a/n: A huge thank you to my excellent beta Davrosfan for his keen eye, thanks for spotting and preventing some of the worser mayhem from leaping out of this plot! :)
~o~
Out of nowhere Harry kisses her and his lips collide into hers.
It shakes her to her core and she wants to shriek. Yet he presses her body against the couch, making her feel trapped, beneath him and brings back horrible memories of what happened on a couch in her own flat. Her head feels dizzy and she's never felt so confused.
"No!" She shoves back at his shoulders. "Harry no don't do this!" she pleads. There is a desperation in her voice. The voice of someone who's lost or losing everything. She doesn't even know who she is anymore. However, there is only one last thing she knows for certain: she wants, and needs, Harry to stop kissing her. Harry is her friend. He can't do this to her, not now. Not when everything else in her world is crumbling, she can't lose him too.
She desperately pushes back at his chest and Harry finally stills and retreats.
Harry pulls back, ending the kiss though his face remains inches away from hers as he stares down at her. His green eyes positively burn at her. The last time she saw Harry this angry was when he was fighting Voldemort in the final battle.
A mixture of confusion, shame and anger are set in his eyes, as it occurs to him she still doesn't and never will feel the same way.
His hands reach out to hold her by the arms, refusing to let her go completely. His eyes beginning to water. "Can't you see we'd be perfect together? I only went with Ginny because you were with Ron. Yet when you broke up, I couldn't go after you, could I, when you went straight into that snake's arms?! How was Draco good enough for you, but not your best friend?"
Fucking Merlin.
"Because you are my friend, Harry!" she stares at him in shock, wondering how this night could possibly go worse. Why did Harry have to bring this up now? Hadn't they covered everything exactly eight years ago? Harry hadn't mentioned it since though he had been a bit agitated when she married Draco, he hadn't exactly stopped the wedding. She thought Harry had accepted things the way they were. How can he possibly think it was a good idea to bring this all up now? Now when her marriage is failing, or did Harry think this was his chance to try to get back in with her? Why is he acting like he no longer understands her boundaries? "Can't you see that. It's never been that way."
Harry's grip on her arm tightens and she's almost afraid of him. In the almost two decades she's known him, she's never felt afraid of Harry except when he spoke parseltongue for the first time and everyone temporarily thought he was the Heir who opened the Chamber of Secrets. But she'd quickly learned Harry would never do anything dark like that, and he hadn't ever since. Despite all that happened to him. Harry had been through so much, he had a hard life, Merlin knows, yet he'd never ever chosen a selfish path or done a bad thing...til now. Is this Harry's complete selflessness cracking? She didn't want to see it, if so.
She turns her eyes away from him even as he speaks and she knows exactly what he's going to say.
"I don't want to be just friends, I've loved you more than anyone! Can't you see that?" He grabs her by the shoulders. "I saw that, clear as day, the moment I woke up from the dead. But you'd already gone with Ron by then hadn't you? Not even waiting a moment while the battle raged on? The battle I fought. Alone."
"You were not alone Harry!" she almost snarls, because she knows how bitter Harry has secretly been about all this, though he hardly ever brings it up, its always there under the surface. "We were there. Every step of the way. Ron and I."
Harry shouts at her as his face burns with intensity. "I died alone that day Hermione! You and Ron never died, don't tell me I wasn't alone!"
They both begin to cry, Harry's hands still pressing deeply, almost bitingly, into the soft flesh of her arms. She's shaking as they both remember that day in battle and all the ugly things that happened in the way that they've both chosen to forget. Things they never talk about anymore, not even with Ron, when they had all been speaking .
Her eyes well up so fast as more tears streak down her cheeks. "I'm sorry Harry. I told you many times. We each of us, would've taken your place but we couldn't."
"Why did you run off with Ron as soon as I died?"
"I didn't run off." She sobs out unsteadily, wondering if Harry's secretly gone mad since a part of his soul, carrying Voldemort's soul, was demolished that day eight years ago. "I was right there! I've always been there."
"In his arms," Harry snarls and his hands tighten on her. His eyes, which are frighteningly intense, hardly blink. "Ron then Draco's. Never skipped a beat between them, did you? Then look what happens. Ron hurt you, now Draco's hit you. Do you regret turning me down in the tent? Do you see now how wrong your choices in men have been...or are you just a sucker for punishment? Maybe you even enjoy it..." His hand slides up her thigh.
"Let me go Harry!" She violently flails against his touch but then her mind darkens, flashing back to weeks before. Suddenly it feels as if the room is swirling around her, as if the whole world is laughing at her, or just Lucius is laughing at her. No it couldn't be, Lucius was lying. Or was he? She stares at Harry open mouthed, as something about this moment in the dark on a couch with her abuser clicks into place like deja vu. She gasps. "It was you wasn't it?"
"Wasn't I what?" Harry asks yet he lets go of her shoulders immediately as if stung.
"That night."
"What night?" Harry blinks at her, seemingly completely innocent. His green eyes betray no guilt or admission. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Did the men around her feel nothing? Were they all secretly liars and exploiters turning on her with the tides?
And this brings back another shock of deja vu with Lucius Malfoy protesting the same thing, that he knew nothing of that night.
Fucking hell. Is she losing her mind? Had she imagined the whole thing? Had Harry even kissed her or said all the things he did just now? Did that night at her flat with a polyjuiced man pretending to be Draco even happen? What if it was Draco who was lying about not remembering that night.
"I've got to go." She gets unsteadily to her feet, not even caring what else Harry might have to say or do. She's had enough. Her legs buckle under her as she walks away, back to the Floo network, her world point shattered. She can't take anymore tonight. She'll explode and attack Harry if he tests her again.
Harry follows after. "Hermione you don't look well." He tries to steady her with an arm. "Please just stay here on the couch tonight. Look, I'm sorry I kissed you."
"Get away from me Harry!" she snaps, swatting his hands off her arm. It leaves a disgusted feeling in the bottom of her stomach to even know he might've touched her at all, in any way, without her consent.
"Hermione I'm sorry can't you see that?!"
In the dark, bleary eyed and unsteady, she reaches out several times to grab a handful of Floo powder but she keeps dropping it. Maybe she will faint. Maybe Harry is right that she might collapse. Maybe she should stay on the couch. Stay on the couch and be raped. No she can't trust him. She can't trust anyone. Harry keeps talking in her ear but she's tuned him out, she doesn't even want to hear his voice.
She is brought back to reality however when Ginny's voice punctures the air as she clasps another fistful of Floo powder.
"Hermione?" Ginny hears the struggle and knocks at the door from the other side, "Harry is that you, what's going on? Is that Hermione?"
"Don't tell her," Harry warns her. "I'm sorry."
"I won't tell her," she whispers bitterly and contemplates hexing Harry. "Because I care about Ginny too much to hurt her."
Her fingers ache to wrap around her wand and attack someone but she holds back so she doesn't frighten and disturb Ginny any further. She will have to deal with Harry later. Once she knows the truth. And there's only one place she will ever find that, though she's been there before and came empty handed. She doesn't intend to come up empty-handed this time.
"Goodbye Harry."
She throws the handful of Floo powder into the fireplace.
She breathes in deeply and thinks only for a split second before she knows exactly where she needs to go.
"Villeneuve, France," she whispers and disappears within an explosion of green flames.
~o~
a/N: So this novel has turned out much darker than even I expected. I knew the topic was taboo from the get-go yet I didn't think it would end up this complicated, did you? By the way, sorry for my absence, this whole worldwide lockdown and all the conspiracies surrounding it has really depressed me and got me searching different rabbit holes for answers...yet I find no answers, only different, and all dark, possibilities. I miss being able to travel. I miss simple freedom and I fear for a tyrannical future. Not unlike if the Malfoys were running the world, hmmm? I'm sure Lucius would love controlling muggles against their will.
BTW if you think Hermione is going to France to surrender to Lucius, you are wrong. She's gone to attack him in the dead of the night, she's going to walk in with her wand and take Lucius by surprise while he sleeps. But can she actually defeat him or will she be defeated in the process? What will Lucius do to her if he gets the upperhand or will he convince her its all for the best that her world is crumbling down, leading her into his arms?
Who really raped her that night? Lucius? Harry? Draco? Is Draco playing his own mind games with her? Does Draco secretly know she lusts after his father, did he do that to test her or fuck with her head? Or does Draco only know at an unconscious level and that's why he hit her? I honestly don't know myself. I'm just writing this screwed up mess of a drama each chapter as it comes. I don't know when it will end or how it will end. Frightening, very frightening I think maybe?
Thank you to everyone who reads this rollercoaster and mess of a novel, I don't know why I ever decided to write this crazy plot. My bad! very very bad.