Addiction; Gift for hollycomb!
Recipient: hollycomb
Title: Addiction
Author: iamisaac
Beta: Anonymous
Pairing/s: Ron/Hermione, Ron/Draco
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Adultery
Length: ~6500
Summary: When you've lived with someone for years, it's not precisely easy to turn round and tell them that you've made an awful mistake - that you just don't fancy women. Ron never intended to have an affair, and definitely not with Draco Malfoy. It just... happened.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe - all recognisable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
Author's Notes: Many, many thanks to my most wonderful beta. hollycomb, I hope I managed to hit some of your kinks without getting too squicky.
Addiction
“Of course I love you,” he says.
And he says it often, attempting to ‘prove’ his love with gifts. Flowers - all women like flowers, right? Chocolates - can’t go wrong with chocolates. He tries stroking her hair, but she bats his hand away.
“Ro-on, don’t! It’s annoying.”
“Sorry.”
He looks with miserable eyes at the back of her neck as she concentrates on her book, and tries to plan the next gift, the next nice surprise.
“You know,” Hermione says, not raising her eyes from her reading, “usually it’s seen as a sign of a guilty conscience when your boyfriend keeps buying you things. It’s supposed to mean that you’re cheating on me. Are you?” And her voice is politely curious, not even angry.
“No!” says Ron, and it is both true and untrue.
True, because he’s never so much as looked at another woman; hell, Hermione’s the only person he’s ever had sex with. Untrue, because he doesn’t love her - not as a boyfriend should - and he knows it. Knows, though he tries to deny it, that he’s never going to love Hermione as she deserves, because she’s a woman and it’s taken Ron this long to work out that he just doesn’t really fancy women. After all the fuss he made about Harry and her when they’d been camping, it’s not something he wants to admit. After being brought up in the Weasley fold of unbridled heterosexuality, it’s not something he feels he can admit. After all the years he’s been with Hermione (five since they ‘officially’ got together, and counting), it’s not something he thinks he ought to admit. They live together, they’re nigh-on engaged (Ron’s certain his mother’s been planning the wedding for years) - what’s he supposed to do? Turn round and say “No offence, Hermione, it’s not you, it’s just that I don’t fancy females”?
“Hermione,” he says instead, “come to bed.”
Maybe if he has sex with her enough he’ll learn to enjoy it, learn to be heterosexual. Most of the world is, after all: it can’t be that difficult.
“After I’ve finished this chapter,” she says, and Ron is ashamed at the sense of relief he feels.
*
“You all right, mate?” Harry asks, when they’re having their usual Friday night down the pub.
“Yeah, course,” says Ron. “Why?”
“Hermione said…” Harry stops, looking embarrassed. It’s another thing that Isn’t Mentioned - the fact that Harry and Hermione got onto the Auror training course and Ron didn’t. The fact that Harry and Hermione spend all day together while Ron goes to Gringotts and works with goblins that reach up to his waist.
“What did she say?”
“Just that you were a bit…” Harry flounders for words. “Over-affectionate.”
Ron chugs down a big slurp of his beer. “I thought women were supposed to like that sort of thing.”
“They do, she does,” says Harry hastily. “It’s just… I think you’re over-doing it a bit.”
Ron sighs. “I’ll never understand them. Never.” When Harry looks at him, he adds, “Women. You can’t win with ‘em.”
“Just…” Harry takes a quick swig of his own drink before continuing. “You just need to scale it down a bit. Be a bit less… obvious.”
Ron downs the rest of his drink and thinks mordantly that in years gone by he’d’ve been filled with jealousy at the thought of Harry and Hermione talking together about him. Now, he can’t help feeling that all his problems would be solved if they just left him out of it and turned into a nice, cosy, twosome. Sadly, since Harry is clearly madly in love with Ginny, it isn’t going to happen. Pity. It’d solve - well maybe not all, but at least most of his problems.
“Less obvious,” he says now. “Right.”
*
Less obvious.
Ron notices the moment he sees a gorgeous blond bloke walking in the entrance of Gringotts, realising only somewhat later that his jaw has dropped and he's been staring at the guy. He turns away hastily and fiddles about with the filing system, getting himself a dark look from the goblin who organises it to perfection. When he thinks he's probably left enough time for the bloke to have left, he turns back again - only to be faced with a face from the past.
Draco Malfoy.
Who just happens to be the gorgeous blond guy Ron had noticed coming in.
“Surprised to see me, Weasley?” Malfoy drawls. “Gringotts is the traditional Malfoy bank, after all. Key to 197, please.”
“197,” Ron repeats mechanically.
“And you can take your eyes off me now, Weasley - I'm not going to hex you in the middle of Gringotts.”
So much for 'less obvious'.
*
He keeps seeing Malfoy after that - probably going into some dodgy business venture, Ron thinks cynically. Somehow, too, he always seems to be working on the counter when Malfoy comes in; it gets to the point when Ron reckons he's spoken more to Malfoy in the last month than he did in his entire time at Hogwarts. Just because it's his job, obviously. And part of his job, as Hardrod, his immediate superior, keeps telling him, is to be polite to customers. It's not Ron's fault if he happens to be spending quite a lot of time escorting Malfoy to his vault, and it's definitely not Ron's fault that he happens to find Malfoy physically attractive. He knows the guy's a bastard - always has been, always will be. He just happens to be really fucking sexy alongside, and isn't that a kicker?
Married, of course. Ron remembers seeing the notice in the Prophet. Some Pure-Blood Witch with a stupid name and beautiful body. He'd still been looking at women's bodies in those days, hadn't quite realised that however much he might admire the curves from a distance, they didn't do anything for him up close and personal.
“How's your wife?” he asks suddenly, out of nowhere, as they ride the shuttle behind Hardrod.
“Why Weasley, I never knew you cared,” says Draco lazily, leaning back and apparently enjoying the helter-skelter speed of the cart. “Astoria is very well, thanks. Blooming, one might almost say. And you - I suppose you're still with the Granger bint?”
“She's not a bint,” Ron says mechanically. “And yeah. Yeah.”
“Married? I don't recall reading it in the papers, but...” Draco trails off. Ron knows what he means - his family aren't necessarily important enough to rate a mention.
“No.”
The Gringotts cart comes to a jolting stop, and Draco steps out, Ron a step or two behind him. Draco turns round and gives Ron what seems like an assessing look.
“Not married?”
“No.” Not that it's any business of yours, thinks Ron, and wonders why he doesn't say it aloud.
“Living in sin, Weasley,” Draco drawls, unlocking his vault. “Whoever would have thought it?”
*
“You'll never guess who I saw at the Ministry today,” says Hermione.
Ron pops the top off his bottle of beer and leans back in the chair. “Harry?”
“No;” then, grumpily, as Ron laughs, “well obviously, yes I did see Harry, but it's hardly a surprise, is it, considering I work with him. No, it was Draco Malfoy.”
Her voice has a note of outrage in it. Ron finds himself wishing - to his own private horror - that he'd been the one seeing Malfoy; it's been a while since he's been into Gringotts.
“Oh yeah?” he says. “Popping up everywhere these days, it seems. What did he want?”
“That's the funny thing,” says Hermione, frowning a little. “I don't think anyone quite knows. He kept looking at me when we were in the meeting room, but he didn't really have much to say for himself.”
“Makes a change,” grunts Ron.
“Why?” Hermione sits down with a flomp on the sofa. “What did you mean, he's popping up everywhere? Have you seen Malfoy, then?”
“Erm, yeah.” Ron realises that the words had been out before he knew what he was saying, and that he's just jumped into a hole he dug himself. But, after all, it's not like he was deliberately not telling Hermione about Malfoy, it was just... Well, all right, it was that he was deliberately not telling Hermione, because after all, what was he supposed to say - Hey, I saw Malfoy today and thought he was totally hot? “Yeah, he comes into Gringotts sometimes.”
“You never said!”
“'Mione, if I told you everyone who came into the bank, we'd never talk about anything else.” Ron bites down the thought that that might be a good thing; it's not too long since they had their last 'Where are we going in this relationship?' conversation, and he gets the feeling that Hermione was hinting at an engagement as the obvious next move. Which, of course, it was - except that he didn't want to marry Hermione.
“Yes, but...” Hermione shrugs. “Oh well, I don't suppose it's important. He just seems to be getting a higher profile than I would have expected after everything. I'm amazed the Ministry let him in, if I'm honest.”
“Gringotts would let anyone in as long as they had cash,” Ron retorts, “and everyone knows the Malfoys are loaded.”
The Malfoys are loaded and full of Pure-Blood pride. Yet another way they differ from the Weasleys. And Draco is married. Which is why Ron ought to be working out how to fancy Hermione rather than spending his time fantasising about getting inside Draco Malfoy's pants.
*
It's two days later that Ron sees Draco again. The shuttle has chosen today of all days to go wrong, meaning that each customer has to be escorted down into the bowels of Gringotts by someone. And the someone allocated to Draco is Ron. He thinks at first that he'll just ignore him, stalk silently down with him to vault 197 (and since when did Ron remember the number of Draco Malfoy's vault, for God's sake?), but Draco doesn't seem to notice Ron's cold attitude.
“Granger's looking well,” he says, as an opening gambit.
“She's fine,” says Ron shortly.
“I'm sure she is.” Draco's words seem to hold a hidden meaning, but Ron is not prepared to look for it. He gives a sort of grunt and says no more. “An engagement on the cards?” Draco prompts, glancing sideways at him.
“Maybe.” Otherwise known as 'no'.
“Is it too early to offer my congratulations?”
For something that's never going to happen? Much too early. Ron grunts again, and doesn't answer.
They reach the vault, and Ron hands Draco the key in silence. Draco, nodding thanks, unlocks it and goes in.
“Well?” he says to Ron. “Are you going to hang around outside like a House-Elf?” Ron considers the fact that basically at Gringotts he is little more than a House-Elf, and that probably Draco is all too aware of it. “Oh, get in here,” says Draco impatiently, and Ron finds himself obeying instinctively (and since when has it been an instinct to obey Draco Malfoy?).
“Now what?” he demands.
Draco strolls towards him. “Now,” he drawls, “this.”
Draco's arms are either side of Ron; his mouth homing in on Ron's. Ron should stop him; Ron really should be stopping him doing this, but he's not. He's not because - why not admit it? - he's been wanting Draco to do this since the moment he saw him here. He's been lusting after Draco for months, and... Ron's thoughts cut off as he is firmly and thoroughly snogged.
*
Denial. Denial is Ron's friend.
It didn't happen, obviously. Obviously, Ron did not kiss Draco Malfoy in the middle of Gringotts bank. Obviously, he is not still thinking about it and finding himself growing hard even at the very thought. And obviously, it is not something that's going to be happening again.
*
“So,” says Hermione a couple of weeks later, “have you been seeing much of Malfoy recently?”
“What? No!” says Ron, over-hastily.
“All right, there's no need to bite my head off,” Hermione retorts. “You were saying he was in and out of Gringotts, and...”
“Hasn't been there for ages,” Ron says. It is true. Not since the-thing-that-didn't-happen has Draco been into the bank. And Ron is not missing him. “Why?”
Hermione sits down heavily on a chair. “The house needs cleaning,” she says critically. “Malfoy? Oh, I was just wondering.”
But why - which Ron can't ask, but wants to know - was she wondering?
*
It's exactly a month since Ron last saw Draco when Malfoy next graces Gringotts with his presence. As usual, Malfoy strolls in as if he owns the place (and if it's true about the Malfoy wealth, he well might - if it weren't for the fact that the goblins would never give up their control), while Ron is having a long and unfruitful conversation with an elderly witch explaining that Gakles (a currency between Galleons and Sickles) have been out of circulation for the past 150 years, and that even if they hadn't, offering them to Gringotts staff in order to get a favour is never a good plan. Malfoy walks past with only a quick glance at Ron, before he is off with Hardrod in the ruddy shuttle.
That's fine, that Draco's not said a word. Ron didn't want to talk to him anyway.
When Malfoy's on his way out, Ron turns away as if he's just been asked a complicated question by one of the goblins. He has his back to the desk for three minutes - more than long enough for Malfoy to sod right off. Yet when he turns round, Draco is there, propping up the counter.
“Weasley,” he says laconically. “I wanted a word.”
“Oh yeah?” Ron is not impressed. “I didn't.”
Malfoy nods, and turns to leave. “Oh,” he says, “if you change your mind, I'll be in the 'Golden Snitch' at around 5pm - that's when you come out, I believe.” And he's gone.
Ron stares after him balefully. One, the arrogance of Malfoy to think that Ron'd run to his every command. Two, how the hell did he know what time Ron finished work? And three... Surely any normal person would've said “when you finish work” rather than “when you come out”? Oh, and four - what's he going to tell Hermione to explain why he's late home?
*
“I'll buy you a drink.”
“I'll get my own,” says Ron, ordering a half of the cheapest beer he can find.
“Suit yourself.”
“I intend to.” He slumps into a seat opposite Malfoy. “What did you want, anyway?”
“You know,” Draco comments, “you were a lot more friendly last time I saw you.”
Ron stiffens up. “A month ago today, you mean,” he says, refusing to comment on the details.
Draco smiles. “Well, Ron” - it is the first time Malfoy has ever called him Ron - “I'm touched you remember the date.” He looks down at his drink, and takes a casual sip. “And, of course, that's how I think of it, too - our first date.”
“We are not 'dating',” says Ron through gritted teeth. “And I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Don't you?” Draco leans forward and brushes another kiss across Ron's lips.
Ron shoots his chair backwards so fast that it falls over. The entire pub look around to see what's going on. He glares round at them, and they go back to their own affairs. Ron rebalances the chair and himself upon it, then says,
“Geddoff me.”
“That,” says Draco calmly, “is not what you said last time.”
“There wasn't,” and Ron is enunciating his every syllable with quiet determination, “a 'last time'.”
Draco rolls his eyes. “Of course not,” he says, as if pandering to a lunatic. “It was just my imagination that you had your mouth - and your hands - all over me in Gringotts vault 197.”
“Leave the number out of it,” snaps Ron, and then wonders if he could have said anything more inane. “Anyway,” he adds, “I'm...erm... well, me and Hermione are...”
“Are you?” Draco sounds amused. “I'd heard that you weren't - or not very often, anyway.”
“Whadda you mean?”
“Rumour at the Ministry says...”
“What rumour at the Ministry?” Ron demands.
“You know.” Draco shrugs. “A murmur here, the odd word there. Anyway, it seems that you and Granger are more 'off' than 'on'.”
“We've been living together for years!”
“Yet you haven't popped the question. Ministry gossip is beginning to say you never will. Not to mention that your sex life is...”
“Is what?”
“A bit like shagging a wet fish,” Malfoy finishes, his tone apologetic.
“Says who?”
Malfoy is absorbed by his drink again, swirling the contents round. It as if he hasn't heard the question, though Ron knows he has. Ron swigs the last of his half, and bangs the glass back on the table.
“Says who?” he asks again, loudly enough that several of the clientele look round again at their table.
“It's just a rumour,” Draco says.
Hermione and Harry. Those 'innocent' talks, not so fucking innocent after all. Yes, okay, sex with Hermione has never been exactly world-shattering, but there's no need for her to tell everyone. She hasn't even told Ron that she hates it. So why's she spilling out her guts to Harry - and to half of the Ministry, for all Ron knows?
“Yes,” he says, knowing he's taken too long to reply. “It's a rumour, all right? There's no truth in it.”
“Oh.” Draco sighs, and sits back. “A pity. So you aren't interested in coming to bed with me, then.”
“I...” Ron's words catch in his throat. He's about to say no, when he remembers that Hermione's called him a wet fish. “Might be,” he says, then thinks of something else. “Anyway, aren't you supposed to be married?”
“Not just 'supposed',” says Draco.
“Why the fuck are you propositioning me, then?”
“Because Astoria,” Draco drawls, “doesn't have a cock.”
And there really isn't much answer to that.
*
Ron doesn't get in until past 10 pm, and Hermione is furious.
“Ron, for goodness sake, where have you been?” she demands.
“Down the pub,” Ron says sheepishly.
Somehow, Malfoy had managed to persuade him into another drink - and another. Nothing actually happened between them - well, perhaps a kiss or two... maybe a bit of low level fumbling... well, anyway, Ron didn't sleep with Draco - but somehow the clock suddenly swung round and it turned out to be much later than he'd intended.
“Down the pub.” Hermione is biting her lips, as if she doesn't trust herself to speak. Finally, in a very level tone (more scary than hysterics, not that Ron's ever really seen Hermione in hysterics), she says “Did you not think to tell me you were going to be late?”
“Well, I wasn't!” and then, realising that Hermione looks as if she is going to implode, Ron says hastily, “Well, obviously I was late, but the thing is, I really didn't mean to be. I dunno what happened. One minute it was half five and the next it was...” He trails off.
“What were you doing down there?”
“Nothing,” says Ron guiltily. “I mean... just having a drink with a bloke, that's all.”
“'Just having a drink with a bloke',” Hermione repeats. She has a way of repeating things that Ron has said which makes them sound like criminal offences.
“Look, 'Mione, I'm sorry, okay? It was just a...”
“Just a drink,” she says coldly. “Yes, I gathered - although by the smell of you, it was more like five or six. Anyway, I'm going to bed. I might have gone earlier, but foolishly, I was actually worried about you.”
Ron looks after her, and thinks that the conversation's probably gone as well as it could.
*
The first time was an accident. The second time he was drunk. By the third time Ron snogs Draco, he's running out of excuses, even to himself. Not that he needs excuses - it's not as if anyone knows about what's going on. Most of the time Ron doesn't know what's going on, for Merlin's sake. Even when he does, he doesn't really believe it. Him and Draco Malfoy. This is such a bad idea for so many reasons.
But bloody hell, he fancies him.
*
And it becomes normal. The lies, the strange hours, meeting Malfoy in a different place every time so that no one sees them. Rooms booked in swish hotels that Ron'd never be able to afford, where they rip each other's clothes off and fuck for hours, stopping occasionally to have some food or champagne. Ron feels guilty about the champagne as much as anything: he's never bought Hermione champagne, and somehow going out and drinking it behind her back feels like more of a betrayal than the fact that he's sleeping with Draco Malfoy. Plus the fact that Ron sometimes feels like a prostitute, letting Draco pay for everything. But then, what choice has he got? On his salary, the only place he could afford to take Draco is a back room in Knockturn Alley - and even then, if he did it too often, Hermione would wonder what he was doing with all his money (especially considering the 'overtime' he's been saying he's doing).
The thing is, it's like an addiction.
And Ron quite enjoys being addicted.
*
Or he did, until...
Ron's still shrugging his clothes back on as they stumble out of the room, half-dazed from the sex (more fantastic this time than ever), when he finds himself face to face with a very familiar face.
“Hermione,” he says, blinking hard and hoping that it's some sort of illusion; that she will disappear by the time he looks up again.
“Later,” says Draco, and is gone. Trust a Malfoy to slide out of a difficult situation.
“Ron.”
Ron has never seen anyone, let alone Hermione, turn that white that quickly. He'd never realised that she had some freckles across her nose until now - and it's not a good moment to be distracted by things like that...
“Erm,” he says. “Hello.” Hermione is staring, staring, staring at him, as if she's never seen him before, or he has developed some horrendous deformity since this morning, when they were eating breakfast together. Ron starts to say “It's not what it looks like” - but the problem is, it is. “What are you doing here?” he asks, instead.
Hermione ignores the question; Ron isn't sure she even heard him. Instead, she asks “Have people started cheating on their girlfriends in pairs now?” Ron doesn't know how to answer this, because... well, how are you supposed to cheat on someone if there isn't another person involved? Hermione brushes past him, striding towards the room from which he has just come out. “Is there just one girl, and you've been taking it in turns while the other one watches? Or are there two, and you can have competitions? And for pity's sake, why with Malfoy?” Her voice is slightly choked up as she flings open the door.
Ron, a step behind her, has just understood what she thinks. He's got his mouth open, trying to think of something to say, but there really isn't anything. Hermione gazes round the empty room, and he sees realisation in her face. Ron hadn't thought she could go any whiter, but her face has an almost green tinge to it.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, and it sounds like a real prayer. “You. You and him.” Her voice is barely audible. “Draco Malfoy and...” She stops, angrily brushing away a tear as she backs out of the room.
Ron, following, looks round, and sees several other Aurors sitting in a corner - not Harry, thank Merlin - pretending that they're not looking at what's going on.
“Look,” he says awkwardly, “I'll see you at home, okay?”
He gets out to the street almost at a run, and Apparates three miles from their home by mistake. It's raining - which, Ron thinks, figures - and he wanders down the streets, wondering what he's going to say to Hermione when he next sees her. The water drips from his hair and runs down his neck, but Ron still doesn't want to hurry. He gets home to find that Hermione's beaten him to it. She has opened a bottle of wine, and it is already half-empty, which is unheard of in her.
“I suppose you went back to him,” she says. She is still pale, but she isn't crying. Ron thinks this is a good sign.
“Him?”
“Malfoy.” She takes a big breath. “I suppose you've been laughing with him about your stupid Mudblood girlfriend, and how she never even realised that you were gay, let alone that you were sleeping around.”
“I'm not sleeping around,” Ron says indignantly. “I'm just...”
“'Just' having sex with Draco Malfoy - who happens to think that witches like me deserve to die,” Hermione finishes loudly. “'Just' having sex with a man, when I thought you loved me. God, how stupid am I?”
“Hermione...”
“No Ron,” she says - and she just sounds tired, and somehow that's worse. “Please, no excuses. I'm tired. It's been a long day.”
She walks into the bedroom, and Ron hears her lock the door behind her.
*
When Hermione leaves for work the next day, she takes a small suitcase with her. She says nothing to Ron as she walks through the sitting room, and Ron doesn't quite like to ask her what's going on. He messes up so many times in the first two hours of work that Hardrod sends him home.
“You are working inefficiently. Do not return until you can be efficient.”
Ron wants to ask him how the hell he's supposed to be 'efficient' when his life is falling apart. Instead, he goes home and lies on the sofa, staring at the ceiling and wondering how he got into this situation. When the owl appears at the window, he scowls at it and considers ignoring it; but the bird's tapping is insistent, so reluctantly he lets it in. It has a message from Draco.
Meet me at the Golden Snitch. Draco.
What the hell, thinks Ron. It's not as if he's got anything left to lose.
*
“You weren't at work,” Draco comments when Ron slams into the pub.
“Sent home.” Ron is not feeling talkative.
“It was always going to happen, Ron,” says Draco. “She had to find out sometime.”
“Yeah,” says Ron, meaning 'no'.
“I'll buy you a drink,” Draco says, and returns a minute later with a pint of the expensive beer that Ron had never had a chance to discover he liked before he started spending time with Draco.
“Thanks,” Ron grunts.
Draco, his legs stretched out in front of him, his drink held with a casual elegance in his right hand, looks relaxed, as if nothing has happened.
“What did she say?” he asks.
There ought to be some sort of rule about this, Ron thinks. About one partner not asking what the other one's been saying. He's always tried not to talk about Hermione with Draco - sort of pretending that she doesn't exist when he's with him, in the same way that he pretends (pretended) that Draco doesn't exist when he's with her.
“Not much.”
Draco shrugs. “She comes from a Muggle background. Everyone knows that Muggle relationships never work out. It's probably no big deal for her.” Ron thinks about Hermione's wan face, about the shaking hand she used to pick up her drink, and says nothing. “Who's moving out - you or her?”
Ron stills. It hadn't occurred to him that there was anything more to this than just having hurt Hermione. Moving out. Splitting up. The rest of the Weasleys are going to know what happened. Harry. He wonders what sort of place he's going to be able to afford on his own, and hates himself for worrying about something like that when he's just broken Hermione's heart.
“Dunno. Me, I guess. It's my fault, after all.”
He feels funny being out with Draco Malfoy. Somehow, now Hermione knows about them, it feels more like cheating on her than it did when she didn't know. He finishes his drink in silence and then gets up.
“Going already?” asks Draco.
“Need to pack up my stuff,” says Ron briefly, and leaves.
*
By 10 pm, it's fairly obvious that Hermione's not coming back tonight. Ron's packed most of his stuff - though he has no idea what he's going to do with it, as he's not exactly going to be able to find a flat at this time of night - it took them weeks to find this place, and that was with two salaries going towards the rent. Ron banishes that thought, and wonders where Hermione is. The most likely place she'd go is to Harry and Ginny's house... Ron feels a cold knot in his chest. If she's gone there, then they know. Everyone'll know, because you don't keep secrets in the Weasley family. Know one, know all. He doesn't want to know what their reaction will be. He finally goes to bed at about 2 am, and it feels weird not to have Hermione next to him. He misses her warmth; the way she always turns over, half-asleep, when he comes to bed and gives him a brief kiss; the little murmuring noises she makes as she sleeps. He misses her.
*
He doesn't even bother going into work the next day. There's no way he's going to be 'efficient', so why pretend? Which means that when Hermione walks in the door at 11 am, he's sitting on the sofa in his pyjamas, using his wand to make patterns on the wall.
She stops when she sees him. “I thought you'd be at work.”
“I'm not.”
“So I see,” she says.
Ron thinks that'll be it for conversation: Hermione walks into their bedroom, and slams the door. But two minutes later, she comes out again.
“I trusted you!” she screams at him. “I actually trusted you!”
Ron finds that he's stood up without realising it. She steps towards him, and he backs away.
“Sorry,” he says inadequately - but what else is there to say?
“Someone told me...” Hermione pauses and wipes a hand across her eyes before continuing. She isn't looking at Ron. “Weeks ago, someone told me they'd seen you with Malfoy, and I said 'No, it can't be Ron - he does overtime on a Wednesday'. Overtime. The most obvious cover-up for cheating that there is and I didn't even think twice! Because I knew you wouldn't do that - not with anyone, certainly not with a man, and definitely not with Malfoy.”
“I didn't mean...”
She cuts across him. “You didn't mean to sleep with him? You didn't mean me to find out? You didn't mean it when you said you were working late, when you were meeting a friend? Some friend!” She makes a noise which in any other circumstance might have been a laugh. “And stupid Hermione sat at home believing every word you said, not even thinking to question it! But then - I'm only a Mudblood after all; you couldn't expect anything else.”
Ron thinks uncomfortably of Draco's comment yesterday - “Everyone knows that Muggle relationships never work out” - and digs his fingernails into his palms.
“Don't call yourself that,” he says instinctively.
“Why not?” Hermione yells at him, her voice getting higher and higher pitched as she speaks. “You're fucking someone who thinks that's exactly what I am - a stupid Mudblood who doesn't even notice when her boyfriend is off with another man! Doesn't even realise that he likes men. Who deserves all she gets because I don't deserve to be loved, not by anyone - not even the guy who tells me he loves me, the one I've lived with for four years, the one...” She chokes and breaks off.
“Hermione...” says Ron, feeling his eyes prickle with tears despite himself.
She looks up at him, and he's never - never - seen her look like that before. “Just go away, Ron,” she says softly, despairingly. “Just go away.”
“I'm sorry,” he mumbles, and slips out of the door.
By the time he gets back, she's gone, leaving a brief note.
At Harry's. Please don't contact me. H.
*
Harry doesn't cancel their normal Friday evening get together, but Ron rather wishes he had. He comes over and sits opposite Ron with a pint of water and an unfriendly expression.
“Congratulations,” he says coldly.
“Huh?”
“I'm sure you and Malfoy will be very happy together. Like you've been for the last six months while you've been cheating on Hermione.”
“It wasn't like that,” says Ron helplessly. “I mean...”
“Don't tell me.” Harry is dripping sarcasm. “Your girlfriend didn't understand you, so you thought you'd sleep with Draco Malfoy for the sheer hell of it.”
“Merlin's sake, Harry, I didn't want to hurt 'Mione. It's not like I planned this to happen or anything, it just... did.”
“Yeah, right,” Harry says.
Ron kicks the table leg moodily, and some of Harry's water spills out over the table. Water. Fish.
“It might not've happened if Hermione didn't go round telling people that sex with me was like sex with a wet fish,” he says bitterly.
“What? Hermione's never said anything like that!”
Ron snorts. “Oh, come off it, it's been Ministry gossip for months. Just because I don't work there doesn't mean I don't know what's going on, you know. How d'you think that made me feel? And thanks for telling me about it, Harry. Thanks a lot.”
He kicks the table one more time for good measure, and storms out of the pub.
*
The family take it in turns to tell him what a bastard he is. Three lines of attack. Bill can't get over the fact that Ron's gay: Ron looks down at his head in the fire, and listens to him say the same thing over and over.
“A guy, Ron. How could you sleep with another man? A man? That's just... How could you sleep with a man, Ron?”
There's no real answer to that. If Bill doesn't understand, nothing Ron can say will change his mind. Funny, really: Bill was the one brother that Ron, somehow, thought might accept his sexuality. Bill's always been so confident in his own heterosexuality that Ron thought he might have room to acknowledge others. Seems he was wrong.
“Don't come round. I don't want to see you, and I definitely don't want to inflict you on Fleur,” Bill says, and is gone.
Percy's similar critique comes as less of a surprise. For George and his father, however, it's not the gayness that is the issue so much as the man he chose to sleep with.
“Of all people, a Malfoy!” says Arthur despairingly.
“Not a cool choice, Ron,” George agrees. “Of all the people in the world, to choose that slimy little worm. I don't know how you could go near him, let alone fuck him.”
Ron doesn't defend himself. He suspects that the reasons he could give - that Draco is drop dead gorgeous and fantastic in bed - are not going to win him any sympathy.
He never expected his mother to understand or sympathise, and she doesn't. Surprisingly, though, she seems to pass over the 'gay' part as irrelevent: what she can not forgive is how he's treated Hermione. Ron can't entirely forgive himself for that, either, in truth. He wonders whether Molly has understood what's happened - that he's been sleeping with a bloke - because she doesn't mention it for a long time.
“I'm ashamed,” she says, standing on the doorstep to the flat, “that any son of mine could behave like that. I thought I brought you up better. I never thought I'd see you cheat on someone - and to do it to Hermione! When you've been in love for so long, and she's such a lovely girl. I'm ashamed of you, Ron.”
“Mum...”
“And I don't care who it was with,” she continues, not allowing him to get more than the one word in, “I'd say the same thing. Poor Hermione is devastated, and I'm sure I can't blame her. I am more disappointed in you than I've ever been with any of my children. Hurting Hermione like that. It's a disgrace.”
Even Charlie comes round to give him his unvarnished opinion. Ron is not impressed, since he knows for a fact that Charlie has had more than one girlfriend at the same time in the past.
“Yes,” says Charlie when Ron points this out, “but the thing is, I wasn't with them for five years, or living with them, or kind of implying that we had any sort of long-term relationship. Oh yeah, and they were both women.”
“So you're saying it's all right for you, but not for me?” demands Ron.
“I'm saying,” says Charlie coldly, “that Hermione deserves better.”
“You go out with her, then.”
Charlie walks to the door. “I might just do that.”
“Fine!” flings Ron at the back of his head. He sits down in the crappy flat. “Just bloody fine,” he mutters, and opens a beer.
*
But at least, he thinks a few days later, when he's back at work and being somewhere close to vaguely efficient, he's never going to have to sleep with a woman again. And now the truth is out, maybe he and Draco can... well, actually sort stuff out and live together and whatever. It's not like Draco is happy with Astoria, after all - he does his 'duty', but clearly prefers men. Prefers Ron, disconcerting as Ron originally found that knowledge. Yeah, so it'll work out. Hermione'll be happier soon. She's already looking a bit better, according to Ginny (the most recent member of his family to visit him in order to tell him what an arse he is). And... well, okay, he never thought he'd end up living with Draco Malfoy, of all people - but it might just work.
All's well that ends well? Maybe so.
*
His meetings with Draco become more regular now. After all, there's no reason why they shouldn't.
Well, one reason, perhaps.
“So, when are you breaking off with Astoria?” Ron asks.
Draco frowns. “I'm not. Why should I?”
Because you've been fucking me for the last six months? Because I've broken up with Hermione and she's not talking to me? Because all my family - not to mention Harry - hate me not only for having an affair, but for having one with you?
Ron says, “Because you're gay; because you're with me now.”
“But Weasley,” says Draco - and Ron is back to being 'Weasley' again, after months of being 'Ron' - “a Malfoy never leaves his wife.”
Title: Addiction
Author: iamisaac
Beta: Anonymous
Pairing/s: Ron/Hermione, Ron/Draco
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s): Adultery
Length: ~6500
Summary: When you've lived with someone for years, it's not precisely easy to turn round and tell them that you've made an awful mistake - that you just don't fancy women. Ron never intended to have an affair, and definitely not with Draco Malfoy. It just... happened.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe - all recognisable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
Author's Notes: Many, many thanks to my most wonderful beta. hollycomb, I hope I managed to hit some of your kinks without getting too squicky.
Addiction
“Of course I love you,” he says.
And he says it often, attempting to ‘prove’ his love with gifts. Flowers - all women like flowers, right? Chocolates - can’t go wrong with chocolates. He tries stroking her hair, but she bats his hand away.
“Ro-on, don’t! It’s annoying.”
“Sorry.”
He looks with miserable eyes at the back of her neck as she concentrates on her book, and tries to plan the next gift, the next nice surprise.
“You know,” Hermione says, not raising her eyes from her reading, “usually it’s seen as a sign of a guilty conscience when your boyfriend keeps buying you things. It’s supposed to mean that you’re cheating on me. Are you?” And her voice is politely curious, not even angry.
“No!” says Ron, and it is both true and untrue.
True, because he’s never so much as looked at another woman; hell, Hermione’s the only person he’s ever had sex with. Untrue, because he doesn’t love her - not as a boyfriend should - and he knows it. Knows, though he tries to deny it, that he’s never going to love Hermione as she deserves, because she’s a woman and it’s taken Ron this long to work out that he just doesn’t really fancy women. After all the fuss he made about Harry and her when they’d been camping, it’s not something he wants to admit. After being brought up in the Weasley fold of unbridled heterosexuality, it’s not something he feels he can admit. After all the years he’s been with Hermione (five since they ‘officially’ got together, and counting), it’s not something he thinks he ought to admit. They live together, they’re nigh-on engaged (Ron’s certain his mother’s been planning the wedding for years) - what’s he supposed to do? Turn round and say “No offence, Hermione, it’s not you, it’s just that I don’t fancy females”?
“Hermione,” he says instead, “come to bed.”
Maybe if he has sex with her enough he’ll learn to enjoy it, learn to be heterosexual. Most of the world is, after all: it can’t be that difficult.
“After I’ve finished this chapter,” she says, and Ron is ashamed at the sense of relief he feels.
*
“You all right, mate?” Harry asks, when they’re having their usual Friday night down the pub.
“Yeah, course,” says Ron. “Why?”
“Hermione said…” Harry stops, looking embarrassed. It’s another thing that Isn’t Mentioned - the fact that Harry and Hermione got onto the Auror training course and Ron didn’t. The fact that Harry and Hermione spend all day together while Ron goes to Gringotts and works with goblins that reach up to his waist.
“What did she say?”
“Just that you were a bit…” Harry flounders for words. “Over-affectionate.”
Ron chugs down a big slurp of his beer. “I thought women were supposed to like that sort of thing.”
“They do, she does,” says Harry hastily. “It’s just… I think you’re over-doing it a bit.”
Ron sighs. “I’ll never understand them. Never.” When Harry looks at him, he adds, “Women. You can’t win with ‘em.”
“Just…” Harry takes a quick swig of his own drink before continuing. “You just need to scale it down a bit. Be a bit less… obvious.”
Ron downs the rest of his drink and thinks mordantly that in years gone by he’d’ve been filled with jealousy at the thought of Harry and Hermione talking together about him. Now, he can’t help feeling that all his problems would be solved if they just left him out of it and turned into a nice, cosy, twosome. Sadly, since Harry is clearly madly in love with Ginny, it isn’t going to happen. Pity. It’d solve - well maybe not all, but at least most of his problems.
“Less obvious,” he says now. “Right.”
*
Less obvious.
Ron notices the moment he sees a gorgeous blond bloke walking in the entrance of Gringotts, realising only somewhat later that his jaw has dropped and he's been staring at the guy. He turns away hastily and fiddles about with the filing system, getting himself a dark look from the goblin who organises it to perfection. When he thinks he's probably left enough time for the bloke to have left, he turns back again - only to be faced with a face from the past.
Draco Malfoy.
Who just happens to be the gorgeous blond guy Ron had noticed coming in.
“Surprised to see me, Weasley?” Malfoy drawls. “Gringotts is the traditional Malfoy bank, after all. Key to 197, please.”
“197,” Ron repeats mechanically.
“And you can take your eyes off me now, Weasley - I'm not going to hex you in the middle of Gringotts.”
So much for 'less obvious'.
*
He keeps seeing Malfoy after that - probably going into some dodgy business venture, Ron thinks cynically. Somehow, too, he always seems to be working on the counter when Malfoy comes in; it gets to the point when Ron reckons he's spoken more to Malfoy in the last month than he did in his entire time at Hogwarts. Just because it's his job, obviously. And part of his job, as Hardrod, his immediate superior, keeps telling him, is to be polite to customers. It's not Ron's fault if he happens to be spending quite a lot of time escorting Malfoy to his vault, and it's definitely not Ron's fault that he happens to find Malfoy physically attractive. He knows the guy's a bastard - always has been, always will be. He just happens to be really fucking sexy alongside, and isn't that a kicker?
Married, of course. Ron remembers seeing the notice in the Prophet. Some Pure-Blood Witch with a stupid name and beautiful body. He'd still been looking at women's bodies in those days, hadn't quite realised that however much he might admire the curves from a distance, they didn't do anything for him up close and personal.
“How's your wife?” he asks suddenly, out of nowhere, as they ride the shuttle behind Hardrod.
“Why Weasley, I never knew you cared,” says Draco lazily, leaning back and apparently enjoying the helter-skelter speed of the cart. “Astoria is very well, thanks. Blooming, one might almost say. And you - I suppose you're still with the Granger bint?”
“She's not a bint,” Ron says mechanically. “And yeah. Yeah.”
“Married? I don't recall reading it in the papers, but...” Draco trails off. Ron knows what he means - his family aren't necessarily important enough to rate a mention.
“No.”
The Gringotts cart comes to a jolting stop, and Draco steps out, Ron a step or two behind him. Draco turns round and gives Ron what seems like an assessing look.
“Not married?”
“No.” Not that it's any business of yours, thinks Ron, and wonders why he doesn't say it aloud.
“Living in sin, Weasley,” Draco drawls, unlocking his vault. “Whoever would have thought it?”
*
“You'll never guess who I saw at the Ministry today,” says Hermione.
Ron pops the top off his bottle of beer and leans back in the chair. “Harry?”
“No;” then, grumpily, as Ron laughs, “well obviously, yes I did see Harry, but it's hardly a surprise, is it, considering I work with him. No, it was Draco Malfoy.”
Her voice has a note of outrage in it. Ron finds himself wishing - to his own private horror - that he'd been the one seeing Malfoy; it's been a while since he's been into Gringotts.
“Oh yeah?” he says. “Popping up everywhere these days, it seems. What did he want?”
“That's the funny thing,” says Hermione, frowning a little. “I don't think anyone quite knows. He kept looking at me when we were in the meeting room, but he didn't really have much to say for himself.”
“Makes a change,” grunts Ron.
“Why?” Hermione sits down with a flomp on the sofa. “What did you mean, he's popping up everywhere? Have you seen Malfoy, then?”
“Erm, yeah.” Ron realises that the words had been out before he knew what he was saying, and that he's just jumped into a hole he dug himself. But, after all, it's not like he was deliberately not telling Hermione about Malfoy, it was just... Well, all right, it was that he was deliberately not telling Hermione, because after all, what was he supposed to say - Hey, I saw Malfoy today and thought he was totally hot? “Yeah, he comes into Gringotts sometimes.”
“You never said!”
“'Mione, if I told you everyone who came into the bank, we'd never talk about anything else.” Ron bites down the thought that that might be a good thing; it's not too long since they had their last 'Where are we going in this relationship?' conversation, and he gets the feeling that Hermione was hinting at an engagement as the obvious next move. Which, of course, it was - except that he didn't want to marry Hermione.
“Yes, but...” Hermione shrugs. “Oh well, I don't suppose it's important. He just seems to be getting a higher profile than I would have expected after everything. I'm amazed the Ministry let him in, if I'm honest.”
“Gringotts would let anyone in as long as they had cash,” Ron retorts, “and everyone knows the Malfoys are loaded.”
The Malfoys are loaded and full of Pure-Blood pride. Yet another way they differ from the Weasleys. And Draco is married. Which is why Ron ought to be working out how to fancy Hermione rather than spending his time fantasising about getting inside Draco Malfoy's pants.
*
It's two days later that Ron sees Draco again. The shuttle has chosen today of all days to go wrong, meaning that each customer has to be escorted down into the bowels of Gringotts by someone. And the someone allocated to Draco is Ron. He thinks at first that he'll just ignore him, stalk silently down with him to vault 197 (and since when did Ron remember the number of Draco Malfoy's vault, for God's sake?), but Draco doesn't seem to notice Ron's cold attitude.
“Granger's looking well,” he says, as an opening gambit.
“She's fine,” says Ron shortly.
“I'm sure she is.” Draco's words seem to hold a hidden meaning, but Ron is not prepared to look for it. He gives a sort of grunt and says no more. “An engagement on the cards?” Draco prompts, glancing sideways at him.
“Maybe.” Otherwise known as 'no'.
“Is it too early to offer my congratulations?”
For something that's never going to happen? Much too early. Ron grunts again, and doesn't answer.
They reach the vault, and Ron hands Draco the key in silence. Draco, nodding thanks, unlocks it and goes in.
“Well?” he says to Ron. “Are you going to hang around outside like a House-Elf?” Ron considers the fact that basically at Gringotts he is little more than a House-Elf, and that probably Draco is all too aware of it. “Oh, get in here,” says Draco impatiently, and Ron finds himself obeying instinctively (and since when has it been an instinct to obey Draco Malfoy?).
“Now what?” he demands.
Draco strolls towards him. “Now,” he drawls, “this.”
Draco's arms are either side of Ron; his mouth homing in on Ron's. Ron should stop him; Ron really should be stopping him doing this, but he's not. He's not because - why not admit it? - he's been wanting Draco to do this since the moment he saw him here. He's been lusting after Draco for months, and... Ron's thoughts cut off as he is firmly and thoroughly snogged.
*
Denial. Denial is Ron's friend.
It didn't happen, obviously. Obviously, Ron did not kiss Draco Malfoy in the middle of Gringotts bank. Obviously, he is not still thinking about it and finding himself growing hard even at the very thought. And obviously, it is not something that's going to be happening again.
*
“So,” says Hermione a couple of weeks later, “have you been seeing much of Malfoy recently?”
“What? No!” says Ron, over-hastily.
“All right, there's no need to bite my head off,” Hermione retorts. “You were saying he was in and out of Gringotts, and...”
“Hasn't been there for ages,” Ron says. It is true. Not since the-thing-that-didn't-happen has Draco been into the bank. And Ron is not missing him. “Why?”
Hermione sits down heavily on a chair. “The house needs cleaning,” she says critically. “Malfoy? Oh, I was just wondering.”
But why - which Ron can't ask, but wants to know - was she wondering?
*
It's exactly a month since Ron last saw Draco when Malfoy next graces Gringotts with his presence. As usual, Malfoy strolls in as if he owns the place (and if it's true about the Malfoy wealth, he well might - if it weren't for the fact that the goblins would never give up their control), while Ron is having a long and unfruitful conversation with an elderly witch explaining that Gakles (a currency between Galleons and Sickles) have been out of circulation for the past 150 years, and that even if they hadn't, offering them to Gringotts staff in order to get a favour is never a good plan. Malfoy walks past with only a quick glance at Ron, before he is off with Hardrod in the ruddy shuttle.
That's fine, that Draco's not said a word. Ron didn't want to talk to him anyway.
When Malfoy's on his way out, Ron turns away as if he's just been asked a complicated question by one of the goblins. He has his back to the desk for three minutes - more than long enough for Malfoy to sod right off. Yet when he turns round, Draco is there, propping up the counter.
“Weasley,” he says laconically. “I wanted a word.”
“Oh yeah?” Ron is not impressed. “I didn't.”
Malfoy nods, and turns to leave. “Oh,” he says, “if you change your mind, I'll be in the 'Golden Snitch' at around 5pm - that's when you come out, I believe.” And he's gone.
Ron stares after him balefully. One, the arrogance of Malfoy to think that Ron'd run to his every command. Two, how the hell did he know what time Ron finished work? And three... Surely any normal person would've said “when you finish work” rather than “when you come out”? Oh, and four - what's he going to tell Hermione to explain why he's late home?
*
“I'll buy you a drink.”
“I'll get my own,” says Ron, ordering a half of the cheapest beer he can find.
“Suit yourself.”
“I intend to.” He slumps into a seat opposite Malfoy. “What did you want, anyway?”
“You know,” Draco comments, “you were a lot more friendly last time I saw you.”
Ron stiffens up. “A month ago today, you mean,” he says, refusing to comment on the details.
Draco smiles. “Well, Ron” - it is the first time Malfoy has ever called him Ron - “I'm touched you remember the date.” He looks down at his drink, and takes a casual sip. “And, of course, that's how I think of it, too - our first date.”
“We are not 'dating',” says Ron through gritted teeth. “And I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Don't you?” Draco leans forward and brushes another kiss across Ron's lips.
Ron shoots his chair backwards so fast that it falls over. The entire pub look around to see what's going on. He glares round at them, and they go back to their own affairs. Ron rebalances the chair and himself upon it, then says,
“Geddoff me.”
“That,” says Draco calmly, “is not what you said last time.”
“There wasn't,” and Ron is enunciating his every syllable with quiet determination, “a 'last time'.”
Draco rolls his eyes. “Of course not,” he says, as if pandering to a lunatic. “It was just my imagination that you had your mouth - and your hands - all over me in Gringotts vault 197.”
“Leave the number out of it,” snaps Ron, and then wonders if he could have said anything more inane. “Anyway,” he adds, “I'm...erm... well, me and Hermione are...”
“Are you?” Draco sounds amused. “I'd heard that you weren't - or not very often, anyway.”
“Whadda you mean?”
“Rumour at the Ministry says...”
“What rumour at the Ministry?” Ron demands.
“You know.” Draco shrugs. “A murmur here, the odd word there. Anyway, it seems that you and Granger are more 'off' than 'on'.”
“We've been living together for years!”
“Yet you haven't popped the question. Ministry gossip is beginning to say you never will. Not to mention that your sex life is...”
“Is what?”
“A bit like shagging a wet fish,” Malfoy finishes, his tone apologetic.
“Says who?”
Malfoy is absorbed by his drink again, swirling the contents round. It as if he hasn't heard the question, though Ron knows he has. Ron swigs the last of his half, and bangs the glass back on the table.
“Says who?” he asks again, loudly enough that several of the clientele look round again at their table.
“It's just a rumour,” Draco says.
Hermione and Harry. Those 'innocent' talks, not so fucking innocent after all. Yes, okay, sex with Hermione has never been exactly world-shattering, but there's no need for her to tell everyone. She hasn't even told Ron that she hates it. So why's she spilling out her guts to Harry - and to half of the Ministry, for all Ron knows?
“Yes,” he says, knowing he's taken too long to reply. “It's a rumour, all right? There's no truth in it.”
“Oh.” Draco sighs, and sits back. “A pity. So you aren't interested in coming to bed with me, then.”
“I...” Ron's words catch in his throat. He's about to say no, when he remembers that Hermione's called him a wet fish. “Might be,” he says, then thinks of something else. “Anyway, aren't you supposed to be married?”
“Not just 'supposed',” says Draco.
“Why the fuck are you propositioning me, then?”
“Because Astoria,” Draco drawls, “doesn't have a cock.”
And there really isn't much answer to that.
*
Ron doesn't get in until past 10 pm, and Hermione is furious.
“Ron, for goodness sake, where have you been?” she demands.
“Down the pub,” Ron says sheepishly.
Somehow, Malfoy had managed to persuade him into another drink - and another. Nothing actually happened between them - well, perhaps a kiss or two... maybe a bit of low level fumbling... well, anyway, Ron didn't sleep with Draco - but somehow the clock suddenly swung round and it turned out to be much later than he'd intended.
“Down the pub.” Hermione is biting her lips, as if she doesn't trust herself to speak. Finally, in a very level tone (more scary than hysterics, not that Ron's ever really seen Hermione in hysterics), she says “Did you not think to tell me you were going to be late?”
“Well, I wasn't!” and then, realising that Hermione looks as if she is going to implode, Ron says hastily, “Well, obviously I was late, but the thing is, I really didn't mean to be. I dunno what happened. One minute it was half five and the next it was...” He trails off.
“What were you doing down there?”
“Nothing,” says Ron guiltily. “I mean... just having a drink with a bloke, that's all.”
“'Just having a drink with a bloke',” Hermione repeats. She has a way of repeating things that Ron has said which makes them sound like criminal offences.
“Look, 'Mione, I'm sorry, okay? It was just a...”
“Just a drink,” she says coldly. “Yes, I gathered - although by the smell of you, it was more like five or six. Anyway, I'm going to bed. I might have gone earlier, but foolishly, I was actually worried about you.”
Ron looks after her, and thinks that the conversation's probably gone as well as it could.
*
The first time was an accident. The second time he was drunk. By the third time Ron snogs Draco, he's running out of excuses, even to himself. Not that he needs excuses - it's not as if anyone knows about what's going on. Most of the time Ron doesn't know what's going on, for Merlin's sake. Even when he does, he doesn't really believe it. Him and Draco Malfoy. This is such a bad idea for so many reasons.
But bloody hell, he fancies him.
*
And it becomes normal. The lies, the strange hours, meeting Malfoy in a different place every time so that no one sees them. Rooms booked in swish hotels that Ron'd never be able to afford, where they rip each other's clothes off and fuck for hours, stopping occasionally to have some food or champagne. Ron feels guilty about the champagne as much as anything: he's never bought Hermione champagne, and somehow going out and drinking it behind her back feels like more of a betrayal than the fact that he's sleeping with Draco Malfoy. Plus the fact that Ron sometimes feels like a prostitute, letting Draco pay for everything. But then, what choice has he got? On his salary, the only place he could afford to take Draco is a back room in Knockturn Alley - and even then, if he did it too often, Hermione would wonder what he was doing with all his money (especially considering the 'overtime' he's been saying he's doing).
The thing is, it's like an addiction.
And Ron quite enjoys being addicted.
*
Or he did, until...
Ron's still shrugging his clothes back on as they stumble out of the room, half-dazed from the sex (more fantastic this time than ever), when he finds himself face to face with a very familiar face.
“Hermione,” he says, blinking hard and hoping that it's some sort of illusion; that she will disappear by the time he looks up again.
“Later,” says Draco, and is gone. Trust a Malfoy to slide out of a difficult situation.
“Ron.”
Ron has never seen anyone, let alone Hermione, turn that white that quickly. He'd never realised that she had some freckles across her nose until now - and it's not a good moment to be distracted by things like that...
“Erm,” he says. “Hello.” Hermione is staring, staring, staring at him, as if she's never seen him before, or he has developed some horrendous deformity since this morning, when they were eating breakfast together. Ron starts to say “It's not what it looks like” - but the problem is, it is. “What are you doing here?” he asks, instead.
Hermione ignores the question; Ron isn't sure she even heard him. Instead, she asks “Have people started cheating on their girlfriends in pairs now?” Ron doesn't know how to answer this, because... well, how are you supposed to cheat on someone if there isn't another person involved? Hermione brushes past him, striding towards the room from which he has just come out. “Is there just one girl, and you've been taking it in turns while the other one watches? Or are there two, and you can have competitions? And for pity's sake, why with Malfoy?” Her voice is slightly choked up as she flings open the door.
Ron, a step behind her, has just understood what she thinks. He's got his mouth open, trying to think of something to say, but there really isn't anything. Hermione gazes round the empty room, and he sees realisation in her face. Ron hadn't thought she could go any whiter, but her face has an almost green tinge to it.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, and it sounds like a real prayer. “You. You and him.” Her voice is barely audible. “Draco Malfoy and...” She stops, angrily brushing away a tear as she backs out of the room.
Ron, following, looks round, and sees several other Aurors sitting in a corner - not Harry, thank Merlin - pretending that they're not looking at what's going on.
“Look,” he says awkwardly, “I'll see you at home, okay?”
He gets out to the street almost at a run, and Apparates three miles from their home by mistake. It's raining - which, Ron thinks, figures - and he wanders down the streets, wondering what he's going to say to Hermione when he next sees her. The water drips from his hair and runs down his neck, but Ron still doesn't want to hurry. He gets home to find that Hermione's beaten him to it. She has opened a bottle of wine, and it is already half-empty, which is unheard of in her.
“I suppose you went back to him,” she says. She is still pale, but she isn't crying. Ron thinks this is a good sign.
“Him?”
“Malfoy.” She takes a big breath. “I suppose you've been laughing with him about your stupid Mudblood girlfriend, and how she never even realised that you were gay, let alone that you were sleeping around.”
“I'm not sleeping around,” Ron says indignantly. “I'm just...”
“'Just' having sex with Draco Malfoy - who happens to think that witches like me deserve to die,” Hermione finishes loudly. “'Just' having sex with a man, when I thought you loved me. God, how stupid am I?”
“Hermione...”
“No Ron,” she says - and she just sounds tired, and somehow that's worse. “Please, no excuses. I'm tired. It's been a long day.”
She walks into the bedroom, and Ron hears her lock the door behind her.
*
When Hermione leaves for work the next day, she takes a small suitcase with her. She says nothing to Ron as she walks through the sitting room, and Ron doesn't quite like to ask her what's going on. He messes up so many times in the first two hours of work that Hardrod sends him home.
“You are working inefficiently. Do not return until you can be efficient.”
Ron wants to ask him how the hell he's supposed to be 'efficient' when his life is falling apart. Instead, he goes home and lies on the sofa, staring at the ceiling and wondering how he got into this situation. When the owl appears at the window, he scowls at it and considers ignoring it; but the bird's tapping is insistent, so reluctantly he lets it in. It has a message from Draco.
Meet me at the Golden Snitch. Draco.
What the hell, thinks Ron. It's not as if he's got anything left to lose.
*
“You weren't at work,” Draco comments when Ron slams into the pub.
“Sent home.” Ron is not feeling talkative.
“It was always going to happen, Ron,” says Draco. “She had to find out sometime.”
“Yeah,” says Ron, meaning 'no'.
“I'll buy you a drink,” Draco says, and returns a minute later with a pint of the expensive beer that Ron had never had a chance to discover he liked before he started spending time with Draco.
“Thanks,” Ron grunts.
Draco, his legs stretched out in front of him, his drink held with a casual elegance in his right hand, looks relaxed, as if nothing has happened.
“What did she say?” he asks.
There ought to be some sort of rule about this, Ron thinks. About one partner not asking what the other one's been saying. He's always tried not to talk about Hermione with Draco - sort of pretending that she doesn't exist when he's with him, in the same way that he pretends (pretended) that Draco doesn't exist when he's with her.
“Not much.”
Draco shrugs. “She comes from a Muggle background. Everyone knows that Muggle relationships never work out. It's probably no big deal for her.” Ron thinks about Hermione's wan face, about the shaking hand she used to pick up her drink, and says nothing. “Who's moving out - you or her?”
Ron stills. It hadn't occurred to him that there was anything more to this than just having hurt Hermione. Moving out. Splitting up. The rest of the Weasleys are going to know what happened. Harry. He wonders what sort of place he's going to be able to afford on his own, and hates himself for worrying about something like that when he's just broken Hermione's heart.
“Dunno. Me, I guess. It's my fault, after all.”
He feels funny being out with Draco Malfoy. Somehow, now Hermione knows about them, it feels more like cheating on her than it did when she didn't know. He finishes his drink in silence and then gets up.
“Going already?” asks Draco.
“Need to pack up my stuff,” says Ron briefly, and leaves.
*
By 10 pm, it's fairly obvious that Hermione's not coming back tonight. Ron's packed most of his stuff - though he has no idea what he's going to do with it, as he's not exactly going to be able to find a flat at this time of night - it took them weeks to find this place, and that was with two salaries going towards the rent. Ron banishes that thought, and wonders where Hermione is. The most likely place she'd go is to Harry and Ginny's house... Ron feels a cold knot in his chest. If she's gone there, then they know. Everyone'll know, because you don't keep secrets in the Weasley family. Know one, know all. He doesn't want to know what their reaction will be. He finally goes to bed at about 2 am, and it feels weird not to have Hermione next to him. He misses her warmth; the way she always turns over, half-asleep, when he comes to bed and gives him a brief kiss; the little murmuring noises she makes as she sleeps. He misses her.
*
He doesn't even bother going into work the next day. There's no way he's going to be 'efficient', so why pretend? Which means that when Hermione walks in the door at 11 am, he's sitting on the sofa in his pyjamas, using his wand to make patterns on the wall.
She stops when she sees him. “I thought you'd be at work.”
“I'm not.”
“So I see,” she says.
Ron thinks that'll be it for conversation: Hermione walks into their bedroom, and slams the door. But two minutes later, she comes out again.
“I trusted you!” she screams at him. “I actually trusted you!”
Ron finds that he's stood up without realising it. She steps towards him, and he backs away.
“Sorry,” he says inadequately - but what else is there to say?
“Someone told me...” Hermione pauses and wipes a hand across her eyes before continuing. She isn't looking at Ron. “Weeks ago, someone told me they'd seen you with Malfoy, and I said 'No, it can't be Ron - he does overtime on a Wednesday'. Overtime. The most obvious cover-up for cheating that there is and I didn't even think twice! Because I knew you wouldn't do that - not with anyone, certainly not with a man, and definitely not with Malfoy.”
“I didn't mean...”
She cuts across him. “You didn't mean to sleep with him? You didn't mean me to find out? You didn't mean it when you said you were working late, when you were meeting a friend? Some friend!” She makes a noise which in any other circumstance might have been a laugh. “And stupid Hermione sat at home believing every word you said, not even thinking to question it! But then - I'm only a Mudblood after all; you couldn't expect anything else.”
Ron thinks uncomfortably of Draco's comment yesterday - “Everyone knows that Muggle relationships never work out” - and digs his fingernails into his palms.
“Don't call yourself that,” he says instinctively.
“Why not?” Hermione yells at him, her voice getting higher and higher pitched as she speaks. “You're fucking someone who thinks that's exactly what I am - a stupid Mudblood who doesn't even notice when her boyfriend is off with another man! Doesn't even realise that he likes men. Who deserves all she gets because I don't deserve to be loved, not by anyone - not even the guy who tells me he loves me, the one I've lived with for four years, the one...” She chokes and breaks off.
“Hermione...” says Ron, feeling his eyes prickle with tears despite himself.
She looks up at him, and he's never - never - seen her look like that before. “Just go away, Ron,” she says softly, despairingly. “Just go away.”
“I'm sorry,” he mumbles, and slips out of the door.
By the time he gets back, she's gone, leaving a brief note.
At Harry's. Please don't contact me. H.
*
Harry doesn't cancel their normal Friday evening get together, but Ron rather wishes he had. He comes over and sits opposite Ron with a pint of water and an unfriendly expression.
“Congratulations,” he says coldly.
“Huh?”
“I'm sure you and Malfoy will be very happy together. Like you've been for the last six months while you've been cheating on Hermione.”
“It wasn't like that,” says Ron helplessly. “I mean...”
“Don't tell me.” Harry is dripping sarcasm. “Your girlfriend didn't understand you, so you thought you'd sleep with Draco Malfoy for the sheer hell of it.”
“Merlin's sake, Harry, I didn't want to hurt 'Mione. It's not like I planned this to happen or anything, it just... did.”
“Yeah, right,” Harry says.
Ron kicks the table leg moodily, and some of Harry's water spills out over the table. Water. Fish.
“It might not've happened if Hermione didn't go round telling people that sex with me was like sex with a wet fish,” he says bitterly.
“What? Hermione's never said anything like that!”
Ron snorts. “Oh, come off it, it's been Ministry gossip for months. Just because I don't work there doesn't mean I don't know what's going on, you know. How d'you think that made me feel? And thanks for telling me about it, Harry. Thanks a lot.”
He kicks the table one more time for good measure, and storms out of the pub.
*
The family take it in turns to tell him what a bastard he is. Three lines of attack. Bill can't get over the fact that Ron's gay: Ron looks down at his head in the fire, and listens to him say the same thing over and over.
“A guy, Ron. How could you sleep with another man? A man? That's just... How could you sleep with a man, Ron?”
There's no real answer to that. If Bill doesn't understand, nothing Ron can say will change his mind. Funny, really: Bill was the one brother that Ron, somehow, thought might accept his sexuality. Bill's always been so confident in his own heterosexuality that Ron thought he might have room to acknowledge others. Seems he was wrong.
“Don't come round. I don't want to see you, and I definitely don't want to inflict you on Fleur,” Bill says, and is gone.
Percy's similar critique comes as less of a surprise. For George and his father, however, it's not the gayness that is the issue so much as the man he chose to sleep with.
“Of all people, a Malfoy!” says Arthur despairingly.
“Not a cool choice, Ron,” George agrees. “Of all the people in the world, to choose that slimy little worm. I don't know how you could go near him, let alone fuck him.”
Ron doesn't defend himself. He suspects that the reasons he could give - that Draco is drop dead gorgeous and fantastic in bed - are not going to win him any sympathy.
He never expected his mother to understand or sympathise, and she doesn't. Surprisingly, though, she seems to pass over the 'gay' part as irrelevent: what she can not forgive is how he's treated Hermione. Ron can't entirely forgive himself for that, either, in truth. He wonders whether Molly has understood what's happened - that he's been sleeping with a bloke - because she doesn't mention it for a long time.
“I'm ashamed,” she says, standing on the doorstep to the flat, “that any son of mine could behave like that. I thought I brought you up better. I never thought I'd see you cheat on someone - and to do it to Hermione! When you've been in love for so long, and she's such a lovely girl. I'm ashamed of you, Ron.”
“Mum...”
“And I don't care who it was with,” she continues, not allowing him to get more than the one word in, “I'd say the same thing. Poor Hermione is devastated, and I'm sure I can't blame her. I am more disappointed in you than I've ever been with any of my children. Hurting Hermione like that. It's a disgrace.”
Even Charlie comes round to give him his unvarnished opinion. Ron is not impressed, since he knows for a fact that Charlie has had more than one girlfriend at the same time in the past.
“Yes,” says Charlie when Ron points this out, “but the thing is, I wasn't with them for five years, or living with them, or kind of implying that we had any sort of long-term relationship. Oh yeah, and they were both women.”
“So you're saying it's all right for you, but not for me?” demands Ron.
“I'm saying,” says Charlie coldly, “that Hermione deserves better.”
“You go out with her, then.”
Charlie walks to the door. “I might just do that.”
“Fine!” flings Ron at the back of his head. He sits down in the crappy flat. “Just bloody fine,” he mutters, and opens a beer.
*
But at least, he thinks a few days later, when he's back at work and being somewhere close to vaguely efficient, he's never going to have to sleep with a woman again. And now the truth is out, maybe he and Draco can... well, actually sort stuff out and live together and whatever. It's not like Draco is happy with Astoria, after all - he does his 'duty', but clearly prefers men. Prefers Ron, disconcerting as Ron originally found that knowledge. Yeah, so it'll work out. Hermione'll be happier soon. She's already looking a bit better, according to Ginny (the most recent member of his family to visit him in order to tell him what an arse he is). And... well, okay, he never thought he'd end up living with Draco Malfoy, of all people - but it might just work.
All's well that ends well? Maybe so.
*
His meetings with Draco become more regular now. After all, there's no reason why they shouldn't.
Well, one reason, perhaps.
“So, when are you breaking off with Astoria?” Ron asks.
Draco frowns. “I'm not. Why should I?”
Because you've been fucking me for the last six months? Because I've broken up with Hermione and she's not talking to me? Because all my family - not to mention Harry - hate me not only for having an affair, but for having one with you?
Ron says, “Because you're gay; because you're with me now.”
“But Weasley,” says Draco - and Ron is back to being 'Weasley' again, after months of being 'Ron' - “a Malfoy never leaves his wife.”