Work Text:
Hermione Granger attended the wedding of the man she loved.
Stood in the corner as they slow danced
Numbly clapped her hands as they
Were presented man and man.
Hermione Granger attended the wedding of the man she loved
Scrawled her name in their guest book
Tasted ash when they toasted champagne
Hermione Granger attended the wedding of the man she loved
She wore emerald green, marveling
At how beautiful he beamed in white
Hermione Granger attended the wedding of the man she loved
When his groom rounded the corner
His face broke apart like clouds
But all around her were flames
Hermione Granger attended the wedding of the man she loved.
“Congratulations. I’m so happy for you both.”
---------------
The wedding was a grand event. White, gold, and silver floral arrangements were scattered along the lake-shore, built so high she thought one simple push might send one plummeting to the ground below. A white belvedere was erected at the edge of the lake. The water provided a beautiful backdrop– it was still and clear and Hermione could see schools of fish swimming around as she pondered the thought of jumping in. Perhaps if she was soaking wet and distraught, she might have a valid excuse to leave.
It was the wedding she always dreamed of. One she would likely never have.
She shouldn’t have expected anything less from Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter: the Boy Who Lived and the richest ex-Death Eater in the wizarding world. Their wealth combined was enough to build a city. One measly yet magnificent wedding wouldn’t put a pea-sized dent in either of their vaults.
She scribbled her name in the guest book, staring at the grand display of every moving photograph that could possibly exist of her best friend and his blond fiancé. There was hardly any room to rest her hand without knocking over another pretty little frame, with pretty little faces inside. It made her stomach churn, because how could they look so happy when she was too busy holding in tears every time she looked their way?
Hermione begrudgingly took a seat in the front row, next to Ron and Ginny, whose distaste was apparent on their faces. They never approved of Malfoy, but Hermione could still tell they were happy for their friend. She just wished she knew how to feel the same way.
The Minister of Magic began to speak to the crowd from inside the belvedere, but she couldn’t hear him over the ringing in her ears. Draco Malfoy gracefully sauntered down the aisle, wearing a black tuxedo that suited him so well it made Hermione’s breath hitch. Soon Harry was walking towards Malfoy in a white suit, but Hermione couldn’t take her eyes off the man in front of her. He stood exactly where she always wished he would, nose high in the air, eyes never leaving Harry as he walked down the aisle. That should have been her that he was gazing at with pure admiration. That should have been her in the aisle. That should have been her wearing white.
That should have been her. But it wasn’t. And it never would be.
She numbly clapped as they kissed, sealing a marriage she knew would never break. They were in love, and there was nothing she could do about it. All she felt were flames, licking at her skin. Rage, and sorrow and the urge to cry consumed her all at once, because Draco Malfoy did not love Hermione Granger, and that was the irrefutable truth.
Only Merlin could know how much she loved him.
She stood in the corner as they began to slow dance to a song she instantly recognized. It made her stomach drop. Now and Forever– she remembered the name. How could she forget? After all, her mother had just smiled and laughed when Hermione announced that this soft little muggle song might be featured at her future wedding, because Gods, she loved it so much.
She gripped a glass of elven wine and tried not to remember the nights her father swung her around their family kitchen, instructing her on how to move her feet to the tune.
“If you are to be married to this song,” Her father had said. “You should at least know how to dance to it.”
The hired singer began to croon and Hermione felt the words like a curse to her spine.
“Whenever I’m weary, from the battles that rage inside my head,
You make sense of the madness, when my sanity hangs by a thread.
I lose my way but still you seem to understand
Now and forever, I will be your man”
She closed her eyes and imagined Draco singing to her– dancing with her. Imagined the days they spent together, so many years ago. Before it all, before the war. Before the day he fell in love with Harry Potter and forgot her like a spell he hadn’t practiced. Before he told her he would love her until the end of time, but could no longer see a future with her in it.
Hermione's 'now and forever' quickly began to look a lot like ' now and for never .'
She was a painful reminder to him of his sins. That was all she would ever be. She was the girl writhing on the drawing room floor and screaming out to him for help. The girl with ‘mudblood’ carved into her skin– the girl he didn’t save.
“How can you look at me, after all of it?” Draco had said. His voice was severe, his face twisted into an expression which fell between a grimace and a smile. She knew this– this tone, this face. It was his way of holding in the pain inside. His way of seeming strong. For her. He never met her eyes, though. She couldn’t remember the last time he genuinely looked at her– the way he used to, or even at all. Not since the war, at least. She secretly hoped that perhaps he did, when she wasn’t looking back.
It was August of 2001. Case files for a missing war hero were laid atop a large oak desk. It stood between them like a barricade, holding an eager crowd from a wary performer. It felt like a wall– a wall that had been built brick by brick right under her nose, and a wall she couldn’t tear down. She didn’t truly know how long the wall had been growing between them, or who had contributed most to its construction. But the room felt ice cold. The silence had grown uncomfortable; the wall was impossible to ignore.
“Because you are the man I love, Draco.” She whispered. She so badly wanted to touch him– to ease the pain he was hiding. To break the wall and push aside the desk so that she may hold him like she had in sixth year when he had shown her his dark mark. She needed to let him know he was safe to let all the pain out. To cry, even.
“Granger–” He pressed his lips into a tight line. “–I can’t.”
Her heart dropped and her stomach clenched and every muscle in her body had felt like it seized. She could hardly form the words she wished to say. As she asked the last question– the prompt for his final blow: “Do you still love me?”
“Always.” He finally turned towards her. Icy eyes met her brown ones, and she gasped. There was no sparkle. Nothing. No hint of the love he once had for her.
“You said forever– now and forever.” She choked. “What happened to ‘now and forever?’”
“It died in that drawing room, Granger. ”
Hardly a month had passed before the Prophet released a photo of Draco and Harry out for tea. She had taken a vacation to clear her mind, but all hopes of recovery were lost when she saw the gleam in their eyes on that paper. They laughed and smiled and Draco looked exactly like he had when she first told him she loved him in the Room of Requirement. He sipped from a tiny cup in the photograph, and she knew what was in it: five sugar cubes because of his incurable sweet tooth. She wondered if he had ordered cold peppermint tea. That was his favorite. She wondered if Harry knew that.
She knew. She knew the second she saw that article that she had lost him for good. Because Harry Potter was a beacon of hope that she could never provide. He saved the wizarding world and she was just the helping hand used to flip pages rather than cast spells.
As Draco and Harry’s dance came to an end, Hermione’s head was spinning. She accioed another glass of wine, because if anything could get her through this night, it would be the bittersweet numbness of intoxication. Perhaps if she got sloshed enough, her friends might send her home and allow her leave this event without judging her for it.
No, they would still judge her. They always judged her.
But Draco didn’t. Not back then. Not when the leaves began to fall from the trees and they laid in the red and orange piles on their backs and when they accidentally fell asleep in each other’s arms in the sun. Not when he kissed her by the frozen lake in the winter when no one else was looking. They were too busy building snowmen to cast a warming charm, so the next day she was sent to the Hospital Wing for a severe cold. Not when they looked out upon the grounds from the Astronomy Tower and tried to count all the trees in the forest. She had counted two hundred and thirteen, but he had counted two hundred and thirty.
“You’re wrong, Granger,” He smirked, feigning disappointment. “Those trees–” He motioned towards the forest, “–they intersect. You have to look carefully.”
“I am looking carefully,” She hissed.
He smiled at that, reaching out with both arms to pull her into an embrace. She nuzzled into his shoulder and inhaled the scent of peppermints, cologne and firewood and everything she'd ever wanted. She would have given anything to stay there– to preserve that moment in time until the Earth collapsed in on them with arms still locked around each other. But he pulled away, and the moment was gone.
He always pulled away first.
She wondered if he would judge her now, as she haphazardly raised her glass to join her friends in a toast, sloshing the red liquid onto the white tablecloth. It stained like blood. She wondered if he’d eventually see the stain and think of her, because he’d once said that she was as red as they come. Red found a different meaning during the war, she supposed, when red was no longer a color of pride but a color of death and loss.
Theodore Nott gave a speech. She’d always loved his anecdotes at school– things he’d say to Draco when she wasn’t supposed to be listening. But she couldn’t stand the way he spoke tonight, voice full of love and a disgusting hint of delight. He told the hundreds of witches and wizards in the hall how proud he was of Malfoy for ‘ finally manning up .’ Hermione snorted so loudly Ron and Ginny turned to glare. She hardly considered Draco Malfoy’s marrying of the Chosen One manning up when he was still too cowardly to face the demons he’d left behind with her.
He hadn’t even glanced at her all night. Still hadn’t, barely an hour before the damned ceremony was to be over. And there would be no after party for her to crash either. At least not one she’d been invited to.
The worst part of the ceremony was not, in fact, watching the first man she’d ever loved look at another person in ways he’d never looked at her. No. The hardest part was trying not to look at him the same way— trying not to look at him as if he were the sun and she didn’t care if her retinas burnt because fuck he was gorgeous in a tux. No, she couldn’t stare at him as if he was the only wizard in the world, let alone the room, because no one knew. No one except her and Draco Malfoy himself.
Theirs was a love never written, never spoken. It was a love sealed with the words now and forever and always and then left to rot amongst a long list of secrets that Draco Malfoy kept hidden behind solid walls of stone. Like how his first kiss belonged to Blaise Zabini, or the way he secretly hated warm Earl Grey. She wondered how many of those secrets remained hidden from Harry, or if it was just her significance in his history that he refused to acknowledge.
Because he was a Death Eater, and she was the Golden Girl. A taboo, a wrong-doing that they agreed would be too shocking to share, but low and behold here he stood with the fucking Chosen One, so maybe it was just her he didn’t want to be seen with. Muddy blood never seemed to stop him from burying his cock inside inside of her, but maybe a public affair was just too far for Draco Malfoy. Maybe mudbloods were meant to be kept underneath the sheets and war heroes were meant for brunch in London. Maybe his aunt’s victims were meant to be tossed aside and childhood nemeses were meant to be arm candy to show off whenever Rita Skeeter needed a new front page story.
Harry had nearly killed Draco once. Hermione remembered slinking through the Infirmary’s grand doors, scared to be seen, just praying he was alive.
“He tried to— he tried— he tried to bloody kill me, Granger.” Draco had rasped, choking on a new round of blood coursing its way from his damaged organs to his head.
“Shhhhh, it’s okay. Just rest, Draco. Just rest.” She’d said, holding his head in her lap and running her fingers through his stained, damp hair. “You can tell me in the morning.”
Draco asked that she leave before morning so that no one would see her and grow suspicious as to why she was there.
Now Hermione’s head spun as she tried her best not to glare from across the room. Harry’s arm snaked lovingly around Draco’s waist, as if they’d never disagreed a day in their lives. As if they’d never fought separate battles— as if they’d been attached at the hip since they first met. It was as if Draco had been the one in the Forest of Dean giving Harry haircuts when his fringe grew into his eyes— or as if Harry had been the one in the Room of Requirement holding Draco’s shaking shoulders as he sobbed about the Dark Magic stamped permanently on his arm. No, Hermione simply didn’t exist. Not within their world.
She watched Draco lean down to whisper something in Harry’s ear, and the two looked absolutely chuffed. She squeezed her eyes shut, afraid that if she kept them open she might vomit.
“Bygones are bygones, right? And they’re so gone, Hermione.” Harry had gushed to her with stars in his eyes when the news of their relationship was leaked. She wondered if he had played a part in why there were reporters at a little muggle cafe in London that day, but she never pressed the matter, partially from fear that she’d lunge at her best friend the second he confirmed her suspicions.
Bygones had transformed into awkward Christmas dinners with Malfoy and the Weasleys, where Harry spent hours trying to convince them all that Draco had changed. “I love him, Ron.” He’d said through gritted teeth the first time he appeared at the burrow with a platinum blond and an armful of gifts. “You have to be okay with that.”
When Hermione opened her eyes, there were two blurry figures standing before her. It wasn’t until one spoke that she realized it was them.
“Hello ‘Mione!” It was Harry. Harry fucking Malfoy-Potter, grinning like a bloke who’d just been given the secrets of the universe. Draco was at his side, but he still wasn’t looking in her direction.
Arrogant prick! she wanted to scream— wanted to throw her fists against his chest and kick his feet out from underneath him because how dare he stand so close and yet act as if she wasn’t even there. Fucking look at me, you loathsome git! You absolute arsehole! Look at what you’ve done to me!
Her mouth was dry when she opened it, and the words she should have been saying simply did not come out, because she was too busy biting back the ones in her head. She followed Draco’s gaze and realized he was staring at the wine stain on the table. Red like me, right?
Harry looked at the glass she was still clutching and tsked .
“You’ve had one too many of those, haven’t you?” He chuckled, turning towards his new husband as if expecting him to speak. When Draco remained silent, Harry turned back towards her. “Well, I hope you’re enjoying the ceremony. I certainly am.”
She willed herself to look happy, though if she were to write an itemized list of her current emotions, happy wouldn’t even fit in the margins. Her stomach ached as she stood and curled her lips into a smile. “Congratulations, Harry. I’m so happy for you both.”
The words stung her tongue like an acrid flavor of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, but nonetheless, she held out her arms and fought a scowl when Harry threw his own around her in return. The embrace was almost friendly– she played the supportive role well. She wondered if her best friend could feel how stiff she’d grown under his touch because he got to hold Draco like this every night— now and fucking forever. Til death do them part.
When he released her, Harry was still beaming. “I’m so glad you could make it, Hermione. It means the world to us you’re here.”
She fought the rising bile in her throat, because she doubted the aforementioned ” us” included Draco.
“If you’ll excuse me, I believe the Minister is about to leave. I can’t let him go without saying goodbye!” He chuckled and practically skipped across the room towards Kingsley Shacklebolt, leaving his groom behind.
There was a moment, where Draco had yet to move, and Hermione physically couldn’t move, that time stood still. She didn’t breathe, and from the stillness of his chest, it appeared neither did he. She willed him to turn his head, to move, to speak, to breathe, to fucking apologize for all the pain and all the tears he’d left her to cry alone– to make up for the nights she laid awake in her bed thinking maybe if she’d screamed a little less on the drawing room floor that he would be laying next to her right now. He should repent for all the fucking misery she would face for the rest of their lives because now she would never be able to face her best friend without feeling like a ticking time bomb at the thought of his new hyphenated last name because God fucking dammit! Draco’s last name should be Granger-Malfoy not fucking Malfoy-Potter.
Then he did it; Draco moved, he breathed, he spoke— and she almost wished he hadn’t. He straightened, meeting her eyes for the first time in years. “You look lovely in green, Granger.”
She glanced down at the silky dress she’d found years ago, in hopes he might find it beautiful enough to take her into town for dinner or a drink. It now hung from her frail body like a robe. She allowed a lone tear to slip from her eyes at the thought that this would be the first and the last time he’d ever see the dress she’d bought solely for him.
“I know.” She muttered, though she knew the words would change nothing. “It’s your favorite.”
His eyes flashed briefly with an indiscernible emotion. She didn’t allow herself to hope that emotion was remorse or nostalgia. She held his cold gaze as long as he would allow before he turned away. Then he was gone and she was alone in a room full of people with only an empty glass and a broken heart to keep her company.