Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He wakes up like he does every morning, alone. The space next to him in his bed was empty for so many years before her, and now it is again. There is some cyclical irony in that, he supposes. For a few moments every morning he lays in the bed and watches the sun filter and dance through the drapes and he is young again. The aches which came with age and have grown deep in both his bones and his soul do not exist until he moves.

And yet he must move. After slowly washing and dressing and ignoring the twinges in his joints, he pads through the cottage, the floors adjusting to a slight decline which he appreciates. The house yawns and creaks with him as he reaches the kitchen and prepares tea for two. Once a gesture, then a habit, now a prayer, he takes two cups and stews a Yorkshire Tea bag in each. After a minute, he removes the bags and adds a splash of milk to one cup.

There is no guarantee that the cup with the milky tea will be drunk. If it does, that is good. It means that this morning will be a good morning, and it means that he has at the very minimum an hour before his heart breaks for the day.
Shuffling, he takes the cups into the living room which seems to edge slightly closer to the kitchen every day. He places the cups down on a small table between two armchairs and considers himself for a moment in the mirror above the fireplace.

Who is that old man?

He used to be very handsome, and even now he knows he is aging better than some of their friends. He has a full head of hair (albeit slightly thinning) at nearly seventy-five, and he still has all of his teeth thanks to learning earlier than most magical folk about the benefits of dentistry. The only thing that hasn’t changed are his eyes, steely and grey.

‘Like the sky before a thunderstorm’ she used to say, or ‘like November morning mist.’

The tea steams, and he moves to straighten the cushion on her chair even though she doesn’t know it is her chair. When she sits in this chair that is good, and it means that that morning will be a good morning. The chair is the first step, then the tea, and then the book. The routine is established, tried and tested, approved by professionals.

The book, which is on the seat of his chair, has been softened from years of handling. If not for the charms on it, it would have fallen apart long ago. It is a map of their past, some parts written by her in her careful, elegant cursive, some parts by him in his raw, slanted scrawl. The pages are worn and yellowed but every one is a thread back to them.

They wrote this story, this memoir, together. They chose key moments in their lives and detailed their experiences. She had insisted that the experiences be extremely, exceedingly detailed, bordering on excessive, which had initially bothered him, but now he understands. Letters, sent and unsent, in their youth, slot in where they fit chronologically, and when they had read each other’s parts for the very first time they had added notes and scribbles into the margins, a many layered ghost paper-trail of everything they were.

This book is their history, pressed delicately between pages like dried flowers. It is fragile and faded, but real. It is the place where she falls in love with him, and he with her.

The notebook starts with her words, her introduction, her hook. She wanted it that way, and when it is a very good morning it works without fail. He used to joke that she always loved the sound of her own voice the most, but now he knows better.

Right on cue, the clock strikes eight am, and a small cough comes from the corner of the room. He turns, clasps his hands behind his back and looks at the source of the cough with a small, hopeful smile. It is Opie, the house elf who is responsible for the morning duty, and sometimes she is alone and has to tell him that that day is a bad day.

Today, though she is a very deliberate picture of ease, he notices that her large eyes glitter with excitement, confirming that this morning could indeed be a good morning.

“Good morning Opie,” he says, keeping his voice gentle.

“Good morning,” she says, keeping her voice calm.

Opie is holding onto the hand of the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. She is dressed in muggle denim blue jeans and a large black jumper that looks very soft because it is very soft, and he knows this because it used to belong to him.
She looks anxious and nervous as she stands in the doorway with Opie.

He notices her clasp Opie’s hand tighter but he doesn’t react, instead he gives her a small smile and raises his hand in a soft ‘hello.’

“Opie, who is that?” she asks, and he knows her face well enough to know that she is cautious, curious, but not scared.

Opie replies softly, “Miss, that is a friend who cares for the house. He wants to know if you will have a cup of tea with him before he checks the grounds. He has a book you might like?”

All rehearsed, every single syllable word chosen carefully. No names, and a shameless invitation because everyone in the modern magic world knows that this woman cannot resist a new and interesting book.

Everyone except, that is, sometimes herself.

“Of course, if you’d prefer to not have company, I understand…” he forces himself to offer her an option not to be with him, because that is what the world’s best Healers, muggle and magical, have told him will put her under the least stress. She should choose to sit with him if she wants to, not feel obligated to… any amount of pressure or discomfort will cause her to deteriorate.

Sometimes she declines his invitation. She’s too wary of him, or not interested in talking to anyone that day. Sometimes she doesn’t even make it to the doorway, not accepting that Opie is there to help her, sometimes she doesn’t even get out of bed.

“No, it’s ok,” she says softly, and Opie slowly walks her over to where the teacups sit.

Standing in front of the fireplace so that she can choose either seat, he watches as she slowly lowers herself into her chair and a ghost of a smile plays on his lips.

He tries not to stare at her, but it has been a long time since he has had a good morning with her, and he contains his excitement by sitting down on the other chair and reaching for his cup of tea.

Opie fusses for a few moments, takes an offensively orange blanket and tucks it over the woman’s legs, before she pats her knee affectionately.

“Opie will be just in the corner doing her crochet,” Opie says softly, and the woman nods.

His eyes follow the tiny house elf and he smiles wistfully before turning to see the woman look down at the blanket for a moment before reaching out to stroke it as though one might a pet. On occasion, she remembers Crookshanks before she remembers herself. She shifts uncomfortably in the chair.

“Are you cold?” he asks her.
“A little,” the woman replies, and the fireplace splutters to life.

She jumps, her hands gripping the sides of her armchair as she stares at the fire and then at him. His heart pounds in his chest.

“Did you do that?!” she gasps, “with magic?”

He shakes his head, looking also at the fire which has appeared to notice the shock it caused her and simmered down to a lazy smoulder.

“No, I didn’t, the house has its own magic,” he reveals tenderly, “it’s part of the way it was built, to adapt to those who live in it, to provide them with what they need.”

She considers his words thoughtfully, her eyes moving between him and the fireplace.

“What is your name?” she asks, “do we know each other?”

He sips at his tea thoughtfully, but his insides are dancing a tarantella. It can sometimes take hours for her to ask these questions.

“I go by Willie,” he answers smoothly, “and yes, we have known each other a while. You live here, and I help with house maintenance and am a groundskeeper.”

She stares at him carefully, and narrows her eyes before she responds, “If the house is magic and provides everything I would need, it’s surely capable and doesn’t need any maintenance?”

He can’t help it when a chuckle falls from his lips automatically. She is trying to catch him in a lie, and this is good.

“The house can be quite fickle,” he replies, taking another sip.

She hums and he knows this sound, he knows that she is unsatisfied with his answer, he’s heard it many many times before. She picks up her cup and brings it to her lips.

“I wondered if I might read a little of this book to you?” he asks, putting down his cup and picking up the old notebook. He struggles not to observe her every move as she looks down at the tea and then takes another sip, stretching her feet out in front of her. “If it doesn’t sound like something you want to continue, I can always stop?”

She settles her cup in her lap and turns to him a little. She seems to be taking in every part of his appearance, and he wonders if this is the moment when she will accuse him of being too old to be a groundskeeper, or tell him he doesn’t look like a man who’s name is Willie, or throw her hot tea at him, or begin to cry, or begin to scream in pain. There were any number of things that might happen which will require him to leave her, and for Opie to take her back to her room and give her medication.

However, this time, she nods, and her eyes hover over the book in his hands. “Sure,” she responds, “I’m interested in why you think I might enjoy it.”

Her interest is good, great, brilliant. A scrap of her interest is something he would walk over hot coals for. The mere fact that she remembers what Opie said moments ago about the book is monumental.

With a small, secret smile down at the book, he turns the cover and begins to read.

“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

This story doesn’t begin in a pretty way. It is about two souls, Draco and Hermione, who were thrown overboard and lost at sea. They are not star crossed lovers, in fact for a long time they were not lovers at all. They began life oceans apart, but they swam anyway, both reaching for something but not knowing that thing was the other person. Their love didn’t come with a compass, just bruised lungs and salt in their eyes and with drowning. Draco drowned in fear, guilt, and regret, and Hermione drowned in pain, pride, and years of believing he was her enemy. They both eventually sank, drowned in trauma.
And there, together at the bottom of the ocean, they asked each other what was keeping them apart, and what was worth fighting for, and they learned how to breathe again.
This story is a collection of their memories.

The man pauses, there is another line, but he doesn’t read this out loud. The process and routine has adapted over time, and for this process to work at this point in time he knows he shouldn’t read that line.

It says: My Draco, this book is my life-raft, each page is a buoy. Read our story to me and I will always come back to you.

He looks up at her, and wets his lips with his tongue. He is nervous, but her body has nestled into the groves of the chair formed to fit her over decades, and the frown lines around her eyes have relaxed.

“Shall I keep going?” he asks.

“Yes, please,” she says to the flames, “Unusual names, but I like the way you say ‘Hermione.’”

Chapter Text

The world had begun to change and so had Diagon Alley. Ministry posters about safety and wanted Death Eaters covered the shop-front windows and everything felt turbulent, like the quiet horror before a tsunami wave hit.

“I need new robes,” Hermione stated absently to a sneering wanted poster of Bellatrix Lestrange at the front of the nearest apothecary, and she headed to Madam Malkins with Harry, Ron and Hagrid.

The shop seemed normal enough, and while Harry and Ron feigned interest, Hermione moved deep into the shop to where she knew Madam Malkin kept her more interesting materials and patterns. She caught her reflection in a mirror and leaned in close to examine her face. She was going to kill the twins.
As she moved deeper a flash of white-blonde caught in the corner of her peripheral, and she was pulled towards it like a fish on a hook.

“Watch where you’re sticking that pin, will you!”

A tall teenage boy scowled down at the robe-maker who was faffing around his legs, and when he looked up to the mirror he caught sight of Hermione. He froze, and the scowl dropped from his face. Her eyes locked with hers, not venomous exactly, but deliberate. A sort of cautious fascination, like they both know they shouldn’t be here at the same time.

He didn’t say anything, he just stared at her, and she stared right back. She wouldn’t be the first to break it.

She didn’t have to. Harry and Ron appeared behind her, causing Draco’s grey eyes to narrow.

“If you’re wondering what the smell is, Mother, a Mudblood just walked in.”

Hermione’s spine snapped straight and the word echoed, not in her ears but in her bones… as if it had always been waiting there. It wasn’t the first time she’d been called that word by him, but it always managed to feel like the first time.

Meanwhile, chaos erupted. Madam Malkin scolded him for language, then scolded Ron and Harry for having their wands out.

“No don’t, honestly,” she whispered to Harry, “it’s not worth it.”

But Draco didn’t relent, stepping down from the box, “Who blackened your eye Granger? I want to send them flowers.”^[1]

Eventually, Narcissa emerged, and Hermione was surprised to notice that Draco was taller than her now. So were Ron and Harry.
Hermione was the only one there who was shorter, and though Narcissa looked down at all of them, she was the only one who felt it.

Again, she tried to restrain Harry, reminding him of the trouble he could get into.

“Mother - I don’t think I want these anymore,” Draco snarled, throwing them on the ground in a way which made Hermione flinch.

“You’re right Draco,” Narcissa said contemptuously, her eyes fixated on Hermione, “now I know the kind of scum that shops here….”

Hermione didn’t hear the rest. She wanted to speak, to be fearless like Harry, but she felt small and insignificant. She heard the door swing open, then closed, and then let herself be the first one to be measured and fussed over by Malkin.

Later, after being cheered up tremendously at the joke shop, they saw Malfoy again this time without his mother.

“Given her the slip by the looks of it,” said Ron.

‘Why though?” Hermione questioned, “she keeps him on such a tight leash, whatever the reason… it can’t be good.”

They followed him to Knockturn Alley, to Borgin and Burkes, and from the window they saw Draco with his back to them. ^[2]

With Extendable Ears that Ron had taken from the shop, they listened in. ^[3]

A question about something that needed fixing, an explicit threat, and a promise of retribution.

Malfoy left the shop looking very pleased with himself, and walked right past them. ^[4]

“You two stay here,” Hermione whispered, and walked with confidence into Borgin and Burkes.

“Hello, horrible morning, isn’t it?” she chirped brightly.

Throwing caution to the wind she addressed the sinister shop owner, “The thing is, that er - boy - who was in here just now - Draco Malfoy - well, he’s… he’s a friend of mine and I really want to get him a birthday present. ^[5] But if he’s already reserved the same thing I obviously don’t want to get him… the same thing, so, um…"

“Out! Get out!” Borgin shrieked.

She didn’t wait to be asked twice.

Chapter Text

Draco had been under the scrutiny of Hermione Granger many times before, but the night of the Slug Club Christmas party was the first time he felt the weight of it. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or food, or maybe he hadn’t looked up from the ground for the whole school year… he didn’t know. But, when dragged into the party by that filthy squib and he lifted his head defiantly, her wide eyes crippled him. She looked at him like his mother did, with pity. ^[1]

He dragged his eyes away to land on Potter, who had a protective hand on the shoulder of Loopy Lovegood, and he finally snarled out that he hadn’t been invited to this sad little gathering.

Thankfully Snape escorted him out before he could piece together which dolt was here with Granger^[2], not able to explain why he even cared.

Once in the dark corridor, Draco made to head back to the Room of Requirement, but Snape threw him against the wall.

“You’re scared Draco, let me help you.”

“I don’t need any help!”

He pushed away, panic building as he stormed along the corridor and into an empty classroom. He didn’t need Snape, he didn’t need anyone. This was his moment. He slammed his clenched fists down on the nearest desk, tears welling in the corners of his eyes.

A quiet knock, a small cough and he spun like a viper. Hadn’t he closed the door behind him?

He tried his best to appear unimpressed, but he had no energy. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, feel it in his fingertips. Sweat poured down his back and he willed himself to tell her to fuck all the way off but he couldn’t speak. He was choking.

The room span, and a hand guided him to a seat, his head fell forward onto the wood and a figure crouched down beside him and told him to breathe. For what must have been an hour she guided him to breathe in and out.

A glass of water eventually appeared and he sipped it slowly with his eyes closed.

“That’s it, just breathe. You’re going to be ok, Draco,” the voice murmured, “you’ve had a panic attack.”

Processing was slow, while he considered his name coming out of her mouth, considered the information she’d given, before whispering, “A crise de panique…”^[3],

She had blinked at him like he was insane, and he thought he probably was.

“Crisis is about right,” he murmured to himself, his breathing normal now though his hands shook. It was a nightmare that he couldn’t have kept control, a nightmare that she was here. Without warning, to gain some semblance of control, he launched the glass violently across the room. The smash seemed to bring them both back to life and she stood up and backed towards the door.

“I don’t know why I came in here,” she whispered, and he didn’t look away from where the glass had hit the wall, “I don’t know-”

Hoarsely he replied, “You don’t know anything, Granger. Leave.”

He was surprised that she did as she was told, but he didn’t watch her go.

Chapter Text

Hermione knew it had to be there somewhere, and the fact that she couldn’t find it was killing her. The Hogwarts library had never let her down, it always rewarded her thirst for knowledge… eventually. With her OWLs mere months away she knew she wasn’t completely focused on well, anything… her Dad’s voice echoed in her head, “Whole-ass one thing kid, don’t half-ass anything.”

And yet…Prince, prince, prince. Prince, prince, prince. She rolled the word around in her mind like she used to roll a Werther’s Original around in her mouth on a long car drive with her parents. It was an obsession, trying to identify the Half-Blood Prince, and she knew if she exerted every possible angle, she would find what she needed- what Harry needed.

It was her third night in the reading room she favoured, and a glance at the clock on the far wall told her that soon would be lights out, and the Prefects final rounds. Tonight it was Slytherin's night and she couldn’t imagine wanting anything less than to meet Pansy and Malfoy on her way back to the tower. If Malfoy even bothered with Prefect duty anymore… He seemed focused on something else, something that obviously terrified him.

She sighed, exasperated, and leaned forward, elbows on knees to grate her fingers through her hair and along her scalp. It brought a temporary relief and she looked around the table at everything she’d compiled. A final mental review, a stock take, she decided, then she would call it a night.

Three stacks set out before her, the product of nights of sourcing material. The first; anything that might reference royalty or monarchy in the magical world, the second the Hogwarts records of clubs, teams and subject awards dating back the past one hundred years (prioritising potions), and finally as many old Prophets that she could gather (with a simple cross-referencing spell Pince had taught her to narrow them down to those that mentioned Hogwarts students.)

She had to find the Half-Blood Prince, she had to make Harry and Ron see that whoever was communicating to them to help them ace potions was not just a simple, helpful, ex-student… had they learned nothing from Riddle’s diary?

In frustration, she pushed her materials to the far end of the table before pausing to ensure they were left tidy. Running a hand through her mane again once, she gathered her things and closed the reading room door. After hastily scribbling HJG on the sign-up sheet for the 7 - 8am slot the following morning, she moved stealthily through the library and out into the quiet, cool castle.

“You have ten seconds to give a reason for being out of the dorms before points are taken,” a low, wolfish growl stopped her dead in her tracks.

The corridors were dark but she narrowed her eyes immediately at the figure whose voice she would recognise anywhere. Never a salutation, never even a question, a demanding statement from a demanding, spoiled little toff.^[1]

Malfoy. Alone. An increasing occurrence according to the Marauder's Map.

“I was in the library, I’m still within hours,” she stated bluntly, and didn’t stop walking.

It was only as she got close to passing him, got close enough to actually see him, that she faltered for a moment. He looked awful, ill. He towered over her, arms crossed, and raised an eyebrow, as if he knew she was going to speak again.

She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t insulted her yet, so she beat him to the punch.

“Prefect duty alone tonight? I suppose even Pansy can’t stand to be around you…” she shrugged.

Annoyingly, he joined her in walking as she headed back to Gryffindor tower. She thought she was setting a fast pace to indicate she didn’t need company, but his long stride kept up with her, effortless, bored, and even more annoying.

“Not that I blame her,” she clipped, and he huffed. A small surprising sound which didn’t belong in his tall, lanky frame. Oddly, it brought a whisper of a smile to her lips.

“She went back early…” he muttered, and Hermione rolled her eyes, of course she had. Only an idiot would willingly want to walk around a cold castle in the company of practically a reanimated corpse-^[2] but then what he said sank in, not the relevance of his words but the presence of them at all, and she halted dead.

Was he… engaging in a conversation with her? He stopped alongside her, looking down questioningly.

“Right, well…” Hermione started, but his mouth was already twitching with his signature smirk.

“While it is bringing me some pleasure to see you at a loss for words for once in your boring life, can we move?” his drawl dripped, nectarous and tired.

Hermione blinked. A request? Laden with sarcasm and insult but a request nonetheless, her feet began to move of their own accord, practically running down the corridor.

He kept pace with her easily again, and they came to the staircase which would lead her to the portrait of The Fat Lady. On the second step she turned, daring herself to look into his face again, and finding herself for once at eye level with him.
She frowned, finding him frowning back at her as their eyes locked. His face was sharp, gaunt, like he’d been kept in a cage.

“Right, well…” she started again, imagining she should say goodnight, but not wanting to give him the courtesy. She was spared the decision when he shook his head.

“The other night when you… you helped me to breathe,” he seemed to hiss, like it was painful, “I’m grateful.”

Immediately he turned on his heels and disappeared around a corner.

Hermione lifted her fingertips to rub a therapeutic line down the centre of her forehead and down to the tip of her nose, baffled. She stormed up the stairs and through the common room, the interaction so bizarre she didn’t even stop to roll her eyes at Ron and Lavender.

It wasn’t until she was curled up in bed that she really began to turn the conversation over in her mind., She wondered if that was what he considered a ‘thank you.’ Why hadn’t he called her a Mudblood? Was it because there was nobody else around to hear him do it? When there was nobody around to be cruel for? She also realised she had noticed that Malfoy’s grey eyes had flecks of silver in them.

Why on earth would she notice that?

Chapter Text

The night he fixed the cabinet he didn’t even stick around to watch it work. It began to incessantly tick and click, a sound which had kept him awake for months, and as the doors opened he left the Room of Requirement. He half-ran to the astronomy tower, gasping in air like a man drowning. He had to do this, there was no choice, and he didn’t want an audience. If he could get there quickly he-

“Malfoy!”

Ever the thorn in his side, Hermione Granger was striding furiously towards him. She shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t be here. A quick intake of breath made everything focus very clearly and very quickly for Draco and he grabbed her shoulder, pushing her behind a statue.

Shots of wand-light bounced on the wall behind her, and her expression twisted cruelly into one of disgust as she pushed him away from her, two hands on his chest. She was strong-

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“How dare you- where are you going?”

They spoke at the same time, equally enraged, equally dishevelled and Draco was hyper aware of how close she was to him.

“You let Death Eaters into the castle didn’t you?” she whispered, as though she could barely believe it.

A stampede of footsteps stopped his reply and he reached out to clamp his hand over her mouth. Through a nearby window, lightning cracked across the sky, but sparks flew between them. Touching her felt like he had grabbed hold of an electric fence. She was about to fight back when a high-pitched sing-song came down the corridor. His aunt, calling for him.

“Where did you go little Death Eater? We need to stay together!”

Bella, the Carrows and Fenrir passed down the corridor quickly, wands drawn.

Hermione swallowed audibly and Draco’s heart raced as he shook his head at her, pleading silently. Draco watched as Fenrir’s head spun around and he took a deep inhale. From the shadows Draco saw his eyes close and nostrils flare, as though he were testing a fine wine.

Through a nearby window, lightning cracked again across the sky and thunder rumbled.

“Come on, one of the towers he said!”

Draco held his breath until their footsteps disappeared and removed his hand from Hermione’s face.

“Hogwarts isn’t safe tonight, you need to-” he hissed, reaching into his robes while her attention followed the path the Death Eaters had taken. He shook his head, it wouldn’t be enough. He knew that she would follow him, try to stop him, probably succeed.

That couldn’t happen.

“This is for your own benefit,” he stated, pointing his wand and before she could react he muttered “Petrificus Totalus.”

He took her arms, now locked to her like a plank, and moved her to be hidden fully by the statue.^[1] With shaking hands, he propped her small frame up against the castle wall and for a brief moment allowed himself some respite. He stared at her face, her features were warped into an expression mixing rage and treachery, and it was devastating.^[2]

There was a second, a milli-second even, when the horror he’d set in motion stopped echoing around them. He hadn’t let Death Eaters into the school and he hadn’t cursed her. She wasn’t in a full-body-bind and she wasn’t looking at him like that. They were two seventeen year old students up after hours in the corridor, and Draco couldn’t stop staring at her lips. He reached up, not trusting his own spell-work enough, hesitant that she might bite him, and placed his right index finger on her bottom lip. It was the softest thing he’d ever laid a finger on, and as he did so he was immediately beaten brutally back to reality.

He shouldn’t touch her, he couldn’t touch her. She was too good, and his time was up.

If he could keep her, this good thing, from harm, would that balance out the terrible thing he had to do tonight?

He had to find and kill Albus Dumbledore, now.

Checking she would remain upright without him he whispered, “Good luck Granger,” and tore off towards the Astronomy Tower.

Chapter Text

He closes the book and closes the memories of their sixth year at Hogwarts, Opie brings them a tray of pastries, a fresh teapot, and exchanges a small nod and smile at the man. Things are going very good. It has been a very good hour.

As he has been reading, the fire has died down in accordance with the sunlight streaming through the windows. The house is warm, comforting and cozy. It is preparing because it knows what chapter is to be read next, and it knows it is not at all pleasant.

“Dumbledore, Fenrir, Hermione, Draco,” the woman ponders thoughtfully as she takes a plate from Opie, “Bella is the only normal name, thank you Opie.”

“No problem miss,” Opie squeaks and the man clears his throat softly as he takes the teapot. He can see she is getting excited by the progress they’ve made that morning and he subtly tries to remind her to keep calm.. Opie takes the orange blanket from the woman’s legs, folds it and rolls it before tucking in beside the woman’s leg and the armchair. The woman shifts as though this is the most natural thing in the world, and takes a croissant.

She takes a knife and both the man and Opie pause for a moment. On bad days, she is not permitted to be around sharp objects in case she tries to hurt someone, or worse, hurt herself. Opie, who is able to wandlessly take the knife away from her in an instant, is watching her like a hawk, but the woman doesn’t notice.

She slathers jam onto her croissant and takes a bite.

The moan of appreciation which comes out of her is obscene.

The man ducks his head to hide his grin and reaches for a croissant of his own, favouring cheese and ham.

“This is delicious,” she says with a mouth full of pastry, “Opie, did you make these?”

“Not me Miss,” Opie shakes her head, she glances quickly at the man to see if he thinks she should give more information. He encourages her in their shared, invisible language. That is to say that he says nothing at all and pours two more cups of tea and Opie reveals, “Roux is the elf who is doing all the cooking and baking.”

The woman looks at her and swallows. He knows her brain and he knows that she is feeling an overwhelming sense that she can’t explain so she stammers, “How many elves are here?”

The man, who doesn't want her to lose confidence, plates up another croissant. Since he knows Opie's preference, he piles a dollop of Nutella on the side of the plate.

“Yes, I always wondered how many elves are employed here, Opie?” he questions as he hands her the plate. It’s an important distinction, he knows for the woman, that the elves have a salary and holidays and are treated with equality like any other being.

“Thank you, Sir,” Opie smiles gratefully before summoning a small chair with a snap of her fingers. Opie used to enjoy sitting cross legged in front of them with her back to the fire, but in the past decade this had begun to upset the woman.

Though she had little idea of who she was and what she believed in, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Opie didn’t herself as an equal deserving of sitting on furniture, so the chair came into existence. Opie thinks carefully and quietly before she responds to the question.

“Two elves, Opie and Roux,” she reveals between mouthfuls as she rips apart the croissant and dips it into the chocolate with enthusiasm, “Opie was here, already with the house when Miss moved in. Miss gave Opie the option to leave but Opie wanted to stay, and Roux came later, from France. He did l’apprentissage de la cuisine française in….”

Opie pauses, it is impossible for her to remember every detail all the time, and she chews slowly. Her eyes well up as she thinks.

The man steps in quickly, “In Brittany.”

Opie nods quickly, “Yes, in Brittany, that’s why you is liking Roux’s croissants.”

The woman stops chewing. The food sticks in her mouth and she frowns.

There has been a mistake, a massive one. He knows that she is adding up in her head why he asked about the elves but supplied the information about Roux’s culinary training, and she knows something isn’t right. The man knows wrestling with something internally, a niggling bad feeling around the employment of house elves and also that he isn’t who he says she is. She eventually swallows her mouthful, but doesn’t ask any more questions.

“Opie only works in the morning,” the man tells her gently, “in the afternoons and evenings there are Healers on rotation that come to… care for you…. Human ones.”

“And Opie has Saturday and Sunday mornings off!” Opie, with a proud grin and chocolate all over her face, hurries to add.

The man chuckles, pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and tosses it to Opie.

The woman watches this interaction carefully, before finishing her own croissant.

“Well, please tell Roux that that was the most delicious thing I’ve eaten in my life,” she says as she returns her plate and picks up a fresh cup of tea.

Opie beams at her and tidies away the plates, before she promises she will return the man’s handkerchief once it has been cleaned. She heads towards the kitchen, though the man can tell she is desperate to run and tell Roux the good news.

The man clears his throat, “So aside from the odd names, do you like the story?”

She takes a sip of tea and then nods slowly, “Did Draco kill him then, this Dumbledore?”

The man takes the moment to look at her, and his heart aches. She is calm, while taciturn, she is interested in what is happening around her, she is sitting straight and drinking tea. She has accepted help from Opie this morning and has questions about the story. He wishes he could have more days like this, where he can sit and just be in her presence. They are too rare now.

“He didn’t kill him no,” he replies, “he didn’t have the minerals.”

Her face screws in confusion.

“The nerve,” he elaborates on the cockney rhyming slang, “the balls.”

She coughs, a surprised laugh spilling from her lips at his candidness, “Right… well…”

“I mean, Dumbledore did die that night, but it wasn’t Draco who killed him.”

“Ok, you’ve read this before, are you spoiling the ending?” she teases, something he very much enjoys.

“Just filling in some details, as you can tell the story skips to the parts that only are relevant to Draco and Hermione,” he assures her.

“How very self-obsessed,” she comments snarkily, flashing a small smile over her teacup.

“I agree,” he nods with a small smirk, “these two appear to think very highly of themselves.”

“Will you continue?” she asks, resting back in her chair, one hand holding her cup and the other laying naturally to rest on the rolled up orange blanket beside her. His heart pinches at the memory of the cat with the squished face who dare he say had loved her as fiercely as he did, if not more.

“If you want me to,” he agrees, thrilled, “but, sorry to spoil anything… this next part is not the happiest.”

“This story doesn’t begin in a pretty way,” she murmurs, recalling the opening line of the book, and he nods.

They have been here before, a few times. He knows that out of sight, Opie lingers just outside the doorway. That at the slightest hint of distress, she will remove the woman from the living room, and he will likely cry.

He opens the book and it falls open to the next part.

“There’s a note at the top before this entry starts,” he reads slowly and carefully, “it says: I don’t want to write this, but you are making me. War made me into a creature that I am not proud of, and I wish you could forget about this but you have told me that you don’t want to. You know I am sorry.”

There are a few more words, “Yours, forever, Draco,” but he does not read them aloud.

“Ominous,” the woman states bluntly and he looks up at her, he can barely hide his smile despite knowing what he will read might undo everything.

“Indeed, shall we find out what the bastard did?” he asks.

A tinkling laugh falls from her lips, and he knows he will do anything she asks him, “Well, you already know since you’ve read it before. But yes, let’s find out what the bastard did.”

Chapter Text

The Manor had always been more mausoleum than home. It was silent, formal, reverent, but it had always been their silence. Their ghosts. His mother used to say that the house always remembered who it belonged to but it didn’t feel like that anymore. It had become a stranger to him, a stranger haunted by the betrayal of its purpose.
Now it was webbed over. Every corridor, chandelier, surface wore the gloss of something wrong, something sticky. His home wasn’t his home anymore, it had become a trap, and Draco was the fly.
The Death Eaters crawled through the halls, spinning threads between the walls while they waited, poisonous, with their chelicerae clicking loudly. Cruel laughter that echoed like fireworks exploding in a canyon, flat footsteps where there should have been stillness. Ancient portraits watched, ashamed, as Dark Marks were carved into the walls. His ancestors had ruled from this place, now it was Voldemort’s throne room. He used to know which room was being entered just by the noise it’s doors made, and precisely where the light fell in the afternoon so he could read… now even the shadows moved wrong. The rooms spiralled like Dante’s circles, each more twisted and perverse. And the bones beneath the floorboards didn’t rest anymore, they wept.
Draco had never felt the bitterness of his house before but since the beginning of summer, after witnessing a Hogwarts teacher be swallowed whole, a cold had settled into his bones which caused every movement to be slow, precise and on edge.^[1]

It was the Easter holidays, and he tried to chase away the numbness, sitting close to the fire in the drawing room and staring into the flames. His father sat beside him doing the same.
The doors of the room were thrown open and the sound of a small army’s approach pulled his attention from the flames. He sighed with a final thought, ‘Abandon all hope.’
His father rose first, “What is this?”
“They say they’ve got Potter, Draco, come here.”

When they questioned him his answers were non-committal, though he knew it was Potter. He knew what would happen if the Dark Lord was summoned. It could be their salvation, or it could be their end.
He stared into the face of the swollen miss that was The Chosen One, knowing exactly who had done the blinder of a job stinging his face off, but he couldn’t look at her so he turned and walked back to stare into the fireplace.
“What about the Mudblood then?’
He gulped, folding up any emotions like a small piece of parchment in his mind, he smoothed the edges, flattened the corners and made sure not a single ripple of emotion bled through the crease.
“... Draco, isn’t it the Granger girl?”
“I… maybe… yeah,” he muttered into the fire, keeping his back to them.
Another fresh wash of cold hit the room at the arrival of his Aunt, and once she had figured out what was going on she was triumphant. She loved an audience and the manor was her dark, twisted theatre. She pulled back her sleeve with her horrifically joyous cackle, but then…
Then they all noticed the sword, and hell broke loose.
Bellatrix was frantic, “Put the boys in the cellar, I want to have a conversation with this one- girl to girl!”
Draco moved to a seat near the window, he couldn’t watch.
“Crucio!”
Hermione’s lips parted in a scream and all Draco could think about was that he knew what her mouth felt like under his fingertips. Her torture was sharp and immediate, and he didn’t move, he didn’t speak, he was a coward. Not because he agreed with it, but because he was terrified that if he breathed too loud his Aunt would end her life altogether. There was too much happening, but all he could hear was her voice breaking. Having been on the other end of his Aunt’s wand many times his whole body shook, he marvelled at the strength she showed, but then his stomach began to churn so he clenched his hands together and occluded, hard.

The folded parchment slid into the puzzle-box in his mind. Silver and glass gears turned in patterns nobody else would understand, infinite moving parts which rearrange with every breath. The box with no corners, the box with no key. It was designed to hold things like this, things he didn’t have time to process; fear, guilt, grief, her. He set his emotions inside and became completely detached as the mechanism whirred quietly; shifting, locking, hiding.

Then someone shouted her name. Wands flew, including his. Someone else intervened, but not Draco. He wished it was him, but it wasn’t. He wished he had, but he didn’t. He stayed, he watched, and he did nothing, because he was nothing.

Chapter Text

Hermione was a cauldron left too long over an open flame, each emotion an ingredient bubbling as she stormed through the Room of Hidden Things, her eyes scanning every surface for the diadem. She was filled with fear, Voldemort knew they were in the castle. Hope, they only had the snake left to destroy. Pride and love, for Ron who had thought of the Basilisk fangs and the House Elves. Commitment, to Harry, who had to see this to the end.
She rounded a corner, and Draco Malfoy’s voice drew her like a beacon.
“STOP! The Dark Lord wants him alive!’
“So? I’m not killing him am I?”

She ran to the source, and as Crabbe shoved Malfoy away, “The Dark Lord wants him dead anyway, what’s the diff-”
Hermione was a cauldron, a cauldron that belonged to Seamus, and she exploded.
"Stupefy!”
She missed Harry by inches, and she only missed Crabbe’s head because Malfoy had pulled him out of the way. Crabbe was quick to respond however, sending an Avada Kedavra and aiming to kill.
She dived out of the way,
“Don’t kill her! Malfoy yelled, and the split second of confusion was all that Harry needed.
“Expelliarmus!” Harry yelled.
“Stupefy!” Hermione tried again, narrowly missing Malfoy.
“Petrificus Totalus!” Ron appeared, missing Crabbe.
Malfoy was behind a wardrobe, Crabbe was aiming to kill Ron, and Hermione ran forward, wielding her wand for the third time and finally hitting Goyle with a stunning spell.
A roaring, billowing noise came barrelling through the room.
“Like it hot, scum?” Crabbe shouted, but he had no control of his wand. Hermione took a gasp of air as abominable flames swirled and formed the shapes of fiery beasts. Fiendfyre, she realised, and took off at a sprint with Harry and Ron.
Malfoy and Crabbe were gone, and Hermione panicked. What about Goyle, she’d stunned him… had his friends left him behind?
The three stopped dead, circled by flames which were alive with fangs and claws.

Hermione stared around her, what could they do? She didn’t realise until Harry grabbed her and handed her a broom that she had been screaming the words out loud.
"Fly, Hermione, now!”
With a hard kick to the ground, Hermione flew up into the red hot air, narrowly missing the jaws of some inferno-horror clamping shut under her. From this height she could see the whole room, and everything was aflame.
"Let’s get out!” Ron was still breathing, but Hermione couldn’t see the door through the smoke. A shout came from a tower of desks, swaying in the air and she saw Harry spin on his broom to the source - Malfoy.
“Find the door Ron!” Hermione coughed, turning the broom unsteadily to follow Harry.
Malfoy had Goyle, and raised an arm but it was no good; Goyle was too heavy and Malfoy couldn't get a grip.
“You take him!” she shouted and Harry hauled Goyle’s body in front of him over his broom and Hermione shakily positioned herself next to Draco. He leapt onto the broom behind her, reaching his arms around to steady them both.
“If we die I’ll kill you Malfoy!” she bellowed.

He steered the broom towards a rectangular patch on the wall, and moments later clean air hit her in the face. He pulled up the broom expertly and Hermione slid backwards a little, closer to him. They hovered for a second, before her feet hit the ground. The Room of Requirement door vanished. Harry, Ron, and Goyle’s unconscious body lay sprawled around her. They’d left the room too fast and crashed into the opposing wall.
“Are you both ok?” she panted, swinging off the broom but not realising her legs were jelly, she wobbled. A hand reached out to steady her, and she blinked at Malfoy before looking down to where he held her elbow.
He blinked back at her, before dropping his hand and looking at the scene. “C-crabbe?” he choked.
"He’s dead,” said Ron harshly, pulling himself to his feet and taking a step towards Hermione.
She jumped to his side, checking that he wasn’t burned. Then she checked Harry, “What’s that on your arm?” Black tar was leaking all over him.
She leaned closer for a look, but upon realising it was Ravenclaw’s diadem looped around his wrist, she took a step back. The headpiece shuddered and fell apart in his hands.
“It was fiendfyre,” she whimpered, her eyes on the broken pieces, “cursed-fire, it’s one of the substances that destroy Horcruxes. It’s so dangerous.. How did Crabbe know how to-?”
“The Carrows,” Malfoy said, having moved to crouch down and check Goyle was alright, but not actually reviving him. He looked up at her from the ground, his eyes screwed in confusion and horror, “Horcruxes, as in.. more than one?”
Hermione’s attention snapped to Harry, “This means if we can just get the snake-”
But she broke off as yells and shouts and the unmistakable noises of duelling filled the corridor. Death Eaters were in the castle, again. Harry and Ron ran forward to help Percy and Fred who had just backed into view.

Then, an explosion and she was thrown backwards.
There was a ringing in her ears and something tickled her face. It was hair, she realised, and somebody was on top of her- dead or alive she didn’t know.
“Are you alright?” he asked, “you need to move.”
“Then get, off, me,” she said through gritted teeth. His back was covered in rubble, and he lifted off her gently.
He stood, reaching out a hand to help her up and once he’d pulled her to her feet he didn’t let go. “The snake is always with him, it never leaves his side, you’ll have to get close,” he said breathlessly.
Great, heaving breaths were ragging out of her as she tried to calm down. Draco lifted a singed sleeve slowly to wipe something from her face. Tears? Blood? She didn’t know but she nodded.
“Just breathe,” he reminded her and suddenly her mind became very clear, a flicker of something in his silver flecked eyes- possibility.
“Help us,” she whispered, “choose to fight against them.”
“I can’t…” his voice broke, taking a step back from her, “it’s not that simple.”
“Of course it is!” she insisted, closing the space between them again, “don’t you hate this as much as I do?” She waved her hands at the decimated corridor, but she meant more, she meant everything.
“I have to find my mother,” he insisted right back.

“No no no! No, Fred, no!”

They both turned to the other end of the corridor where the boys had been blasted by the worst of the explosion. She pulled out her wand.
“It can be simple Malfoy” she said resolutely, already moving to climb a pile of rubble, hoping Fred wasn’t injured too badly, “you just choose to fight for what’s right.”
Before she disappeared over the top she shot him an earnest glance over her shoulder, “Whatever you decide, good luck.”

Chapter Text

Self preservation, that was the Malfoy way. Draco had moved through the castle manically trying to find his mother, blocking hexes and curses but never sending them. When the Death Eaters disapparated without warning and Voldemort’s voice snaked through the castle, Draco didn’t follow them.

Was he choosing to fight for what was right? No. Was he choosing to stay alive? Yes.

Shortly after, students noticed approaching Death Eaters and gathered in the courtyard, and Draco followed. He kicked a broken wand on the floor and wondered for a moment who it belonged to. Was it someone he knew? Whoever they were, they were braver than him by far. Emerging into the open, a stunned silence settled over the place as smoke curled from collapsed towers. He saw Hagrid carrying a body, then Voldemort, then just behind his parents. Their eyes were already latched onto him, and his mother reached out to grab his father’s arm in relief.

“Harry Potter is dead, he was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone,” Voldemort declared, and screams of horror sounded out around him.

All Draco could do was look at his mother’s face. She shook her head only slightly, a miniscule movement, but one Draco had learned before he could walk. When Lucius had threatened to confiscate his wand, or broom, or whatever, sometimes Narcissa would give her tiny head shake, and Draco knew that it meant he’s wrong.
Draco blinked, what did she mean, Voldemort was wrong? Harry Potter was lifeless right there, wasn’t he?

“Kneel before me, and you shall be spared. Your parents and children, your brothers and sisters will live, and be forgiven, and you will join me in the new world we shall build together.”

There was silence in the grounds and from the castle, and then a rasping shout, “Draco!”
His father hissed shamefully across the courtyard, and his mother continued to stare at him, “Draco, come.”

Self-preservation. If Potter was dead, he needed to be on that side. If Potter wasn’t dead, he still needed to be with his family who were on that side. Why was he still alive? He didn’t fight. He didn’t die, in fact he had been saved from the fiendfyre… by her.

He knew she was there somewhere and it made his shameful stride across the courtyard even worse to know that she was likely watching. Then, the Dark Lord stepped into his path.
“Ah, well done Draco,” Voldemort's voice was like oil. Then in the most awkward and humiliating interaction of Draco’s life, the Dark Lord moved to put his arms around Draco’s shoulders. “This was removed from Potter’s body,” Voldemort delighted, speaking only to him, and pressing his wand into his chest, “it belongs with its rightful owner.”

Draco nodded once and moved quickly away, finding his place beside his parents. He returned his mother’s wand, and held his own in his hand, but it hummed. It hummed like it belonged to someone else, like it wasn’t his.

“It’s over, Draco,” Narcissa whispered. What did ‘over’ even mean?

Neville Longbottom stepped forward to speak, but Draco couldn’t take his eyes off of Harry’s body in Hagrid’s arms.

The sword being pulled from the hat drew every eye, every eye except Draco’s who saw Harry the second he moved.

“Potter!” he shouted, sprinting forward and launching his wand into the air. He didn’t know if the wand returned to him of its own accord, or if Harry was just that good of a seeker, but he snatched it from the air and immediately fired a hex at Nagini.

Bedlam. Cheers and shouts of glee and terror. Harry moved quickly, distracting Voldemort, and Narcissa grasped Draco’s right shoulder. Around them, Death Eaters were fleeing, and like a puppet, she manoeuvred him away from the courtyard and towards the path to Hogsmeade village, his father stumbling after them.

It wasn’t until they reached an apparition point that she finally wrapped her arms around him, “You stupid, reckless boy!” she cried and pulled away to cup his face in her hands.

Self preservation, that was the Malfoy way. He was safe. His mother and father were safe. They were together. They hadn’t won, but had they even wanted to?

When they landed at Mont-Saint-Michel, he felt like a stranger to them both.

Chapter Text

As he reads, it takes the man an immense amount of concentration to keep his voice steady, as though he isn’t reliving his worst nightmare. He stopped occluding decades ago, at her request, and now he is scared. He fears that his words have triggered her. That fear, he knows, is painted all over his face as he stares down at the pages, afraid to look up.

These entries were necessary evils, and from the beginning of the planning of the notebook, she had insisted on including them. These moments during the war were moments which contributed to the very core of who she is. She was already a blade, but then Bellatrix was the tongs which pushed her into the forge. The Battle of Hogwarts was the 2000-plus-degrees which heated her steel, and Draco was the anvil.
Though he would prefer that she forget about these events forever, he knows that she wants to remember. Specifically, she wants to remember his accounts so, if and when they ever reach this part in the process, he reads them. 

He tried to skip the seventh year entries only once. The house did not respond well. 

“Wow, he really was a bastard,” she chuckles, and relief washes over him like a rainstorm. She hasn’t remembered yet, but there’s hope for later and that is all that matters.

He laughs and nods, “A real ferretty bastard.”

Once she would have got the joke, but now she blinks at him, and her eyes drift to the window.

No, no, no.

He prays because he has seen this happen before. Sometimes she will look around the room like she has just apparated into it, like she hasn’t been sitting there for two hours enjoying breakfast and listening to him read. 

Please don’t leave me yet.

“Do you think it's a true story?” he asks, sudden and desperate. Her attention is pulled back to him and she reaches out her hand for the book.

He is reluctant to give it to her, in case she reads something too soon and undoes all their progress, but he never could deny her anything.

She takes the book, smoothing her hand over the cover and feels the weight of it in her hands. 

“It seems like an awful lot of effort to hand-write this and it not be true,” she considers, turning it in her hands carefully, and he hums in agreement.

“Do you want to go for a walk outside?” he can't help himself, “it looks rather nice.”

This is not part of the plan.

Opie will not be happy with this, and the healers even less so.

The nights are always the worst, but after an active day it can be very bad. On top of this, leaving the house is not a good idea, the protective magic in its walls is linked to her .

But, he can also protect her. He doesn’t want to make things difficult for the healer that evening, but he can’t help it, he is selfish.

“Shouldn’t you be taking care of the grounds outside?” she eyes him curiously, “isn’t that like, your job?”

“I’d rather spend more time with you,” he admits shamelessly, “we can get some fresh air and I can keep reading to you by the lake?”

“There’s a lake?” she smiles, intrigued.

“An extraordinarily beautiful one,” he adds.

“Well then I simply must see it.”

“You must.”

“Opie?” he calls and quicker than a witch’s tit, the house elf appears.

“We’ll be going for a walk down to the lake,” he tells her, and she turns so that her back is to the woman, raising her eyebrows and crossing her arms sternly.

“Perhaps you can arrange for a picnic for lunch?” he hints heavily, “we may as well read outside since it’s such a good morning.”

The woman watches them both with an amused smirk on her lips, and she looks around for a moment before she asks quietly, “Opie, might you tell me where I can find a jacket and some shoes?”

Magic happens. 

A quiet crack sounds, and a door appears which will take them to the garden. Next to the door hangs a lightweight jacket and a small stool has materialised with a pair of walking boots sat on top. The man cannot keep his smile to himself, even the house agrees that going outside is the right thing to do.

She hands him back the book and moves towards the door slowly, but without Opie's help. She takes the boots and sits to lace them by hand. 

He puts on his own worn Barbour jacket, slips the book carefully into a large front pocket, then pads over to take hers off the hook. He extends his arm to help her from the chair and holds out the jacket for her to step into.

A small smile dances on her lips as she gets to her feet. She is a bit shaky, and he wants nothing more than to bend down and steal a kiss, but he doesn't. 

Opie squeaks happily as she puts her arms through the sleeves and he lets her go.

The door swings open and they step into light.

Inside, the cottage is a quintessentially English farmhouse, but the outside is American styled. A porch wraps around its entirety, and when they step out they overlook a meticulous lawn.

Desperate to be close to her, he extends his arm again so that they might walk together. She gives him a funny look, and doesn't accept it right away. 

That's my girl.

“Willie,” she examines him, “why are you doing this?” 

There's no fear in her question, only curiosity and his heart is beating too fast because he knows she is finding her way back to him. He hates that his hopes are so high, it can and likely will turn to disappointment and pain before he knows it, but it has been so long, and he can just tell she is wading slowly through some fog. 

“Doing what?” He acts puzzled. He is deliberately evasive and vague in his answers. Over the years he has been careless and unintentionally revealed too much. He has overwhelmed her, he has hurt her, and he will not let that happen today. 

“Why are you spending the day with me?” she presses.

He smiles. 

“I’m here because I want to be here. It’s not too complicated,” he says and he swears there is a twinkle in her eyes as she recognises a challenge.

He won't argue with her, and he knows how her ugly self-doubts can rattle her, so he continues kindly, “Please don’t dismiss my time with you. It’s not wasted, it’s what I want. I want to be here with you and walk, and talk, and read.”

She lets his words sink in, she knows he is limiting himself but she chooses to move on.

“I like being here with you, but I’m confused. I enjoy your company but I know nothing about you,” she sighs, “I don’t expect you to tell me your life story, but why are you so mysterious?”

He tries to steer her away from her confusion so he grins, “I was told once that women love mysterious strangers, do you?”

The laugh he draws from her is like a soulful piano note, and he feels like he is twenty-four years old again.

“Hey, you can't put me on the spot like that, I don’t know you well enough!” she smiles, she is teasing him again and he can't stop grinning.

It kills him to dip and dodge, to not just come out with the whole truth.

My real name is Draco, you are Hermione. I have been in love with you for decades. You are my wife, you are the mother of my children and you are the great love of my life.

The truth brings pain. To defer the truth defers the pain. There are days that she never learns who she is, that she is a saviour of the wizarding world and a brilliantly gifted inventor. She never learns who he is, or that she they are married and that she is the most gentle, inspirational mother to their children. But it can't be forced. If she is able to follow the breadcrumb trail of her own creation, maybe she will get back to him, but on this the experts are very clear: she must do it by herself.

She takes his arm and his body releases the tension but he tries not to let it show. They slowly descend the porch steps and make it to the garden path.

“It’s wonderful,” her voice is fragile as she casts her eyes over the lawns and he wonders what she would say if she knew it was designed by her mother-in-law. 

“The grounds-keeper is top notch,” he jokes, eliciting a light giggle from her. 

He keeps his emotions in check as best he can but it has been months since he has been outside with her. A storm of memories tore through him.

This lawn was where he’d taught their children to fly, they’d hosted years of birthday parties with friends and family, celebrated their daughter’s engagement…

Then, the earlier memories, newlyweds. When he would lie under the blossoming damson plum tree with his head in her lap and she read legislation and patent contracts to him until he would start to nod off. She would kiss him tenderly awake, lick the fruit juice from his lips and fingers, and they would make love, not caring if anyone saw.

He tries to keep as steady as possible to support her, which is an exertion now but he'll be damned if he lets her notice that. While walking he points out the various flowers, giving their Latin and common names. The damson tree stands to the back of the garden, its strongest branch has a burn mark from a rope where a child's swing used to be. He cut it down just over a year ago, when it started to make her confused and upset.

There is a wooden bench next to a small gate at the bottom of the garden. He notices that both of them are breathing a little too hard so he motions to it. They are feeling their age and, not for the first time, he considers how scary it must be to wake up in this old body and not know who, or where, or when.

“Want to sit for a moment?” he offers, “the lake is just down there and it isn't going anywhere.”

She nods and sits down on the bench, looking back over the garden and up at the house. He sits beside her, watching carefully. 

“So, he was obviously defeated,” she infers, “this Dark Lord Volde-wotsit. ”

The laugh that comes out of him is sharp and loud, it catches the both by surprise. 

“Sorry, sorry!” he gasps, chokes, he hasn't laughed like this in a very long time.

He manages to stop choking but still shakes with laughter and she begins to laugh too. For a few minutes it's just the two of them, shaking on the bench, and the now-permanent laughter lines are now fully creased.

He catches a breath, “Yes, Lord Volde-” He starts laughing again, gasping, “I can't say it.”

She takes a deep breath, “He died, so what happens to Draco?”

The man closes his eyes for a moment and leans back on the bench. He lets out a “Phew,” and pulls the notebook out of his jacket. He opens it to the next page, and pulls out a worn envelope. A letter has been placed here, addressed to the Wizengamot, and he removes the letter carefully.

"Maybe you want to read this part?" he asks, since it was originally written by her there is some hope that re-reading her own words will help her take another step back to him.

She shakes her head, and he tries not to show any disappointment on his face.

"No thanks Willie," she smiles and then closes her eyes, resting both her elbows back on the bench. He wets his lips as he watches her relax in the sunshine, something pulls at his heart. He unfolds the letter slowly and begins to read.

Chapter Text

To Whom It May Concern,

I, Hermione Jean Granger, write this letter of reference on behalf of Draco Lucius Malfoy, whom I have known for seven years. With this letter, I will speak to his character from my first-hand experience. 

Firstly, I wish to clarify that this letter is not a personal reference, Mr. Malfoy and I do not have a friendship, nor have we ever. Objectively speaking, Mr. Malfoy was cruel to me for much of our childhood at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I simply wish to state my observations of him for the purposes of justice and truth.

It is my belief that Mr. Malfoy became a Death Eater because it was expected of him. I would argue this is the reason behind most of Mr. Malfoy’s actions, good and bad. His family were threatened and he took the Dark Mark to ensure their safety. He arranged for Death Eaters to enter the school in our sixth year to protect his mother and father, and he stood by his parents' side at The Battle of Hogwarts.

Between these egregious acts, which do deserve punishment, I have observed fear, guilt and regret in Mr. Malfoy.

On the night Professor Albus Dumbledore was killed Mr. Malfoy hid me from the Death Eaters who were in the hallways, and made sure I was safe. The reason he did this is unclear to me.

When Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and I were captured and brought to Malfoy Manor, Mr. Malfoy refused to confirm our identities though it was impossible he didn’t recognise who we were. The reason he did this is unclear to me.

During The Battle of Hogwarts, Mr. Malfoy told Vincent Crabbe, a close friend of his, that he must not kill me, the reason he said this is unclear.

Shortly after this, he sheltered me from an explosion in the castle, and gave me invaluable information regarding Voldemort’s horcrux - the snake Nagini.  Again, his motivation remains unclear.

Finally, when Harry Potter revealed that he was alive, Mr. Malfoy provided Harry with his wand so that he could fight Voldemort. An act of great significance, as the loyalty of the wand to Harry was crucial to the end of the war. Why he made the choice to do this is unclear.

As the Wizengamot is aware, uncertainty of motive does not equal certainty of guilt. The actions I have outlined above establish that the Wizengamot cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Malfoy acted with malicious intent. On the contrary, they suggest a young man making conflicted choices in the midst of a war.  

I do not write this letter as an ally to Mr. Malfoy, but as a witness to what is right. There is no question that Mr. Malfoy deserves punishment for his part in the war, but I fought for a world which would be free from collective punishment. Sentencing Mr. Malfoy to Azkaban and  believing he is beyond redemption sets a dangerous precedent.

I hope you consider this reference letter when determining the outcome of this case.

Regards,

H.J. Granger
OoM 1st Class.

Chapter Text

Three to five years house arrest. Five to seven for his mother. Draco was going to lose his fucking mind stuck in the house with her.

Their time in France had been short lived, despite the magic which lay deep in the seabed around the magical commune in Normandy, they had been found and arrested within days of Voldemort’s demise. 

Though, frankly, they hadn’t tried very hard not to be caught.

Lucius had been sentenced right away, made an example of. His crimes were too well-documented. He had kissed his wife goodbye when they came for him, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at Draco.

Thirty years.

Some members of the Wizengamot pushed for life, but sure, his life was over anyway. He would be an old man in his seventies if he ever got out, if he even lasted that long in the notorious prison.

Draco’s crimes were listed on the document which had just been delivered by owl: attempted assassination, assisting Death Eaters and harboring dark artifacts.

The Wizengamot’s decision: he was a child, indoctrinated, deeply afraid, never a leader. 

Granger’s letter had really hammered that nail into his coffin.

The enforced house arrest terms were as follows: magically bound wand license (he was not currently in possession of a wand), the trace reinstated, floo-network block, port-key bans, anti-apparition tags, owl post screenings and monthly ministry inspections.

Also, the Manor was going to be ransacked by the Ministry.

The Department of Mysteries would be sending a representative to catalogue and more than likely seize dangerous items from the residences of former Death Eaters.

Now that was a laugh.

He couldn’t wait to see which ghastly little mole-person the Ministry scraped up from its bottom floor, clipboard in hand. Who would it be trying to catalogue curses they couldn’t pronounce and touching objects they couldn’t possibly comprehend, let alone control? 

Merlin help them if they came in asking questions…. Where does this come from? Who cast that? Why do the walls whisper Latin at night? 

The Manor didn’t take kindly to scrutiny.

At least he would have some entertainment.

He never in a million years thought it would be her.

But it was.

He watched from the upper-parlour balcony as she stepped through the gates, flanked by a tall, broad-shouldered Auror with an air that screamed ‘wand-first, get someone to bodge the paperwork later.’ The man didn't need to be that close to her, hand so close to his holster, what nefarious trap did he imagine was going to spring out at them in the garden, a gnome-bomb?

Granger by contrast, was composed, chin tilted in that maddening way. She walked deliberately. No fear. No hesitation.^[1]

But the Manor was watching her. He could feel it, the pull of old magic, humming through the foundations like a half-remembered lullaby.

She crossed the courtyard with precise, measured steps. The Auror looked up at the towering manor, and muttered something to Granger. He pointed up, likely at Draco but she didn’t look. She just reached the threshold and paused, one hand resting on the stone archway.

He wondered if she felt it, the way the wards had changed. The way the house... moved ever so slightly… to accommodate her.

He didn't know it did that.

Draco turned away. He wasn’t ready. Not for her. Not for this. Not for the way the Manor's magic had responded.

The house remembered her.

And that terrified him more than anything else.

He listened on the stairs at the brief interaction with his mother, who spoke only to the Auror. Auror Putnam, who introduced himself in an American accent his mother visibly flinched at, insisted that he was here to protect Granger, not to conduct the investigation itself.

She started right away in the library, naturally, but it took until about mid-day when Auror Put-out said he would go and see about food, for Draco to take the opportunity to confront her.

He strode into the library, scolding himself for having to feign the confidence in his steps, this was his home. So why did he feel uneasy, unwelcome?

She was stood, and leaning over a desk with her back to him. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, hair pinned in a haphazard knot, eyes scanning a dusty tome that probably hadn’t been cracked open since before either of them were born. His eyes pulled to notice a glamour on her forearm, which made him pause.

She must have heard his footsteps because she spoke without turning, “This must be very strange for you.”

It wasn’t a question, not even a taunt, just a cool observation.

“Strange?” he echoed, a tight  humourless bark of a laugh falling from his lips, “can’t imagine why.”

It was jarring. To find someone else in that space. To find her there. She was confident, comfortable, like she belonged there. She didn’t.

Now she turned, shutting the book with a decisive thump . No wand drawn, no rebuttal... Just her face: calm and irritatingly unreadable. All his intentions for a confrontation were thrown out of the window when she lifted her head and looked at him. He noticed that she had gained weight, and muscle, and her skin was sun-kissed. She looked good.

“I assumed they’d send someone more… neutral,” he added, walking toward the desk with deliberate care. “Someone… not you.”

She met his gaze evenly, “I was the only one capable of this assignment.”

Of course she was. Hermione Granger, the Ministry’s Golden Girl, always volunteering, always interfering, always a step ahead of where she had any business being.

He folded his arms, pretending that she looked absurdly out of place in this room even though she didn't, at all. In fact he swore the lighting closest to her was brighter than it was elsewhere. Was the library helping her read?

Rolling his eyes he replied, “Must be exhausting always being the only person who ever knows what they’re doing.”

Her lips twitched. Not quite a smile, not quite a scowl.

“They wanted someone from the Department of Mysteries, not a hex-happy Auror.”

He didn’t reply.

“And no one else could read Ancient Cyrillic Blood Wards.”

She stepped away from the desk, surveying the room. Her eyes passed over the bookcases, the portraits, the scorched mark in the rug that Draco and Theo had made when they were 12. No spell had ever quite erased it, and they’d had their wands confiscated for a week.

“I’ll be starting with the west shelves,” she said, her tone professional, “They’re the oldest, right? Don't worry, I won't confiscate anything until it's absolutely necessary, and I'll put everything back where I find it.”

“You mistake me for someone who gives a fuck, Granger.”

“And I'll need to get into the hidden library too,” she snapped back.

He blinked at her.

“What hidden library?” he laughed, as though it were the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard.

She began to move, quickly through the shelves, how she knew the way after just a morning there he couldn't fathom, but he followed her anyway.

They slowed down, at the end of an aisle there was a life sized statue of a woman sat down with a book in her lap, and Draco froze. Belvina Black, or at least her likeness etched into marble, was awake.

That in itself wasn’t unusual. The statue had been a sentinel of the hidden library since as long as Draco could remember. What was unusual was the silence.

Belvina was infamous.^[2] The kind of guardian who shrieked insults at house-elves, bought visitors to tears with her foul language, and once hurled the marble book in her hands at Alphard’s head for “throwing their sacred gold at his blood-traitor nephew.” She had driven away specialists who had come to view the Malfoy library collection, even Lucius hadn’t dared speak with her directly, sending portraits only when it was absolutely necessary. 

Yet now, there was no screeching, she was just watching them. Her eyes moved between the two of them, in assessment. Not approval, not disapproval, just tense curiosity, as if she were weighing ingredients on a scale.

Her white eyes locked on the space between them. The narrow space. The breath of distance that wasn’t really distance at all.

Draco tensed.

Granger’s brows were knit as she whispered, “Is she always like this?”

The statue’s eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head the smallest degree, a movement so human it made the hairs on Draco’s arms rise, “It’s improper to talk about someone when they’re right in front of you. I’d expect better, especially from-”

Draco cut in before she could hurl an insult, “We’ll be leaving now Belvina, sorry to have disturbed your reading!”

He reached for Hermione, pulling her away, insistent.

She let him, and didn't argue.

He guided her back to where he'd found her, a quicker route which he knew she'd taken note of. He didn't let go of her though he knew he should, and after a few heartbeats she pulled away gently.

“Want to explain?”

“She screamed bloody murder last week because I wasn’t wearing dress robes,” he muttered, “in my own house.”

Hermione blinked, “Charming.”

He almost chuckled, but stopped himself, “You won’t be able to get in there alone, you’ll need my permission.”

Her gaze fell over him again, steady as ever, “Well, do I have it?”

Draco said nothing, just stared. He tried to decide whether to hate her for the ease with which she had always walked along his last nerve, or admire it.

Salazar, he enjoyed teasing her. He always had, even when they were first and second years and his teasing had essentially been abuse. He loved getting under her skin.
Now, his mouth curled into his signature smirk, “ Say please .”

She didn't roll her eyes, but it was close, “You can't be serious. Are you twelve?”

“Twelve-year-olds don’t hold keys to haunted libraries.”

A pause. She inhaled, “Please, Malfoy. ”

He stepped forward, close enough to see her body react to him being closer, her breath caught and her eyelashes flickered, “Permission granted.”

She turned suddenly back to the desk, summoned a fresh piece of parchment, and began writing. She dismissed him, poof, just like that. 

Draco stayed a moment longer, studying the curves of her shoulder blade through her blouse,^[3] the way she held her quill, the faint smell of ink and lavender that didn’t belong here, but now did.

He could only turn and leave the library, feeling like McGonagall herself had given him detention.

Later that evening, Draco sat with his mother to eat at a small table in the front parlour. The dining room was no longer used.

“That girl has made quite an impression on day one,” Narcissa murmured, nursing a glass of merlot.

Draco grunted, and stabbed at his potato salad, not looking up.

“A portrait came to see me this afternoon, they had an interesting conversation with Belvina's statue,” she continued.

“Will you stop?” he finally bit back, “whatever you want to say, just say it.”

She placed her wine glass down delicately, and dabbed the corner of her mouth with a linen napkin. She leaned back in her chair, regarding him like a kestrel watching a field mouse.

“Well it must have been very interesting to elicit this reaction from you,” she said, smugly. 

“If you already know then why are you asking me about it?” he spoke through gritted teeth, finally raising his head to stare back at her. She should know better; he wasn’t a mouse, he was a snake.

“I was only made aware due to the fact that you interrupted Belvina before she could finish speaking, something she considered highly rude,” she revealed, reaching for her glass again without breaking his stare.

“Because she was about to insult Granger, scream the house down, probably accuse me of tainting the bloodline by proximity…”

“Apparently,” Narcissa drawled, taking a long sip of her wine, she was enjoying this, too much. For a moment Draco saw himself reflected in her and it made him itchy, “she wasn’t about to insult her, but rather insinuate that she would one day be a Lady of the Manor. ”^[4]

“She would- what!?”

“I am not in the habit of repeating myself Draco,” she replied calmly and curtly.

“You can’t be serious…”

“As a goblin with a contract.”

He pushed his plate away from the table, and his chair scraped violently against the floor as he stood, “What in Merlin's rotting bones is wrong with her?!”

The chandelier above their head tinkled with a tremble.

Still Narcissa observed him and only him, “Careful my darling, you know how the Manor feels about your tantrums.”

He barked a laugh with no real mirth, for a second the silverware on the table blurred.

“The Manor is as delusional as that statue,” he snarled bitterly, “I swear I saw it help her in the library this morning.”

Narcissa hummed into her glass, unreadable.

“Perhaps I can convince Granger that Belvina is a cursed object,” he thought out loud, “have her carted out and smashed to rubble.”

Narcissa rose gracefully to her feet, walking to his side and placing her cool hands on either side of his face. 

“My dragon, your emotions betray you,” she murmured softly. 

“Granger means nothing to me,” he insisted, “but she’s like a niffler in a vault, she won't go away. Always poking her nose in at school, writing that letter, here at the house now…”

“She’s intelligent, attractive, ambitious,” his mother chose each word like she was describing notes of a fine wine, and that is how he knew it was a test.

He reached up, taking her hands decisively and pulling them away from him.

“Draco,” she continued, in that careful, polished tone she reserved for Ministry hearings and delicate threats, “a woman like her may walk through our halls. She may even do some good here. But she does not belong here.”

He looked at her, something sharp behind his eyes. “Because of her blood?”

“Because of her place,” Narcissa offered a faint, practiced smile, the kind that could cut glass, “Belvina is getting carried away with the implications of legacy and possibility, and you would be wise not to confuse proximity with permanence. Some things are allowed for a time. But that doesn’t mean they’re meant to stay.” 

Chapter Text

Hermione had expected to be sent to Malfoy Manor, even given what happened to her there, that was just her luck. Harry, in particular, was furious that she was assigned it, but she had explained that each member of the Department of Mysteries had their specialty. There were people who specialised in dark objects, people who specialised in dead languages, people who specialised in charm work. She was the only one who could do all three.

Cataloging the manor was, she wasn’t afraid to admit, an incredibly difficult task. As the first week passed, however, she realised it was exactly what she needed. As at school, a project was something that she approached with fervour, and after the chaos that had been the last several years of her life, this was a project that she could lose herself in entirely.

Starting in the library was easiest. It contained books, grimoires and tomes, especially in the secret section, about old, dark magic, but those in themselves were not inherently dangerous. She had only confiscated two texts, both on horcrux theories. 

Though she had an old, outdated map from the Ministry, she was certain that the rooms moved and the magic of the place fascinated her. It went beyond the moving staircases of Hogwarts… it was almost as if it was sentient. She’d devoured and made copies of any texts pertaining to it from the library, Belvina watching her knowingly every time she exited the secret library. Though Hermione had tried to engage it, the statue hadn’t spoken to her again.

The secret library wasn’t the only place that she needed permission to access. Thankfully though, Hermione had realised that if she asked the Manor itself nicely, going so far as to flatter it sometimes, it would let her in any place she wanted to go. She had covered the entire ground floor, leaving the drawing room for last, since that was not a place she really wanted to go, and the Manor seemed to be aware of that. It had taken her a while to even find it, and once she did she found that her footsteps echoed differently. Moving around the old building her footsteps, and the flatfooted slaps of Putnam’s, were always loud and cold, but in the drawing room where she’d been… where Bellatrix had… her footsteps were muted.

The house seemed to hush itself for her there, which intrigued her more than anything, how did it work?

Moving away from the library had required new categories, and so far she had logged:

Her final category was Cursed Objects of which there were numerous. She'd cast Homenum Revelio, Aparecium, and Specialis Revelio at hourly intervals, but there was a risk of being hexed or cursed by almost everything she wanted to touch in the Manor. By her second week, she'd needed Putnam to cart in two large, warded transport crates to contain and remove them. 

Some rooms, some floors, had been harder to access than others. The first floor’s access had been warded tightly, and for good reason.
Hermione managed to counter most of the complex spellwork and pass through with nothing but an uncomfortable tingle. Putnam unfortunately, had been badly burned. It was an uncomfortable moment, and he had reluctantly agreed to sit and wait at the top of the stairs while they OWLed for a representative from the Office for the Removal of Curses, Jinxes and Hexes to show up.

She insisted on working without him. She examined what she assumed was Draco’s room, trying to remain professional and not “snoop,” which Ginny and Harry had heavily encouraged her to do. She found nothing, well nothing beyond a couple of dirty magazines under an obviously loose floorboard that she wondered if he’d put there to mess with her.^[1] She didn’t have much experience with the rooms of teenage boys, but she was fairly certain they hadn’t been used.
There was barely anything personal, everything was perfectly and clinically organised and she had felt no sense of accomplishment when she crossed the room name off the list. 

In the Master Dressing room, Hermione moved carefully, her wand moving quickly with detection spells. It was too perfect, nothing was out of place, and though she tried not to, she couldn’t help but imagine Narcissa and Lucius getting ready for some gala or event there. 

Her wand buzzed in her hand as she swept it over a simple mahogany chest of drawers, the bottom drawer hummed. Something nasty was in there.

Lowering herself, she whispered a revealing charm and layer upon layer of protection spells and glamorous revealed themselves, before finally at the root, a binding curse.

Whatever was inside, it had been hidden desperately.

She worked steadily, peeling the layers back one by one as she used to unwrap her presents at Christmas. She remembered her father being so full of beans, urging her to rip into them, but she had been so careful, always wanting to save the paper. She reached forward and pulled the drawer.

For half a second, nothing, then the final charm fractured like the quick, violent release of a bowstring.

Something ferocious lashed out in a silver mist. It had no true shape, but it grabbed her wrist like an ice-hot knife and yanked her forward, trying to pull her into the drawer.

“Jesus- FUCK!” she heard herself cry out, as she battled against the strength of the freezing magic, planting her feet against the drawer and pushing with all of her weight. It wouldn’t relent. 

“Finite-” she hissed, her free hand brandishing her wand, but she had a feeling that wouldn’t work. The cold had enveloped the room now and her hand was turning blue.

“Recalefacio!” she shouted, and the grip relented just for a second before she kicked hard and the drawer snapped shut with an angry bang. She stumbled back on the deep black rug in the center of the dressing room. 

She stared down at her arm. It wasn’t just a burn. It was a curse, a bad one.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” she gasped, trying to remember how to stop a blood-freezing curse, but already her limbs were heavy, the room tilted.

The manor walls creaked around her, the air shifted and all Hermione could think about was that it sounded like Severus Snape… like a deep and unimpressed sigh.

Chapter Text

Draco was flying. Thankfully his house arrest allowed him to use the grounds since he couldn’t be in the house when Granger was there. The progress that she had made was unbearable and at the end of the first week, when Granger had presented his mother with a list of the items to be confiscated (thus far), Narcissa had collapsed onto the floor. She’d been admitted to St. Mungos for observation, though Draco was quite sure it was a ruse. Clever. He had considered doing the same, ingesting some acai by “accident” to trigger an allergic reaction, but somehow that felt even more wrong. He couldn’t think about leaving her alone at the Manor to rifle through everything with her ink stained fingers. 

His eyes scanned the fields for one of the three snitches he’d let loose, and did not think about how leaving her alone was exactly what he was currently doing.

Would it be more amusing to follow her around, critiquing and being an annoyance?
Would it be less painful to offer to help, to get her out of there quicker?
Would it be more prudent to keep an eye on that meathead Auror... Puddle, was it? 

He. Did. Not. Think. About. It.

A glint of gold caught the corner of his eye but he was knocked off balance by a warm wind that struck suddenly. It struck, but it did not pass. He glared up at the sky, not a cloud. The air moved him, towards the Manor. Not violent, just different, a kind of air that pricked up his spine and urged, Move . He floated, the air pushing against his back, and as he drifted closer to the Manor, he realised something was deeply wrong.  But it didn’t scream, it didn’t panic, it just called to him.

He flew, purposeful now, and he just knew she was in the Master suite. Idiot. Landing on his parent’s balcon, he ripped through the French gothic doors and was tugged by the air, more urgent now, towards the dressing room.

There she was, small in an ocean of black, and her hand… for a second he just stared. She trembled and her skin was too pale. The air around her crackled faintly, the Manor fulfilling its purpose and leaving him with the distinct impression that he had to be the one to deal with this.

"Hell," he bit out, crossing the room in three long strides and dropped to one knee beside her, “you stupid, stupid, stupid…”

Hermione barely moved, but her wand sparkled weakly, she was trying to cast Finite. Brave, but useless against this blood magic. He snatched her wrist in both hands, her blood was already slowing under the curses' influence, ancient and vicious. He swore under his breath, French and English tangled together. His hands shook before he knocked the fury down, the way he’d trained himself to swallow panic in darker days. He pulled her wand from her fingers, aimed it straight at the center of her ribcage and shouted, “Sanguis Revertitur!”

"Granger!" he barked as her body spasmed and her eyes rolled back into her head, fingers moved against a wand she din’t have. Then she crumpled, into a fetal position facing him, collapsing as she drew ragged breaths. ^[1] He sat back, knees bent and dragged his hands back through his hair as he watched her between his knees. She whimpered and slowly blinked back to reality, not a word but enough. Enough for him to know she was still fighting. Still alive.

 "Brightest witch of her age?!," he rasped, his voice shaking with anger, “you are a reckless, insufferable nightmare, top marks! Really! A truly inspired move!”

The house shuddered a warning, the Ministry curse breaker must have arrived, and he didn't want to think about what Auror Pumpkin would have to say if he walked in on this pleasant scene.

He moved slowly, carefully, like he was brewing a potion and he picked her up in his arms. He stayed there for a second, holding her against his chest, jaw clenched so hard it hurt,  then walked to the first floor corridor. The curse breaker wasn't finished bringing down the wards just yet, but the pair saw what they saw. Pulpy had his wand out and was ready to shoot a hex at him when the curse breaker grabbed his arm

“Don't! You could hit her!” he warned, which brought a cold laugh to Draco's lips. He waited until he was within reaching distance of them before he replied, “You wouldn't have hit her, the spell would have rebounded.” He looked up with a sneer, indicating the wards which held strong.

“I'm going to pass her through to you now Puppy,” he said calmly, though his arms tightened instinctively around her, “and I'll stay in here until you get back from St. Mungos and they've explained what happened. Her wand is in her robes, I had to use it to save her, make sure they check it.”

The Auror was tragically balanced on a fine tightrope between fury at Draco and fear for her. Hermione Granger was his top, his only , priority and he hadn't protected her… tut tut tut.

He leaned forward, the ward having no effect on him but making Hermione squirm. Punchbag snatched her out of his arms. 

He spun, apparating, just as the curse breaker shouted, “No! You'll spli-” 

But the American had gone.

The curse breaker’s mouth hung open and Draco stared back, deadpan.

“I- I didn't know you could apparate out of here,” the man stammered, blinking.

“You can't,” Draco snarled in realisation. With a short, humorless laugh looked up under his eyelashes and huffed at the ceiling. He turned and walked to his own bedroom, muttering under his breath, “Someone’s playing favourites.”

It took the curse-breaker another three hours to break down the wards.

Chapter Text

Hermione had quickly and aggressively discharged herself out of the hospital after she’d been questioned by Aurors about what had happened. She’d sent a patronus to
Kingsley Shacklebolt to insist that what had happened was not at the fault of Draco Malfoy, but of her alone, and that she would be dead without him. She had recovered quickly, thanks to Malfoy’s counter-hex, and it wasn’t until she was alone in her apartment that she finally let the weight of the afternoon hit her. She had come unnervingly close to death… again.
She paced in front of her own small fireplace, enchanted to grow when she required it to use the floo. She breathed in for four seconds, held for seven, and then exhaled for eight, her palm coming up to rest on her forehead. How could she have been so stupid?

Stupid. That’s what he’d called her: stupid and reckless. In this instance, she couldn’t disagree.

She returned the following morning, as usual with Putnam, and not so usual with two other Aurors who were bringing a crate to remove the chest of drawers. Whatever was inside, Hermione didn’t know, and if she ever found out it would be from behind a very thick piece of obsidian glass in one of the curse containment vaults.

She went immediately to the first floor, now un-warded, where a house-elf had told her Malfoy had been all night. She paused outside of his bedroom, there were no enchantments on the door, which surprised her. 

“It’s probably best if I have this conversation alone,” she said gently to Putnam, who hadn’t been more than two feet from her since they’d met at 8:00am. 

He began to shake his head, “That’s impossible Ma’am-” but she knocked quickly on the door and let herself in. There was a bark of protest, and Putnam moved too. He had a fast response time, she’d give him that, but his momentum meant that he hit an invisible barrier with his face… quite hard.

Hermione paused, the open door handle in her hand, and narrowed her eyes. In the air, particles swirled oddly, there was an enchantment there… but how hadn’t she noticed. Did she need her eyes testing? Did she need glasses like her mother?

Putnam held his face, raising his wand to conduct a quick, “Episkey,” and he reached into his pocket for a packet of kleenex to wipe a thin trail of blood away from his mouth. 

A shadow moved from the balcony, and Hermione spun as Draco stepped into his room. He looked surprised, then in the flash of a second, not surprised at all. He said nothing, just walked over to the end of his bed and folded like a paper plane. His knees bent to sit on the edge, his hips leaned over so that his elbows rested on his knees. His hands came together in a sort of prayer and his chin rested on his fingertips. He watched the scene before him, lips moving as though he were chewing the inside of his cheek. Was he amused?

“Can you see us?” she asked.

“Yepth,” Putnam replied, he must have bitten his tongue.

“Then it will be fine,” she stated before, “Muffliato.”

“If it’s a declaration of thanks I’m getting Granger, I’d prefer if Pudding heard it,” Draco spoke, his eyes pinned to her, “or perhaps I could get it in writing? I hear the Golden Girl doesn’t appear grateful too often, and I’d like proof.”

“What you prefer or like is not my concern Malfoy,” she retorted, taking a step away from the door but not too close. 

She couldn’t help but take in the frame, his large four-poster, him at the center watching her expectantly. This was where he slept. 

Why did she care where he slept?

“I’m here to say thank you for yesterday, and to let you know that there will be no repercussions for you using my wand. They examined it and it was deemed necessary to..” she had started so strong but the more he watched her the less her rehearsed words slipped from her mind, “t-to heal me after my mishap.”

“To save your life,” he corrected cooly.

“Semantics,” she replied, which drew a small smirk from him. Yes, he did find her amusing, and she didn’t like that one bit.

“Well it’s a good job I didn’t get it written down,” he snapped, “it wouldn’t be worth the ink it was written with. If you came here to say thank you then all I can say is piss poor effort.

“I AM thankful!” her voice rose an octave, which she regretted.

He raised an eyebrow infuriating her, which she also regretted.

She opened her mouth to respond but he replied, softer than she was expecting, “You’re welcome.”

She blinked, Godric, why did she like that timbre of his voice?

He stood up and shook his head wearily, as though her presence were tiring him, “You don’t understand this place, it’s controlled by blood magic. It doesn’t forget.”

“Then it would do well to remember my blood is in its floors,” she snapped back. 

Actually, she liked that look of shock on his face more, but the feeling was interrupted.

There was a small rumble, the tiniest tremor in the room, and then a muffled shouting from the other side of the door.

She looked around, shocked for a moment at the Manor’s response. Draco didn’t appear shocked in the slightest and only sighed again.

“Look, let’s just get this over and done with as quickly as possible. I’ll hang around and answer any of your incessant questions so there’s no more…. Mishaps. We’d better step outside before Push-back knocks himself out through throwing himself at the door.”

She blinked again, “His name is Putnam.”

“You’ve only got the second floor left,” he continued as though she hadn’t said anything, “there shouldn’t be many problems up there, it’s empty and pretty boring, perhaps only The Gallery and The Trophy room.”

“Right, well…” she gulped, “ok.”

“After you,” he said, gesturing in a way which could have been gentlemanly, but delivered in a manner that said, ‘get the fuck out of my room.’

______

The final week passed rapidly with his help, she hated to admit. He didn’t help her kindly, but instinctively. He was more useful than Putnam, who had taken a back seat and now kept closer to Malfoy than to her, something which she knew grated on him in the most delightful way.

He interrupted her only once to insist she cast the “Strongest Silencio you can,” before they went into the Gallery. That room wasn’t filled with dark objects, just generations of Malfoy bigots and their associates, immortalised in oil paint and spite. 

Let them rage, she thought, let them rot. 

Aside from the portraits, he was right, the top floor of the Manor was mostly empty. The West wing was just a string of decadent guest bedrooms which contained nothing of note. The East wing was empty for a sadder reason. Children’s bedrooms, a nursery, a Nanny’s room and a school room, long disused and covered in dust sheets.

She imagined a smaller Draco, alone on the top floor with his Nanny and no other children to play with. Then dispelled that thought as fast as it had come.

He watched her carefully from the doorway as she moved through the school room, crouching down and examining but not touching the children’s books which lined the shelves.

She looked over her shoulder at him, “Are these ones just lightly possessed, or am I going to have to wrestle them?”

He blinked at her from across the room, obviously he didn’t get the joke.

She tried again in the Trophy Room, pointing to a large duelling cup, “Is this one decorative or homicidal?”

A small snort, not quite a laugh was pulled from him, and the look on his face told her he wasn’t happy about it.

“You aren’t funny Granger, stop trying to be.”

She rolled her eyes, and strode past him out of the room, crossing the final room off of her list. Nothing to log, if only a few concerning accolades from whatever the Pureblood Society was, and awards for whatever Most Ancient and Noble Houses Guild had deemed important in the past.

When the time came she did a quick last scanning spell to check she hadn’t left any trace of herself behind and turned to face Draco in the grand entrance hall.

“Your mother will be happy to return now that this is over,” she said, unsure why she was delaying her goodbye. Putnam shifted restlessly by the door.

“I thought I told you to stop with the jokes, Granger,” he replied.

“I wasn’t-” she stopped herself upon realising what he was doing, and huffed a small laugh.

She pulled out the final inventory from her satchel and handed it to him, “You’ll need to read all of this and sign it, it’s a list of everything I- the Ministry- has taken, and things they are aware of that they will be keeping an eye on.”

He stared down at the paper, which looked to be about eight feet of parchment, and took it, unrolling only the bottom end.

“Turn around then,” he murmured in that tone that she liked, taking the self-inking quill from her hand, and before she knew it she had her back to him and he was resting the paper against her shoulder blade, writing his signature. 

She didn’t know what to do with herself. He hadn’t read it, he didn’t know what was being taken, or he didn’t care.

All the while she stood there with her back to him, and watched Putnam’s confused face as he shuffled over to them.

“Ready to finally leave?” Putnam asked, desperate to get out of there. 

“I’m sure you both are, and if I never see you again Putain,” Draco replied, the quill and parchment each appearing over her shoulders, “it’ll be too soon.”

She took them from him, ignoring the reddening face of the Auror and spun to face Malfoy, but he was already striding away with his back to her.

“Bye!” she shouted suddenly.

“Good luck, Granger,” she swore she heard him reply.

Chapter Text

He draws a long breath and the notebook falls to a natural close. Indeed, Draco has reached this milestone before, many times, but often the memories of her affinity with Malfoy Manor, combined with being outdoors, cause her to take a turn for the worse.

Aside from Hermione’s work at the manor, his years immediately following school are not that interesting to him. For her however, he knows that these are the moments in her life which initially sparked her interest in TRS, the spark which went on to rewrite her legacy and define her career. He knows that many years later she would go on to become Lady Malfoy but never Lady of the Manor, as the statue had predicted. 

She has been listening intently, moving only to shift as the sun has. He looks at her now, judging if Opie might need to be called. She has her eyes closed, face to the sunlight and he recognises her expression as mildly amused. He tries not to let his exhale be too audible, she’s there, she’s still with him. 

He clears his throat, and she opens her eyes slowly, and for a moment he believes that she’s really there, that she’s found her way back to him through the fog. The golden flecks in her golden eyes dance and she smiles.

“This is a good story.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Do they ever see each other again?”

He laughs, “Now, you don’t want me to spoil it before I get to the good stuff, do you?”

She joins him in a tinkling laugh which warms his body, but then she hesitates.

“I think I've heard it before.” 

He can see her confidence in herself flickering like a candle, but she always said he had enough confidence for the pair of them, so he nods encouragingly. His encouragement steadies her somewhat, and she frowns, her face is confused. 

“Perhaps more than once?”

He nods and his eyes catch hold of hers. The ocean between them is rough, but he hopes he can reach her, as he has many times before.

“This is my favourite story,” he admits shyly, “I never tire of reading it.”

“Willie, I would very much like you to continue,” she assures him, her frown lines fading slowly, “but I would like to see the lake even more.”

“Then we must move immediately,” he smiles, and gets to his feet with a groany-old-man-noise that shows his age and is highly unattractive. It elicits a small laugh from her, so it is worth it.

He offers her his arm once more and this time she accepts without hesitation. She doesn’t know but it is habitual, that which causes her to slip to his side so naturally, as though it is meant to be.

He’s quieter than before, and though at this moment in time she doesn’t really know him, she has always known when to intrinsically talk, filling the space he can’t. It is one of the many reasons he loves her.

“So interesting the way the house responded to her,” she comments as they pass through the small wooden gate and start down the small declining trail, “it’s like the house back there…”

He is thinking carefully of what to say but there’s no blueprint or map for him to follow. Sometimes he might say something which causes her to slip away, sometimes he might say something which brings her back immediately, some days he repeats the things he said that brought her back before and she screams at him… There's no rhyme or reason. All he can do in the moment is follow what his heart tells him and that is his miracle. As they walk he considers how lucky he is to have her today. 

Her disease is worse now than it was in the beginning, though Hermione is an exception to most. He has travelled the world meeting dozens of other sufferers, half-bloods, squibs, muggles in every stage of Alzheimer’s, and most are completely lost. Most wake up hallucinating and confused, most repeat themselves over and over. They can't feed themselves and tend to wander or get lost. Hermione, in the early stages, was found once in Whitby town center, a quarter mile away. Some of those he met were bitter, others were lost like children, sad and alone, unable to recognise those who loved them. It is hard for relatives to visit.

Most days now, she is terribly afraid in the mornings and cries inconsolably. She sometimes sees people in masks watching her… Death Eaters, and she screams at them to get away. 

She bathes willingly but will not eat regularly. She is thin now, much too thin in his opinion, and on good days like today he tries to get her to eat as much as possible. Breakfast today was most successful, and he knows Roux will be bouncing off the walls for days, thrilled that he didn’t have to take another tray of croissants to the bakery in Whitby village or throw them to the gulls. 

She is declining, this much is clear. But sometimes, just sometimes, after he reads to her, her condition isn’t so bad. This is why Hermione Granger is not just his miracle, but a medical one, because there is no explanation for this. 

‘It’s impossible,’ the best doctors and Healers say, ‘She must not have Alzheimers,’  but she does. On most days, there can be no doubt, she has it. 

But why then is her condition different?

Why does she sometimes change after he reads? He tells the specialists the reason, he knows it in his heart but he is not believed. Instead they look to science. Four times specialists have travelled from four corners of the globe and moved into their home to find the answer. Four times they have all left without understanding.

He tells them, ‘You can’t possibly understand if you only use your training and your books. Look at Harry Potter and his mother’s protection…’ 

But they shake their heads.

‘Alzheimer’s doesn’t work like this. With her condition it’s not possible to have a conversation, or improve as the day goes on… Ever.’

But she does. Not every day, not most of the time, and definitely less than she used to. But sometimes… all is gone is her memory, as if she had amnesia. Her emotions are normal, her thoughts are normal. These are days that Draco knows he is doing right. 

He guides her slowly down the slope, and a brush of ocean air hits them.

“We’re by the ocean?” she asks quietly and takes a large gulp of air.

“Yes,” he nods, pointing up to the seagulls which float distantly overhead, “it’s not far away at all.”

He doesn’t tell her where they are, it will be revealed in the next stage of their story, if they make it to that. It is another puzzle she must decipher on her own. 

The shrubbery parts and they turn a corner to find a small wooden dock looking over a beautiful still lake. At the end of the dock is a small table, covered with a blue sheet. A lunch has been prepared for them and he can ask for no more. Opie and Roux take care of everything, they are both very good to him.

Despite the breeze, everything remains motionless as they walk along the dock. 

She looks at him with wide eyes, “Did you do this?”

He shrugs, “Well, Opie really.”

She lets a small laugh tumble from her lips, and he moves to pull out her chair for her. 

Sitting graciously, she gazes about the lake. It is near noon, and the sunlight glances off its surface in sharp, shimmering planes. 

There is a plate of fresh sandwiches and one of Roux’s excellent salads in a bowl. The crockery is plastic and the carafe is filled with apple juice, but he doesn’t care. He reaches with a shaky hand to pour her a cup, but hesitates.

He’s struggling. 

He rarely comes here anymore. The lake holds more memories than the garden and the memories hit him like a hurricane. The summer they fell in love, the day that he returned to her. Teaching the children to swim, to row, to fish… 

A tall blonde-headed boy holds a smaller girl over the edge of the dock and she’s shrieking.
“Scorpius don’t!” she squeals, scrambling to not fall.
“Stop screaming or you’ll summon the Hippocampus!” the boy delights, “you know they eat little girls!”
A spark of magic, a splash. The boy is in the water, the girl is on the dock still dry.
“Mum!” she screams again, this time with pure, undiluted joy, “I did it! I did magic!”

He has to occlude.

The children, summers spent by the water, kissing in the rain, their life on one side of the page in his mind. On the other page are his emotions, Tenderness, Longing, and most of all Hope. He draws a deep, shaky breath, takes these pages, and folds them carefully over each other in his mind. He folds again.

He hasn't occluded in months. The last time was when the children and grand-children came.

He hasn’t occluded in front of Hermione in years.

His hand falters with the carafe and she reaches out with both of hers to steady it and guide it back down to the table. Once it’s down, she doesn’t let go of him.

“Hey you.”

He looks at her, his eyes are glazed. He could hide the occlusion better when he was a young man, but he isn’t able to now.

“Where have you gone?” she asks, nervous. He can understand from the tone of her voice that she feels alone, like he has left her. He never wants that.

And then, probably without even realising why or how, she instructs, “Just breathe Willie, in for four, ok? One, two, three, four. Hold it… hold it for seven, six, five, four, three, two, that’s good. And then out now for eight, seven…”  

She counts down and he does as she says. The memories and emotions on the paper ebb, bleeding away like ink in water. 

She is watching him with concern, subconsciously knowing how to help him.

There is a crack. Opie appears and Hermione jumps a little, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of him, or remove her hands. He blinks.

“Can Opie be of any help?” the little elf asks, and before they can answer she begins to fuss around them, filling their cups with juice. 

He takes a deep breath and clears his throat, “Thank you Opie, I just had a funny turn.”

“Well you is showing your age now Mister Willie,” the elf replies with a cheeky glint in her eyes. It pulls a laugh from him and he gives Hermione a reassuring smile. 

“Are you ok?” she asks, and he nods.

“Yes, I’m fine now, thank you,” he squeezes her hand and she softly pulls away.

“Some food will be doing you both some good,” Opie assures them and then disappears back to the house again with another crack.

Hermione doesn’t jump this time, and takes a sip of apple juice before admiring the croque monsieur in front of her.

“How long have you been doing work here at the house?” she asks, and he is relieved that he hasn’t scared her off. She’s asking questions, she’s eating, this is good.

“Oh for years, over twenty I think.” A lie. He has lived with her for close to fifty.

“And how long have Roux and Opie been here?” she asks quickly. He forks some salad onto his plate and tries to hide how delighted he is at the fact she’s trying to piece together a timeline.

“Roux started a few years after me, I believe.” A truth. 

Hermione had first met Roux during their honeymoon in the Côte d'Azur, three sun-drenched weeks at the Malfoy property in Nice. She’d fallen in love with his cooking almost as quickly as she had with his dry wit, and though initially reluctant, he eventually agreed to give them evening cooking lessons.

Later, when Narcissa announced she was stepping back from managing the family’s many properties, vacating and sealing most of them to be passed on one day to Teddy Lupin or Draco’s future children (a gesture that appeared generous, but was really a clever strategy to avoid inheritance tax), Hermione had asked Roux if he would come to live at the Whitby house. He said yes.

“From what I remember his contract with his former employer was ending,” he takes another sip of juice, “and you couldn’t let his cooking go.”

She laughs, and takes a bite of the buttery, cheesy mess before humming appreciatively. 

“And Opie was here long before any of us, she told me that when you moved in you didn’t really want a house-elf, but she refused to leave,” he chuckles.

“And… How long have I been here?”

Draco’s smile doesn’t falter, though he feels the tight pull of his chest, a heavy ache just behind his ribs.

“Since you were in your twenties or early thirties,” he says lightly, vaguely, “this has been your home for a long time.”

A small, pleased sound leaves her and she looks out over the lake, “It’s like a dream here.”

“That’s what I said the first time I saw it,” he replies before he can help himself, voice low and a little wistful.

She tilts her head toward him, brow raised, a glint in her eye. “Did you now?”

He hides behind a bite of his own food.

“Mmm. Bring you down to the lake often, did I?” she teases, and leans her elbows on the table, “lots of grass to cut by the water, is there?”

He huffs a soft laugh, playing along, “You were always very militant when it came to landscaping.”

She smirks, “I get the sense you’re easily persuaded.”

He pretends to consider it, gaze sweeping the water, “Only when someone’s brandishing a trowel at me and quoting soil theory.”

Her eyes light up, “Sounds like a strange sort of seduction.”

He meets her gaze, “It worked on me.”

She laughs again, and it’s bright and familiar and the flame of hope that has been stoking since this morning burns brighter now.

 “You are a funny man Willie. I hope I enjoyed you as much before as I do now.”

There’s a beat of quiet where something almost settles between them, not memory, but something close to recognition. Cheeks pink, she looks away first, a little too quickly, and they clear their plates in a silence that to her must seem uncomfortable, but to him is the closest to peace he’s been in a long time.

“Would you keep reading?” she asked eventually, “I guess they cross paths again, but when do they fall in love?”

Chapter Text

The cottage had been recommended by Kingsley. She hadn't wanted all of the details but knew it was an old holiday home of a colleague who’d been injured in the war, and that the family had moved abroad and had no need of it. In any case, it hadn’t been used for decades. It was quaint on the outside, rather run down on the inside, and aside from the surprise of finding a house-elf there upon arrival, it suited her perfectly.
She’d offered Opie the elf paid-leave over the summer so that she could be alone to write, but Opie the elf wanted to stay.
Between navigating the town, and trying without success to not offend Opie the elf, Hermione was trying to piece together a historical account (both fair and true) to document the war.

The black, overcast Yorkshire sky promised peace at Whitby Abbey. Even the most obsessive Stoker enthusiast wouldn’t visit the coastal ruins in the pelting rain or facing the burn from the wind off the North Sea. Whipping a small warming charm over herself, Hermione smiled up at the decrepit building, she could appreciate the gothic drama of the place.

She walked slowly, crossing between the crumbling columns. The Abbey just before evening was beautifully skeletal. Even though the structure itself demanded silence, Hermione feared the current would rip her voice from her throat even if she had tried to speak.

A loose piece of hair from her ponytail flicked into her eyes, and she lifted the worn notebook to brush it out of the way. So far, it included just lists of names and dates, and scars. She was trying to catalogue the truth, but she was a biased narrator. She'd only been on the Northern coast a few days, but hadn't had much by way of inspiration.

'Stoker didn’t write Dracula until he was fifty,' her mother’s voice rose in her memory.
'And Dracula didn’t kill anyone until he was dead!' her father’s voice sang in accompaniment.^[1]

Salt and moss clung to the stones as she climbed steps higher. Hermione found that she felt comforted, something about visiting old destruction that had nothing to do with her. She reached the top and looked out over the bay, breathing in the sea air in large gulps. 

She blinked back tears. She was supposed to come here with her parents. 

It was a stop on part of a literary tour she had designed when she was young and planned to pitch it to her parents as a reward for her OWL scores. She’d wanted them to spend a summer in their camper, starting in the Lakes, heading down through the Yorkshire Dales to Haworth to visit where the Brontë’s had lived. Heptonstall, to pay tribute to Sylvia Plath. Harrogate for Agatha Christie, all women that she loved to read. Bram Stoker’s inspiration for Dracula hadn’t fit with the feminist theme, but the novel was a favourite, and had been solid Halloween inspiration when she was eight, and believed that vampires were fictional.^[2]

She didn’t hear anyone approach, but she did feel a sudden sense that she wasn’t alone. Her stomach rolled, and she could taste the bacon bun she’d got from the cafe that morning on her tongue. She would never be able to fully relax again, she knew this from her mind-healer, but who knew she was here? Who would come for her here ?
Reflexes caused magic to tingle in her fingers as she turned, pulled out her wand, and then froze.

Draco Malfoy stood about fifty feet away, framed by the broken arch of the nave, his coat as dark as the sky. He had his hands in the pockets of his robes, and his collar drawn up around his neck to keep out the cold. She gave a delirious laugh.

Why was she imagining Draco Malfoy here? 

Why was she imagining him doing a bad Dracula impersonation? 

At her laugh, Draco rolled his eyes and with a heavy sigh began to pace up the steps towards her. 

Oh. He was very much real.

When he reached her, he regarded her with a maddening stare. He was different, leaner, older somehow, and healthier than he’d been the last time she’d seen him at the Manor.

“Do put that away Granger, before a Muggle sees you,” he indicated to her wand, and her laughter caught in her throat. Obviously he wasn’t that different, ever a patronising twat.

“Malfoy,” she said flatly, putting her wand away, “are you following me?”

He looked out then, over Whitby bay, and his mouth seemed to twitch with a half smile as he murmured to himself, “In all the ruins, in all of England…”

She was wrong. The wind didn’t eat up the sound, it carried it.

She heard every word but she couldn’t decipher what it meant. Was it irritation, pain?

“Why are you here?” she demanded. 

“While you may have spent the last few years having smoke blown up your hole, believe me, you are really not that interesting,” he replied, not taking his eyes from the view, “I’m not following you.”

She didn’t know what to reply. She was just so sick of having to fight everyone and everything.

“Well, come on then,” she relented, flinging her arm wildly to indicate down the Abbey towards a large pond.

He gave her a small nod and a sigh that suggested he was as tired as she was and they fell into step without meaning to, neither of them willing to give the other the satisfaction of walking behind. As they reached the pond they watched the ducks start to fuss and flap, and tiny droplets fell from the sky to jounce on the water. Hermione pulled up the hood of her jacket and then folded her arms.

“Why are you here Granger,” it sounded like a question, but also not a question as Draco frowned up at the sky. Hermione wasn't sure which word in his sentence was meant to be emphasised. The sea wind roared, tousling her curls and tugging at his coat.

She sighed, she didn’t have anything to hide and even if she did, seeing him had made her feel so exhausted she couldn’t be bothered, “I’m documenting the war. Testimonies, records, everything we never want to repeat.”

Draco’s jaw tightened before he barked a laugh, and looked out towards the sea, “Another Ministry task, Merlin, they work you like a pack horse.”

“It’s necessary.”

“For who? For you?” he chuckled, “certainly not for me. We lived through it, we don’t need it memorised for eternity.”

“It’s important for people- for everyone - to know what happened so that we don’t make the same mistakes again.”

“Ah, you want to be this generation’s Bathilda Bagshot,” he chuckled humorlessly, “required reading for every first year, I suppose. You’ll make a fortune.”

“I’m not doing it for the money-”

“Why do you need to be the one to do it at all?” he challenged.

“Some things need to be remembered,” she countered.

His eyes were on the horizon, and he gave a disgusted look up at the sky before he dragged his face down to meet hers, “Some things don’t.”

She studied him, and didn’t reply, but she didn’t walk away either.

“Do you want to get out of this rain?” she asked, surprising herself.

“And ruin this perfectly miserable aesthetic?” he replied, voice thick with sarcasm “why would I?”

She chuckled, “Yes, it suits you quite well,” before she went into her bag for an umbrella. She put it up, but made no move to share it with him, and gave him a long look.

“There’s pub in the village-” 

“A Muggle pub.”

“Yes, a lovely Muggle pub,” Hermione emphasised, giving him a look that hovered between exasperation and amusement, “with a big fire and only grumpy old men who don’t want to talk to anyone. You’d fit right in.”

Then she turned and began pacing downhill away from the abbey without waiting for an answer. A second passed and then she could hear footsteps, too close to be coincidence, too slow to be eager, following her. 

There were over a dozen pubs in the town center, but The Plough Inn was Hermione’s favourite. The day before, she’d managed to grab a seat in the sun-trap of a beer garden at the back. It was small, too small for large groups of tourists, and had a strict ‘no device’ policy which made it quiet except for an older, local crowd. Mobile phones and laptops weren’t necessarily something Hermione had to worry about, no Muggle was going to snap a picture of her burying her face into a plate of potato wedges and sell it to the Daily Prophet, though no doubt they would buy it. 

He followed her inside, and she went straight to the bar to order two pints of cider. She didn’t know if he would like it, and for a moment as she watched him pace the length of the seating area, she wondered why she cared. 

“Good timing love,” the barman said, “I’ve just put the fire on.” 

Hermione grinned at him, and paid quickly with cash, earning her a small nod. She took the two glasses and headed to the free table by the fireplace, which was beginning to splutter to life.

Draco made a noncommittal sound, joining her before he shrugged off his jacket. She tried not to stare. 

“If I die from poisoning here,” he said, deadpan as he took a seat and stared at the drink, “will it be recorded in your little book?”

She didn’t rise to his bait, only gave him a pitying look and reached over to his glass, picking it up and taking a large gulp.

There was a flash of horror which settled over his face as he watched her return his glass, having made her point.

A giggle spilled from her lips and she took her own drink, "You never answered the question, why are you in Whitby? Are you visiting someone?”

Free from his poisoning fears, he took a long gulp of his drink, and again didn’t respond but a small look of approval down at the drink told her that he liked the crisp fizz.

Their eyes met, and a flicker of something unreadable passed between them. 

The fire was growing, and the pub was warming. She relaxed back into the chair and watched the window, finding the rain against it quite soothing.

He sighed, again like he didn’t want to answer her. There was this... bathos between them. He didn't want to answer her questions, she was quite sure but he had consented to be there and she had brought him a drink. He ran both his hands through his damp hair, watching the fire slowly build and then inclined his head towards her slowly. 

“After the house arrest ended, my mother didn't want to throw us back into the society that spat us out. She wanted to get away. Fresh air, quiet, nobody to know who we are, or what we're doing, or wondering if we're reformed,” he paused, lifting and inclining his glass towards her, “until now, obviously.”

She huffed a small laugh, “You’re remarkably awful at keeping a low profile.”

He lifted a brow, “And you’re still astonishingly awful at keeping your nose out.”

A smirk settled upon her lips, and she took another sip of her drink, “I don’t wonder if you’ve reformed.”

“No, you were on the front line arguing my case weren’t you?” he returned the smirk, “please Wizengamot- I can speak to Mr. Malfoy’s character, please Minister- let ME go to Malfoy Manor…”

“I didn’t beg to be assigned the Manor, it’s not my favourite place in the world, I didn’t want to go,” Hermione mumbled into her glass. She could fight back, she could argue, but again, she was just so tired. She finished her drink, finished with the conversation.

A look of recognition passed across his face, and he paused, as though he knew he’d pushed too far.

“The manor it….” he hesitated, as though unsure whether to tell her, “it responded to you.”

Interest flickered inside her like the flames at their side.

“It remembered you, and adjusted to you,” he added, finishing his own pint, “it doesn’t do that.”

He had Hermione on a hook and he knew it. She sighed, resting her elbow on the table and spreading her fingertips across her forehead, looking at him through her fingers.

“Shall I get us another drink?” she said through gritted teeth.

Over the course of three more pints and two dishes of potato wedges, Draco told Hermione (in decreasing clarity) the history of the Manor. The blood magic used to construct it. The ways the manor had altered its behaviour to accommodate or protect her. He described how it had called to him when she’d touched the cursed drawer, and tried his best to answer her barrage of questions. 

“You talk about it like it’s sentient,” she commented with a small hiccup, “it responds, it remembers, it alters its behaviour…”

“In a way I’d describe it as quasi-sentient” he shrugged, “it doesn’t doesn’t speak but it communicates in its own protective way. It responds to emotions… when I was young and behaved badly, it would lock me in my bedroom, or make the shower water cold as a punishment. It likes to eavesdrop, or likes to let people… it opens doors and carries sound in odd ways so that you hear things you shouldn’t…”

“Or, at least, the house thinks you should,” Hermione corrected, and he nodded.

“I did some reading about the Manor, or about buildings like it, when I was working with the Unspeakables,” Hermione confessed, “there’s a field of Artithmantic-Environmental magic called TRS. Therma, no Thaumaturgical Residue Sensib, sorry, Sensitivity -” She hiccuped again, and pushed the final third of her drink away, shaking her head. “Malfoy Manor, Hogwarts, even Harry’s home Grimmauld Place, are all places saturated with repeated magical rituals, the buildings... they absorb magic… and can manipulate it…”

“Granger, you’re a dreadful Unspeakable, no wonder they got rid of you,” he chuckled, “whispering secret branches of magical science to me over drinks, is this your idea of foreplay?”

“They didn’t get rid of me, I left,” she blushed and pushed her remaining drink towards him, suddenly emboldened, “you can finish that too if you want.”

A flicker of surprise passed over his schooled features, was he surprised that she’d responded to his flirting? It disappeared as soon as it came, and he raised an eyebrow, and pulled her drink to him, draining it in a gulp. Over the course of the evening she'd found herself liking the way his throat moved when he swallowed.

“So, the buildings take in the magic residue and then, can utilise it?” he asked and thoughts about his throat vanished.

“Exactly, and if the buildings were constructed with the blood magic of a particular bloodline, the building protects and prioritises those who live within it,” she nodded, “they can move and manipulate the foundations, to a certain extent, like the Hogwarts staircases…”

“Interesting…”

“Isn’t it?” she gushed, and she knew she was gushing, but she couldn’t help but gush. She was always so careful with her emotions, measured and precise. But this? This was a cauldron she'd forgotten was even on the flame and now it was bubbling, burning, spilling over, searing everything it touched. They were both leaning in now, over the table, “I don’t know of a building that can manipulate itself completely, rearranging rooms and such, but think about the Room of Requirement. If it’s possible for one room, it could be possible…”

She paused, and from the look he gave her, knew she’d said too much.

“There she is,” he grinned, his grey eyes drilling into hers.

She blinked, cauldron extinguished, and pulled back from the table, “What does that mean?”

“You talk all the time,” he smiled like a cat who’d spotted a mouse, still leaning towards her, “but it’s always about other people, other things, other priorities. Just then you were talking about something you’re passionate about for yourself.”

“Oh, spare me Malfoy,” she retorted, suddenly feeling very sober, “you’re one to talk about doing things for yourself!”

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“You gain your freedom and the first thing you do is move to somewhere remote because your mother said so. Does she decide everything for you?”

“Not everything, but important things, yes… we decide together.”

“So what do you do because you want to?”

“I’m here with you aren’t I?”

A figure loomed over them, the barman collected their empty glasses and indicated to the door, “Closing time folks, you’ve been the only ones here for an hour or so.”

Hermione blinked up at him, and then nodded, “Right, yes, of course.”

“No rush-” the man started but Hermione was already on her feet, pulling her coat on.

“Come on!” she bristled at Draco, who was slowly getting to his feet, not taking his eyes off of her.

She pulled him out onto the empty street, it wasn’t late but there was no traffic on the roads. The wind had stilled, and the stars hung like little question marks over them.

“What are you doing?”

“Just come on!” she said, marching down the street until they reached a crossroads. The rain had stopped some time ago, but the road glistened faintly, slick and silver.

“You’re going to get hit by one of those mechanical carriage things….” he protested, staying on the pavement.

“Yes, I’m going to be hit by all the cars that are around,” she emphasised, spinning a circle with her arms wide.

She lay down on the damp road, waving him to join her and he tentatively took a step into the road. He stared blankly down at her.

“My Dad and I used to go out at night and lay down to watch the lights change,” she hummed thoughtfully, “from green, to red, to yellow.”

He regarded her like she’d turned into a three-headed dog. Part disdain, part disbelief, all reluctant curiosity.

“You could try it if you wanted to.”

“I don’t think-”

“That’s your problem, you know, this is what I was talking about, you don’t do what you want.”

He huffed, exasperated, "Why would I want to..."

She rolled her eyes, she didn't think he was going to, and then...

“Ok.”

He lay down beside her, and they looked at each other for a moment.

“It’s wet,” he half-whispered.

“Yes,” she replied, then looked back up at the lights, from her peripheral she saw him do the same.

“What happens if a… car comes?” he asked.

“We die.”

“What?!”

“Just… trust. You need to learn how to trust,” she reached out and wrapped her fingers around his wrist.

“Making potions,” he sighed.

“Pardon?”

“You asked me what I do for me. Most of the time, I have all these thoughts bouncing around in my head. I can occlude, but not constantly. When I’m in a potions lab, making something, the world kind of gets quiet.”

Hermione smiled, a small victory. A secret shared. She found she was happy.

Then, an engine.

Lights.

BEEP!

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

She screamed and leapt to her feet, finding that Draco was already half-dragging her out of the road as a car screamed past, the driver yelling abuse out of the window.

Adrenaline coursed through her and she bent over, shaking with laughter.

“Are you ok?” he demanded.

“Sure,” she gasped.

“Why are you laughing!?”

“That was fun!” she replied, drawing up and looking at him full in the face.

“Do you want to dance with me?” he asked, and she stopped laughing immediately.

“Sure,” she repeated.

He held out his hand to her, and she stared at it, suddenly feeling very shy and stupid. She was sixteen again, at the Yule Ball, being asked for a dance.

“Now?” she asked, looking around her, and slipping her hand into his, “here?”

He nodded, moving them back into the road.

“You’re not supposed to dance in the street,” she hissed as he pulled her close to him, snaking his other arm around her back.

“You’re not supposed to dance in the street,” he mimicked her in a ridiculous tone, drawing another laugh from her. 

They swayed together, and he bent down humming a song lightly. 

When they eventually had to move out of the road because of another car, she didn’t want to let go. They walked together up and out of the town, before reaching a crossroads.

“I’m staying that way,” she motioned.

“I’m up there,” he said, waving in the opposite direction.

“Right, well goodnight then.”

“Goodnight Granger,” he smiled wistfully, and set off walking down the lane.

She took a few paces of her own before she spun around, he was already looking over his shoulder at her. “Malfoy, do you want to go to the cinema this week?!” she called.

“I don’t know what that is Granger, but yes, alright,” he called back, “send an owl to Whinstone Lodge!”

She didn’t remember getting home, but she knew Opie the elf had been worried about her.

“I’m fine, really, Opie” Hermione insisted, “I was with a friend.”

Chapter Text

A flurry of an envelope in front of his face caused Draco to jump as he spooned more Rice Krispies into his mouth, and the most annoying voice he knew sang, “What could this beeee!?”

He snatched it out of Theo’s hand and slammed it down on the counter top snarling, “None of your damned business.”

The lanky frame of his best friend flopped with as much grace as a newborn erumpent down into a chair, and went to reach for the carton of orange juice. Unfortunately, Draco grabbed it first, opening the lid and putting it straight to his mouth. He drank all that remained within seconds, banging it back down with a satisfied ahh.

“Now then, there’s no need for that!” Theo scolded him, hunching forward, face half-buried in his crossed arms before mumbling, “someone’s pissy this morning.” His eyes burned into the letter on the table, and Draco knew there would be no relenting until he opened it.

Theodore had shown up last night with a bottle of firewhisky after charming the secret address out of Narcissa. He’d not understood their motives for, as he put it, “squirrelling” themselves away out of sight now that their house-arrest was finished. ‘Don’t you want to get out there again?’ he’d hounded, ‘You know, live?’

Draco put down his spoon, bringing a napkin to wipe his mouth, nonchalant and bored as ever. The breakfast materials vanished with house-elf magic, and Draco reached for the letter, turning it over to see that the seal had already been broken.

Calm and lethal, he spoke, “It seems someone has been nosy…”

Theo’s grin was hidden but his eyes crinkled in delighted amusement, “Are you going to open it?”

“Why don’t you just tell me what it says, since you already know?”

“It’s from Hermione Jean Granger,” Theo gasped, voice thick with faux-scandal, “inviting you to the cineemar!”

Draco nodded, “When?”

“Tonight! What is a cineemar? Where is the cineemar? Is it a date? Can I come?”

“It’s cinema , I don’t know, and no,” Draco muttered, sliding the letter from the envelope gently.

“No, it’s not a date or no, I can’t come?”

Draco didn’t respond, he just read the instructions to meet her where they’d left each other a few nights before at 7pm, and not to dress up.

He put the letter down and watched his friend since birth. In their younger years, Theo would have squirmed under such scrutiny, but now he just stared right back, unperturbed. Once, they would have had their staring match for the better part of the day, neither one refusing to submit, but now, they were in their twenties. Draco was too old for such games.

Instead, he stood, picking up the envelope and pointing to the address on the front. “Is this an invitation to you? No. You’re not coming.” He left the room but not before catching Theo rolling his eyes and calling out to ask the house elves for “Some of those wood-chip things Draco likes” and “More OJ.”

At five minutes to seven, Draco waited at the spot where the lane split like a two-headed snake. He hadn’t dressed up, he thought , and was frustrated that he’d spent an extra few minutes staring at himself in his mirror before leaving to meet her. Why did he care what she thought? He didn’t understand, but knew something was different, changing, and he wasn’t sure if he could stop it or if he even wanted to. Granger had been the subject of his torment for many years, she’d been brutalised at his house, more than once, and now she was inviting him to spend time with her? Something was surely wrong with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to say no. He wanted to spend time with her, even if she wasn’t in her right mind.

She appeared down the track, lifting her arm to wave at him and he couldn’t help but smile back at her. She wore a deep, textured, chestnut sweater that wrapped her figure, tucked into high-waisted plaid trousers. She looked charming, she looked... great.

Draco adjusted his own jacket and when she was close enough, he gave a soft, “Hello.”

“Hi,” she grinned back, putting her hands into her pockets as though she didn’t know what to do with them, “you look nice.”

He cleared his throat, was he nervous? “Thank you, you look… great, really really great.”

There was a quiet "Finite," which made them both jump. Hermione had already drawn her wand.

Theodore appeared, wrapped in an expensive scarf which Draco recognised as his mother’s.

“You really do look great, both of you, and I know I look great!” he beamed, holding his hand out to Hermione, “I’m Theo Nott, friend of Draco’s. I hope you don’t mind if I join!”

Granger blinked at Nott, then looked up at Draco, amusement dancing on her lips. She reached out tentatively and was wrapped in an aggressive hand-shake, and then it was her turn to clear her throat.

“Um, sure,” she said gently, “we should get going though, it starts soon.”

They fell into step, the three of them, Draco in the center. While Theo questioned Hermione about what ‘it’ was that would be starting soon and if it was a ritual of some sort, he occluded, imagining all the creative ways that he would skin Nott alive that evening when they returned to the holiday home. He imagined them in great detail, folding up the parchment in his mind and tucking it away. He was equally as frustrated with himself, how had he not noticed Theo's disillusioned form following him out of the house?

When her detailed explanation didn’t land with Theo, involving terms like scripting and acting and recording, she simplified.

“It’s like a really well-done portrait that moves, talks, and tells a whole story… except it’s not magical. It takes about an hour and a half, or two, and people pay to sit and watch it, usually with snacks.”

“Did you hear that Draco?!” Theodore nudged him too hard, “there will be snacks.”

Draco hummed, and kept walking. 

The Whitby Pavilion was a small cinema, according to Granger, and it only had two or three ‘screens,’ and he watched her curiously as she paid for their tickets and then motioned them over to choose snacks.

“Stop staring at her, it’s creepy!” Theo hissed into his ear, and strode up to the front desk, too confident for his own good. Draco dropped his occlusion.

“Sweet or salty?” a spotty teenager asked them, and Draco hesitated.

“Both!” Theo beamed, and Hermione chuckled.

“Is that wrong?” Theo faltered, and she shook her head.

“No, no, that’s what I get too,” she smiled softly, before glancing curiously at Draco.

“Sweet for me,” he told the young boy, and then took his box with a nod of thanks.

Theo surprised him by offering to pay for all the food, to which Hermione protested, but Draco reminded her it was technically fair since she had got the tickets and Theo filled his arms with everything he could get his hands on.

“Where did you get muggle money?” Draco said under his breath as they followed Granger down a hallway.

Theo was too distracted, precariously balancing his large pepsi, large popcorn, large nachos and bag of Haribos , and taking in all of the posters and large, life-size cut-cut advertisements.
He gave Draco a ludicrous stare, “I always carry some local currency on me if I’m going somewhere exotic, maybe you should think about getting some too. Then poor Granger wouldn’t have to pay for everything...”

He only spilled a little popcorn when Draco stuck out his foot to trip him.

They sat down in the dark, Draco in the middle again, and it took a moment for him to recover after the room filled with light and noise.

“These are called trailers,” Hermione whispered, leaning over him so that Theo could hear her too, “they’re like mini films that tell people about new films that will be coming out soon.”

Draco could smell her perfume and he grasped hold of his popcorn like it was a lifeline. Her face was so close to him, her profile shone with the light from the screen and he could see every thread of every curl. He realised that he wasn’t breathing, and then thankfully Theo announced very loudly that he was going to the toilet, earning him a hush from two older men a few rows in front. She drew back to her seat, he exhaled.

“He reads my mail,” Draco blurted suddenly, by way of an apology he supposed, or an explanation, “I didn’t ask him to come.”

“It’s ok, I don’t mind,” she gave him a small encouraging smile, reaching to take a piece of her popcorn which she put into her mouth in a way that Draco found to be completely obscene, “I’ll be more direct in my letter next time.”

Next time. His gut dropped.

She turned back to the screen, and so did he, but his attention was fully fixated on her. When she’d giggled and muttered that she wanted to see a movie about a blonde in a pink dress who got into Harvard, whatever that was, he stayed completely still. At some point over the next half an hour, Theo returned, and their film came on, Planet of the Apes . 

He finally paid attention. 

He existed in a bubble, her gasps to his right and Theodore’s jumps to his left were dulled. He couldn’t stop watching the men and women on the screen, and the apes… How had they made this?

As though she could sense his discomfort, Hermione reached across and put her hand gently on top of his, it hit him like a bolt of lightning and he jumped, sprinkling popcorn on Theo.

“Hey!” Theo protested, punching him in the arm.

SHHH!

“It’s ok, they aren’t real animals, they’re Muggles too,” her breath whispered hot against his ear, “they’re in costume, it’s just make-up and pretend.”

He could only nod and she lifted her hand away from him, the moment dissolved like honey in tea.

He hadn’t expected to feel much of anything. 

The film was loud. American. Ridiculous. Space-people and apes on horseback. There was something twisted about it that unsettled him.
The way the humans flinched at commands, were paraded in front of crowds, handled like beasts. He’d grown up hearing blood traitors and Muggleborns described in almost the same language. Lesser, filthy, animals, and he’d believed it… once.

Theo had left part of the way through, slunk out toward the toilets, muttering something about weak bladders and even weaker plots, and not returned.

By the time the credits rolled, Draco was frozen in his seat, spine tight, staring through the flickering names like they might rearrange into an answer.

She had taken him to see this.

Outside the wind bit hard through his jacket, but he was excruciatingly aware of her beside him.

“That was fun, I haven’t seen a film in ages, not since I was a little kid,” she beamed.

He couldn’t respond, he was just so full, full of something he didn’t want to examine.

She sighed, not quite looking at him, “You hated it.”

“They caged them. Collared them. Branded them,” his voice sounded harsher than he’d intended.

Hermione shifted beside him, “I… yeah. I suppose that’s the point.”

“No,” he turned to her. Her expression was open, cautious, she was listening to him like, really listening, and he couldn’t stop himself from letting his thoughts roll out of his mouth, “the point is they think they’re being merciful. That keeping things in their place is kindness. ”

There it was again, that rusted hook in his chest that tugged every time she looked at him like that. Not with pity, but with challenge... like he could still be something else.

He glanced away. “Sounds familiar.”

She said nothing, and he appreciated the silence more than he could say. 

They walked down the promenade of the beach and took a seat on a bench under a streetlight. She cast a warming charm around the pair of them and it wrapped around him like a hug.

Eventually she spoke, in a quiet voice, “I just picked a film that had lots of action. The woman at the box office told me that her husband and sons couldn’t stop raving about it. I didn’t bring you to give you any lesson, or any hidden message, or any moral…”

She reached for his hand, and he let her take it. Her fingers were cold so he instinctively laid his other hand over them and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

“I promise,” she said gently, earnest.

He gave a dry laugh, “There was a lot of action, the gorilla on horse-back was a nice touch.” He paused, before adding softly, “It was nice… being out.. with you.” He meant it, even if he hadn’t liked what it had forced him to see. 

After leaving her at an apparition point, he’d found Theodore in his home lounging on a sofa. He’d jumped to his feet right away, but Draco had just held up his hand and walked past him to his bedroom. He cast whatever enchantments his probation-bound wand would allow to keep the other man out, and lay face down on his bed. 

He didn’t want to talk to Theodore. Not^[1] about how he hadn’t kissed her and not about how he’d really wanted to. Not about how holding her hand felt like something delicate and breakable and impossibly alive like a baby bird. Not about how hearing her promise him things made something claw at his chest because he believed her. Stupidly. Completely. Not about how he was already halfway lost to her and hadn’t even meant to be, and certainly not about how he didn’t deserve her. Not really. Not ever.

Chapter Text

Hermione had two letters in front of her. 

One, for Draco, read: I’ll be at the bookshop today around three and wondered if you wanted to come? I’d like to see you again. Hermione.

One, for Theodore: I’ll be at the bookshop today around three and would really appreciate it if you weren’t there. Maybe we can all go for Sunday lunch together tomorrow? Hermione.

She was banking on Theodore opening the post again, so she pushed both into one envelope and addressed it to D.M, Whinstone Lodge. She gave her owl a scratch under its beak, opened the window and watched it take flight.

She was sure that the bookshop in Whitby town wouldn’t be difficult for him to find, since it was literally called The Whitby Bookshop. She waited outside, fiddling with her sleeves and staring into the window display. She felt sick. Should she have waited for an owl to confirm he was coming? Was this a date? She felt like it was a date. Had she asked someone on a date? Had she asked Draco Malfoy on a date?

Thankfully, at that moment he turned the corner, and the small smile on his face calmed her nerves a little. She found his appearance oddly endearing. He was slightly too formal, as always, but Muggle-appropriate. If someone plucked him out of London’s financial district and dropped him in a pub for drinks after his day working at Canary Wharf, he would be perfectly suited. At a seaside resort in the North East, he just looked a bit like an estate agent. His coat was too expensive and he looked like trouble.

“Hi again,” she greeted.

“Hello Granger.”

She felt sick again. 

Did he think it was a date? 

She’d invited him to a shop. People did that… did people do that? Was that a normal thing that normal people did? Was she a normal person? She suddenly was very aware of how un-normal she was. 

He moved to give her a warm hug, which surprised her, which she tried to disguise, but he wasn’t convinced so it turned awkward. He stepped back, and pivoted towards the shop in an attempt to pivot the awkwardness away.

“Is this the only bookshop in Whitby?” he surveyed the sign.

She nodded once, the wind picked up and blew her hair into her face and she brushed it haphazardly out of her face. The look he gave her made the hairs on her arms stand up on end. 

“Well, shall we go into this teeny, unregulated archive?” he teased, opening the door. 

“There’s no screaming statues,” she warned, following him under the tinkling bell. 

Feigning disappointment with a wicked grin over his shoulder, he walked in, "Rats."

The shop was empty. Even the seller had retreated into the back to make themselves a brew, considering the afternoon done for the day. They split immediately - Hermione to non-fiction and Draco to fiction. While she had invited him to spend time with her, she hadn’t expected them to be glued to the hip, especially in the shop. While in a small town, it held a large enough selection, and she didn’t see him for ten or fifteen minutes, before they met on one of the narrow aisles. They had to pass, and they passed, but not without her turning her back to him, feeling the huff of his breath on the back of her head and the ghost of his touch on her hip and he guided her. 

When she thought she was getting away with it, she appreciated him more than the book shop. It wasn’t something she would admit aloud but she secretly got a thrill from the way he pulled a book from the shelf, reading the spine and blurb thoughtfully.

Twenty minutes later, she hadn’t found anything to buy, and sought him out, finding him in the poetry section. Something in her burned when she found he held a volume of E.E. Cummings. 

“I like him,” Hermione whispered, making him jump. Draco turned to her, he looked almost amused that she’d the ability to creep up on him. 

There was a small beat before he admitted, “I sometimes find poetry difficult to understand,” and he turned the book to read the biography on the back.

“He’s quite complex,” she admitted, “but I notice that when I focus too much on rereading and understanding each poem I get more and more confused. But if I read it once, and just feel what he means, it makes perfect sense.”

As she was rambling, he just watched her. She reached and took the book from him, she cracked the spine, something she would never have normally done except she knew that it would be leaving with one of them.

“I always hated how clever you were,” he confessed softly, out of nowhere.

She flicked through the pages, searching for a poem, but inclined her head towards him so he knew she was listening. 

“Are," he corrected with a chuckle, "I still do. It’s infuriating that you would know the poetry of the one book I picked up out of all of…” he gestured to the shelves.

She grinned, and passed him back the book on the favoured page. 

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness

A smile flickered over his lips, and his eyes met hers. Something softened between them and he closed the book.

“Better pay for this,” he tucked it under his arm and moved suddenly to pass her.

For some reason she didn’t step aside, and he swooped right into her. Her back hit a shelf of books. There was a pause, and they both froze.

“You look at books like you want to devour them and keep them forever,” he husked, as though it were a secret, “that’s what makes you dangerous.”

Her eyes closed for a moment as she felt his breath across her face. It was like mint and black tea. She repeated, feeling stupid, “Dangerous?”

“Sometimes you look at me the same way” he bent so that his cheek touched against hers and his words were in her ear, “Do I need to be scared of you, Granger?”

She tried to speak, to form words, to say anything. Language had been her ally for so long, but in that moment it abandoned her and her body betrayed her, fluttering. She hated it as much as she didn’t, and she leant into him.

His hand reached up to her face, he brushed his thumb over her cheek bone, a touch so gentle it made her ache.

He kissed her then. Sharp and certain. His lips brushing against her, her back brushing the shelf behind her. The shelf rattled behind her but she didn’t pay any attention. His lips moved slowly over hers like punctuation at the end of a long, unspoken sentence. She kissed him back, truth finally told. 

It wasn't a cliché and Hermione didn’t feel time stop, or fireworks. It was something quieter, and to her it felt both old and new, and inevitable.