Quarrels & Loves

a trade of games

When Draco was sixteen, he stole away in the middle of the night with only the princess at his side. The image of his mother's murder burned his eyelids and the princess was the one to find them a way onto a cargo ship without being caught.

When Draco was nineteen, he married the love of his life in the middle of a bar fight in a city he couldn't remember the name of. He kissed her breathless, slipping a stolen ring onto her finger and raiding the harbor until they found the perfect ship and crew.

On the night that he was to celebrate his wife's twenty-first birthday, he left the port to buy her a gift and returned to find his ship smoldering and his wife missing.

"They took her, Draco," Zabini murmured, limping and bruised almost beyond recognition. Beside him, Parkinson stood in silent shock. Everyone else was gone.

"Who?" Draco demanded, clutching the parcel he'd bought―paid for and everything―for her birthday.

"The Crown."

* * * * *

Hermione had spent years on the sea. She'd spent endless days looking out across the horizon and plotting their course at night. It was a thrill for her to be on the water but in a locked cabin on a ship headed back towards England was torture. Her only company was Ron and the guards that delivered her meals, updating her on their progress and how much closer to hell they had sailed.

It was the third night when that changed.

She wasn't asleep. She hadn't slept a full night since before the Crown found her. As such, she was awake when their ship hit another. It didn't take long for her to realize just what was happening when a shrill cry of "Pirates!" erupted from outside her door.

Ron was on her in an instant. With a handful of guards at his side and a sneer on his face, the door to her cabin was thrust open and she was shoved out the door.

"Come on," Ron hissed, tugging her across the deck.

She resisted. Pulling back, she slipped out of Ron's hold and twisted to see what crew had found them. What she did not expect was to see familiar eyes swinging down between her and Ron.

"Draco," she breathed.

Zabini and Parkinson fell into place at his sides, swords held out when Ron made a move forward.

"Hello, love."

His cool hand skated across her shoulder and up the back of her neck, stopping just under her ear to brush his thumb ever so gently over the skin there. It was more reassuring than Hermione thought it ever had been or ever would be again.

"I thought you were dead," she gasped, staring up at him with wide, not-quite-teary eyes.

"I'm very much alive," he assured her, pressing a warm kiss to her lips. Turning to Ron with narrowed eyes, he said, "And not feeling very merciful."

In a flash, his sword was at Ron's throat and Zabini had pulled her aside, a flicker of a grin on his face as he unlocked the chains around her wrists. Rather than thank him, she stole his sword, twisting back to stand at Draco's side even as seven swords were leveled at his own throat.

"It appears you are vastly outnumbered," Ron mused. His fingers twitched at his side, a nervous tick that Hermione had identified early on when they were children. "On behalf of the Crown of England, I order you to drop your weapons."

Draco barked out a laugh, his eyes stony even as he roared with cold laughter.

"Order me?" he echoed, the ghost of a laugh still dancing on his lips. "You stole my wife," he chuckled, "and I'm going to kill you for it, should she grant me the honor."