To Brew A Scandal by stars_in_motion

Chapter 18

- NOT MY STORY!! ALL CREDITS TO @stars_in_motion ON A03!!

Her father welcomed her back home without many questions. Only one, in fact, to start with. "Shall I ask Crookshanks to teach your husband a lesson?"

Hermione dropped herself onto a sofa, the same one her mother had fainted upon when she first learned Hermione was a witch. "No, no murder." She rolled onto her side and faced the delicate upholstery instead of looking up at her father. "Not yet, at least."

Later that night in the bath, under water Hermione continuously charmed to reheat, she scrubbed her skin raw. The touch Draco left had sunk deeper than just the surface of her skin. She allowed him, practically begged him, to touch her most vulnerable places. She had pushed his hands onto her skin, and told him that she wanted him. When she was not looking, was he laughing at her?

When the memory of it was too much to bear, Hermione dunked her head under the water and held her breath until she couldn't any longer.

And the cycle would repeat throughout her evening.

In the end, all she wanted in this world was a hug from her mother. As a child, it solved much of her problems, from children that had shunned her as a young girl to a scraped knee, all could be solved with a simple embrace from her mother. Instead, Hermione wrapped her arms around her middle, and turned over to a fresh side of her childhood bed, and tried her best to fall asleep.

It should not have been surprising when Mr. Crookshanks arrived the next morning through the Floo.

"Did he dismiss you?" Hermione asked quietly, as he set down her tray of tea by her bedside while she dressed for her classes. She had ignored the one her father sent up the previous day, and would neglect this fresh set as well. It smelled of mint.

"No, your grace. His grace has only asked that I return to attend to you."

"You can tell the duke that I am perfectly well, thank you, and am in no need of attending." The question of his own state, how he might be doing, lingered on her tongue. Hermione smothered it down.

"The duke has requested an audience—"

"No." Hermione gripped her sheets, sharply interrupting her butler. "Thank you for the tea, Mr. Crookshanks."

Hermione spent the week in a daze, avoiding meals and callings from friends, instead choosing to stare at her open potions book while reading nothing of its contents.

A sharp voice startled her out of her daydreaming—it was Harry. "What's wrong? What's happened?"

"Who let you in?" Hermione stood from her chair by the window, shocked at her friend's arrival at her family home. "I thought you were on your honeymoon?"

"I was, only to return and hear that your marriage is currently in shambles." Harry crossed the room to her, his brow furrowed, robes crumbled and wrinkled from what she assumed was his urgency to visit her.

"How could you know that? It hasn't been reported in the papers, I check them each morning."

"I have my ways, not including your distraught husband, showing up the morning after my own wedding night!"

A single word caught her attention. "Distraught? Draco was distraught?"

"How else would you describe a man bemoaning how he has ruined his marriage? Ginny hexed him away before I could understand what had gone wrong."

"And what would it matter if it is ruined? After all, it's not a love match between us."

"But you both were so happy at our wedding. Tell me, has he done something to hurt you?"