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Draco couldn’t help the permanent look of disgust on his face as he surveyed the room; judging by the sea of red hair, there were far too many Weasleys in attendance of this engagement party. The fact that the party was in celebration of a Weasley meant nothing to him, as he hadn’t attended for her.
Potter had been his Auror partner for the past three years, and there had been a lot of trust built between them during that time. Draco would never forget their first mission, they’d been reprimanded by Dawlish after it finally ended for spending more time bickering and trying to hex one another rather than, you know, stopping crime and doing the task they’d been set to do. Draco had assumed it would mean they would be re-partnered with someone else, but instead it meant that they would be partnered constantly as some kind of exposure therapy to one another.
Nevertheless, after the fifth or sixth mission he found himself able to get along with Potter, and Harry seemed to be able to do the same with Draco. No longer enemies, Harry had invited Draco to the Leaky one Friday after work, and the rest was history. Draco had formed a trusting friendship with Potter, and his girlfriend, the youngest Weasley, became the little sister Draco had never wished for. Ginny loved riling Draco up, teasing him mercilessly about his love life (or lack thereof), while Draco threw all the barbs he had in his arsenal her way, most of them to do with the colour of her hair. Despite their teasing relationship, Draco knew that if anyone had ever tried to cross her, he would protect her just as fiercely as Potter would.
So when Harry proposed to Ginny, there was no doubt that Draco would be asked to be one of his groomsmen. Best man had been reserved for Ron, considering he was not only Harry’s best friend, but Ginny’s brother, but Draco had been cautious about accepting his role as groomsman.
“Potter, I fear that all that red hair is going to clash horribly with my complexion,” Draco had joked after Harry had posed the question at their weekly Friday drinks at the Leaky.
Harry may have smirked, but he knew that there was something else underneath that was causing Draco’s hesitation. Draco had been trying to prove himself to the world since the war ended, his career as an Auror and friendship with Harry being his biggest achievements of that. Still, there were horrified glances and whispers thrown around every time he entered the Ministry of Magic, glares thrown his way as he walked down Diagon Alley, the occasional spitting in his direction after a night at the pub. Draco knew that Harry was trying to help him shake off that negative image by giving him this role in his wedding, but Draco couldn’t help the sinking feeling that if he accepted it, he would end up ruining Potter and Weasley’s big day. It had taken a lot of coercing and a serious conversation with the youngest Weasley that he never thought he would have before he finally accepted his spot in the ginger line-up of groomsmen.
That was how Draco found himself at the Burrow, surrounded by Weasleys as he nursed his third Butterbeer. He didn’t often drink it, but he wanted to make sure he was coherent enough to Floo home as early as possible without seeming rude, and if he drank his usual Firewhisky he might have a problem making it home in one piece.
Draco plopped himself down on the stairs, taking a swill of his drink as he watched the scene in front of him. Everyone was dancing around, Harry with Ginny, Molly with Arthur, Ron with Lavender. Draco didn’t know much about what Ron was up to these days, apart from working the joke store with George and dating Lavender Brown. Ginny had begrudgingly made Lavender her Maid of Honour, simply because she was around more than her other bridesmaids and the way her relationship with Ron was going, she would one day be Ginny’s sister-in-law.
Draco was watching Ron spin Lavender in a circle, her head thrown back in laughter, when he felt someone sit on the step above him, a sigh erupting from her throat. Draco turned his head to find Hermione Granger nursing half a warm Butterbeer, her eyes trained on the same two people that his had been a moment ago.
“Do you ever think about how different the course of your life might be if you had only made one different decision?” she mused, swirling the yellow liquid in the bottle as she looked deep in contemplation at the happy couple. Draco wasn’t sure if she knew who she was talking to, her vision was so fiercely trained on Ron and Lavender.
“Every day of my life, Granger.”
Hermione managed to pry her eyes away from the pair to meet Draco’s eyes, her stare ferocious. “Would it have made your life better or worse?”
“Depends which decision I’d changed.”
Hermione hummed in contemplation, taking the smallest sip of her drink. Draco watched as the cogs in her head turned, wondering what had become of her. He hadn’t seen her since the end of the war, she had been holding Ron’s hand as Draco was brought into the Wizengamot in shackles and a striped Azkaban uniform. She had stood at the podium, telling the jury that he had been dragged into the middle of a war that he wanted no part of, and that his actions during the war had saved Harry, leading him to defeat the most powerful dark wizard history had seen. Ron had kissed her temple as she sat back in her seat, Draco’s sentence being reduced to a year of house arrest and a lifetime monitor on his wand. Even as an Auror, he was limited to what spells he could use, meaning he generally took the defence while Potter took the offense.
She had grown in the years since he last saw her. She’d gone from a slight teenage girl to a shapely woman, the curve of her tan hip and dip in her collarbones accentuated by the dim lighting of the burrow. Her cheekbones had a faint sheen of sweat, her pouty lips dampened by the fizzy Butterbeer clinging to them as she sipped from the warm bottle. She turned her stare to Draco, who averted his gaze quickly as not to get caught looking.
“I would have thought that would be me down there tonight,” Hermione said softly, pain seeping into her voice. “Dancing in the arms of the man I love while we celebrated our friends and family.”
Draco pointedly noticed the way she said that in present tense, not putting her love for Weasley in the past. He didn’t have to ask what happened, as she was content with sharing that information freely.
“He should have known I had ambition outside being the perfect stay-at-home wife and mother. I’ve had that ambition since the day we met on the Hogwarts Express. But god it hurt to know that he didn’t want the same things for me that I did.”
Draco reached out to place a comforting hand on her knee, feeling the searing heat of her skin under his palm. She was so soft, had she always been this soft? He started to wonder if every part of her body felt this soft, and was nearly determined to find out for himself.
“I’ve changed since then, though,” she continued monologuing, “I’m done with running. God, I’m sick of running. I feel like that’s all we ever did. Running from werewolves, or Death Eaters, or our feelings. It feels like sixth year all over again, watching them snog while I sit here and cry about not doing it when I had the chance.”
“My whole life feels like sixth year all over again.”
Hermione frowned at him, making Draco sigh. “I just feel so isolated from everyone. My life is one dull routine after the other, like I’m just biding my time until the reaper comes down and takes me again. It’s like I’m watching everyone else live their lives through a looking glass, while mine is just paused. It feels wild to say this, but Potter and his Weasley are the two people I’m closest with in my life.”
Hermione drained the rest of her Butterbeer. Draco desperately wanted to reach out and swipe his thumb over her bottom lip and wrap his hand around her neck and stick his tongue in the little divots of skin over sharp bones on her chest. But he couldn’t. Not while she looked at Weasley like this.
“Granger, can I ask you a question?”
“Hmm.”
“If not Weasley, then who?”
Hermione sighed. “That’s the thing, he’s it for me. As much as I hate it, I can’t imagine myself with anyone else.”
“So you would swoop in there and be the other woman? Put a wedge between him and his happiness?”
Ron’s laughter boomed through the room, only punctuating Draco’s sentence further. Hermione sighed again.
“I just want him to be happy.”
“He is happy.”
“But I want to be happy too, with him.”
“You can be just as happy without him.”
Hermione scoffed. “What would you know about making people happy?”
The words struck Draco in his chest like a hard blow with a sledgehammer. She was right, but it didn’t hurt any less. Draco took another swig of his Butterbeer, now almost as warm as Hermione’s, not turning to face her again. He felt her move down a step to sit directly next to him, her warm thigh brushing up against his leg.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. It’s just—I’m pretty right? And I’m thoughtful, and friendly.”
Draco only nodded.
“But he needed more than me.”
Draco downed the last of his Butterbeer, his arm brushing against Hermione soft arm as he placed the empty bottle on the bottom step. Fuck, why was her skin so soft?
“Granger, I don’t know how anyone could find a woman that was more than you.” It was Draco’s turn to monologue now. “You’ve single-handedly lead a magical beings revolution while studying in school, you got 11 N.E.W.T.s, by correspondence I might add, you hunted dark magical artefacts for a whole year while single-handedly keeping the most sought after wizard alive and fought in a bloody war. Not to mention you are so painstakingly beautiful that one of the greatest international Quidditch Seekers alive couldn’t keep his eyes off you, Cormac fucking McLaggen tried to get his hands on you how many times, yet you still find yourself trying to make your way back to the boy that wouldn’t even give you the time of day until he realised that other people wanted you more.”
Hermione opened her mouth, her skin flushed, but no words came out. She closed her mouth as she played with the rim of her empty bottle, staring down at her hands.
“Yet it still doesn’t feel like enough.”
Draco gestured to where Lavender had her head resting on Ron’s shoulder, Ron’s arms wrapped around her waist. “Maybe he doesn’t want all of that. Maybe he just wants simple. And that’s okay. There is someone out there who wants that big brain under all that wild hair, and that innate sense for doing good in the world. It just isn’t Weasley.”
Hermione looked at him with glossy eyes, a fat tear leaking out the corner. “Who else out there could possibly want someone like that?”
ME! Draco wanted to yell, I would KILL for that. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he just put his hand over Hermione’s and gave her a comforting smile. “You wouldn’t believe how many people out there want that.”
Hermione quickly wiped away the tear that had fallen as they were approached by a redhead. Ron held his hand out to Hermione, slightly out of breath with flushed cheeks.
“Mione, come dance with us!”
Hermione put her hand in Ron’s a beaming smile crossing her face as he pulled her to his feet. She turned back to face Draco. “Do you want to come with us, Draco?”
Draco glanced up at the clock on the wall, it was close to midnight. He’d had his fill of Weasleys that weren’t Ginny, and nothing he had said to Hermione in the last hour seemed to have gotten through to her. He gave her a tight-lipped smile.
“You go ahead, Granger, I should be getting home anyway. Have a good night.”
Draco retreated back to the manor, opening another bottle of Butterbeer as his eyes leaked tears for the witch who deserved more than what she thought she was worth.