A Second Look - A Dramione Story

Chapter 27

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

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The dawn of New Year's Day 2007 greeted them with the sound of the floo alarm. She was vaguely aware of Draco disentangling himself from her to go answer the call. He returned in what felt like a blink of an eye, but a double take at the clock on the nightstand told her that it had actually been more than twenty minutes.

"I'm sorry, but you're going to want to get dressed. Father and Mother are coming through, and we all need to talk."

That got her attention. He wouldn't just invite his parents over for no reason. Especially not at the literal crack of dawn and most especially not on the morning of New Year's Day when they'd been planning to spend the several hours in bed while Scorpius was with her parents.

"And you should see this before we go downstairs," he drew a copy of the Daily Prophet out from behind his back, an unreadable expression on his face.

She unfolded it and gasped. On the front page was a bomb of a headline, of the nuclear variety.

Should We Be Worried About Two-Thirds of the Golden Trio?

What have they been hiding from us? Are they under the control of Death Eaters?

She didn't even make it halfway through the article before she gave up as her eyes were too clouded with tears to make out the words on the page and she was struggling to catch her breath. She reached blindly for Draco and his arms were almost instantly around her, lips dancing along her hairline.

Apparently, Ron had decided that he wasn't taking the news of her new relationship, or being punched by Draco, lying down. He'd gone to Rita Skeeter and spilled his guts: all of her secrets laid bare for the whole country to read. Every embarrassing thing that had happened to her at Hogwarts, what she'd done to protect her parents during the war, her possible infertility issues. He hinted heavily that he suspected something had happened between herself and Harry during the horcrux hunt and that he feared it had continued on after the war, which was the reason for the end of his relationship with Hermione as well as Harry's marriage. And then he accused Draco of having potioned her or placed her under a spell so that she would be with him.

Rita added her own spin by reminding the readers that Draco's own good friend, Pansy Parkinson, had once suspected Hermione of dosing both Harry and Viktor Krum with love potions. She speculated that perhaps it was Draco who was being tricked into their relationship.

It managed to simultaneously paint her as a pathetic victim and a ruthless villain. It was horrible, and humiliating, and it hurt.

"I'm so sorry Hermione, this wouldn't be happening to you if it wasn't for me," Draco murmured when she was breathing relatively normally again.

"No, this isn't your fault, Ron was just waiting for an excuse to do something like this and he's certainly capable of deluding himself into believing he's the hero in all of this and that he did this for my own good, or maybe for the good of the wizarding public by exposing what's been going on behind closed doors." She shrugged.

"I should have at least been able to keep them from printing it, but they were smart. It's the holidays and so the paper's running on a skeleton crew and they were able to sneak it in without any of my contacts being aware."

She turned her face into his neck, kissing him. "It's okay Draco, you really shouldn't have to police the Daily Prophet."

He just sighed and held her for a few more minutes before speaking again. "My parents will be here by now, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have invited them over without asking you, or at least letting you know what's going on, but I wanted to do this on my territory. Father has also called our solicitors."