Chapter Text
H
Hermione almost missed her entirely.
The morning had been gray and wet, the sidewalks still shining from last night’s rain, and Achilles kept dragging her toward every tree, fire hydrant, and passing pigeon in Manhattan like he’d never seen the city before in his life.
“Achilles,” she muttered tiredly, tightening her grip on the leash. “If you pull me one more time, I swear to God—”
Hermione noticed the woman at the exact moment Achilles decided he wanted to investigate a puddle beside the curb with the intensity of a homicide detective.
“Achilles, if you drag me into traffic today, I’m giving you to Pansy,” Hermione muttered distractedly, tightening her grip on the leash as the enormous cane corso planted himself stubbornly beside a tree planter overflowing with rainwater and cigarette butts.
The dog ignored her completely.
Hermione barely noticed.
Her attention had already shifted further down the block toward the woman climbing the stairs of a narrow brownstone wrapped in black iron railings and expensive discretion.
Hermione recognized her because Theo once forced her to binge-watch two entire seasons of Bad Blood Boardwalk during a week Draco disappeared to Atlantic City and stopped answering his phone.
Astoria Greengrass spent most of the show screaming at people in clubs, fighting outside casinos, throwing champagne at women in bathrooms, and climbing onto tables while security guards begged her to get down before somebody filmed it. Every gossip page in New York had posted her at some point stumbling barefoot through Manhattan at three in the morning beside rappers, athletes, or men connected vaguely enough to organized crime that nobody ever asked questions directly.
Back then her hair had been platinum blonde.
Now it was dyed jet black, long extensions falling down the back of a cropped leather jacket despite the rain, although Hermione recognized her instantly anyway.
People like Astoria carried celebrity in a very specific way. Loud. Messy. The kind that came with paparazzi photos, podcast scandals, and reality television confessionals filmed while crying in full glam makeup.
Which made seeing her walk toward one of Draco’s hidden brownstones feel so surreal Hermione genuinely thought for a second she might be hallucinating.
One of the hidden ones.
The property technically belonged to a corporation connected to another corporation connected to one of the Death Eaters’ financial groups, although Hermione discovered it years ago while digging through documents during one of the many periods she became convinced she was finally leaving him for good.
At the time Draco smiled against her neck, took the papers from her hands, and told her she worried too much.
Then Draco met Hermione at almost twenty-three, seven years younger than him, all quiet restraint and polished intelligence and understated elegance shaped less by Manhattan society and more by years spent carefully hidden from it.
Her mother kept both Hermione, Harry, and Lucy away from the spotlight for most of their lives.
Away from the Family.
Away from the Death Eaters.
Away from Manhattan entirely whenever possible.
They spent most of their childhood in Greenwich where nobody looked twice at them, where Hermione and Lucy attended private schools filled with hedge-fund children instead of mob royalty, where Harry played lacrosse and Hermione carried stacks of novels home from bookstores pretending their lives were normal.
Their mother refused to let the Family swallow them young.
Tom Riddle hated it.
Especially because Hermione was technically his stepdaughter after her mother remarried into the organization, although Tom never treated her like family in any normal sense. He was good to her, but he treated her like something amusing. Something intelligent. Something he watched carefully from a distance while her mother fought viciously to keep the children separated from the uglier parts of the Death Eaters until they were older.
Until college.
Until Manhattan.
Until NYU and Columbia finally dragged them directly into the orbit of the city whether their mother liked it or not.
Then Tom died.
And Draco took over.
Thirty years old already.
Terrifying already.
Tom Riddle’s godson.
The new king of the Death Eaters before the funeral flowers even died.
Back then his girlfriends looked exactly like Astoria.
Bartenders.
Bottle girls.
Reality television disasters.
Women hanging off him in Atlantic City clubs while tabloids photographed cocaine scandals and screaming matches outside casinos.
Then he saw Hermione once at a fundraiser and apparently lost his fucking mind permanently.
“You know Draco?” she asked casually.
Astoria’s gaze returned to hers immediately.
“Yes.”
The answer arrived too naturally.
No confusion.
No attempt to hide it.
Hermione felt something hot and ugly twist beneath her ribs.
She kept smiling anyway.
“How long have you known him?”
Astoria hesitated just slightly before answering.
“A while.”
Hermione nodded slowly as though the response meant very little to her.
Inside, her entire nervous system felt seconds away from collapse.
Because this was the part that always destroyed her eventually. Not even the cheating itself anymore. Draco cheated the way other men drank or gambled or smoked cigarettes. Compulsively. Destructively. Like he needed constant proof that people still wanted him.
The unbearable part involved the fact Hermione still loved him anyway.
Against all logic.
Against dignity.
Against every intelligent thought her brain ever produced.
She loved him when he carried their sleeping daughter upstairs after she fell asleep on the couch.
She loved him when he crawled into bed at four in the morning smelling like blood and whiskey and exhaustion before wrapping himself around her silently like he could disappear inside her body if he held tightly enough.
She loved him during the six-month stretches where he transformed into the version of himself she originally fell in love with; attentive, funny, obsessive in softer ways, kissing her knuckles in elevators and cooking breakfast while Sinatra played through the penthouse speakers.
Then eventually something inside him always rotted again.
Hermione spent years trying to understand which version counted as the real Draco.
Eventually she realized both did.
“You live here?” Hermione asked gently.
Astoria glanced briefly toward the brownstone door.
“Sometimes.”
There it was again.
Another tiny shift.
Carefulness.
Hermione’s stomach dropped further.
Oh my fucking god.
Draco had probably told this woman things. Shared pieces of himself the way he always did during affairs, constructing intimacy quickly and intensely until women mistook obsession for honesty.
Hermione wondered suddenly whether Astoria knew about the children.
Whether Draco pretending they weren’t finally planning a wedding after all these years.
Whether he complained about Hermione the same way he complained about everyone whenever he wanted sympathy.
The thoughts hit so hard Hermione almost physically recoiled from them.
Instead, she smiled again.
A beautiful trick she perfected years ago.
“I knew he owned the building,” she said conversationally. “Draco forgets I handle most of the legitimate financial side of his life.”
Astoria looked at her properly then.
Something uncertain entered her expression now.
Good.
Hermione preferred uncertainty.
Uncertainty made people talk eventually.
The city noise swelled around them while rain continued dripping softly from rooftops overhead.
Astoria spoke after a few quiet seconds.
“You’re still together?”
Hermione nearly laughed at the question.
Together.
Such a harmless word for something that felt more like surviving a natural disaster repeatedly.
“We have children,” Hermione answered smoothly. “That tends to complicate definitions.”
Astoria’s expression shifted subtly at that.
Interesting again. Nothing new here. Draco absolutely failed to mention something important somewhere.
Hermione tucked that observation away carefully.
Then she smiled faintly and adjusted Achilles’ leash.
“You know,” Hermione said pleasantly after a moment, “I suddenly need coffee more than I need emotional stability.”
Astoria blinked before laughing softly again.
Hermione smiled wider.
Inside she felt seconds away from disintegrating completely.
“There’s a café around the corner,” Hermione continued lightly. “And I would genuinely rather sit down than have whatever this conversation becomes while standing in the rain outside my fiancé’s secret brownstone.”