#will try to update soon ajajjaa
author’s note: this was originally intended to be a oneshot but i’m feeling motivated to write rn so this is going to be a three part series:))
a chance meeting in the leaky cauldron, where hermione has been working to try to forget the horrors of the second wizarding war, leads to a series of illicit affairs. includes: much angst and implied smut. read ‘the leaky cauldron’ before embarking.
trigger warning: ptsd, nightmares, alcoholism, trauma
You showed me colours
You know I can’t see
With anyone else
Taylor Swift, ‘illicit affairs’
They go upstairs, into the spare bedroom that Hermione has just told Draco about. Skin meets skin and tears mingle and the night passes in euphoric highs and snivelling, guilty lows. But Draco always kisses the tears away, and Hermione repays the favour.
When she wakes up, her head pounds. Dust particles float across the room, sprinkled around like icing sugar, and Hermione feels like she’s awakening from a dream. She hasn’t slept this well in months.
But someone’s breathing gently next to her. Lazy rays of morning sun soften the bags under Draco Malfoy’s eyes, and then the flood gates open, and Hermione remembers.
For some unknown, godforsaken reason, she wants to curl up next to him.
Tears prick at Hermione’s eyes. When she sees the dark, winding smudge on Draco’s forearm, they start to fall in streams, and soon she’s shoving a hand over her mouth as she sobs so that the Death Eater she just fuckeddoesn’t wake up.
Why do you care whether he wakes up or not? Why does Draco Malfoy getting his beauty sleep concernyou so -
Shut up shut up shut up
Hermione cries until she can’t anymore. Then -
Ron Ron Ron Ron Ron Ron
Ah, yes. I was wondering when we’d get to the man that you just cheated on.
Oh god oh god oh god shut up please shut up
Don’t you think he might be wondering why you didn’t come home last night?
Hermione stumbles out of bed, frantically throwing her clothes on, and she’s almost at the door when she looks back, she doesn’t know why, she can’t help it.
He’s still asleep. His white blonde hair is tousled, and his lips look soft and warm.
I thought he hated me.
You know what they say. There’s a thin line between -
Hermione slams the door behind her, like that will make the doubts go away.
When she finally reaches the house that Ron and her share, she’s panting and her legs burn from sprinting; if her crying didn’t wake Draco up, the door slam definitely did, and she can’t risk being there to face the consequences of their actions.
She pushes the door open, cringing at how much noise it makes. Maybe Ron will still be asleep and he won’t even have noticed she was missing and it will all be ok -
‘Hermione?’ His voice is a croak.
Ron’s standing in the hall, wearing a dressing gown. He’s clutching a can of beer in one hand and his face is red and blotchy, like he’s been crying.
‘Where were you?’
Hermione goes to him and takes his hand in hers, her heart thumping against her ribcage. ‘My shift - my shift at the Cauldron overran. I was so tired that I fell asleep there - Ron, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. Please don’t be angry.’
Some Gryffindor you are, lying to your best friend.
Ron doesn’t relax. ‘But I went to the Cauldron when you weren’t back for ages, and I didn’t see you there anywhere. I mean, it was past closing time so I could only look through the windows, but -’
She wants to scratch her eyes out at the waves of relief which wash over her.
‘The spare room,’ Hermione babbles. ‘There’s a spare room upstairs. I just thought I’d go for a quick lie down, but I fell asleep. You know how it is.’
Ron breathes a sigh, and pulls her into a hug. He feels safe and warm. Even if their relationship isn’t working, she knows that he will always care for her as a friend. Hermione wants to cry and cry.
‘Thank Merlin. You don’t know how scared I was, Hermione. For a minute I thought - God, I don’t know what I thought.’ Ron laughs shakily. ‘I thought maybe some fanatic who won’t accept Voldemort’s dead had found out where you worked or something. I thought that a Death Eater had got you.’
Hermione balls her hands into fists, her nails digging deep into soft palms.
The whole day, she’s terrified that Ron will sense the smell of him.Even when she changes her clothes, it still clings to her. If Hermione closed her eyes, she could feel him above her, behind her, inside her.
She wants to close her eyes, but she won’t let herself.
The day passes in a nervous blur, and soon it’s time for her shift at the Cauldron.
I need to go. They’ll wonder why I haven’t turned up.
Why don’t you just pretend to be ill?
I - I could.
But you don’t want to.
Shut it. With any luck, he’ll - he’ll have left already.
He hasn’t left. Of course he hasn’t.
Hermione cleans the bar and serves butterbeer and chats to customers while Draco sits in the corner, hiding his face and downing glass after glass of firewhiskey. The sun sets in the sky, splashing red across a darkening canvas, and Hermione finds herself taking sips of customer’s drinks until eventually she begins pouring her own.
The waitress who served Draco last night doesn’t arrive at her scheduled time, but Hermione doesn’t worry - the alcohol that she’s knocking back won’t let her. A dizzy memory waltzes through her mind, reminding her of how she pointed out the way to the spare bedroom to Draco, who went up by himself, unnoticed. Hermione remembers telling the waitress that she was done for the night, and leaving out the front door. The backstairs that led up to the room where Draco waited were slippy and frosted over.
An hour or so later, Hermione stumbles up those same stairs, swaying in the cold winter air and hating herself.
Draco’s touch is warm.
Weeks pass. Hermione spends less time with Ron, because she can’t bear to look into his sweet face after what she’s done. The times that they see Harry, it’s hard to look into his eyes, too. She tells them that the nightmares have been getting worse, so she wants to start working later shifts at the Cauldron, and when the pub closes, she’ll stay to clean up. She knows it upsets Ron but she does it anyway, each footstep further away from their home sending a painful jolt to her heart. Hermione serves the customers, she drinks, she cries in the bathroom. She tells the waitress that she’s going home, now. She staggers up the stairs, and tries to block out the voices in her head as Draco fucks her.
She wonders if he has doubts, too.
She asks him.
‘Yes,’ he says. The first silvery wisps of dawn are creeping through the window, and his voice is even deeper from sleep. It makes Hermione’s heart throb.
‘Then why do we do this?’ She whispers.
He pauses. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Draco, when did - when did you start feeling like this, for me?’ The words come rushing out, and Hermione can’t stop them.
Draco stares at her. He swallows. ‘I don’t know about that, either. All I know is that -’ He sounds like he’s almost choking on his speech. ‘All I know is that one day, I saw you - you weren’t really doing anything, just sitting at the Gryffindor table with Weasley and Potter. And you were laughing. And just then, I felt this sort of - this sort of warmthin my chest.’
Hermione knows that feeling all too well, now.
‘And I hated myself for it. Because all my life, my father had taught me that muggleborns… you know.’ Grey eyes flood with guilt. ‘I’m sorry for that, by the way.’
Draco apologises a lot to Hermione now, about what went on between them at Hogwarts. It’s another thing she loves about him.
Loves - you said loves -
What? No, no I didn’t -
‘And me hating myself… it made me angrier at you. Like it was your fault, or something. Even if it hurt me to be horrible to you - I still felt like I had to do it.’
It seems Draco is more well-versed in the practise of self-hatred than Hermione ever was.
‘But after what happened with Voldemort, I knew I couldn’t live that kind of life. Which, again, I’m… I’m sorry for choosing in the first place.’
‘It’s alright, Draco,’ Hermione murmurs. It isn’t, really. She touches the scar on her arm. But she’d forgive him anything, anything.
What’s happened to me? If the house elves who’s freedom I campaigned so fervently for could see me now, they’d laugh.
Draco lies back onto the pillow, and laces his fingers with hers. The Dark Mark touches Mudblood’s jagged scrawl. Hermione gives into temptation, and nestles her bushy head into his chest. A silence falls, as soft as new snow. Hermione’s eyelids flutter closed.
There’s footsteps up the stairs.
Draco’s head snaps up. He’s heard them too.
‘Hide under the bed, Draco -’
Too late. There’s no lock on this door and it’s being pushed open and the waitress has discovered their hiding place -
But it’s not the waitress.
It’s Ron.
