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…