A Second Look - A Dramione Story

Chapter 1

Warning: This is not my story. It is from RiverWriter on ao3.

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"Well, that's the absolute last time I marry a Boy-Who-Lived groupie."

Hermione smiled at her best friend in commiseration and placed a bottle of twenty year old firewhiskey and two glasses on the table between them.

"You know it wasn't that simple," she said gently, "don't beat yourself up."

Harry's divorce was final. Six months in the making, officially, though she believed it had actually been building for years. And now it was over, just like that, with a few swishes of quill against parchment, a life together was undone, and three days before their second son's first birthday. That was going to be the most awkward party ever.

"I know," he agreed, "but I should have seen it sooner. I just wanted it to work so badly." His green eyes pleaded for her to understand.

She sighed. It wasn't the first time they'd had this discussion; Merlin would he ever stop blaming himself for everything?

"I know you did Harry, but you deserve to be happy, really happy," she soothed.

She would never tell Harry about the not-so-small part of her that was relieved that his marriage to Ginny Potter- née Weasley- was finished. If Harry had been truly happy with her that would have been one thing, but he hadn't been, and she'd had to sit back largely silent and watch her best friend be miserable while pretending for the world that all was well. She wondered when the universe was going to give this amazing wizard a break.

But her reasons for being relieved were selfish as well, because Ginny's jealousy had been out of control and it had put a strain on her own relationship with Harry. While she and Harry loved each other immensely it had always been a love between siblings. She could speak eloquently and at length about him and the kind of man that he was. She could even objectively admit that he had turned into a very handsome wizard. She simply wasn't attracted to him in that way. She was and had always been his best friend, there had been nothing for Ginny to find threatening; or so she thought.

It had taken years for her to explain to herself the tension that had arisen, seemingly out of nowhere, following the war. Ginny had a quick temper and a sharp tongue but she also had an excellent poker face and she kept her own counsel. However, Hermione was nothing if not persistent and she eventually figured it out.

As many times as Ginny had made a not-so-veiled insinuation about Hermione's intentions towards Harry, she didn't truly believe that they were sleeping together. She just thought the allegation was the quickest way to drive a wedge between them. Because in all of Ginny's dreams about growing up and marrying Harry Potter she'd never once considered that she'd have to share the spotlight with another woman.

Though Hermione didn't like it anymore than Harry did, she was almost as famous as he was. A member of the legendary Golden Trio and the brightest witch of her age to boot, she'd had an almost meteoric rise through the ranks at the Ministry. Even her blood status seemed to be another source of fascination for a lot of people which garnered her a certain amount of media attention. For whatever reason, when she spoke people listened. It didn't help that Harry wasn't shy about giving her credit for her work during the war. That he emphasized in interviews that he never would have succeeded without her. As a result she was almost as closely associated with Harry as Ginny was. And given Ginny's busy schedule and the fact that she was often traveling as a professional quidditch player, Harry and Hermione were often seen out together without her. Rumors that they were having an affair ran rampant.

Harry had fought hard to keep the marriage intact. Hermione was pretty sure that their second child was a result of that. And he even retreated from his relationship with Hermione in an attempt to ease the tension. But in the end it had simply been too much for his wife to bear.