Fixing what you broke

Chapter 23: End

LadyKenz347
Chapter 23: End
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text
Hermione had… a feeling.

Something had been off with just about everyone lately and she didn’t want to even give life to the feeling in her belly. But something was going on.

Was he cheating on her?

It wasn’t unlike either of them to be working late so often, but it was shiftiness about working late. Always avoiding her questions about work, never able to meet for lunch… It had been two weeks of this odd behavior and she could hardly stand it.

She didn’t feel like she was quite the right person for this. Her Gryffindor tendencies led her to prefer to ask him outright, while her Ravenclaw undertones told her it was best to gather more information first.

But there was no real information to be gathered. He was just distant… he was gone.

She asked Harry about it, who had gotten so uncomfortable in his own skin that her instincts positively prickled. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him shift uncomfortably at the easy question of, “Have you noticed Malfoy’s been acting odd?”

It’d been a year since the fiasco with Charlie and life had returned slowly but surely to normal. Or well, a new normal.

She hadn’t heard much about what Charlie was up to in Romania, but then, she didn’t ask. She had been horribly curious for months but didn’t think it was fair to revisit old wounds like that. Not to her or Charlie, certainly not Draco.

Harry and Ginny had felt a little awkward returning to Malfoy’s company but Ron bumbled along, never really understanding the situation. He knew there was some sort of love triangle, but for the most part he didn’t understand the entire nefarious, sordid affair. She was relieved of his and Molly’s ignorance.

And now, one year later, she paced.

Again and again.

Her tattered sweats dragging along the floor and her hair tied up in a ratty knot.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t cheated before. She had been his mistress after all, so what was to keep him from doing it again.

That thought infuriated her to her bones. She had thought they were happy… weren’t they happy?

Sure they argued over the different sections of the Prophet on Sunday Morning and maybe she left her towels on the floor… but there had been happiness too. Real, honest to goodness happiness.

She stopped dead in her tracks as she had a thought, ‘He was going to leave her.’

She would have cried if she weren’t so bloody irritated.

After all they had been through together?

Oh, she wanted to wring his neck.

The door creaked open and Malfoy walked in, his hand massaging a knot from the tendons of his neck as he craned it.

“THERE YOU ARE!” she reared on him and his eyes went wide.

“Is it just me or have the greetings gone to piss when I come around?”

“And just where have you been?” her arms crossed and her foot tapping quickly.

He gave a dark chuckle, “You do remember I work, right, Granger?”

“Oh, right. Work. So you say…. Always work. Right then, who is she?”

“Pardon me?” he said with an arched brow and a curious eye.