Prompt: "But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it." Neil Gaiman
Category: Comedy, Fluff
Rating: M
Warnings: references to torture, alcohol abuse.
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All roads lead to Rome.
Draco had read the line in a book as a child, hadn't had the faintest idea what it meant, and been too nervous to ask his father.
For as long as he could remember, everyone told him he was smart. His mother. His father. His grandparents. The parents of other children.
He was Draco Malfoy. He was smart. He was going to break hearts.
Those were the pillars upon which he built his identity.
He tried very hard throughout his life to only do things that would ensure people would continue thinking he was smart. He didn't ask questions when he felt like he was probably supposed to know the answer. He didn't try to do things if he wasn't sure if he could succeed at them.
He cheated—which might have been rather unfair of him, but if he was smart enough to get away with it, didn't that just highlight the point?
Yet, somehow, life had really not gone nearly as well as he'd hoped.
For one thing, being Draco Malfoy had become disgraceful. For another, he'd spent his entire formal education at Hogwarts being soundly trounced academically by a Muggle-born. And finally, and most recently, said Muggle-born was was in the process of stomping his heart into pieces.
All roads might have led to Rome once, but in Draco's life and experience they all led to bushy-haired, bossy-voiced, know-it-all, swot extraordinaire Hermione Granger.
No matter which choice he made, or which aspect of his identity he had tried to lean into, Granger's irritatingly large eyes somehow appeared in the horizon of his life and proceeded to bowl him over.
He was never the smart one when she was in the room. Not ever. Not even remotely. Granger just oozed brilliance out of her pores. Any accomplishment Draco had ever managed, Granger had probably done it two or three years prior and without training.
He was Draco Malfoy and, as Malfoys do, he'd gone and become a Death Eater, thinking that the world would be a much more delightful place if over-accomplished Mudbloods stopped mucking it up for him.
Somehow that road had also led to Granger: in his drawing room, screaming while his aunt tortured her. As he'd stood frozen in horror, it dawned on him that a world without over-accomplished Mudbloods wasn't a world in which he was any better, it was just a world with a lower ceiling.
So he'd turned on his heel and walked away from the entire ideology of it. He'd thought a one hundred and eighty degree turn would send him in a direction in which Granger would never cross paths with him again.
And yet...
Draco wasn't sure if his world was just that small, or Granger somehow loomed incredibly large, or possibly she did something to disrupt physics or gravity that constantly put her into whatever path he took.
They'd ended up on the same charity board, which he'd told himself would be fine given that it was a large charity and he was not really an active member aside from writing numerous cheques for them. But then somehow he'd been dragged into hosting a charity gala, which had resulted in his having to plan the said gala with Granger.
Draco had told himself it was fine as he was dragged rapidly down yet another road involving Granger's extremely large, bright eyes, and thoughtfully pursed lips. He'd swerve at the last moment or perform a Wronski Feint or something, and the road would go around Granger.
He reminded himself of it the entire evening while he downed glass after glass of champagne, and danced holding her in his arms, and repeatedly drowned in her aggravatingly enormous eyes.
It was fine, until it wasn't fine any more.
It turned out, in retrospect, that Draco had drunk too many glasses of champagne while telling himself that it really was going to be the last time he interacted with Granger. As they stood in the empty ballroom, Granger kicked off her shoes and pulled out the pins keeping her hair in place while helping the house-elves clean up. Her eyes kept getting larger and closer, and when she looked up at him and made a joke about the melting ice sculpture, Draco forgot about swerving.
He kissed her.
He kissed her and she kissed him back, and they kept kissing and made it all the way up the staircase and down the hall into his room. He'd pulled her dress off and tangled his hands in her bushy hair; drank in the moans that dripped from her clever mouth; and nibbled and nipped and kissed her brilliant skin; and watched her enormous eyes grow dark.
When he came inside her, and then fell asleep kissing her and holding her in his arms, he decided that maybe all roads were supposed to lead to Granger. Maybe that was the point.
Except she was gone when he woke the next morning; and he'd been lying in bed for ten hours now, trying to re-evaluate his entire existence once again.
His road had led to Granger, but now that he'd reached her, she'd gone, gathered her things, and left without a word to anyone, not even the house-elves.
He took a despairing drag from the cigarette dangling between his fingers.
Now that there was no doe-eyed Granger on his horizon, he wasn't sure what direction he was supposed to go in. Since the age of eleven there had always been two directions—towards Granger or away from Granger, and they'd always ended up being the same direction in the end.
Now it felt as though the needle in his compass was left spinning wildly, and he didn't know anymore which direction was towards her or away from her or anything else about the nature of the universe.
Therefore, he had decided not to get out of bed until he died.
He theorised that if he smoked and drank aggressively enough he could probably cut his estimated life-span in half, which meant only forty or fifty years of mourning.
His mother came and tried to force him to come down for lunch and he flatly refused.
He drank firewhiskey all afternoon and when he was on the verge of passing out or maybe dying from alcohol poisoning, Granger materialised in his bedroom.
"Myyyy god," he slurred and sat up to glare at her. "How is it my life always ends up fucked by you?"
She folded her arms and stood glaring at him.
Draco threw his hands in the air. "It doesn't matter what I do, or don't do. It's always you. Every time I walk away, I always end up coming back to you from a different angle. I can't even peaceably die in my own bed."
Draco pressed a hand against his heart and fell back into the pillows. "What have I ever done to you to deserve this—?" He blinked and then said, "Aside from the obvious."
Granger still wasn't saying anything, which was fortunate because Draco had a lot to say.
"You've ruined my life. Obliterated my identity. I'm never the smartest, and now it's not even impressive to be pure-blooded anymore—and I was getting over it, but—but why? Why did you have to break my heart?"
He glared at her again, still gripping his wounded chest.
She sighed and tucked several curls behind her ears. "Draco—I had to catch a portkey this morning. I'm positive I told you."
Draco blinked and stared up at the ceiling. Now that she mentioned it, he did recall her breathily murmuring something about not being able to stay while he was busy kissing along her throat and divesting her of the dress she'd been wearing.
Something about Sweden.
"Oh..." he said slowly. "Right."
