Playing Dead

Title: Playing Dead
Rating: M for overall darkness, language, mature themes, and smut. Read at your own risk.
Pairing: Draco/Hermione.
Summary: DYSTOPIAN ONE-SHOT. "Another war broke out, but this one not civil. This one was Global: World War III, or so the Muggle media outlets had coined it ... it was either assimilate or be slaughtered." Draco and Hermione are forced into taking on false identities while hiding within Muggle society. Married Dramione. Lemons. Dark themes. EWE.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

A/N: I've had plunnies over this concept for a while now, and when I finally sat down to freewrite (in hopes to cure my writer's block) this happened ... The backdrop is pretty dark and incredibly sad, but I've mixed together some fluff/smut in here as well. There's a bit of everything, so I hope you guys enjoy it.

Thanks for reading everyone!

xXx

26 April 2008
9:26pm

xXx

There were moments where she thought she might lose it.

Crack and fall apart completely, with little remorse over doing so. She had every right to, after all; there was only so much chaos one soul could handle. How effortless would it be just to throw in the towel and give up? Easy. Simple.

But then nothing in her life had ever been easy, and this was far from simple. The decision to survive and fight had been no different.

But fighting for them did not mean with wands drawn, nor guns loaded. Not with knives poised, and certainly not through peaceful protests. Those were long since proved useless.

No – fighting in her world simply meant existing.

Voldemort's second reign had been comparatively short-lived. Thank God – or so she had thought after his inevitable downfall. It was over, finished. Life was at peace, and all which was disturbed could finally become restored. They could move on. Build up the wizarding world from the sunken ground, into a better place than ever before with both Muggle-borns and pure-bloods alike.

Or so was the newly acquired hope.

But see, that's the thing about hope: it's nothing more than a four-letter word which tempts people into behaving foolishly. Into trusting that things could get better.

Because things had to get better, right?

Hermione almost laughed at the optimism she once had. She was so young – so naive to think so. She wasn't foolish enough to hope for such a thing anymore.

This was her life now. And Merlin, how thankful she should be for it. So many had it far worse.

Their life was good, for all intents and purposes. Comfortable and easy enough. She was selfish. God, she was so selfish! And the more she thought about it, the more she realised so. She hated herself for being ungrateful, even throughout something as wearisome as this.

It would have been easier if she just got Obliviated. Every memory of that world – that glorious fucking haven she had found her true identity within – gone. Some Muggle-borns had chosen to do so, but the notion of being even emptier than she already was made her want to spew sickness from the sheer thought.

And a part of her knew it was because of him. She wanted to remember everything; every mean sneer, every rude remark, because that meant she also got to remember their other stories, too. Their first kiss and every wonderful memory afterwards. A simpler time where things were finally at peace, even if only for a brief snippet of history.