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“Guess what?” Ron said in lieu of a greeting as Hermione entered the kitchen.
“What?” she responded with a sigh. You’d think after a 14 hour auror stakeout Hermione’s homecoming would warrant a warmer welcome from her husband.
“Malfoy has a fellytone,” he said with disbelief, “I mean, Draco Malfoy. Fellytone,” Ron elaborated. Hermione remained nonplussed. “Why aren’t you surprised?” Ron almost seemed offended that Hermione wasn’t bothered.
“First of all, it’s a telephone,” Hermione began with the tone of an exasperated teacher repeating the instruction for the twelfth time. “And second of all, Draco’s changed. He is well accustomed to the muggle world, a mobile was the next logical step.” Hermione had begun to pull together some dinner. Hermione was well informed that Draco had a mobile, she had helped him set it up.
When Hermione entered the Auror training program the fall after her eighth year at Hogwarts, she had been offered, again, to jump ahead with Harry. She declined, stating she’d rather work her way up. To everyone’s surprise, Draco had enrolled too. To everyone’s further surprise, Draco was incredibly gifted at being an Auror, especially at catching the remaining Death Eaters. This did not surprise Hermione.
The one field Draco lacked in was the muggle realm. Because magical culprits flee magical law enforcement, they often take refuge in the muggle world, and all aurors are required to be fluent muggles. After the first week of training, Draco had timidly approached Hermione with a request of muggle tutoring once a week, until he caught up. At least to the half bloods, he had said. Hermione had accepted. They met at the ministry, usually on Friday mornings before most people arrived, but occasionally they changed the location or time.
Three weeks in, their boss was berating them for coming into work too often, so they resorted to studying in Hermione’s townhouse. Ron was at the joke shop for the day, but tensions ran high. A bought of yelling turning quickly into passionate, angry kissing, which devolved further to hate sex against the wall. Unfortunately, it was amazing hate sex. Draco and Hermione just couldn’t seem to stop.
So here they were, three months later with a standing weekly shag arrangement, now usually at Draco’s bachelor pad. As part of her tutoring, Hermione had suggested that Draco get a mobile phone, and he had readily agreed. Hermione taught him how to text and call that first week, and when Draco came in on Monday he was a master. Hermione had asked him how much time he spent with it over the weekend and he refused to answer. But the dense bags under his eyes said enough.
The next week, the sexting started. Ron didn’t have a mobile and was woefully oblivious to their features, so Hermione knew this was her secret to keep. She knew her marriage was falling apart, she and Ron had more bad days than good. Who even gets married at 18, fresh off a war, with just a school year of a long-distance relationship and then one summer together? In Hermione’s eyes, the sexting and nudes were no worse than the actual sex (which she just couldn’t seem to stop having), and keeping her mobile private was not the moral decision she was agonizing over. She did plenty of agonizing over the sex, thank you vey much.
So she sat in her kitchen, with her husband, drinking his wine, thinking about Draco, and the way his cold hands had felt on her bare breasts…
“When did you even see Draco?” Hermione continued.
“He stopped by the shop today.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The prick didn’t even buy anything, just wanted to know if you'd taught me how to use a telephone too.” Ron gave a slight huff.
“Huh.” Hermione was concerned. “Did he not know how to work it?”
“No, don’t worry, I’m sure your tutoring,” he said with a slight grimace, “is paying off. He just showed me his text conversations, something about telling me and George we should get one for the shop, for customers to order through. Complete hogwash if you ask me; Owls work just fine.”
“Uh-huh.” Now Hermione was really concerned. “Remind me why he was showing you his texts?” As far as she knew, he texted just the one person. Herself.
“I don’t really know, he said something about the great relationships you can develop, or talented people to meet? I don’t really know ‘Mione,” Hermione winced at the nickname, “he honestly just wanted me to look at his phone.”
Draco Malfoy. That son of a bitch. Ron would burn this house to the ground if he found out. Even though they both knew they were falling apart, and Draco knew they were falling apart, that gave him no right to go flaunt her adultery in Ron’s face. She should be furious with Draco, but part of her wondered what conversion she’d be having with Ron right now if he had found out. Ideally, she’d be packing up her things. Ron would say something nasty at first, and Hermione would cry a little, but they’d both accept that at the end of the day, their relationship hardly qualified as a relationship anymore, much less a successful marriage.
She found herself craving Draco’s company, wishing she were there instead, even just to have another overly sharp mind to discuss her day at work with. He had consumed her. Covered her with tenacious, invasive, all-consuming ivy, surrounded her, wrapped her up in him, in his life, his companionship. He had put in strong roots, roots built on hours spent in muggle london discussing Starbucks orders and traffic patterns and the underground and electricity and pigeons and everything. The moments that they had stolen, when their “relationship” was on borrowed time, made up all of Hermione’s happiest memories from the past three months. It was a war, the fight of her life, and he started it.
“We should break up,” she said.