever she pleased when Ron had told her to beat Scorpius. She wanted an excuse, she supposed, to see him again. To love him again.

And What If He Faded into the Background?
Companion to And What If They Were Lovers?
By ThatRomantic

I can’t believe my eyes when I see her. She truly is a vision in white. Her dress is ivory and floor length and strapless, showing off her creamy shoulders beautifully. Its waistline, which exaggerates her fragile tall frame, makes her body look more sensual – like a Grecian Goddess. The silk of the dress clings to her subtle curves well. She does not wear a veil; instead she has cream and yellow flowers intertwined in a halo atop her head. Her long, shiny, curly chocolate brown curls are pulled back from her face, save from a few wisps that tumble down her neck and around her face. She looks as amazing as she did the first time I saw her coming down the steps for the Yule Ball. My breath catches at the sight before me as I forget to breathe.

As she walks down the aisle, I can’t help but think about our relationship. It was physical mainly, and we had never spoken the L-word. I hope she knows I love her – I know, it’s still true. She walks down the narrow gangway with such grace and poise she looks like she doesn’t even belong to this world. Her smile is radiant and full of white, perfectly straight teeth. I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack just from seeing her looking happy. Looking angelic. Glowing.

She reaches the altar.

Weasley is positively beaming next to her. I can’t believe I let her get away. I can’t believe that he’ll have all of her now, like it should have been at school. I know that she only ever came to me when he had not noticed her the way he should have, when her heart was aching the way mine did when I saw her with him and Potter. He should be smiling. He got the best catch of all the fish in the sea.

Not telling her about everything in sixth year felt like the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I knew that Potter didn’t trust me, or believe that I was clean, but I heard them both arguing one time in the library—and she was defending me. Listening to her do that was heart breaking, because I knew I was lying to her. It was nowhere near as bad as watching her tortured on my drawing room floor, though. Watching her writhe and scream almost brought me to tears right there in front of my parents and aunt. I had thought, by not identifying her and her friends, I had saved them from something so vile. I had tried to hinder such a fate for her, even if it had meant that one of the boys had something happen to them. I had wanted so badly to protect her. Seeing it happen, all I wanted to do was jump in and cover her with my body to protect her from any harm, to hold her while she wept and for my aunt to torture me instead.

Seeing her up there with him makes me regret not telling her that I love her; that I wanted to be the one she wanted to grow old with. Maybe if I had said something, things would have turned out differently.

I had entered as discretely as I could. I waited for all but one guest to enter the church, and I sat at the back in a far corner. I wasn’t invited; not really, I just wanted to see her before she became Hermione Jean Weasley. It was worth it, to see her smile gaily when she saw the twin with one ear do something behind Weasley’s back.

I had to be sneaky, because I didn’t want her to see me, to regret anything. That’s what being a Slytherin’s for though, sneaking about, even if it is into an ex-lover’s wedding—just to see her happy.

I don’t know when I became so sentimental, but I think it’s her fault.

Seeing her up there, I keep having second thoughts, thinking of how stupid it was of me to come and that I shouldn’t even be here. I tell myself that it is worth it to see her again after all these years whilst berating myself for letting her go.

I keep thinking of how I could have had her. If I had just gone to Dumbledore about what I had to do, if I’d taken Snape’s help when he offered it, things could have been so different. It was my fault that what we had ended; if I hadn’t been such a coward maybe she wouldn’t be up there with him. But I did, and she is, and now I have to face the consequences by watching her exchange loving vows with someone who isn’t me. Someone she wants.

I just paste a fake smile on my face and pretend that seeing her up there kissing Ron fucking Weasley as the ceremony concludes instead of me isn’t breaking my heart. I just stay hidden so as to not draw any unnecessary attention to myself.

I clap along with the other wedding guests, making sure to be as isolated as possible. I don’t want her to see me here. I don’t want her to think that I’m here to ruin her wedding. I just want to see her, make sure she was happy. I want one of us to be. She deserves happiness after all she’s been through, and what better happiness than the love of her best friend?

I watch her walk back down the aisle with Weasley looking like nothing could go wrong. As soon as she’s out of the church doors I head outside so as not to be noticed.

I decided to come to the Burrow. I don’t really know why, I guess I find her as addictive as I did in school.

They’re having the reception in the garden and it’s absolutely breathtaking. The garden is smaller than the Manor’s—but then most are—and there is a huge marquee in the middle. Within are several circular tables and a dance floor. Blaise is the DJ, and he’s snuck me some food. It tastes amazing, and if my ears aren’t failing me then all of it was cooked by Mrs Weasley Senior. The marquee is decorated with yellow and cream flowers twining up the rafters. They match the ones plaited into her hair.

The dance floor is large and filled with people, young and old, mainly with red hair. I see a young boy with bubblegum pink hair running around chasing a girl with flowing blonde hair around the tent. Everyone is smiling and having fun. There seems to already be some people who are tipsy; drunkenly staggering to try and dance to the beat. I see several old classmates that were in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. Longbottom seems to be dancing closely with the Abbot girl. Potter and the Weasley girl are flirting shamelessly on the other side of the room from me, and the Lovegood girl is barefoot and dancing in circles. If you can call it that.

I’m sitting on my own by the DJ booth keeping Blaise company, sipping on some fine Goblin wine and observing everything going on around me.

She looks at me and my heart stops. She must have spotted my bright blond head among the reds. I sit up straighter and smooth my hair down, take the imaginary lint from my jacket and lock eyes with her. We hold each other’s stares, and I’ve never felt something so intense in my life. Brown on grey, grey on brown; neither looking away. I don’t even want to, not now I have her attention. I hope that everything I feel for her is shown in that stare. I see something in her eyes but I don’t know what it means. She looks intense, like she’s searching for something. She must find it, because she smiles at me, her whole face lighting up. I smile back and we both turn away at the same time.

That moment makes my heart melt. I just keep going over and over in my mind how I should have told her when I had the chance that I love her, that I miss her, that it was and always will be her. She is the one I want to wake up to in the morning with the sunlight through her hair. She’s the one I want to see me when I start to bald, and to tell me that I look as handsome as the day we married. She’s the one that I want.

But I can’t have her, not now that Weasley does.

I have to leave. Without a second thought I down what’s left of the glass of wine I have in my hand and slam it down on the table. As I glance up I see the bottle and start to chug it. My head starts to get slightly light and I Apparate to my house before I get to a point where I would splinch myself. I stumble up the stairs to my large bedroom. I sit at my desk and continue to gulp down the bottle and finish it within a few minutes. I get frustrated when the liquid is gone and does not give me the sensation I desire. I want numbness and I can’t seem to get it. I just keep being reminded that it wasn’t me, Draco Malfoy, up there exchanging vows with that beautiful woman but someone else.

I throw the bottle at the wall opposite me and shout “She’s with somebody else!�

The bottle smashes satisfactorily.

I continue to drink myself into a stupor and reminisce over our stolen moments together. The way she felt underneath me, the way she always caught her breath in her throat when she was about to climax. The way she felt cradled in my arms as we slept on the occasions that we were too tired to return to our dorm rooms. As I think of these things, a goofy smile appears on my usually poised and aristocratic face. The more I think of this the more I recluse myself. I can’t face the world without her in mine. Not yet.

As I sit and think, I toast Ronald fucking Weasley for a job well done. He finally got the girl. He won the war that started between us from the moment I had Hermione on the potions desk. I don’t think he was aware of the battle we waged against each other but he won all the same. He was always going to.

She loved him, not me. I was the backup, the comfort. He always had her heart, even in fourth year when I saw her crying because of his stupidity. He obviously got over that. I heard they kissed before the battle commenced. I wish I had been there to pry them apart and kiss her myself, but I was on the other side of the trenches. I congratulate him, though, for finally realising that she wasn’t mine to have anymore.

She’s with somebody else…

And What If Karma Caught Up With Them?
Companion to And What If They Were Lovers? & And What If He Faded into the Background?
By ThatRomantic

There was a pronounced awkwardness in the room now that Rose and Scorpius had left. The four adults were sitting in Malfoy Manor in a silence that was as thick as treacle. Ron shifted nervously next to his wife of twenty years, desperately wanting to break the ice.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,� he said without really thinking. Every head in the room, including the portraits and the house-elf that had come in to ask if the guests wanted anything more to drink, turned to the tall, ginger haired man. All reactions were different: Astoria had raised a single eyebrow, Hermione’s mouth was hanging open with disbelief and a red flush; but it was Draco’s reaction that surprised him the most. He seemed to be both offended and angry at the comment, wearing a threatening scowl as if daring the other man to say more. He suddenly realised that he was in the same room he had been in all those years ago.

“Yes, well... I didn’t particularly like the house at the time of your last visit,� Draco gritted out. Astoria put a reassuring hand on her husband’s arm – but he didn’t seem to calm down. It was only when his grey eyes met Hermione’s honey-brown that the tension visibly left his body.

Ron was immensely confused by this. What was that about? Why was it that Malfoy could not be calmed by his own wife, but could by the gaze of the woman he had mercilessly insulted for seven years? The awkward silence became heavier in the atmosphere after that, but Ron snuck glances at the blonde across from him. Ron silently gloated to himself that he – although grey – still had hair. Despite Draco’s obvious hair loss he seemed not to have changed much. His hair was still white blonde, his nose was still pointed – along with his chin – and his eyes were still the steel grey they were at school.

What perturbed Ron to no end was that Draco’s silver gaze would occasionally flick to Hermione and soften. Ron noticed that he did not seem to want to make eye-contact – in fact; the other man avoided her eyes completely. Draco’s gaze – however unintentionally or briefly – landed on Hermione’s breasts. When Ron looked closer at what Draco was doing – having been ready to make a snide comment about his lack of subtlety – Ron was disturbed even more when he saw Malfoy was looking at other specific places on her body. That in itself was annoying enough, but it was where his gaze wondered specifically that peeved him off. Ron knew those spots and he knew them very well: her left collarbone, where she liked to be kissed; her bellybutton, where she enjoyed to be licked; her long slender neck, where she was fond of being sucked; the outside of her right thigh, where she gained great pleasure at being stroked. The last one was most disturbing for Ron, and he felt his anger boiling in his blood at the simple idea of Malfoy knowing that intimate detail about his wife. Malfoy looked directly at Hermione’s breasts again – the place she most loved any caress, the place that would send her flying over the edge into ecstasy. Malfoy’s eyes darkened at that point, and Ron inadvertently growled under his breath.

“I’m going to the loo,� he lied.

“Down the corridor and on the left,� Astoria said politely.

“Thank you,� Ron replied. He walked into the corridor from the room, directly to the door that had a sign that said BATHROOM on it. He took some deep, calming breaths – like he had been taught by the woman he went to see about anger problems before Rose was born – and did his business while he was there. Somehow, going for a piss always seemed to calm his frayed nerves. He sat down on the closed toilet seat to prepare himself for going back into the tense room for a few minutes. Once he had settled himself he left the bathroom, still with a little tension in his shoulders.

He was about to reach for the doorknob to re-enter the tense atmosphere, when a female hand reached out for his. He didn’t recognise it and, startled, turned around. He was faced with the dark haired woman that had been sitting opposite him.

“Don’t go in there,� Astoria said gently, “not yet. They need to work some things out between themselves.� Ron looked at her bewildered, unsure as to whether to be offended or worried.

She spoke again, smiling sadly. “He loves her, you know?�

“Who, Malfoy? No, he doesn’t – he hates her, she hates him. They hate each other – I don’t know where you get that idea from.�

“No, they don’t, at least not on his part. Draco and I aren’t in love – we are close, but not in the way we should be as man and wife. It was merely a marriage of convenience – for both our sakes really. We barely ever have sex, and when we do it’s not my name he screams in ecstasy, it’s hers.� Ron was struck dumb by this. There was clearly something more to them than he had first suspected, and against his better judgement, he waited with Astoria outside the large wooden door, hoping he was doing the right thing.

---

The door shut behind Astoria as she exited the room to ‘check if the house-elves were starting dinner.’ The tension in the room was a different kind from before Astoria and Ron departed. Hermione took a deep breath and asked the only question on her mind at that moment.

“How do you feel about this?� Draco looked up at her, slightly confused for a moment before realising the reason all of them were there in the first place.

“I can’t say it comes as a shock,� he said. “Not really,� he added after a pause. “After all, they’ve liked each other for so long it was almost inevitable that they got together.�

“Yes, I suppose so,� she said wistfully. “It feels like Karma’s finally caught up with me.�

“What do you mean?�

“You know,� she said, “after what happened between us...�

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.� There was another long pause before Draco spoke again.

“I saw you at your wedding,� he said rather guiltily. “You looked stunning.�

“Thank you.� After another pause she spoke again.

“I got pregnant – you know? I was a year younger than Rose is now.� He looked up at her, shocked, and with hurt in his eyes.

“That’s what you really meant about Karma then?� She simply nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me?�

“Oh, come on, Draco. I was seventeen and we barely spoke. That was the year you... the year that... Would you really have wanted it? Would you really have brought a child into that world?�

“I suppose you’re right – as always,� he said disappointedly.

“Plus, what would you have told your parents, your friends, your ‘master’? What would I have told my friends and family? No, it was for the best.�

“Yes, yes. Of course.� There was another tangible silence.

“Do you ever think about what it would have been like? If things were different?� She asked.

“All the time.�

“Me too.�

“I did it for you, you know?�

“What?�

“Becoming a Death Eater,� he said simply. “I hoped that if I was ‘in rank’ you wouldn’t be hurt.�

“Why did you care? You never did before.�

“I had my reasons, Hermione. Good reasons.�

“What were they?� she pushed. She was hoping she knew. She was hoping she guessed right.

“It doesn’t matter now,� he said, avoiding her gaze. She walked from the couch she was on to next to him on his. He still didn’t look up. She put a hand on his cheek and turned his head to face her.

“It does to me, Draco. Please tell me. Maybe I can put my heart to rest then.� He looked up and their gazes locked. He was instantly hypnotised by what he saw in her honey brown orbs.

“I cared because I love you.� He quickly tried to turn away but she wouldn’t allow it. Tears welled in her eyes.

“You loved me?�

“No, Hermione,� he said. At this she whimpered and it was her turn to look away. He caught her chin with his index finger and their eyes locked once more. “I love you. Present tense.� She gasped. After all these years, he still felt that? “But I also know that I can’t have you,� he continued. “We’re both married; our children are in love with each other and about to make us grandparents. I know, for a fact, that it will be torture watching you across the room and never being able to hold you the way I want. Seeing Scorpius and Rose living the life I wanted for so long with you, but – as you say – that’s how Karma catches up with you.�

She did not speak for a while, unsure as to how to take his confession. “I understand,� she said eventually through a closed throat and watery smile.

“May I have one last kiss? To say goodbye,� he asked.

“Yes,� she breathed. As soon as the word was out of her mouth, lips descended on hers. It was nothing like the ones they had shared twenty-five years before. It was soft and tender, full of promises and regrets; beautifully heartbreaking. It felt like they were making love to each other’s mouths. All the memories of their time together came rushing back. They were holding each other tightly – never wanting to let go, never wanting it to end. Their tears slid down each of their cheeks, melding and becoming one. All too soon it ended, but they held on just a moment longer.

“I love you too, Draco.�

---

Rose and Scorpius were laid outside on the vast lawns of the Manor a few weeks later. They were cloud watching and the air was tranquil.

“Do you think they’ll ever stop loving each other?� Rose asked after a while.

“No,� Scorpius replied, “but I don’t think they’ll act on it, either.�

It was odd for the Seventh year couple to think that their parents had a life before them. It was even odder to know that they had a history.

“Do you think they know how obvious they were being?�

“No, I don’t.� They were talking about the day that both families had been at the Manor for the announcement the young couple had. Both teens noticed their parents trying to sneak glances at one another when they thought no one was looking. It saddened both of them to know it had come to this for the older couple, and neither could imagine the pain their parents were going through, or shame they would feel if anyone were to find out.

“Never leave us, Scorp,� Rose said after a while, placing a hand on her slightly swollen stomach.

“I’ll never leave you, sweetheart,� Scorpius replied.