Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1st of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

“Yes, no, I see it. No, I see it, yes, I’m alive, don’t—look, I’ll call you back, okay? I just—I think the guy’s here, and I just have to get off this bloody car and—I’ll call you back. Promise. Okay? Bye, Gin.”

Hermione clicked on the close-call button on the steering wheel just as a middle-aged man dressed in full ski gear stepped next to her car window. The piercing cold wind bit at her cheeks the very instant she lowered it. She was desperate for a hot bath; steaming, even.

“Signorina Granger, right?” Godric, was his accent thick. A weird mixture of an Italian and a German inflection.

“Yep! That’s me, hello,” Hermione said shaking his hand through the window. “So, you must be...”

“Giacomo, nice to meet you,” he smiled, nodding. “Did you have—oh, wait, maybe let’s put the car away first,” he chuckled when he realised Hermione still had the engine on.

She mirrored his laugh. “Yeah, that’s probably best.” Following his instructions, she parked her vehicle in the small garage next to the cabin. Giacomo, red-cheeked and rubbing his hands together, showed her how to close the gate, helped her with the luggage and guided her to the door that led to the house.

“So, how was the trip? Did you have any problems on the road?” he asked while leading the way up a small staircase.

“No, it was pretty much okay. The rental place got me an automatic car, so that helped with the bends,” she chuckled.

“Ah, yes, those are always a bit tricky for people not used to them when driving stick.” Giacomo fumbled a bit with the keys. “It’s always best to keep every door closed, you know, just in case. Ta-da!” He gestured to the spacious main room after leaving the bag in the entryway.

Hermione could already feel her blood run more steadily. Her clothes were magically charmed to keep her constantly warm, but it was particularly freezing outside.

“The heating system should be already on,” Giacomo was saying as he moved around the room to check the radiators. “How about the snow? Did you find it on your way here, or…?”

“Oh, that, yes,” Hermione nodded as she glanced around—the place looked incredibly cosy. “It did actually start to snow while I was driving, but it wasn’t heavy. Very much like how it’s snowing now, actually,” she said, turning towards a window. There were still snowflakes falling gently on the ground. Maybe a tad less gently than they were five minutes before, she mused.

“That’s good, that’s nice,” Giacomo nodded approvingly, “it could have turned difficult. The forecast says that we should be expecting a full blizzard, so I was worried that you would have gotten stuck on the road.”

“Well, thank Godr—thank God it didn’t happen, right?” she smiled. Muggles. Language. Check.

“Alright, then,” he said, clapping his hands. “I’ll show you around.”

The cabin wasn’t particularly big, but it wasn’t exactly small, either. There was a living room with an orange sofa, a brown armchair, a fake fireplace, a 52-inches television and a tall bookcase full of vintage-looking volumes and a considerable collection of DVDs; a red kitchen with a large, wooden table that matched the wooden walls of the cottage; a bedroom, with a king-size bed that looked like it came straight out of Heaven and a (wooden) desk positioned in front of a large window that overlooked the Alps. A bathroom, with—yes—a bathtub.

“You’ll find the Wi-Fi password on the modem, but I’ll be honest, if the weather gets bad the reception is going to be awful,” Giacomo said as they made their way back to the living room.

“That’s no problem,” Hermione reassured him. “Actually, the less I am connected to the world, the better.” Also, she had other means of communicating with people if necessary, but Giacomo didn’t need to know that.

“Okay, great, um, then… There’s a supermarket nearby—let me show you,” he went on as he opened the balcony next to the bookcase and walked outside. “Just down the road, if you take a left there…” Hermione listened carefully to all the indications. Yes, she could summon food and make cash materialise into the cash register, but. The act and all that. She even went as far as to ask what would happen if the blizzard worsened, but Giacomo just shook his head and looked at the clouds, deciding that it was pointless for her to worry about that.

“Although, it is happening more frequently than not,” he added as an afterthought as they walked back inside. “We get high risk alerts but then nothing happens. Which is kind of scary, you know, ‘he who cried wolf’ and all that. But… I don’t know.” He eyed the sky again. “I don’t think anything’s gonna happen… I hope.”

Hermione hummed. She was very well able to recognise upcoming storms when clouds started gathering over London, but the mountain sky was completely foreign to her. 

“Anyway, just to give you the full picture, the few times that it did get ugly around here, it was… well, bad. It was bad.” He grimaced. “Sorry. I hope I’m not scaring you.”

“Oh, not at all! I can deal with bad, I’m sure we’ll come up with something if the situation gets worse,” she smiled encouragingly.

“Right, of course. Well, then,” Giacomo rubbed his hands together again (it must be an Italian thing) before quickly glancing around. “I think that’s it! Ah, I’ll show you how to close the front door.”

Hermione followed him outside. The fresh snow that was gathering on the walkway felt soft and treacherous under her feet, despite the hiking boots she bought specifically for the occasion. Her magical coat kept her from shivering, but her nose was tickled by the wind and a few white snowflakes landed on her curls, leaving damp spots here and there. 

The air smelled funny. Clear, open, fresh, wet. Unfamiliar to her. Hermione tried to look for the tallest mountaintop in front of her, but the heights were all completely covered by foggy, grey-looking clouds. And yet, it wasn’t the same foggy grey that painted the London skies more often than not: it was somehow colourful in its monochrome palette. And to be completely honest, it didn’t look very friendly. Maybe the storm was actually going to turn ugly.

Giacomo left her the keys and wished her a good stay in a rush when his phone rang, telling her she could call him for any problem at any hour and that he’d left a piece of paper with emergency numbers on the kitchen counter. Hermione thanked him again for his hospitality, before they both turned their backs on each other and she locked the door behind her.

Dialling Ginny’s number again, Hermione entered the kitchen and circled the table to get to the fridge.

“Is the owner like a hunter from one of your muggle fairy tales?” her friend’s voice said as soon as she picked up.

“My muggle fairy tales?”

“Oh, you know what I mean. So? How is it?”

“The place is quite nice.” Hermione grabbed a bottle of orange juice—Giacomo, bless his heart, had already shopped the essentials for her. “There’s a beautiful desk in the bedroom that faces the mountains.”

“Way to rom—cise your wor—sition.”

Hermione frowned. “Hold on. I can’t hear you really well.”

“Wa—, let m—ve arou—s dam—use…”

“No, Gin, I—” She looked at her phone screen. So, that was what Giacomo meant when he said reception was awful. “I think I’m the problem, wait…” She helplessly eyed the fake fireplace in the living room, wishing there was a Floo connection. “Honey, I’m way too tired to cast a communication spell right now,” she said rubbing her face. “Can we do this another time?”

“I ca—ear a sin—e wo—u jus—id, He—ne. Call—ater—kay? Lo—u.”

“Yeah, I absolutely didn’t get that.” Ginny was probably hearing static noises from her, too. ”I’ll call you later. Love you. Bye!”

Snow is not like rain. Raindrops tick against the glass and on the roof. Snowflakes, instead, fall easily on the surfaces, creating a muffled ambience all around. The silence was deafening, but somehow comforting. Hermione looked at the fireplace again. She finished her glass of orange juice and went to retrieve her bag from where she put it on the large sofa; fishing her wand out of it, she directed it to the empty firebox and flicked it, summoning a smokeless fire that cackled happily, even without burning wood. Ambience.

Another silent spell, and her mobile phone started playing music as though it was connected to amplifiers. The coming together of magic and technology had been the greatest success her generation of witches and wizards had achieved: it was honestly stupid to live in the twenty-first century and ignore the progress of the modern Muggle world just because the wizarding one would quite literally make the tech short-circuit every time it entered a household. 

Hermione went to the bedroom and started sorting out her suitcase. There was a large wardrobe in front of the bed—way too large for the few things she’d packed, but she figured it was better to have more room than have none at all. A couple of shelves were already occupied with additional sheets, throw blankets and pillows. Hermione moved her jumpers on a free shelf and folded her trousers neatly next to them, leaving out a change of clothes and heading then to the bathroom to get the water ready in the tub.

This was nice. A bit solitary maybe, but nice. She would benefit from this. Distractions are a menace, and her novel wasn’t going to write itself, was it?

As the water flew out generously from the tap, Hermione set her work position on the desk. Laptop, notebook, parchment, quill. She grabbed her wand again and flicked it to summon a glass and a bottle of water from the fridge, casting another quick spell as well to keep it slightly chilly. She was going to write that damned book: if it didn’t happen now, when she had almost a month all to herself in a cabin in the Alps, then it was simply never going to happen.

A noisy gush of wind outside caught her attention. The sky had turned a shade darker and the snow was thicker now. Hermione went back to the living room and turned the TV on, looking for a forecast.

The journalist was speaking in Italian, so Hermione didn’t understand most of the words; but the graph behind the woman was pretty self explanatory: red always indicated risk, no matter the country or the language. Various images of storms and blizzards appeared on the screen, and then a list of town names that, Hermione deduced, were on high-alert. She spotted the one she was currently in. With a groan, she turned the TV off and dropped on the sofa.

The music was nice—some new indie playlist that Harry had crafted just for her because “it’s going to be good for your nerves—do not hit me with that”—and the only other noises were the wind, the faux-fire and the water filling the bathtub. Hermione closed her eyes, inhaling the atmosphere around her. So what if it stormed? She’d survived for months on the run in a tent when she was barely seventeen. It wasn’t going to be the end of the world. She just needed to pop by the supermarket once, just to check what was actually there, and then she wouldn’t even need to get out of the house anymore. Yes, well, she would have preferred if she could have gone for a walk around the village—but then again, she had a novel to write, and she surely was not going to do it while walking, was she? Although, she did have some of her best ideas while driving, or showering, or even laying in bed alone in the morning. Too bad she hadn’t come up with a spell to magically make ephemeral ideas turn into complete, written stories in the blink of an eye.

Hermione realised she was about to drift off when another sound made its way to her ears and startled her.

Car engine.

Was Giacomo back? Did he forget to tell her something?

She stood quickly and motioned her wand towards the bathroom to turn the water off while going to the door, a slight crease between her eyebrows. Maybe it was something about the weather alert? Did she actually fall asleep? Had it been so long that the weather had turned that ugly?

She opened the door and came face to face with a shiny and wet black Range Rover’s nose parked right at the bottom of the three steps that led to the cabin’s entrance. Why would Giacomo drive here now, when he walked earlier?

Hermione squeezed herself in her arms from the cold—she’d left the coat inside—and waited for the familiar face to pop out of the opening car door.

She couldn’t have anticipated the sudden shock that replaced her perplexed frown when a blond head she hadn’t seen in four-or-seven years appeared in front of her.

“Hello,” the unmistakable voice of none other than Draco Malfoy said as he stepped out of the vehicle and onto the snow, “sorry I’m—oh.” The words died in his mouth when he turned his head and met the paralysed expression on Hermione’s face, whose mouth had fallen slack, along with her arms, now helplessly dangling at her sides.

Malfoy halted in his movements, leaning back on the car door, the snow quickly blanketing his coated shoulders.

He stared at her for an endless minute while she kept blinking stupidly at him.

“Salazar assist me,” he scoffed then, drawling his s’s in that haughty and annoying way that had always irked her. “If it isn’t the Golden Girl herself.”

Hermione came back to her senses and wrapped her arms around herself—whether to protect herself from the heavier snow or the feeling of distress that slammed into her at those words, she didn’t know. “What the… Malfoy? What in Godric’s name are you doing here?!”

“No, what are you doing here? I booked this place.” He closed the car door, before rubbing the snow away from his shoulders with a hand.

“No, you didn’t. I booked this place. Otherwise why would I even be here, pray tell?”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking myself right now.” He went to the back of the car to retrieve his suitcase from the boot. When he made his way up the steps to the entrance and Hermione showed no sign of stepping aside, he said: “Can you move? I’d very much prefer not to turn into a living snowman.”

“No, I’m not moving,” she replied stubbornly as she stepped back to crowd the door space even more. Exactly how tall Malfoy was? Had he always been this tall? “I told you, I booked this place. From today, the first of December, to Christmas. You have no business being here, so, if you’d be so kind, go back to where you came from.”

Malfoy groaned, rolling his eyes. He took his phone out from a pocket inside his coat and tapped a few times on the screen before turning it to her. “No. See? 12/1. I booked it.”

Hermione looked at the screen and then at him, now wondering if he’d always been that stupid, too. “12/1 means the twelfth of January.”

“Yes, Granger, good job.” The condescending undertone made her want to throttle him. “That’s here. But I booked it from an American website, and those useless wankers use the month-day format, so 12/1 means the first of December. Today.”

Hermione stared at him for a second. What exactly was happening? “No,” she said eventually, marching back inside to find her phone and her own booking email. Malfoy was quick to follow her, closing the front door behind him and shrugging the snow from his coat. “See? 1/12,” Hermione exclaimed, holding out her screen victoriously. “Booked from an English website. First of December.”

He frowned then, taking the phone from her hands. “No. It was booked for me, I’m sure.”

“Well, the owner was here and he was clearly expecting me, not you,” Hermione retorted, snatching her phone back. “So hop back in your car and go away.”

“Yeah, right, with this weather,” Malfoy scoffed, tapping at his phone again. He brought it to his ear, an arm across his chest as his eyes surveyed the cottage. “Pronto, Giacomo? Salve, sì, sono Draco Malfoy…”

Hermione felt like her eyes were about to pop out of her orbits. She was not going to wonder how, when, or why Draco Malfoy had learned to speak Italian like a native. She was not. 

Her foot started drumming on the floor while she waited for Malfoy to finish his call, wondering why his line was not breaking and also very conscious of the fact that she already knew the obvious—and gloriously preposterous—outcome. 

She had booked the cabin. Hermione. Giacomo had been waiting for her and he had correctly said “signorina Granger” when he met her; had he been waiting for a certain “signor Malfoy”, he would have definitely asked some questions. She had booked it, and she had booked it for the first of December—1/12. She checked the email; she checked the calendar; both correct. If Malfoy had booked it for the 12/1, that could have only meant that...

“Well, the website was American but the dates were in the English format, and apparently there was a note I didn’t read which means now I’m stuck here,” Malfoy declared as he pocketed his mobile and opened his arms as to embrace the space around them. 

Hermione blinked again. “What do you mean, stuck here? You’re not stuck, you can take your car and go somewhere else.”

“Oh, fuck no, you haven’t seen the snow I was greeted with on the road. Maybe you haven’t listened to the news, Granger, but there is a weather alert.” He took his coat off, then his leather shoes. The snob git was too high up on his horse to wear regular mountain boots, it appeared.

“Apparate away.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?!”

“First of all,” he said gallantly as he fell on the sofa and raised a finger, “because I have very restricted Apparition rules to follow, and one of them is that I am incapacitated to apparate for travelling unless under authorisation by a specific Ministry Office and blah, blah, blah—perks of my beautiful life sentence for having mildly partaken in attempted genocide.” He even smiled at that. Hermione decided right there and then that she was going to shove away every thought that was not about getting Malfoy out of her cabin for the time being and unpack everything else at some point in the future.

“Second of all,” he went on, “but not less important, I uh…” he pretended to weigh the issue as he raised a second finger. “I don’t feel like it.”

Hermione was still struggling to keep her mouth from falling open every other second and her increasing rage wasn’t helping. Thankfully—or not—her phone rang.

“Signorina Granger, hello, can you hear me?”

“Yes! Giacomo, hi, I—”

“Mister Malfoy called me—”

“Yes, well, I was there,” she started, and then she got distracted by Malfoy, who stood up and motioned his mouth very broadly to tell her he was going to the kitchen. Stifling an insult that Giacomo could have mistook as directed to him, she just showed him her finger and turned the other way.

“He told me about the mix-up.”

“Right, exactly, is there anything we can do about it?”

“As I was telling Mister Malfoy, for the time being there is a second cabin he could stay at that’s free right now, since I suppose switching dates is obviously out of the question...”

“Definitely,” she muttered.

“—but at the present moment the municipality issued a semi-lockdown for a couple of days because there has been an avalanche not far from here, and there’s also the weather alert, therefore it’s really not safe to venture out of the house. And there I was hoping…” he chuckled, probably trying to hide an impending panic attack of his own. Hermione closed her eyes and patted her forehead with her curled fist. “Bottom line is, I can’t reach you nor can Mr Malfoy go there.”

This is a nightmare. Right? It must be. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “So, what are we going to do?”

Giacomo stayed silent for a beat. Then, tentatively, he answered: “He was saying that you two actually know each other? I mean, not that I would ever want to put you in a position that is anything but ideal for you—” he quickly added, almost stumbling over his own words, as Hermione turned around to find Malfoy sat on the kitchen table and looking at her through the door, a smirk painted across his face. He wiggled his fingers in greeting; then he raised his eyebrows and put down the glass of orange juice he was sipping on to raise both his hands, and that was when Hermione realised she had accio’d her wand and was now pointing it straight at his face, her jaw clenched and her phone pressed to her ear.

“No, I get it,” she said in what she hoped was her best resemblance of politeness. “It’s fine, it’s definitely not your fault. Look, I think the line’s a bit jumpy,” (lie), “can I call you back? I’ll sort this out with Malfoy.”

She half listened to Giacomo’s answer before closing the call and throwing the phone on the sofa. Her wand was still out and she kept it outstretched as she stepped towards Malfoy, holding his gaze.

When she was close enough that the tip of her wand almost touched his neck, she told him without ambiguity, “You’re leaving.”  

He put his arms down and grabbed his glass again. “Nah.”

Her knuckles turned a shade whiter. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“None of your business. What are you doing here?”

“If you need a place to sit and contemplate the emptiness that is your life, you can do it from the comfort of your own home. I actually have work to do.”

“Amazing,” he shrugged as he sipped his drink. “Hm. I wonder if there’s some wine around.” 

Hermione closed the distance between her wand and his neck. Malfoy’s expression twitched and tensed. “What did you tell Giacomo?”

“That, funnily enough,” he drawled out, slowly tearing his eyes away from her wand, “we know each other and I was sure your renowned selflessness would not send me back into the upcoming storm when there is a beautiful cabin here that could shelter us both.”

Hermione’s nostrils flared. If there was a way out from here, she couldn’t see it. Brightest witch of her age, and for what?

“You could always apparate and leave—ouch, fuck, Granger,” he hissed, slapping her wand away and massaging his neck. Yeah, maybe she burned him a little. So what.

“I booked this place. As soon as you can travel again—with whatever means—you’re out of here.” She put her wand in her back pocket. “Write to the Ministry. You said you need permission and whatnot—write them, I have some parchment with me.”

“I can’t do that because I actually apparated here—well, not here here but, you know, the village down below to get the car; anyway, I apparated here and I already have another permission to travel in ten day’s time and can’t get another one in between.” He shrugged. Just regular administration, apparently. “Also, I don’t know if you’ve ever faced the Ministry bureaucracy but, believe me, it is Hell on Earth, everything is slow and long and complicated, and there’s papers to sign, documents to produce, stamps to put—”

“Okay, shut up, will you?” Hermione exclaimed while falling on the closest chair and taking her head in her hands. “Merlin’s sake, this can’t be happening to me.”

“Relax, Granger, it’s just a couple of days,” Malfoy said, before standing up and putting his glass in the sink. “If you must know, I’m not too fond of the idea of sharing a small space with you either.”

“Not too fond,” she scoffed under her breath. Hermione’s brain kept working to find a possible solution that would rid her of Malfoy quickly, but nothing seemed to be effective enough. Floo: impossible; broom: definitely not with that weather—and she didn’t even have one; apparition: legally out of the way. Side-along apparition could work, but there was probably a limitation on that, too. It would be a loophole way too easy to bypass. Portkey: too much of a hassle. Muggle transportation was definitely a no. He could walk to the other house maybe, if it was close enough; but that, too, would have to wait, given the halt to movements Giacomo told her about.

This was a disaster.

“Look,” Hermione sighed, a sense of dread and dismay taking over her all at once. “Fine. Just a  couple of days, right? I reckon I can tolerate you for a couple of days and then you’ll piss off to…” she waved a hand around. “Wherever you want to go.”

“Brilliant,” Malfoy replied with mock-excitement. “It’ll be just like the old days.” He went to take his suitcase and then looked around. Probably for the bedroom.

Hermione jumped upright and in an instant she was in front of her bedroom door. “Absolutely not.”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “Where do you expect me to sleep? In the car?”

“If you fancy it.”

His hand went to her hip to push her out of the way. “Move, Granger.”

She slapped it off of her. “No. There is only one bed—and it’s mine.” She pointed her chin towards the orange sofa. “That one looks big enough. There are extra sheets and covers in my wardrobe—I’ll fetch those, and I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful night’s sleep.”

In the short second in which Malfoy turned his widened eyes to look at the sofa, Hermione quickly opened the door and slipped inside, locking it behind her. She exhaled, leaning with her back against it.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

3rd of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

Hermione uncorked her second bottle of wine of the day and paused a second too long before pouring the liquid in her stem glass. After a moment of consideration, she decided she wasn’t an alcoholic (yet) and could still use a glass for good manners, so she tipped the bottle to serve herself a generous amount of Chardonnay.

The thing was that over the past two days she’d found the only way she could deal with Draco Malfoy staying in the same house as her was by being slightly tipsy all the time: if she’d sobered up completely, she would have probably gone absolutely bonkers.

She’d gone over the circumstances of their meeting at least a thousand times on the first night alone. She had laid helplessly in bed, warm pyjamas on and wrapped up in blankets, the noises of the raging storm outside the window as she stared at the ceiling while trying to cancel out the other noises coming from behind the closed door. Malfoy had fumbled in the kitchen for some time, then he’d gone to the bathroom, made his bed in the living room, and finally turned the TV on. The irony was that Hermione had wanted to scream so desperately that she’d just felt paralysed on the mattress: she couldn’t even move to grab her wand and cast a silencing spell because she’d feared that she wouldn’t have been able to dose the right intensity of magic and ended up, who knows, unhinging the door or something equally excessive instead. 

Draco Malfoy was right. beyond. her wall.

It was insane.

It wasn’t just about the fact that she had to share a small space with another person—she was pretty used to that. After all, Hogwarts dorms weren’t exactly big, and she’d already gone through the living-with-a-man shock with Harry and Ron during their year on the run. It was more that, out of all the people on God’s gracious Earth, it had to be him. Draco Malfoy. Draco my-father-will-hear-about-this Malfoy.

The last time she’d seen him was… she wasn’t really sure when. At least four years before. Seven, probably. There had been the trials, which lasted for longer than she would have liked, and then there had been the official Hogwarts re-opening, when the castle was finally completely renovated. Hermione had gotten a plaque, even. Malfoy wasn’t there… or was he? She would remember, right? Not that she would remember him, specifically, but someone would have probably said something about him being there and she would remember telling them off—which she didn’t, so he probably wasn’t there.

The trials, though, had been gruelling. She remembered those. She’d been called to testify on more occasions than she’d expected to, but the burnout had come all of a sudden the morning of Malfoy’s final hearing. Hermione was sitting in the Ministry halls, waiting for her turn to go in, half listening to whatever Harry and Ron were discussing; it was at the umpteenth dig at the main character of the day that she’d told them—for the very first time and almost surprising herself, too—to just shut up about Malfoy.

“Look, it’s not like I’m brimming with happiness at the idea of being one of the defence witnesses, but you’re taking it too far,” she’d added after a moment of complete silence in which the pair of wizards had looked at her as though she’s developed horns out of the blue.

“Well, apologies if my mood isn’t exactly serene at the thought that I’m helping in keeping that bloody brat out of Azkaban,” Ron had grumbled back.

“Oh, come on, now! He wouldn’t have ended up in Azkaban anyway,” Hermione had retorted tiredly, already exhausted by the mere thought of how she was going to feel after the trial. “He didn’t kill anybody, did he?”

A beat, after which Ron had forced out the words, “Not that we know of.”

“Merlin, Ronald,” she’d sighed, closing her eyes. “Harry used the Imperius once, you want to give him a one-way ticket for Azkaban, too?”

“Can you not say that out loud, maybe?” Harry had interjected then, bristling at the mention of his name.

“Oh, so it’s all fine if it’s for the ‘greater good’, hm?” Her no-nonsense tone and the implications she was hinting at had made Harry’s green eyes flash behind the round lenses. “How very Machiavellian of you.”

“Why do we even have to testify?” Ron had asked before Harry could reply. “What do they want to know? Are they going to ask about his character? Do they want us to tell them about that time he made your teeth grow longer?” He’d exasperatedly opened his arms and looked pointedly at Hermione who, on the other hand, ignored him and tilted her head back against the wall, eyelids closed once again. “Or about when he almost got Hagrid fired because he couldn’t help but act like a twat every minute of his pathetic life?” he insisted. “Or when he joined Umbridge in practically creating a totalitarian state at school? Or maybe when he charmed all those pins during the Tournament?”

“You were a solid prick yourself during the Tournament, Ronald,” she’d mumbled.

“Oh, shut up, Mione, that’s completely different—how about when he smuggled Death Eaters inside the castle to fucking murder Dumbledore?”

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Hermione had snapped then, turning to hold Ron by his shoulders, eyes wide open in determination. “I know you don’t like him. I don’t like him. Harry doesn’t like him.” Harry had mumbled something incomprehensible, grimacing. “But this isn’t about liking him. Malfoy is a spoiled, bigoted arsehole who did terrible things to all of us, but can you really, in all honesty, compare him to… I don’t know, his father, for one?” Ron had tried to avert his eyes but Hermione had grabbed his chin to keep him looking at her. “Because I can’t. So, we’re going to let the Wizengamot take care of his sentence and we’ll just answer the questions as straightforwardly as possible, with no additional comments. They can do whatever they want with our answers, that’s not for us to worry about.”

The redhead had stayed silent at that. The first noise came from Harry, who had taken off his glasses to viciously rub his face and groan into his own hands. “Well, not that this comes as a surprise,” he’d said, “but Hermione is right,” and fell on the seat next to her.

Hermione had taken a deep breath and smiled almost sadly, taking Harry’s hand in hers and resting her head on Ron’s shoulder. “I know.”

She’d seen him only once they’d entered the room.

Despite the modernisation of the justice system in the wizarding world being one of the first reforms passed as soon as a new government was sworn in, the courtrooms still instigated deep fear and tremor in anyone who entered them. The light bounced against the stone walls in cold colours, and the murmuring of wizards and witches sitting on the benches, along with their side-eyed and austere looks, made it so that everyone was as tense as though Dementors were present.

Malfoy was sitting in the middle of the room, on his own stoned throne, magical shackles binding his hands to the armrests. As soon as Hermione, Harry and Ron had crossed the threshold, all eyes in the room had turned to look at them—except for his. He kept looking at the inscription on the wall in front of him, over the many heads that were about to decide what the rest of his life would look like. It read, “Ignorantia juris neminem excusat”.

Suddenly, it’d hit her irrevocably. The man sitting there, dressed in black, legs crossed, expression stern, hair combed neatly, jaw clenched and nails scraping maddeningly at his own fingers—that man had been her classmate. He wasn’t just someone who’d decided to devote his life to Voldemort; he was Draco Malfoy and he’d once made her trip in the corridors at Hogwarts just to share a mean laugh with his friends. Hermione could still see that kid in his features, if she focused enough. Just like she could see her own self as a child in the mirror, the few times she paused to search for it. But those past selves were buried deep under sharp lines, dark circles and faint wrinkles, along with all the other indelible marks the war had left on them—body and soul.

Harry had said once, not that long before, that the war happened to them. Hermione hadn’t really agreed—it hadn’t just happened; she had fought it and she had made the choice to fight it every single day. But that day was the anniversary of Sirius’ death, and there were all the countless other lives piling up on his conscience, too, and Harry was too tired, too beat, too worn out to sustain any type of conversation, so Hermione had just stroked his shoulder and hugged him tightly, letting the matter go. But that day in the courtroom, when the absurdity of it all had harshly crashed onto her, she’d thought that maybe Harry was right. The war had happened to them. They had been thrown in the middle of it, young and inexperienced as they were, and there had been no escape; one hour they were happily cheering their Quidditch team on the pitch of the World Cup, and the next they were desperately running away from a Dark Mark looming in the sky. One day Draco Malfoy was the irritating boy who had been transfigured into a ferret in the courtyard, and the next he was a Death Eater.

He was a Death Eater.

He had been her classmate, and he was a Death Eater.

Hermione hadn’t been able to look at him for the rest of the hearing. She’d stubbornly kept her eyes on Harry and then on Ron as they followed each other on the stool, and then she did her best to look at everything but him when it was her turn to be questioned. She’d answered mechanically but dutifully, not even fully listening to the questions: yes, it was true that she and Mr Malfoy had shared several classes at Hogwarts; no, she wouldn’t say that made them friends; no, she wouldn’t describe herself as someone who could paint a precise picture of Mr Malfoy’s character; yes, she had been reluctant to accept the idea that Mr Malfoy had become a Death Eater at sixteen; yes, it was true that Mr Potter had told her he’d seen Mr Malfoy lower his wand in the Astronomy tower after he’d told Professor Dumbledore he had to kill him; yes, it was true that Mr Malfoy had not identified her, nor Mr Potter or Mr Weasley, when they were caught in the woods and brought to his house; no, she could not guess what was the reason behind his mumbled “I’m not sure”.

Then, her conscience had snapped back to the present when the prosecution asked, “Is it true that the defendant publicly addressed you as ‘Mudblood’ as early as in second year?”

Hermione had felt her insides twist together and she caught Harry hastily putting a hand across Ron’s chest with the corner of her eye. She’d blinked at the witch in a plum robe standing in front of her, and then, for the shortest of seconds, her focus had shifted to the centre of the room and she’d locked eyes with Malfoy.

His eyes were intently on her, but his expression was blank.

“Miss Granger?”

She’d swallowed and tore her gaze away quickly. “Sorry,” she’d apologised, clearing her throat. “Yes. It’s true.”

“And how many more times did that happen?”

Some whispers had risen around the room, but no one objected to the question. After all, hate crimes were one of the main reasons why Malfoy was sitting in the defendant’s spot in the first place.

“I, uh…” Hermione had begun while tormenting her hands in her lap. The scar on her forearm burned. She had willed herself not to touch it. “I don’t know.”

“An approximate number will suffice,” the witch had pushed. “None, another one, five...”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t keep an exact count of how many times people have called me hideous names over the years,” she’d snapped then. At the woman’s raised eyebrows, she’d added a belated, “Ma’am.”

Hermione would have never been able to say it with complete certainty, but she was pretty positive that, in that moment, Malfoy had smirked.

After that day, she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him again.

That is—until he’d randomly knocked on her door two days ago. And to add to the ridiculousness of it all, she wasn’t sure when he was going to leave anymore, because nothing in the stormy weather outside indicated that the red alert was going to be withdrawn anytime soon.

Hermione jumped on her chair when a loud noise came from the other side of the wall, and that was when she realised she had already finished her first glass of wine, even though the cursor was still obtusely blinking at her from the white page on her laptop.

That was it. She had to find a way to kick Malfoy out.

“Will you turn the volume down, for Merlin’s sake?!” she shouted, before marching into the living room, furious at everything and nothing at all at the same time.

Malfoy was sprawled on the sofa, the sheets still on it and completely unmade, a pillow behind his head and one leg perched over the backrest, arms crossed and eyes focused on the TV screen. He ignored her when she walked in, and instead knitted his eyebrows, making a great display of showing he was busy watching what was probably a stupid film.

“Are you getting deaf with age? Is that why you need the volume to be so loud?” Hermione insisted, waving a hand towards the television. Godric, she felt such a fool. Planted in the middle of the room, head fuzzy, unable to do the one single thing she was supposed to be doing, and not even capable of catching Malfoy’s attention because even talking to him made her feel incredibly uncomfortable.

Hermione had never been a particularly physically open person. Despite that, since she’d known her closest friends for longer than she hadn’t, she’d developed a spontaneous intimacy with them that was impossible to replicate with other casual acquaintances. But Malfoy wasn’t Harry and he certainly wasn’t Ron; he was none of the Weasleys and he was not like any other person she could easily call a friend—or an acquaintance for that matter.

Quite frankly, Hermione didn’t even want to have an easier relationship with him: the less he entered her physical and emotional space, the better. For the past two days, she’d casted a spell every morning to find out whether he was still sleeping or already in the bathroom because she dreaded the prospect of knocking on the door and hearing his voice coming from inside. When she’d gone to the supermarket to shop for food, she didn’t even ask him if there was anything he needed. Not that she didn’t buy essential food for two anyway—she wasn’t a total bitch.

(She did choose the wine specifically for herself, though.)

Had he wanted something, Malfoy could have walked there himself, in the middle of the storm, just like she had. Not to mention, he could have summoned food with his own wand, like the grown-up wizard he was; he certainly didn’t need a mother, now, did he?

Mostly, Hermione tried to ignore him as best as she could. She didn’t even tell Ginny about him when they’d finally managed to talk again. Why would she? The less he distracted her, the better. And since talking to Ginny mostly meant discussing work-related things, keeping Malfoy out of the conversation was only ideal.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was making any efforts to be a nice flatmate. He would barely mumble a ‘good morning’ when he finally rose from his bed no earlier than 10AM; he would play music while showering without asking if it bothered her; he got dinner ready for himself—not that he cooked: he summoned it from Godric-knew-where—and never once asked her to join him; and there were the never. ending. films. He’d probably already gone through the whole collection of DVDs, and seemed now intent on watching every possible movie available on every single streaming platform ever. Right now, he was caught into something that looked an awful lot like How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.

“Malfoy? Are you listening to me?”

“Shut up, Granger, I’m trying to watch a movie,” he grumbled, shifting on the sofa and grabbing the covers to pull them up past his chin. “These idiots are about to fall in love or something, leave me alone.”

Hermione took the deepest breath of her life. “They can fall in love even if the volume isn’t set to break my hearing system,” she hissed, curling her fists to keep herself from just snatching the remote from him and turning everything off.

Malfoy had the nerve to roll his eyes. “I’m trying to recreate the theatre experience, how about that? Use a spell, I bet you know a lot of those.”

She felt her self-control slip away from her fingers with every passing second. “I’d expect you to be enough of an adult to be able to respect other people around you without them having to use magic to silence you out.” Her voice sounded dangerously quiet, but Malfoy was apparently too focused on some subpar plot to notice.

“Well, then I must still be a teenager who never grew up, what can I say.” He adjusted the pillow behind him. “Can you turn the lights off when you go back to your room?”

Inhaling shakily, Hermione flexed her fingers. “Godric give me strength,” she whispered trembling as she stomped off to the bedroom, leaving the lights on and slamming the door shut behind her. She fell on the bed and pressed her hands to her face, feeling the blood pump in her temples. Her head started spinning, and every new breath she took trying to calm herself down only helped in making her more angry, more mad, more cross, more pissed, until she eventually felt the bubble in her lungs burst and had to quickly cast a Muffliato because she absolutely did not want Malfoy to hear her cry.

Which was stupid. It was just so stupid. Why was she even crying in the first place? No, sobbing. She was ugly sobbing because Malfoy wouldn’t turn the volume of the TV down. How was that a real thing that was actually happening to her? She just wanted to have her own space to write her story, and now it seemed like he was doing everything in his power to take that away from her.

The most rational part of her brain tried to take the situation in her hands, reminding her that, well, that was not entirely true either; it’s not like Hermione had told Malfoy what she was doing. And after all, he, too, had come here with the expectation of having some time by himself, right? Too bad he was acting like he was alone in the house, completely relaxed and at ease, while Hermione felt at her breaking point.

Maybe it was a sign.

Maybe she just wasn’t meant to be a writer, and she should drop every dream of writing a novel. And maybe—well, most certainly, actually—that was the real reason why she felt so utterly helpless: how was she supposed to write a whole damn book if she couldn’t even get past a bloody film being too loud?

Lifting herself off the bed, Hermione bitterly wiped the tears from her cheeks and went back to the desk, where she poured another glass of wine and downed it in a shorter time than it would have been appropriate. Cracking her fingers, she brushed her fingertips on the keyboard, willing her mind to empty from anything that wasn’t the story she felt right at the ends of her fingers. The film dialogue on the other side of the wall was still pretty loud, but Hermione looked at her screen, tuned out the rest of the world and then focused steadily on the blinking cursor.

Tentatively, she began to type.

Dead. Monica Temple was dead and the last memory Richard had with her was of a fight.

A ringtone resounded in the living room, startling her.

“Godric’s sake,” she muttered, deleting everything at once and pursing her lips together to force back another gush of unpleasant and useless tears. She stood in a rush, looking for her wand. If he wanted to be treated like a child, then so be it: Hermione was going to have it his way.

Before she could cast the silencing spell, though, Malfoy’s voice rang crystal clear from the other side of the wall, catching her attention. “What the fuck do you want now, you prat?”

“Hello to you, too, my charming, beautiful Snow Queen!” The voice from the phone came distorted and muffled, but it was recognisable to Hermione all the same. After all, she had been an active member of the Slug Club. “How’s the weather? We heard there’s a blizzard alert or something and dear Pansy here was wondering if you were still alive or gone to a better life.”

“There’s been an alert for three days straight, Zabini,” Malfoy replied, pausing the movie. “I could very well be already dead, for all you know.”

Hermione’s hand was frozen, mere inches away from her wand. If Malfoy was going to tell his friends he was stuck there with her, then they would tell other people, and then her friends would know and, bottom line, she would have to move to Japan, change her name, and start a new life in incognito.

Maybe she could write about her real life, then, and pass it off for a fantasy book. Actually, it wasn’t that bad of a plan—

“Which is why we’re very happy that you picked up,” the shrill voice of Pansy Parkinson resonated in the other room. It literally couldn’t get worse than this. “And also, I’ve been talking to your mum—ghastly experience, let me tell you—so I already knew you were still with us. How’s the place? Is everything all right?”

Showtime.

“Yeah, it’s quite nice,” Malfoy answered without missing a beat. “And I know the restaurants around here, so, you know. The kitchens are open.”

“Ah, Salazar forbid the great Draco Malfoy actually cooked his own food instead of stealing it from Michelin-star chefs.”

“Sod off, Zabini, will you? And I pay them, so it’s not stealing.”

“Right, we don’t want to add any more crimes to the list, do we?”

“Don’t you have something else to do, the both of you? I am trying to finish a movie.”

“When is Theo supposed to meet you?”

Oh, wasn’t that just great. Theodore Nott was supposed to get there, too. It could get worse, after all.

“Uh, dunno. But I don’t think that’s happening now, given the weather conditions. Now leave me alone, I have a film to watch. Bye.”

Hermione fell on her bed again, elbows on her thighs, hands brought together to rest against the tip of her nose. The facts were these. One: Malfoy hadn’t said anything about her. Two: his friends knew where he was and one of them was supposed to arrive there in the next few days. Three: Malfoy hadn’t said anything about her. And, oh, four: he bought his meals from nearby restaurants.

Shooting back to her feet, Hermione marched into the living room.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s almost over, can you people just leave me alone?” Malfoy groaned as soon as she stopped in front of the television, hands on her hips.

She ignored the way he craned his neck to look at the screen. “Why didn’t you say I was here?”

He raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realise you were eavesdropping on my private conversations.”

“Maybe, if you’d lowered the tone of both your voice and your electrical devices, I wouldn’t have the displeasure of knowing what you’re doing with your life.” He brought his hands to his temple, massaging his head. Right, because he was the frustrated one. “Answer me. Why didn’t you say I was here?”

“Merlin’s beard, Granger,” he sighed, pausing the film again. “Did you want me to?”

“What?” she exclaimed, her voice pitching high. “Of course not!”

“Then why are you even asking? I’m leaving soon anyway, am I not? We can just pretend this,” he gestured vaguely between the two of them, “never even happened. Telling them is pointless.”

Well, that had been precisely her thinking, hadn’t it? There was no logical reason why he should tell his friends about Hermione being there with him, just like there was no logical reason for her to tell Ginny—or anyone else—that Malfoy was her flatmate for the time being.

She crossed her arms then, clearing her throat. “Glad we’re on the same page then.”

Malfoy lowered his head, in a bow-like manner. “Could you please move, now?” he said after a moment, indicating the television. “I’m really invested in that.”

“Right, yes,” Hermione stuttered, stepping aside and back towards her room. As she put her hand on the door handle, though, something new struck her.

“Hold on,” she said, frowning, before he could press play again. “You booked this place thinking it was for the first of December, right?”

“Yes, Granger, we’ve already gone over this,” he drawled out.

“Shut up. You got your Apparition permission, and the car, and even scheduled that date with your friend. All in December.” Her frown deepened.

Malfoy hummed noncommittally.

“And, um… when were you expecting to leave?”

He paused for a second, turning to face her. “How do you mean?”

“I mean that when I booked this place I had to enter the dates—from the first to the twenty-fourth of December. Which means, 1/12 to 24/12.” She was speaking slowly, as though trying to keep record of the progression of her thoughts. “Whereas you booked it from the twelfth of January—12/1—to the… what? To the what?”

“I don’t know, I—”

“No, because, you see,” Hermione started, feeling something in between irritation, exhilaration and plain mockery taking place in her mind, “whatever that number was, it was something-slash-one, which had to mean n-th of January, am I right? I’m right. Because the date format was day-month.”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. “What are you getting at?”

“Didn’t you, I don’t know, double check the dates before sending the papers to the Ministry?” That funny feeling in her mind began spreading to her chest. “Didn’t they need some kind of proof of travel to grant the permission? How did this slip past you?!”

Malfoy opened his arms in surrender. “I don’t know, Granger. I don’t know what to tell you, it just happened. Trust me, it’s not some kind of ploy to trap you here with me, if that’s what your swotty little mind is thinking,” he sneered, before turning his attention back to the screen. But Hermione had had quite enough.

“Oh, piss right off, Malfoy!” she shouted suddenly, praying to both Hell and Heaven she wasn’t going to burst into angry tears. “I actually have serious work to do, and all you do every single day is lie on that sofa, watching films as though you were the only person in here! I’ve asked you one thing, to turn the bloody volume down, and you couldn’t even do that one thing for me! How am I supposed to get anything done like this?! And I don’t even know when you’re going to leave, because—just look outside! It’s a mess out there, and we could be stuck in here for Godric knows how long!”

Malfoy jumped on the sofa at the first words of her outburst, turning to look at her and slowly propping himself up on his knees, a confused and alarmed expression on his features. “Alright, Granger, calm down—”

“Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down, okay?!” she screamed back, and decided she’d embarrassed herself enough when she felt the corner of her eyes sting. “Just turn the bloody volume down, for Merlin’s sake!” With that, the door slammed shut behind her, and Hermione fell hopelessly to the hardwood floor.

This was a mess. The messiest mess she’d ever found herself in. And Hermione had been in quite a few messes in her life. If asked, she’d positively describe herself as an expert on messes. And yet, she found herself crying again—which was just ideal—in addition to creating an even tenser mood in the house, with no possibility of escaping.

The truth was, there was so much shared history between her and Malfoy that Hermione should have known from the start that she was bound to snap over the most frivolous things. It was like hoping she could survive a weekend alone with Ron without feeling the urge to yell at him every other minute. Well, maybe not exactly like that—but close.

She knew from experience that the best thing to do would be to simply unpack all of that: it was useless and unhealthy—and felt like a ticking time bomb—to bottle up and carry on as though what was happening wasn’t a big deal while, in fact, her being stuck in a cabin with Malfoy was probably the worst trigger ever and every therapist’s hair would have gone white hearing about this. But in all honesty, the last thing she wanted to do was to sit down with him and talk about their past. It was Malfoy, for Godric’s sake. There was nothing she wanted to talk about with Malfoy.

Besides, after all these years, Hermione was tired. She could have had her resemblance of closure with him during his trial, but she’d been tired then, too. And truth be told, she didn’t care at the time. It was better to just move on as soon as possible, and if that meant a part of her remained volatile when it came to Malfoy and all he—he, specifically—stood for, well, why should she worry about that? It’s not like he was part of her life anyway.

Why it was all cruelly catching up with her right now was beyond her.

Wiping at her damp cheeks, Hermione stood from the floor, grabbed her laptop and threw it on the bed, then filled the glass again and started searching for a film herself. If her mind wouldn’t let her write not even half a page, she would look for inspiration somewhere else.

It was only when she finally landed on a random title and was about to cast a silencing spell that Hermione noticed she could barely hear the TV in the living room.

Malfoy had turned the volume down.

Chapter Text

7th of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

Cooking had never really been her forte.

Sure, if she had to feed someone else, it was no problem for Hermione to spend hours over the stove to make sure her loved ones were eating properly. But when it came to herself? Honestly, a bag of chips sometimes was more than enough. Or a sandwich, those few times she felt particularly daring. She had noticed that her laziness was worsening with age and stress—something that Harry was utterly unable to comprehend, given how he, on the contrary, cooked every time stress got the best of him. Ginny welcomed it as a blessing.

“To be honest,” she’d said one night laughing while getting the table ready, “it was a nightmare to be around my mum while she cooked, so I never really learnt anything besides the basics. But that man?” She’d brought her hands to her chest, sighing delightfully.

Hermione’s laugh had come out as a half-snort. “I wonder what exactly was keeping him from cooking for me, all that time we spent together,” she’d replied, raising her voice to make sure Harry could hear from the kitchen.

“Desperate times!” he’d called over the sizzling noise of whatever it was that was frying in the several pans he was using to make dinner.

“Oi! Are you calling my cooking ‘desperate’?”

“Well, if you really want to go there…” Ron’s voice had risen from the sofa. 

“You are a spoiled twat who can’t even boil an egg and should just keep your mouth shut,” Ginny had intervened before Hermione could give the older Weasley a piece of her mind.

It surely was an easier diet to follow in London: most of the times, she ordered something and had it delivered at her place, or she grabbed some take-away on her way back from the Prophet’s offices, or just showed up unannounced at her friends’ places and stayed over for dinner, which no one really minded. When she was alone, she had some go-to recipes that had become her lifeline but, generally speaking, her diet was not made of award-winning meals.

And yet, after seven days of eating like a 1st year undergrad, Hermione was missing real food; something warm, possibly with texture, something to really lose herself in for a few minutes to forget the never-ending storm outside. And, not less important, to forget the fact that Malfoy kept having luxurious lunches and dinners which she could smell perfectly but was never allowed to taste. So much for chivalry.

She was desperately looking inside the half empty fridge as she waited for Harry to pick up his phone. In the living room, the TV was broadcasting yet another chick flick she had seen a thousand times over, and when Hermione overheard Amanda Seyfried say her iconic “On Wednesdays we wear pink” line, followed by something that must have been Malfoy’s snort-laugh, she grabbed her wand and silenced the room in the blink of an eye, muttering all sorts of foul things, directed at no one in particular.

“Happy to hear from you too, Hermione,” Harry’s loud greeting made her startle.

“Sorry. I was talking to myself.” He chuckled on the other end of the call. “But hi! Everything all right?”

“Yep, pretty much. Have you heard from Gin?”

“Not yet. We have a call scheduled later in the day to talk about… well, you know,” Hermione said, waving a hand around. “Why?” she asked then, frowning.

“Oh, no, nothing,” Harry said, and Hermione’s frown deepened. She couldn’t quite pinpoint his undertone. “I was just asking. Anyway,” he added before Hermione could inquire more, “did you need anything? What’s wrong?”

Her stomach rumbled as she went back to the fridge. “Uh, yes. Could you, um… oh, dear, this is embarrassing,” she lamented rubbing a hand on her face.

“Oh yeah? I’m interested, go on.”

“Idiot.” She sighed. “Could you… could you give me your lasagna recipe? Step by step, possibly?” There was a moment of silence. “Harry?”

“Godric save us all!” he exploded then. “Are you actually asking for my help?! I’ve got to write this down on the calendar, could you hold for a moment?” Hermione rolled her eyes with a groan that was supposed to mask a laugh while listening to all kinds of noises Harry was making on the other end of the phone. “This is unbelievable—I might actually have to reach out and thank aunt Petunia for having treated me as their own house elf…”

“Harry!” Hermione reprimanded him half-heartedly. “Come on, please, I’m really desperate,” she pleaded. “I know none of the restaurants around here and I’m getting tired of eating salad every other day.”

“About that, how’s the blizzard going?”

“Oh, you know,” terrifyingly. It hadn’t stopped snowing and hailing a second since she arrived, and the avalanches had multiplied all around the mountains. The owners of nearby ski facilities were desperate, and rightfully so, given that they had no idea when they would be able to re-open safely, and the full winter season hadn’t even started yet. After a week, the mayor hadn’t lifted the lockdown yet and Hermione didn’t even bother going outside, resorting instead to a quick relocator spell to transfer food directly from the supermarket to the kitchen. “It’s not like I was planning on going outside anyway.”

“Ginny said the cottage is nice, at least,” Harry tried. “And you’ve got reception, how about that!”

“Yeah, that’s actually a communication spell because apparently my operator works like shit here—but yes, the cabin is quite nice.” The company wasn’t as nice, but Harry didn’t need to know that. “And it comes with a beautiful oven, too! Recipe, please?”

She wrote down the ingredients and the steps as Harry spoke, making a precise note of quantities and times and everything she might need to craft the perfect meal. It shouldn’t be that difficult; she’d always been a great potioneer, after all, and cooking wasn’t that different from brewing, was it? There are ingredients and there’s a recipe to follow. Piece of cake. Or, in this case, of lasagna.

Hermione promised to send Harry a picture of the final result, “even though I should be keeping your ego in check,” and started sorting out what she needed to get the cooking started. She was dedicating her attention to the sauce when a knock on the door made her pause and sigh.

“What?” she said, not even turning around.

She heard the fabric of Malfoy’s pullover rub together as he shrugged. “Nothing. What are you doing?”

“You’ve got eyes. Use them.”

“Right. Was that Potter on the phone?”

Hermione snapped her head around. “How did you hear my call?”

“You silenced the living room but not the kitchen. And the door was open,” Malfoy explained, meeting her scowl with a smirk and plopping down on a chair after turning it backwards and crossing his arms on top of the backrest. “I’ve got to say, this development of The Boy Who Lived into The Boy Who Cooks is quite intriguing. Could you tell me more about it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Go back to your film, Malfoy. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from Regina George, there. You’ve lost your edge,” she muttered as she turned back to the stoves to stir the ragù sauce.

He chuckled, but didn’t move. “Do you need help?”

Hermione faltered in her movements. “No.” Why on Earth would he even ask? “I told you, go back to your movie.”

Malfoy hummed. “Suppose I will,” he said then, standing up and pushing the chair back in its place.

Hermione kept stirring the ragù as she listened to his steps on the floor; she listened to the noises the sofa made as Malfoy fell back on it; and she kept listening and stirring absentmindedly as he resumed watching Mean Girls without a single care in the world.

After her outburst on their third day of forced cohabitation, things had started to get… different. Not necessarily better, just different. They still had their own, very separate lives, but at least now they were both mindful of the other, and it seemed like they were both trying not to be too much of a burden.

This, of course, didn’t mean that Malfoy wasn’t still listening to music while showering, or watching movies day and night, or even leaving the balcony’s door ajar when going out to smoke. He just asked Hermione every now and then whether it was all good for her, too.

(Well, not about the smoking—he just did that—and it wasn’t like Hermione had any interest whatsoever in the state of health of Malfoy’s lungs anyway—but still. Actually, the fact that he always headed outside instead of just smoking indoors and then magically clear the air showed thoughtfulness: this way, he wouldn’t leave some unpleasant stench behind.)

They were slowly and begrudgingly growing into some sort of coexistence. Both focused hard on the mission of getting through the dreadful experience they were being forced to live, and both regarded the indefinite day of freedom from the other as some sort of miraculous deus ex machina that couldn’t arrive soon enough. And yet, blame it on general common sense or on pure and simple human emotion, the details showed that their sharp edges were, if not exactly smoothing down, at least learning how to fit together.

If Hermione understood this, though, she definitely didn’t want to acknowledge it, lest she actually grew used to being around Malfoy and to Malfoy being around her.

She realised she was lost in her thoughts when the ragù started boiling in the pot and a sudden drop of tomato sauce squirted on her face, making her hiss under her breath. She lowered the flame and moved to get the rest of her meal ready, keen on occupying her mind with anything but the man in the other room.

Her wonderful dinner was coming together rather well until, suddenly, a handful of hours later all the lights went out, the TV shut down and the only noise Hermione could hear was the storm on the other side of the cabin’s walls. Well, that, and Malfoy’s litany of colourful curses.

“Chill out, will you?” Hermione screamed as she rushed to the oven, where her beloved lasagna had stopped cooking. “Where is the power generator? Go look for that and stop whining.” Discouragement filled her as she turned off the oven and looked helplessly at the half-finished meal. Was there a spell to cook it? Could she manage with a fire, or something like that?

“What the fuck is a power generator? Lumos,” Malfoy grumbled as he entered the kitchen and lit his wand.

Hermione was herself trying to mutter spells to finish cooking her dinner, but nothing seemed to work well enough. “It’s that thing with the switches for the electrical current… do you really not know? How do you think the lights stay on?!” she exclaimed then, growing more and more irritated by the second. The last thing she needed to face was Malfoy’s pretentious purebloodness and his complete lack of knowledge about the Muggle world.

“I haven’t got the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” Malfoy replied, not looking exactly at ease himself. “Let me see that,” he offered then, kneeling next to Hermione in front of the oven.

In response, she took out the baking pan, closed the oven shut and rose to her feet to put the lasagna in the freezer. “Don’t bother. I’ll have it tomorrow.” She proceeded to set a spell on the fridge to keep it chilly, lest they had to throw away all of their stock. She didn’t allow herself to think about why he was so keen on trying to help her in the first place. Who did he think he was, Merlin reincarnate?

“I do have a high opinion of myself, thank you very much, but that sounds a bit too much even for me. You just seemed particularly passionate about this lasagna,” Malfoy said, somewhere in between annoyed and amused, startling her. She hadn’t realised she’d spoken with her outside voice. “However will Potter take this affront, I wonder?”

“Why are you so obsessed with Harry? Grow up,” she mumbled, and started opening all the pantry doors and drawers in the room. “There should be some candles around, look for them.”

“For Salazar’s sake, Granger,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes dramatically. “And to think you’re supposed to be a witch.”

Hermione snapped a drawer shut, pointing her flaming eyes on his shadowed face. “What is that supposed to mea—”

“Accio candles,” he flatly stated, flicking his wrist. A door on the top right of the sideboard opened and the candles flew right in front of Malfoy; another flick, and they moved to each corner of the room; a last flick, and the space was illuminated again, all dim light and orange-red colours. He clicked his tongue. “Now, wasn’t that easier? Nox.”

Unsure of her feelings about the whole situation, Hermione fell on a chair, holding her head between her hands. “I was really looking forward to that lasagna.”

Her lament was met with the ticking of typing on a phone. She couldn’t feel more stupid than this: sharing her misery with Malfoy while he was ignoring her. Less than a minute later there was the clicking sound of the phone being locked and then, out of the blue: “I can grab dinner for two, if you’d like.”

Hermione opened her eyes and stared at the table, her mind blank. She blinked, then opened her mouth to say something but stopped herself with a quick hand when she realised she didn’t know what it was. She frowned, feeling her head eerily light and blank. Was Malfoy actually trying to be… nice?

Raising her head, she met his eyes. “Sorry, what?” she asked, more to stall than anything because she’d heard him loud and clear. Which Malfoy knew.

“There’s this place nearby that makes canederli al formaggio, do you know what that is? It’s a traditional dish—”

“No, no, no, no—hold on,” she cut him off with a raised hand. “What? ”

Malfoy’s eyebrows quirked upwards. “Would you prefer another bag of chips?”

“Piss off, okay?” She hated his smirk with every fibre of her being, but after a moment of consideration she had to concede. “How much is it?”

“It’s fine, it’s on me.” He grabbed two plates from the sink and cleaned them with another easy flick of his wand.

“You’re not going to buy me dinner, Malfoy,” Hermione rumbled, before going to her room to fetch her wallet. “How much?”

“I don’t know, Granger, I don’t remember. I just make some money materialise in their cash register, it’s fine.”

Hermione fumbled with her wallet, muttering to herself. Something was wrong—something was incredibly wrong. But wasn’t everything wrong, after all? Was Malfoy trying to buy her dinner in some way more wrong than the two of them living together? To the very least, he was putting his hideous money to some good use.

And she was really hungry.

And his meals always smelled so delicious.

Ideally speaking, she would have preferred the lights to be on—the actual lights, and not some candles that risked to create an intimate atmosphere (she shuddered at the thought), but she couldn’t have her cake and eat it too, could she?

She dug out a 20 euro bill and marched back into the kitchen to give it to Malfoy. “I don’t like having debts,” she told him with her arm stretched out in front of him.

He sighed and pocketed the money. “Fine. Sit down, will you?”

The table was already prepared, but Hermione still shifted on her feet for a while. She didn’t even know why she was nervous. Without saying a word, she went to grab two stem glasses and a bottle of red wine, opened it and served it generously while Malfoy made food appear on their plates.

Already sipping on her glass, she sat down while wearily eyeing her plate, something inside of her wondering if she was supposed to expect it to be a trick.

“Cheers,” Malfoy said sarcastically, grabbing his glass and bringing it to his mouth. The signet ring on his left hand clicked against it, and Hermione shivered. “You okay, Granger?” he asked, frowning.

“Yeah, it’s, um… the heating system.” She pulled down the sleeves of her jumper and cocooned herself on the chair. “It’s fine, I’ll just grab a blanket...”

Malfoy flicked his wand again, and Hermione felt a rush of heat embrace her. He moved it again, and a new fire sparked up in the living room’s fireplace, its warmth already spreading in the small cottage. A content sigh left her mouth, and she immediately shut it by shoving a forkful of food in it.

“Since when are you this good at domestic charms?” she asked after swallowing her first bite. The pasta was nothing short of absolutely wonderful.

Malfoy shrugged. “Learned here and there. Feel better?”

Her cheeks pinked. It was the heating spell, it had nothing to do with his sudden concern for her wellbeing. She scoffed inwardly: Malfoy surely did not worry about that.

“Yes, ’s okay,” she mumbled in between bites.

Silence fell between them as they ate. Malfoy, as per usual, seemed as relaxed as he could be: sipping on his wine every now and then, he was savouring the food with such nonchalance that Hermione almost felt invisible. And yet, every nerve in her body was on high alert: she downed her glass so quickly that she was already about to finish her second serving while Malfoy had barely drunk his first, and she kept her eyes fixed on her plate. It was no use taking in the homely image they seemed to create together anyway—because it was anything but homely. 

A faint chime from the bedroom broke the uncomfortable lack of conversation.

“That’s Harry,” Hermione thought out loud, turning her head towards the noise. “He probably thinks I’ve burnt the house down.”

To her horror, Malfoy chuckled. “Can’t help you with that, I’m afraid.”

She narrowed her eyes at him as he finished his wine and poured himself some more. The candlelights played funnily on the pointy edges of his face. It wasn’t like in school though, Hermione noticed. His face. Back then, it was harsh, constantly deformed by a sneer. But time had been benevolent with him: it had evened out his features, leaving behind chiselled shapes; a defined sort of beauty, but somehow gentle in its traits.

“Harry’s fine, by the way,” she heard herself saying after clearing her throat.

Malfoy lifted his head, his face a neutral mask of politeness. “Good to know.”

“You know, since you insisted on asking,” Hermione added before silence could fall once again. She decided to blame it on the wine.

His lips twisted in a slight smirk. “Yeah, well, it’s a funny thing—living for years knowing exactly what Saint Potter is up to, and then having it all disappear from my life. Not that I’m complaining,” he was quick to add, “obviously.”

Despite her best intentions, Hermione didn’t stop talking. “Right. Well, not that you’re interested or anything,” she said, and found she wasn’t surprised when his eyes twinkled, “he’s actually—well, they’re actually pregnant.”

Making conversation with Draco Malfoy. And they said life stopped surprising you after your 25th.

His eyes widened in genuine surprise. “Really?” 

“Uh, yes,” Hermione confirmed, ignoring the part of her brain that was yelling at her that it was Malfoy, why on Earth was she talking about Harry’s future child with Malfoy?! “I just got the news today.”

It was right after putting the lasagna in the oven, earlier in the evening; she’d gone to her room to try and write something while dinner cooked. As soon as she’d sat down at her desk, though, her phone rang, displaying Ginny’s number.

Hermione had replied earnestly, remembering just then about the work call they had scheduled. After she greeted her friend, Ginny’s voice had pitched a higher note than usual and she’d said, “Listen, um, could we switch to a video call for a second? I want to see your face when I tell you this.”

“Sure,” Hermione had agreed with a light frown, turning her camera on. She was busy smoothing down her curls, trying to give it some kind of shape when Ginny appeared on her screen, all smiles and freckles and spaghetti-straight hair. Lucky woman. “What is it, Gin? Should I be worried?”

“No, no, absolutely not,” she’d reassured her, waving a hand around. “On the contrary, I… well, um, we…” Ginny had paused, closing her eyes and exhaling a strengthening breath—which obviously did nothing to calm Hermione. She hadn’t even had time to say something, though, that the youngest Weasley had exclaimed, “We’re pregnant!” smiling from ear to ear.

Hermione had gaped at the screen for so long that her friend thought she’d frozen. “Sorry. You’re… You’re pregnant?”

Ginny’s smile seemed to grow bigger by the second. “Yes! I’ve actually known for a while, but we didn’t want to say anything because… well, you know, it’s just superstition, but…  Anyway, I’d hoped to tell you in person but you’re stuck there and, well, it is what it is, so here we are!”

“Oh, Merlin,” Hermione had exhaled, the news slowly but irrevocably growing bigger into her brain. “Oh, Merlin, Ginny! What the fuck?! You’re pregnant!”

“I am!” her friend had beamed into Hermione’s phone, her eyes shining with happiness.

“So—um, sorry,” Hermione had coughed, trying to swallow the lump of pure joy forming in her throat, “how long have you known?”

“Three months. I—well, we found out the sex today.”

“And?” Hermione had urged when Ginny stalled for a moment.

“And it’s a boy!” Harry’s voice had boomed suddenly while he crowded the screen, his face upside down as he bent over the phone to look into the camera. Ginny’s laugh was the most endearing sound Hermione had ever heard.

“You absolute wanker!” she’d scolded him as he sat down next to his wife, one arm going around her shoulders like it belonged there. “We literally talked to each other just hours ago and you didn’t say anything!”

“Wasn’t my secret to share,” Harry had shrugged while Ginny left a kiss on his bearded cheek. “But, what I can tell you now is the name! Do you want to guess?”

Hermione had rolled her eyes, pretending to be annoyed but actually feeling every bit of love for the two idiots smiling and giggling and beaming on her screen. “Harry, I know you like the back of my hand. You’re calling your son James, obviously.”

Ginny had burst out laughing at Harry’s forlorn expression. “I told you it was predictable, babe.” 

“Okay, fair,” he’d admitted. “But it’s not just James, it’s going to be Ja—”

“James Sirius,” Hermione had anticipated. “James Sirius Potter, right?”

“Oh, sod off, okay?!” he’d thrown his hands in the air. “Yes, we’re calling him James Sirius Potter and we’re going to scream it from the top of the roofs because the whole of London needs to know and he’s going to be the greatest kid ever!” He’d started rambling and gesturing all around, making both Hermione and Ginny start laughing to the point of tears, and in the end his hands were around Ginny’s waist and his mouth inches from her belly, talking directly to the little life forming in there.

It had been the perfect picture of a happy ending, and Hermione refused to believe that it made her sad. It didn’t. She was the happiest godmother-to-be in the entire world.

“Hm,” said Malfoy, back in the present. “A Potter-Weasley in the world. Isn’t that the best.” 

Hermione rolled her eyes, mostly to hide her confusion at his playful tone. “You could just say ‘good for them’, you know. It won’t kill you to be nice for once.”

“Oh, yes, absolutely, good for them,” he repeated, pouring her some wine—which Hermione didn’t acknowledge for the sake of her own sanity. “Do you reckon it’s going to be another redhead?”

She snorted violently, silently thanking Merlin she wasn’t drinking. “You arsehole.”

“I mean, they do have strong genes,” Malfoy laughed, raising his hands in defence.

Hermione shook her head, smiling. “Well, actually,” she began, knocking down some red liquid to ignore the voices in her head loudly asking why she was still making conversation with Malfoy, “Harry’s mum was a redhead herself, so… you never know.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Potter’s mother was a redhead?”

“Yes, she was—”

“Merlin’s beard—and you don’t think that’s creepy?!”

“Why would it be?”

“I don’t know, his mother’s a redhead and his—whatever they are—is a redhead too?”

“It’s just a coincidence, Malfoy,” Hermione laughed at his dismay. “Are you telling me you’ll never fall for a blonde because your mum is a blonde?”

“That’s completely different—it’s different with redheads,” he retorted seriously, pointing a finger at her while something that looked too much like mischief glinted in his eyes.

“Oh, ‘cause you’re such an expert on it,” she teased.

“No, but, please, do offer your opinion as an expert on it,” he answered, raising an eyebrow eloquently.

Hermione closed off immediately, her smile suddenly vanishing from her face. It was one thing to share a nice dinner and a good bottle of wine, another one altogether to have the conversation steer towards their personal lives.

Malfoy was quick to catch the instant change in her demeanour. “Sorry, I didn’t mean...”

“It’s nothing.” She stood from the table and took her empty plate to the sink. “I really am no expert on redheads, despite common opinion.” She washed the dish, wondering why she wasn’t using magic but unable to put down the washing-up liquid. No matter how much time passed, it still stung when she had to think about Ron in that way.

The fact that it had been none other than Draco Malfoy to make her mind take that path was only adding to the desolating feeling of it all.

She heard him shift on his chair, probably to look at her and say something when, almost by magic, the lights turned back on.

“Oh,” Hermione commented, looking around. “Good.”

“Ah, yes, I texted Giacomo.” Malfoy grabbed his phone and read what must be the host’s reply. “He says there was a blackout in the entire village, so this must mean it’s over.”

“Right,” Hermione said, closing herself in her arms. There was a very uncomfortable kind of sensation growing in the middle of her chest. “Well, I guess I’m just going to…” Her eyes moved towards the bedroom.

“Yes, right,” Malfoy agreed, standing up himself and cleaning the table. She moved to help him, but he stopped her. “I got this.”

From up close, Hermione noticed that there were flakes of green in his grey eyes.

She nodded in thanks and left the kitchen without another word, before closing herself in the bathroom to go through her night routine.

Minutes later in her bed, Hermione was struggling to fall asleep. Twisting and turning in the sheets, it felt like her mind refused to click on the off switch. She listened to the noises coming from the bathroom—the toilet lid being shut, the water running in the tub, random teeth cleaning sounds; for some reason, she couldn’t ignore them like she usually did. At the same time, she stupidly refused to cast a silencing spell, because she didn’t want to pass off as the ungrateful one who wanted to pretend Malfoy didn’t exist after he bought her dinner. (Technically, she had paid him back, but—it was more of a conceptual thing.)

In the living room, the sofa shifted and creaked under Malfoy’s weight as he slipped under the covers, and Hermione clung to the duvet as she kept listening to the sounds he made. The heating system was working again, but when she willed her eyes closed, she found herself wishing she’d asked Malfoy about his warming spell.

She wrapped her arms around her body, her fingers digging in the plaid fabric of her pyjamas. Absent-mindedly, her hand moved underneath the shirt, palm splaying over the bones of her ribcage. Laying on her side as she was, she could count them.

Eyes closed, Hermione focused on her breathing. In and out, a constant motion that could have lulled her to sleep, if not for the presence of something gnawing at the back of her brain—let it be Ginny’s pregnancy, let it be the trail of thoughts the second-to-last Weasley always brought with him, or let it be the general restlessness that had accompanied her for the past seven days—whatever the reason, Hermione’s mind still failed to slip into unconsciousness.

She rolled on her back, eyes adjusting to the darkness of the room. There had been a moment, while packing, when she’d had to decide whether or not to bring some sleeping draught along with her; eventually, she’d resolved to use her insomnia as a chance to write and make the best out of the situation. Except that now, the very thought of crawling out of bed and facing the white light of the still-blank page was just… depressing. Incredibly depressing.

Maybe she would read something instead. Or watch something. Did she feel like it, though?

Hermione closed her eyes again, exhaling slowly and forcing herself not to think about her life. Think about the book. What was she going to write about, tomorrow? She could outline the first meeting. Or a dance scene. Was there going to be a dance scene? Maybe. Yes. Or she could write the fight between the main characters. Or, even better, the final plot twist.

There were no more noises coming from the other side of the wall. 

Tomorrow’s writing would have to be tomorrow’s problem, Hermione concluded when she felt her heartbeat falter, and she squeezed herself tightly in her own arms. One thing she had yet to decide was whether her heroine, too, was going to sleep in a cold, empty bed at the end of the book.

Nope, she thought resolutely, we’re not going there, we’re not going there, not tonight, we’re not, and she flipped on her other side.

It would have been nice, though—she found herself thinking against her own best interest—if it wasn’t just her hand skimming her skin, and if it wasn’t just the duvet keeping her warm. It had been too long now. She didn’t exactly miss it; or, well, she wasn’t sure what exactly she was missing—whether it was the physical presence of a man next to her or the pleasure she might derive from it.

Still.

It would have been nice.

Hermione shifted on her back again and stared at the ceiling. There was always that one way to effectively silence her mind and put her to sleep in a snap of her fingers. After all, Malfoy was already asleep, so—no, wait, maybe it was best not to think about Malfoy.

Her eyes flicked shut, and her hand slid between her legs.

The best thing about masturbation, Hermione had found out in her teens, was that it completely, totally and irrevocably cleared her mind. It left no room for troubling thoughts, there was no time for overthinking—there were only jolts of physical sensations that made their way straight from her core to her brain and needed to be let out. In those moments, her mind was finally free to paint an impressionistic picture of everything and nothing at the same time: against her closed eyelids, there were reels of hands, fingers, mouths, tongues, nipples, muscles, all summing up to bring her inexorably to a perfect climax.

She stroked herself slowly, purposefully but languidly, and when she caught herself wishing her fingers were a tongue instead, she quickened her pace, squeezing her eyes in concentration. One hand went to her breasts, massaging the soft flesh, tweaking her nipples. Flashes of different lips overlapped in her mind—lipstick-coloured and lipstick-stained, smooth and bearded, smiling and pouting and gasping and grinning.

Then, a very detailed image arrogantly elbowed its way to the front of her imagination, suppressing all the others: a glass of red wine brought to a smirking mouth. Long, slender fingers holding it. A signet ring adorning one of them.

Hermione bit the pillow to stifle the loud and throaty moan that risked echoing in the room as she suddenly fell over the edge and came.

She didn’t give her breath the time to even out that she hastily pulled her hands away from her knickers and apparated into the bathroom, her knees feeling no better than cheap jelly. In less than a minute, she was back in bed, tightly curled up in a fetal position, shocked and appalled with herself for reaching one of the best orgasms of her life while thinking of Draco bloody Malfoy.

Chapter Text

8th of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

When Malfoy entered the kitchen the next day mumbling his usual gruff and flat “Morning,” Hermione was pulled out of her thoughts rather abruptly, causing her to jump on the chair and her tea to spill all over the table.

“Merlin, Granger, it’s just me,” he commented emotionlessly as he went to fill the kettle to make his own tea. Hermione found herself thanking every single existing and non-existing deity for the fact that, currently, it was their backs facing one another and not their faces, because she’d have absolutely no idea how to explain the violent shade of red that instantly claimed her cheeks.

She was reaching for a cloth when the spilled liquid vanished under her eyes. “Seriously,” she exclaimed as her embarrassment transformed into sudden irritation and she turned to face him, “you have to tell me when and why you became such an expert in domestic charms.”

Malfoy was leaning against the kitchen counter, hair still dripping from the morning shower. His body was wrapped in a blue bathrobe that—tragically—left little to no room for imagination, especially because of the way the heavy fabric was moving as he scratched the back of his head with his wand while eyeing the kettle on the stove. The moment she realised she was staring a bit too intently at the way his bicep was flexing under the long sleeve, it took Hermione a fair share of willpower to turn back to her breakfast.

“You haven’t seen me in a bit, now, Granger.”

“And I have never complained,” she retorted while gathering her mug and placing it in the sink.  

“Speaking of house magic,” Malfoy said as he followed Hermione’s movements in the kitchen with his eyes, “did you apparate in the bathroom last night or was that crack something coming from my imagination?” 

Hermione was pretty sure her face was dangerously steering towards the purple area of the colour spectrum. Deny! screamed her brain, but could she trust Malfoy to believe it was just his mind going crazy? Improvise.

“I did. Ladies’ emergency.” She pointed to her stomach to make the matter more clear. “Don’t really want to share details with you.”

She missed his smirk as he watched her walk out of the kitchen and straight into her bedroom.

What Hermione had decided she was not going to do was thinking, even for the smallest part of a second, about what had happened the previous night. It happened. It was done. There was no reason for her to hyper-fixate on it and try to find a logical explanation, because there simply wasn’t one. Malfoy’s hand had flashed across her mind and that was it. Besides, let’s be honest: Malfoy did have really nice hands, like, objectively. So, really, was she to blame? Physically—and strictly physically—speaking, there was no need to make such a fuss. It wasn’t like who he was as a person had a role in making her come; it was just a hand. No big deal.

She’d masturbated to a thousand hands in her life, after all. Well, maybe not exactly a thousand but, you know… quite a few. There was no point in denying that, it was the truth. Lots of people had made an appearance in her late-night fantasies and her friendship with said hands-owners had not crumbled to pieces yet, so there was no reason to believe the Malfoy situation would be any different. There wasn’t even a relationship of sorts between them. And it wasn’t like he was ever going to find out either.

That would be a funny conversation: “I thought about you in order to fall asleep.” Mhm, not quite. “I thought about your hands while mine was between my legs.” Better. She could already hear his sneering answer ringing loud and clear in her head: “Should I take it as a compliment?” Would he be appalled? Presumably. He was probably mature enough not to be scandalised at the very act of Hermione pleasing herself, though, which was a point in his favor. After all, despite all that was going on between them—generically speaking—people would talk back in school, voices used to go around, and there was a certain reputation following Malfoy that Hermione couldn’t ignore even if she’d wanted to. Not that she’d ever spared it more than a reluctant, fleeting thought; and she wasn’t developing a sudden interest in it now, either. Malfoy’s relationship with sex could stay blissfully out of her mind, thank you very much.

Hermione wrapped herself in a clean jumper and sat cross-legged on the chair at the desk, bringing her laptop as close to her as possible. It’d been eight days now. She absolutely had to write something, if only just to distract herself from the impending sense of doom she felt around the corner of her mind.

She clicked on the draft document and searched her handwritten notes to get into the right headspace. A deep breath and the decision not to resort to white wine at barely half past ten in the morning later, and her fingers were click-clacking on the keyboard.

Dead. Monica Temple was dead and the last memory Richard had with her was of a fight.

The ringing in his ears as he helplessly stared at pictures of her on TV was so loud that he didn’t even hear a single word Jamie was telling him. He faintly realised the other man was trying to shake him back into reality, but the whole world felt dizzy, fuzzy, blurry, just a second away from disappearing for good.

Why had Malfoy’s hand appeared so clearly in her mind, though?

Thinking rationally about all the previous instances that something similar happened in her life, if Hermione had to form a pattern she would say that, generally, the common denominator was the personal relationship she had with whosoever-turn-it-was. There had obviously been Viktor: her first kiss, her first peek into physical intimacy. She’d never found anything particularly weird about that, and besides, the boy did have a Quidditch-physique. Then, once or twice (even though she would never admit it, not even in a billion years, not even under the effect of Veritaserum), the twins. Ron, clearly, pointless to deny it—especially after she’d caught him one too many times leaving the Prefects’ bathroom. The secret she was going to bring to her grave was Harry—but that was proof of the fact that the world was not going to stop moving around the Sun just because once, at fifteen, she’d closed her eyes and thought, Hm. Harry Potter. And then Marcus, her parents’ neighbours’ son, even though that was slightly different from the others.

Point was, she’d never looked at a complete stranger’s hands and then pictured them against her closed eyelids at night. It was true that—still technically speaking—Malfoy wasn’t a simple stranger, but it was also very well true that he was nothing like Viktor, or the twins, or Ron, or Harry, or even bloody Marcus.

Hermione groaned and let her head fall back onto the chair’s backrest, hopelessly eyeing the blinking cursor on the white screen as she tried to gather all of her strength into stopping her focus from staying obsessively on Malfoy and shifting more productively towards her novel instead.

Sighing resignedly, she decided it was useless to keep trying to write the opening scene and clicked on a new blank page, where she began to write without giving herself time to decide what, exactly, she was about to put out in black on white.

Parties had always stressed her out. There was something about the large number of people gathering all together that set her senses on high alert, and Monica was yet to find the precise number of champagne glasses she had to down in order to finally feel at ease.

It wasn’t like that for William. He always seemed to thrive at parties, suddenly turning into the centre of attention, ready to dispense jokes to whomever might look in need of one. And yet, when Monica finally managed to have his head turn towards her, the tiredness in the circles under his eyes was unmistakable.

“Oh, dear. Is Hannah drowning you out?”…

Lunchtime came and went without Hermione moving as much as an eyebrow. Hours later, when the rumblings of her stomach became impossible to ignore, she typed a full stop and looked at her now very beautiful, very pretty, very stimulating and very exciting word count. She didn’t have a whole book in her hands yet, but she had half a chapter, which wasn’t nothing.

After stretching her arms and massaging her sore stomach, Hermione grabbed her phone to text Ginny the good news. The picture of an ultrasound welcomed her in the chat: written in Harry’s intelligible handwriting, there was a speech bubble next to the forming head, saying, “Hiya! I’m James & you’re my godmum! ”. Hermione chuckled, oddly feeling her tear ducts clog up; maybe her period was getting close, after all.

She emerged from her self-imposed isolation to head for the fridge, hoping to throw together a resemblance of a sandwich.

In the living room, unbothered, was Malfoy, still watching TV.

Hermione hesitated a bit on the threshold, taking off the blue-light glasses to rub her eyes, unsure whether to announce her presence or just ignore him. She opted for the latter when she saw he didn’t break his focus and walked decidedly into the kitchen. Her head was already trying to whisper treacherous things to her, doing its best to steer her thinking toward Malfoy. He was right there; Hermione could turn, stare at him blankly and come up with a thousand different scenarios about non-existing turns and twists of their unavoidable relationship that would all equally end up pissing her off. It was truly magical how much of an overthinker she was.

She distracted herself by concentrating on the kitchen noises. The rusting of the bread-bag. The toaster lighting up and sizzling. The sticky and mushy sound of ham slices being peeled from one another. The knife cutting the cheese. Leaning against the table, she took a bite. Right into her line of sight was a clock (almost four in the afternoon) and the TV in the living room. A show was on, something with a fake laugh track in the background. Malfoy was snorting every now and then, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

“What are you watching?” Before she could finish the question, she was already regretting asking it. Alas, it was out there now, she’d lost control over it, and it was stupid for her heart to be racing like that—she was not going to have the beginning of a panic attack because of Draco bloody Malfoy.

He barely turned his head towards her, eyes still on the screen. “Friends, it’s an American show. Do you know it?”

“Heard about it.” Maybe this endless interest in Muggle comedies should be suspicious. Where did it come from? How long has it been going on? Was it realistic that in none of those films someone had to use a power generator?

“How is it?”

“Pretty funny, actually.” He turned completely. “Is that enough to cover a skipped lunch?” His chin pointed at the sad excuse of a sandwich in her hands.

Hermione shrugged, munching on. “I was working.”

Malfoy hummed, still looking at her. “Since when do you wear glasses?”

“Oh, these,” Hermione mumbled while swallowing a bite, “these are for the laptop screen. I spend way too much time staring at it.” Harry had thrown a ridiculous tantrum when she told him she was going to spend money on glasses even though her eyesight was perfect. Everyone had looked at him as though he’d gone mental: who would have guessed that his breaking point wasn’t coming from Voldemort, or Umbridge, or even the rat he refused to dignify with a name, but from his best friend buying blue-light glasses.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. Hermione felt the need to tear her gaze away, but found she couldn’t. Her body had momentarily stopped responding to her commands. He turned back around, not before giving his opinion. 

“Nice frame. It suits you.”

She blinked at the back of his head, once, twice; then frowned. Maybe this was just a twisted dream.

“That’s called a nightmare, and you should stop thinking out loud,” he called from the sofa. 

“Godric help me,” Hermione muttered as she finished her sandwich, her cheeks blushing furiously, and wiped her hands clean from the crumbs.

When she was five steps away from her bedroom door, Malfoy’s voice rose again over the television. “What are you working on, anyway?”

It may not be a nightmare, but all this was definitely not real. It couldn’t be, not in the sense that most things are real. What was real, anyway? It was just a philosophical concept, completely arbitrary, that humans used to make sense of the world. Something was happening, but only Hermione and Malfoy were aware of it: she hadn’t told anyone, and he hadn’t told anyone. How could it be real, if no one else even knew it was happening? Real-ness had to be a relative concept; maybe it was real for her, but it wasn’t real for Ginny. And if it wasn’t real for the entire world minus two, then it wasn’t real at all.

For fuck’s sake, she’d masturbated thinking about him. How on Earth could that be real?

She squeezed her eyes and took her glasses off, placing them on the top of her head. She’d written half a chapter today: she deserved a break.

“Don’t react in any weird way,” Hermione warned him as she sat on the sofa next to Malfoy, who pressed himself into the opposite corner to make room for her. When she saw he kept his eyes on the TV screen, she took a deep breath, and then, “I’m writing a novel.”

He nodded, a hint of a smile on his face. She rolled her eyes.

“Go on, say what you want to say.”

“I don’t want to say anything.” He kept smiling at the television.

“Then what’s that look?”

“What look?”

“This,” Hermione said, poking his cheek with her finger, “look.”

He tilted his head towards her. “Nothing. I’m just… not surprised.” Before she could address him in a not-overly-polite way, Malfoy added: “What’s it about?”

Hermione occupied her hands with her hair, for no particular reason other than making them do something. She felt fidgety, and running her fingers through her curls somewhat helped. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening in the real world. She might as well tell him.

“Well. It’s a thriller-slash-romance.” She glanced at him; the episode was still on in the background, but Malfoy’s focus was solely on her now. “Um—the main character is a journalist, Monica. But the story starts with her love interest’s point of view, Richard, who finds out that Monica is… well, dead.” Hermione paused. He was the first person outside of her close friends circle she was telling the plot to. Malfoy seemed to contemplate for a few moments.

“Sorry, your protagonist is dead?”

“Uh, yes, I said it was a thriller—but,” Hermione went on, springing up when she caught the flicker of interest in his eyes, “the story is told in two different timelines: the present one, where Monica is dead, and the past one, where Monica is alive and she’s investigating the story that will eventually lead to her death.”

“And what’s the story?” Hermione felt weirdly self-conscious about him staring intensely at her, but she pushed through her nervousness.

“Well, basically she’s investigating a rising political star of a far-right party. She believes this man is not actually a newcomer on the political scene, but has in fact developed a second identity to hide the crimes he’d committed roughly twenty years before, namely the assassination of two other journalists, who had died under ‘mysterious circumstances’. She feels very strongly about this case because she read their previous work and also because they’re her best friend’s parents. In addition to that, this man is really not a good person overall and is spreading a very concerning ideology, so Monica is worried that conservative families who have power and influence in London will buy into his agenda and give him more and more voice.”

Malfoy was nodding seriously and listening carefully, his cheeks twitching every now and then when he kept a smile to himself.

“The romance begins when Monica decides to ask her ex-boyfriend, Richard, who comes from a powerful family with old money, to help her infiltrate London’s high society,” Hermione went on, surprised that he hadn’t shut her up yet. “Except that she doesn’t tell him exactly that, because they’d broken up due to his family in the first place, years prior, so there’s a lot of unresolved tension and issues there—so she kind of plays him. But while she’s completely focused on the work, Richard catches feelings for her again and things go south from there. And that’s all I’m going to tell you, because otherwise you’ll know all the plot twists,” she concluded with a little giggle, before clearing her throat self-consciously. 

He kept looking at her for a while, before shifting his gaze towards the television. Hermione had a feeling he was still going over the plot, though.

“How much of it is inspired by true events?”

She frowned. “It’s an original story.”

His head fell on the sofa’s back pillow. “I believe it is. I just think that the influential politician with an alias, who killed her best friend’s parents and then comes back to gain more power…” He opened his arms and made a face, eyes dancing around the room. “It rings a bell.”

“Fuck you, Malfoy,” Hermione scoffed, punching him lightly on the shoulder. “Let me cope with my trauma alone, okay?” She deliberately ignored the fact that he, too, had had a part in shaping her trauma in the first place, and stupidly decided to muse over a different, equally true fact instead: he felt way less bony under her fist than she might have anticipated. But then again, Malfoy had been the Slytherin seeker for most of his time at Hogwarts.

He chuckled, massaging the point where her knuckles had met his muscles. Then added: “It’s compelling, though. When do you think you’ll be finished?”

“That’s the fun part,” Hermione sighed, sinking into the comfortable cushions. “I don’t know. I was hoping to lock myself in here to write it, but…” She glanced at him. “You know.”

Malfoy opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut short by Hermione’s piercing scream when the television suddenly turned off and the lights flashed off and on, the low and powerful rumble of thunder crashing nearby making her jump. It lasted two, maybe three seconds, but when the light was steadily on again, Hermione found herself ducked under her own arm, body paralysed in fear, and her hand clinging tightly to Draco’s.

After her breath turned back to normal and she realised they weren’t in imminent danger, Hermione blinked at the firm grip, stunned. Malfoy’s complexion had always been pale; in sixth year, it had almost turned gray. It wasn’t ill-looking now, but it was still incredibly wan. Right there, in contrast with her golden skin, the difference was stark: he was clear and white. The pattern of his green-blue veins was distinctly traceable under the translucent skin. The bones on the back of his hand were sharp, ready to cut through the flesh: Hermione could sense each of his knuckles under her palm. One of her fingers was resting on his left ring finger, where the signet ring’s cold metal was breaking the warmth of the tactile impression of him.

Hermione let go as though she’d been scorched.

Malfoy broke the silence. “It’s just a little storm, Granger,” he said. He didn’t sound playful nor amused, but Hermione couldn’t find the right word to describe the feeling his tone stirred. It wasn’t nasty, but it wasn’t comforting, either. Maybe it was a bit thrown off, just like she was feeling.

“Call it ‘little’,” she mumbled, gathering her legs up under her chin and locking her arms around them protectively. “It hasn’t stopped for a second in eight days.”

“The forecast says it might start easing down around the day after tomorrow.” He grabbed a second blanket to cover himself; Hermione had claimed the one he’d been using.

“Oh, really?” Maybe he’d leave then, Hermione thought. Good. Excellent. “Um, so, is your friend going to…?” she asked instead, remembering about his first phone call.

(First of many. As it turned out, the widespread myth about Slytherins prioritising family over everything was not just a myth: Malfoy’s friends were always extremely keen on knowing where he was, what he was doing, and whether or not he was keeping himself decently alive. Oppressive at times, but in a good way.)

“Who, Nott? No, he’s not coming, I told him not to risk it.” Hermione hummed. “Besides, I’m leaving anyway, aren’t I?” She barely turned to look at him and—there it was again. A cheeky grin. Shocking on his face, truly. Not the grin itself; more the way it really complimented his features. It lifted his cheekbones, which were already particularly high.

“Right.” With nothing else to say, Hermione tried to focus on the episode airing on TV. After a few minutes passed in silence, she returned to her thoughts. What was she still doing there? All of a sudden, Malfoy’s closeness was impossible to ignore.

Her feet were inches away from his thighs.

Her right knee, if moved, would brush against his chest.

Her right shoulder was practically touching his left one.

His arm was angled on the back pillow, to keep his head propped up. A breath away from her back, and probably already covered in her curls.

His arm.

His left arm.

The oddest feeling took the best of Hermione. Something in her told her to recoil immediately, to stand up, to go back to her room and lock herself in there until he’d finally left the cabin. It screamed “Danger!”, it yelled “Run!”, it barked “Constant vigilance!” in an uncanny imitation of Mad-Eye’s rough voice. But something else was there, too, something that didn’t really speak in loud alerts but that Hermione couldn’t possibly ignore all the same. It was a patchwork of memories, a pull towards an irrational urge to empathise with people—with him—something that brought her back to Malfoy’s trial and decided to insist on the classmate part, not the Death Eater one. That man wasn’t just a stranger with a tattoo that meant literal death, he was someone she knew, someone she could understand. Half of her mind was telling her, “Hey, you silly girl with a soft heart, this is the boy who stood by and watched as his aunt tortured you in his house”. The other half, instead, was saying with equal strength, “He didn’t watch. It might not be an excuse or an assolution, and to some people—to your friends—it actually makes him a coward, but he turned away. You were all just seventeen.”

The war had happened to them.

“Granger? Are you okay?” Malfoy snapped his fingers in front of her, furrowing his brows as he scanned her face. Hermione blinked, finding herself turned towards him, her eyes meticulously analysing his features. He looked so much like his father: the colours, the proportions, the shape of his face. But something else was there, too: the shape of his eyes, the curve of his nose. Hermione had seen Narcissa Malfoy only a couple of times over the years, but the image of the woman’s cousin and niece (not to mention her sister) were pretty familiar to her—the Black traits on Malfoy’s face were impossible to miss.

And yet, nothing was more evident than the signs of time. There were wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. His hair wasn’t perfectly slicked back and styled anymore, but ruffled and missing that signature shininess of his teen days. His gaze bore the weariness only years, and the participation in a war, could give.

He’d shaved that morning; she could smell the moss scent of his aftershave.

The television, with the fake laughters echoing all around the room, was suddenly too loud. A man and a woman were sitting at a table, where she was complaining. “I’ll die an old maid,” she said. The man tried to cheer her up, his tone encouraging as he joked, “You’re not going to die an old maid. Maybe an old spinster cook.” Hermione felt her heart start ringing in her ears as the man went on: “Hey now, besides. Worse comes to worst, I’ll be your boyfriend.” The woman laughed straight in his face, the laugh track joining her instantly.

Malfoy was about to wave his hand in front of her face again, when against all better judgment, Hermione leaned in and kissed him.

Her head started spinning so fast that it blanked out. It was like the whole world, the whole universe even, disappeared into a tornado of blur, and the only palpable thing—the only real thing for Hermione was the feel of Malfoy’s mouth against her lips.

Amongst the absurdity that was crashing against the walls of her brain, a single thought formed: soft.

Malfoy’s lips were soft.

He was as still as a statue, and Hermione figured he was probably looking at her as though she’d gone completely bonkers. Maybe she had. But she wasn’t all the same able to bring herself to pull away, to duck and cover into her room.

Shockingly, after what felt like eons but were probably just a handful of milliseconds, Malfoy’s hand slid on her cheek and he started kissing her back.

His mouth parted just slightly, catching her lower lip as their noses brushed together. It was soft, so soft, and as sweet as sour candy. Hermione felt like melting when his fingers crept into her hair, cupping her ear, and his thumb traced a short line alongside her temple. It was all feeling and sensations; her mind was struggling to put the pieces together, her brain was failing to paint an accurate picture of what was actually happening. Everything that was left for her to comprehend was the sensory experience.

A warm palm against her head.

The quiet rising-and-falling of his chest, flush against hers.

The muffled rustling of the blankets, adding warmth to their bodies.

Malfoy’s tongue sliding into her mouth to caress hers.

Hermione opened her eyes in a flash.

Malfoy’s tongue sliding into her mouth to caress hers.

It happened in the blink of an eye, but one moment they were kissing and the next one Hermione was steady on her feet, Malfoy was cupping his left cheek, grimacing, and the loud smack of Hermione’s slap was still ricocheting around the two of them.

A few seconds of silence went on without Hermione doing so much as breathing.

“Ow,” he lamented, massaging his cheek.

“Fuck,” she mumbled, coming to her senses and covering her mouth with both hands. “Sorry, I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

He had the audacity to scoff. “It’s fine, Granger.”

“It’s not fine, I shouldn’t have—and you shouldn’t have—and we—” Hermione stammered, groaning when she saw the look on Malfoy’s face, something that looked too much like exasperation. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?!”

“Do you really want an answer?” Malfoy hissed, his hand still stroking his reddened skin. He narrowed his eyes, and suddenly he was the twelve-year-old in the Hogwarts courtyard that was about to let her know exactly how much spite one person could fuel into a single insult.

“Piss off,” Hermione muttered, feeling dangerously close to tears. She spun on her heels and rushed to her room, falling on the bed as the door slammed shut behind her.

Chapter Text

10th of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

It was almost eight in the evening when there was a knock on her door. Hermione turned reluctantly, her mind still caught in the scene she was writing. She looked at the blonde head peeping in her room, her eyebrows raised questioningly.

Malfoy pointed his thumb behind him. “Dinner’s ready.” Her eyebrows knitted together. Malfoy crossed his arms and leaned on the doorframe. “If you want to join me.”

“Why?”

He blinked at her for a few seconds. When he realised she was actually waiting for an answer, he said, “Um… to be nice? I guess?”

Hermione’s confusion didn’t dissipate. “Why would you want to be nice to me?”

“Merlin, Granger,” he replied exasperatedly, opening his arms in resignation, “because we’ve been living together for ten days and I thought, well, let’s try and do a civil thing. Sorry if I offended your feelings—”

“Why would you want to do a civil thing and have dinner with me given everything…” she trailed off, her throat closing up when she tried to say what, exactly, had gone down between the two of them.

The kiss had been haunting her for the past 48 hours. If there was a way to get it out of her mind, Hermione couldn’t find it; the logical consequence was to start obsessing over it. Every time her focus shifted to some undefined void, she replayed the moment in her head—and it happened time and again.

She vividly remembered how his lips felt against hers; she could hear the small intake of a surprised breath Malfoy barely had the chance to catch before she closed the distance; she could recite what the characters on the TV show were saying by heart. She could still hear the wind howling outside, and she could still smell the aftertaste of her sandwich on her tongue, just like she could still taste him in her mouth. Cigarettes and everything.

The night before, she’d caught herself licking her lips, subconsciously looking for the distinct sensation that memory brought with it. When she saw him rub his hands on his face in the morning, she’d felt some distant longing for the way he’d touched her face when he kissed her back.

“You haven’t spoken to me in two days. I thought it would have gone on forever,” Hermione said to take her mind off her dangerous train of thoughts.

Malfoy tilted his head to one side, sighing. “Granger, if I stopped talking to everyone who ever slapped me, you and I wouldn’t be speaking since third year.”

Right. The slap. Not the kiss. That wasn’t the important point.

Hermione crossed her arms. “It was a punch.”

“Then punched, my most sincere apologies for the mistake,” Malfoy scoffed, almost bowing his head. He didn’t see Hermione’s mildly irritated reaction because he turned back to glance towards the kitchen. “So, dinner?”

There was no real reason why Hermione decided to stand up and follow him. Curiosity, maybe. Some kind of twisted, morbid curiosity that she would never get rid of and that, right now, was begging for her to find the reason why Malfoy—Malfoy, of all people—was behaving like a decent person. He’d managed to surprise her effortlessly; maybe he deserved a chance.

“This is… impressive,” she said as she sat at her usual spot. The large wooden table was right in the middle of the room; Hermione always occupied the seat closest to the sink. The last time they’d dined together, Malfoy had sat opposite of her. This time, he took the head of the table. Not that it made much difference to Hermione. He was just closer.

In front of her was already a plate of risotto, with something sprinkled on top that she was almost sure was…

“Is this truffle?”

“It sure is,” Malfoy simply replied as he went to grab the grater from the counter near the stove. “Want some more?”

“Do you know how much that costs or is money just an abstract concept for you?” Malfoy only shrugged as he added some more flakes of truffle on top of her serving as well. “Thank you,” she mumbled with a frown, trying to ignore the way her digestive system was doing exciting somersaults at the delicious and refined smell.

Malfoy sat down and opened a bottle of wine. Hermione kept watching with her hands in her lap as he poured two glasses in a perfect imitation of an exclusive restaurant’s waiter. Not even the shadow of a drop touched the white tablecloth.

“Cheers,” he said then, tilting his glass towards her.

Hermione looked at him sideways, humming back and downing a large mouthful of wine. She knew right away that it wasn’t one of her bottles: she might not be a sommelier, but she could tell bad wine, good wine and exceptional wine apart. And this one definitely fell in the latter category. As she was internally debating between stroking Malfoy’s ego and biting back her pleasant surprise by feigning disinterest, he spoke.

“So, funny thing,” he said as he spread his risotto wider on his plate. “I was talking to Pansy earlier and it might have slipped me that…”

“Oh my God, she knows I’m here.” Hermione panicked immediately: if Pansy Parkinson knew, then it was only a matter of minutes before the entire wizarding world knew, too. Which meant that it was already in the public domain. There was probably a special edition of Witch Weekly going into printing right now, with an editorial signed by the Slytherin princess herself about the unbelievable accident that was going to be the sensation of the winter.

Pages and pages outlining Malfoy’s life and character, as many about Hermione, too, about their clashes and their history, and then, right in the middle of the magazine, along with pictures and drawings, there would be some awfully romanticised story about how they were brought together by destiny, two abandoned souls who were always meant to end up together, no matter everything that had gone down between them, because, at the end of the day, love conquers all… Or some equally saccharine bullshit.

“No, Granger, she doesn’t know you’re here.” Malfoy pulled her back to the present with an overdramatic eye-roll. “But,” he went on before Hermione’s cheeks could return to their natural colour, “I might have said something about the Potters’ pregnancy.”

Hermione blinked at him for a couple of seconds before groaning. “Oh, fuck you. This is why you cooked dinner! Trying to sweeten me with expensive food.”

Malfoy chuckled, glancing at her. His navy pullover made the colour of his eyes stand out. It wasn’t Hermione’s case: if anything, her hand-knitted Christmas jumper emphasised her impossible-to-cut attachment to the Weasley family.

“To be fair, I was in the middle of cooking when she called.”

“You actually cooked this?” He hummed with a nod. “Oh. It’s…” Well, fuck the ego-stroking paranoia; he deserved it. “It’s delicious.”

“Glad to hear that,” he smiled before giving her an almost sheepish look. “But Pansy still knows. I didthreaten her to keep the secret, but I fear she’s become immune to my threats…”

Hermione scoffed despite herself, and then sighed. “Well, it was bound to get out, sooner or later. I’m actually impressed they managed to keep the secret this long.”

“This long? What do you mean?”

“Ginny’s three months gone. Baby’s due in…” She moved her fingers quickly while doing the math. “June.”

“Oh, really?” Malfoy’s mouth quivered with a smile.

“Uh, yes, you know how pregnancies work…”

“No, I mean—it’s funny because I was born in June,” he explained with a wave of his hand. “It’s just a funny coincidence.”

Hermione vaguely remembered some celebrations at the Slytherin table happening at the end of the school year. She’d never paid much attention to them, mostly due to the fact that the end of the year usually coincided with some ambush on Harry’s life and thus, consequently, on hers. But as she tried—although not easily—to put the few pieces together, she did actually remember something about cakes and calls for exclusive parties in the dungeons.

“It’s the… I want to say the first week, right?”

“The 5th, yes,” Malfoy nodded. “Maybe you should alert Potter, so they’ll be able to work around that date.” She snorted, shaking her head. If the great James Sirius Potter was to be born on the 5th of June like Draco Malfoy, Harry would have to be brought to the hospital for seizures.

“Did you also tell her how you found out?”

“You see, Granger,” he smirked, “I’m actually very good at keeping secrets. It just slipped this one time.”

The kitchen was better lit than the last time they had dinner together, but the soft light still complimented Malfoy’s facial structure particularly well. He had a ruffled fringe now. The hair on his forehead shadowed his eyes just slightly.

“Anyway,” he went on, oblivious to the way Hermione’s eyes were scrutinising his every movement, “darling Pansy went on a stroll down memory lane and started blabbering about our ex-classmates—which I will spare you...”

“How kind.”

“But she did mention rumours of a possible Weasley wedding in the near future,” he concluded, looking at her with no trace of humour in his eyes. Her grip on the fork trembled for a second. “She, um. She mentioned your name. And I obviously didn’t say anything,” he rushed to add when Hermione’s flaming gaze cut to him, “but… well. I thought you should know.”

Hermione took several deep breaths, all the while playing with the food on her plate. She could hear her mother’s chastising voice in her head, food is not a toy, but her mind was somewhere else.

“Ron and I have been broken up for two years now,” she said eventually, her voice hard and fragile at the same time. “How can there still be rumours about me?”

“You know as well as I do that people make all kinds of assumptions.”

“People have always made assumptions about me.” And Hermione was tired. How dare they, after everything? And why did they even care? Hadn’t they had enough of talking about the Golden Girl? “I hate it so much.”

“You shouldn’t spare them a thought,” Malfoy shrugged. Hermione’s stomach had tied into knots, though, and she knew they weren’t going away anytime soon.

“Oh, thank you, that’s very helpful,” she hissed. “You’re the one who told me in the first place.”

He turned to look at her with wide, innocent eyes. “I thought you should know, not that you should let it affect your night.”

Hermione chuckled mirthlessly. “You have no idea how it is, Malfoy.” What did he even know. He was the master of assumptions, the king of prejudice, the emperor of bias. “My very best friends had made stupid assumptions about me before actually taking the chance to know to me.”

“Well, if you were looking for symptoms of intelligence in Potter and Weasley—”

“Shut up. Just shut up,” Hermione cut him off, then pushed her plate towards the centre of the table. Rubbing her hands on her face, she felt weariness claiming her body and mind. All she wanted to do was lock herself in her bedroom, no matter how rude that would be after Malfoy’s oddly generous gesture. “I cannot believe I can’t escape this even when I’m a thousand miles away, isolated in a cabin in the middle of nowhere in the Italian Alps.”

After a long moment, she heard the noise of the fireplace crackling with life. Then, the glugging of wine being poured. She peeked at Malfoy through her fingers: he was still sitting, holding his wand. The bottle was tilting into her glass, by itself.

Those beautiful domestic charms.

“Let’s play a game.” He smiled when Hermione looked at him as though he’d gone crazy. “Tell me a big assumption people make about you that’s completely wrong.”

“Just one?” she snorted, for lack of a better answer. In fact, what she wanted to say was, “Why? Why are you asking me? What’s in it for you? Where’s the catch? Why are you trying to make conversation with me? You? With me?” But as it usually happened when her thoughts lingered on her story with Ron, something awful and heavy and devastatingly sad crashed onto her in endless waves, and Hermione felt so overwhelmed that she just went with the flow.

Malfoy’s smile was dimmer now, but somehow softer. “The biggest one. By measurement of importance.”

Hermione stared at him as she pulled her legs on the chair and wrapped her arms around them. A therapist she hadn’t yet gone to would have surely analysed that recurring behaviour as her way to brace herself for impact. (They wouldn’t have been wrong.)

She tore her eyes away from Malfoy’s grey ones and reached for her wine, drinking it as though it were Felix Felicis. Those silvery pools looked like an approaching storm. Unsettling. And maybe it was the eyes, or maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was some subconscious pull inside of her—that everlasting curiosity of hers that just wanted to see where that man, who looked so much like someone she used to know but acted like a complete stranger, wanted to get at. Whatever the reason, Hermione found herself answering with utmost sincerity.

“Ron was the one who called off the engagement,” she exhaled. And once it was out, the rest followed easily. “People think it was me: the nasty bitch who can’t keep a nice man. And, well… It was my fault, generally speaking.” She swirled the wine in her glass, looking at the deep ruby waves. “But when it came down to it, it was Ron who actually had the guts to call it quits.” Lifting her head, she found Malfoy already looking at her, laid back on his chair with a serious gaze. “That good ol’ Gryffindor courage.”

He scoffed lightly before sipping some more of his wine. When Hermione turned back to analyse her problem-solver drink without saying another word, Malfoy called back to her quietly: “You can go on.”

Hermione stared at him pointedly, tilting her head just so. Could she? Or should she be worried about what could happen if she opened up to Malfoy? Another question snaked its way to the front of her mind: could she open up? Wasn’t that the very root of all her issues?

But then again, the storm outside was starting to calm down. The wind had been less incessant. Some villages nearby had started to lift their lockdowns. She and Malfoy were intersecting lines: after this common point in time they shared, where they crossed paths, they weren’t going to speak to each other ever again.

All of that, it wasn’t real. What mattered what she told him?

As with every good story, Hermione started from the beginning.

“Harry wanted to marry Ginny the day after the Battle of Hogwarts. But obviously, the funerals were… exhausting. Soul-wrenching. Then there were the trials. And, of course, he was immediately sucked into the post-war reformations that the Ministry hurried to make. And there was Hogwarts, too… and Teddy.” Her face lit up at the mention of the kid. “Merlin, I think Teddy was the only one who truly kept Harry grounded through it all, without even knowing it.

“Eventually, Ginny decided that the time was right three years ago. Teddy was five, and he was the ring bearer. George actually dressed him up as a Teddy-bear.” She looked at Malfoy making a funny face. He shook his head, failing to hide a laugh. “He was so excited that his hair kept switching between scarlet and gold the whole day. It was a wonderful ceremony,” she went on, her eyes again lost in the emptiness in front of her. “They were so happy… so happy, I’ve rarely seen people as happy as they were—and they still are. Molly, of course, was jumping around with joy, and even though we kept it family-only, there were loads of people. I even met Harry’s uncle and aunt.” She didn’t know why she was dwelling on details; maybe it was the glint of interest that she caught in Malfoy’s eyes when she glanced at him. Or more likely, it was simply to delay the inevitable.

“That must have been a charming experience,” Malfoy commented when Hermione kept tracing the rim of her glass in silence. She smiled, eyeing him. His voice was inexplicably soothing.

“You didn’t do something weird with my food, did you?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

He didn’t exactly laugh. It was more of a smirking exhale from his nostrils. “Maybe the truffle wasn’t that good.”

She averted her gaze before resuming speaking. “People assumed then, too. Harry and Ginny were getting married, after all, and it was only natural that everyone in the family asked Ron how much longer he would have made them wait. This isn’t to say that the whole thing was somehow forced upon us; it’s just how it happened, it’s how the idea was once and for all planted into our minds.

“We were in Ireland when he proposed. We’d gone over there for a job, something about a new pack forming near Dublin. Bill was with us and Fleur had tagged along, too. The whole thing took us less time than expected, so the two of them rented a car and went driving around for the remaining days, while Ron and I stayed in Dublin for sightseeing. We were walking aimlessly around the city one night, and I remember I was telling him about how when I was a kid I wanted to study at Trinity College because it had been my mum’s dream before dental school. When we finally got there, he first took some pictures of me, and then… one moment he was handing me my phone back and the next one he was down on one knee.”

If she closed her eyes, Hermione could still see him on the grass under a streetlight, red hair in bad need of a haircut pointing everywhere. Her stomach had dropped to her feet, and she had refused to think it was due to anything else but surprised elation.

“And I said yes,” she shrugged, then looked at Malfoy, who was reaching for his wand to pour more wine. “Because of course I said yes. I’ve known Ron for longer than I can remember, I know him better than his own sister does. There’s something that happens when you spend years and years together with a person that I can’t quite describe, but… It made sense at the time. It was logical, even.” She chuckled grimly. “He looked so cute there, all flushed in the face, mortified because maybe he’d chosen the wrong moment or the wrong place, and there I was, delaying my answer not out of shock, but because I didn’t know how to tell him no.”

“Pause,” Malfoy said, leaning over the table and towards Hermione, his hand stretching out across the surface. “Did you say yes just because he looked mortified at the thought of you rejecting him?”

“What?!” She felt almost offended at the insinuation. “Godric, no! I said yes because I loved him. Because I wanted it.”

“Okay,” Malfoy drawled, retracting his hand. “But you’re not married.”

Hermione lowered her head, resting her forehead on her knees. “But we’re not married.”

She turned her head, cheek on her knees so she could see him. He was sitting comfortably, legs loosely open and forearms on the table. The same therapist Hermione was yet to go to would have appreciated the openness of Malfoy’s body language. When had he become an adult?

“I started planning the wedding, and it was coming on so nicely. Everything was falling right into place: my mum and dad were happy, Molly and Arthur were happy, Ron was happy, and I…” She trailed off, unsure how to describe her feelings. “I don’t want to say I wasn’t happy, because that would be a lie, but I just wasn’t… I felt disconnected.” A crease appeared between Malfoy’s brows. “No, wait,” she hurried to explain herself, “I just didn’t feel… I didn’t feel like brides-to-be were supposed to feel. I had seen that emotion in Ginny’s eyes, and it simply wasn’t there in mine.”

Malfoy took a sip of wine.

“But, you know, I didn’t give it much thought. With all the wedding planning thrown in the middle of my already chaotic life, I just thought it was some additional stress that was simply manifesting itself in some nasty way.” The worst thing was that she never felt like she could talk to Ron about it, mostly because she never managed to make real sense of it, of that feeling—but she didn’t tell Malfoy that. After all, it had always been just a fleeting thought she never paid too much attention to; maybe she hadn’t even completely understood it herself yet.

“One day, it was a Saturday, I woke up late and Ron had made breakfast,” Hermione continued. “And he was just so charming about it—I would have never guessed what he was about to say.” She put the glass down and her arms tightened around her legs. “He told me I had a nightmare the night before. Which wasn’t new, we both had tons of nightmares; I still have them sometimes.” She didn’t dare look at Malfoy: she didn’t want to see that kind of understanding in his eyes.

“He said I was shaking and whining in my sleep, that he woke up and tried to wake me up but I didn’t. So he tried to soothe me as best as he could, and he tried to pull me towards him to comfort me somehow. But… instead of letting him do that, I curled myself at the edge of the bed and folded over my own body.” Hermione could still see Ron’s crestfallen blue eyes as he spoke to her that morning. His cheeks were hollower than they had been when she’d met him on the Hogwarts Express many years before, but the triumph of freckles was still beautifully present all over his face.

“He just asked me if everything was okay. If there was something he could do, if there was anything I needed.” Tears were clogging up in her throat, but Hermione swallowed them down. “And I dismissed it—I told him everything was fine, that it was just some accumulated stress, that I didn’t even remember the nightmare so who knew what was really going on in my head. He told me that he wouldn’t have been mad if I’d decided to call off the wedding.”

We’ve waited for so long, what difference will a year or two make? Even then, Hermione hadn’t been able to make sense of what it was that made her feel so unsteady on her feet.

“I didn’t do it, I didn’t call off the wedding—on the contrary, I started planning even harder. When two months later we realised we had everything ready but the date…” Again she rested her cheek on her knees, her gaze on Malfoy. “You’ll never believe me, but Ron was just… perfect about it. I don’t even know how he did it, and, honestly, knowing him, I would have never expected him to handle it so well, but… People can surprise you.” The man looking back at her with unwavering grey eyes was proof of that. “He said he didn’t want us to end up hating each other. He hugged me, and I cried a fair bit, and he cried too—don’t make that face—and then we called the whole thing off and that was it.

“No one outside our families and close friends knew what really happened, so everyone just assumed that I’d dumped him because he—and I quote most whispers and papers—‘wasn’t enough’.” Hermione straightened herself. “That wasn’t it. It absolutely wasn’t it—couldn’t be further from the truth, really. Ron told me he loved what we had, and I told him I loved what we had, too, but then he said that he could see that it wasn’t right for me. Being enough had nothing to do with it. I love Ron, so much, I swear, in every stupid sense of the word, and every woman who’s lucky enough to be discussing marriage with him right now will end up as the happiest one on this godforsaken planet, because he’s enough, he’s more than enough, it just—” She inhaled sharply.

She loved Ron, and she was positive she had never stopped loving him and probably never will. Did it matter what kind of love it was? Hermione had thought it didn’t. Truth was, smart as she was, Hermione had realised that the moment she told him yes, she’d doomed herself to a life without the kind of love children and hopeless romantics dream of—but every time she thought about that, every time she recognised the word ‘doomed’ in her own thoughts, she hated herself for being such a cruel, despicable witch.

Ron had loved her. He really had, and Hermione had strong doubts she would ever find anyone else capable of loving her like he had. Not because it was the kind of love poets write about, but because it had been born in spite of everything wrong she felt in herself. Maybe Ron hadn’t been the type of man who ‘loved her imperfections’—actually, he certainly hadn’t, but he’d been the one who put up with her. Just like she had put up with him.

Loving Ron had been easy because she’d always done it; it was tiring and disheartening at times, but she’d been used to it.

But.

The rest of her life, spent like that...

“Just wasn’t right,” she mumbled, reaching for her wine and finishing it in a large sip. She stared at the red drops lingering on the glass surface.

When Hermione turned to him, Malfoy was looking at her with pensive eyes. Vaguely, she wondered whether he was a Legilimens or not; she hoped not. She, herself, was terrified of how much sadness some of her thoughts carried with them. She didn’t want anyone else to know.

As Hermione cleared her throat, looking for a joke to downplay the seriousness of the conversation and get out of the insidious situation she’d stuck herself in, he stood up abruptly and stormed out of the kitchen.

She stared at his back with her mouth just a bit parted. Maybe he was a Legilimens, after all.

“That is the exact reaction one would hope for after sharing something like this,” she called after him, bristled, annoyed, more-than-slightly pissed. Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid, silly girl. “Thank you so much for your compassion, Malfoy!”

The press of angry tears was already stinging the corner of her eyes when Malfoy came back to the kitchen, a wallet in one hand and a photograph in the other. He pocketed the former, sliding the latter under her nose, all of it without uttering a word.

Hermione frowned at him, half standing and half seated. Malfoy wiggled his eyebrows eloquently, tapping on the photograph to direct her attention there. She fell back on the chair as her eyes focused on the moving picture.

A man and a woman. He was holding her firmly with a hand on her waist, his black suit jacket vanishing in the white fabric of her wedding gown. She was squeezing herself against his chest, her left ringed hand resting on his heart. In the couple of seconds the magical camera captured on paper, the man moved to lift the woman’s legs, picking her up like a princess. Her surprised and ecstatic shriek was so contagious that Hermione, too, huffed the beginning of a laugh at the pretty scene.

And then her smile turned into something she couldn’t really define—a mixture of feelings that lodged on her heart, that blew too much air into her lungs, that curled somewhere secluded in her stomach—the moment she took in the easy, even childish joy in the man’s eyes and realised that the face transfigured by happiness was the one of Draco Malfoy.

Hermione snatched the picture from under Malfoy’s finger and brought it closer to her face. Her head darted from the man on paper to the man in the flesh sitting next to her and vice versa. He was taking his signet ring off his left ring finger, and Hermione noticed only then that the large band wasn’t actually large at all, but two rings combined: the family one he’d worn almost all his life, with the capital M delicately carved on the surface; and another one, slimmer, gold-ish in the kitchen’s light. When Hermione took it from his offering hand, she saw a name and a date engraved inside: Astoria Greengrass — September 7th, 2002.

After endless seconds of astonished silence, all Hermione came up with when she looked up at Malfoy was a simple, straightforward, “Wh—How… What?”

Malfoy smirked, taking the ring back. He put it back and started playing with it, making it spin slowly around his finger. The first thing Hermione felt was all-encompassing embarrassment, given the kind of thoughts she’d spared that finger—all those images flashing in her mind and she’d never realised there were two rings there, one of which bonded him to another woman.

She hadn’t even opened her mouth to start shooting every single question bouncing around in her head that Malfoy’s gaze flitted to her and he asked, “Do you remember the Greengrass sisters?”

Hermione took another look at the smiling woman in the picture. Her dark hair was neatly styled in soft waves, cascading down her back. It contrasted with his blond-white hair. “Vaguely.”

“After the trials, our families disintegrated,” Malfoy started as he stood to grab a second bottle of wine. He didn’t even bother uncorking it: his wand did everything for him. “We were all left to our own devices, which—you know, I’m not complaining. We were expecting it. It’s just how it was. So, those of us who were left, we kind of… teamed up.” He knitted his fingers together, like a tight net. “I, for one, had no one else, what with Father’s life sentence and Mother’s five years. To be completely honest, when I wasn’t sent to Azkaban it felt odd. I was so sure I was going to spend at least some time in there, that the idea of having to stay in a world that didn’t want me was… bloody scary.”

Hermione bit her tongue. It didn’t look like the right moment to give him a piece of her mind. She took a sip of wine instead.

 “And I wasn’t the only one who felt like that,” Malfoy went on, grabbing his glass. “I mean, Crabb and Goyle were imprisoned with almost no questions asked, but Nott, Zabini, Pansy… not only their involvement in the war had been different, but the family name, too, played a big role in the Wizengamot’s decision process.” When he saw that Hermione’s eyebrows had raised so much that they were now almost touching her hairline, he chuckled. “You know I’m right.”

“Mh-mh,” she hummed, lips pursed. She filed the discussion topic away for another time.

“Anyway,” Malfoy went on, rubbing the back of his head, “we all decided we should check in with one another to have something solid and stable throughout the chaos. That was how we realised that Astoria,” his chin pointed at the picture in Hermione’s hands, “was starting to show symptoms of an illness that ran in her family and affected almost all the women on her mother’s side. Her grandmother was still alive at the time—I remember because I talked to her—and she did the same thing Astoria did when she told me about it.” He shrugged. “She just shrugged.”

He paused for a moment, eyes fixed on the balcony window in the living room that he could see from his seat. Under the crackle of the fireplace, there was the wind whistling outside, singing a gloomy tune between the snow-clad bare trees.

“There was nothing that could be done,” he continued matter-of-factly. “They said it was a blood curse that had been affecting the lineage for ages, and both sisters had already made peace with the fact that they could have died from it at a young age, so Astoria didn’t really pay much attention to it at the beginning. Except that, as everyone around her started to make plans for the future—Pansy wanted to regain her place in society, Nott and Zabini were working on merging their inherited businesses, even fucking Montague was somehow finding a way to be employed by the Ministry—Astoria started getting restless. She was barely twenty at the time, so the perspective of simply rotting away while everyone else was trying to find their place in the post-war world was haunting, to say the least. That’s where I came in.” He pointed at himself with exaggerated triumph on his face. “With a lot of free time and a lot of useless money to spare.”

Hermione felt the corner of her lips pull up. “What about war compensations? I know for a fact you had to give tons of money away.”

Malfoy snorted. “Right. Yes. How much money do you think I have?” He didn’t give her the time to come up with a number: “Multiply that by at least ten. Then, you might have reached half of the actual figure.” She shook her head, that half-smile still playing on her lips.

“My point is, I didn’t have much to do, so I decided to occupy my time by helping Astoria. We started looking for Curse Breakers, for Potion Masters, for renowned Healers, anyone who could have found a solution. We all got our clearances with the Ministry for travelling—way easier when it’s due to a matter of health—and we started touring around the world. Canada, Singapore, Egypt… many different places. I was always with her.

“We didn’t have much luck, though. We found out what exactly it was only when… uh…” He gave Hermione a hesitant look. “When she eventually convinced me to speak to some Muggle doctors.”

The witch snorted. “What a sacrifice.”

Malfoy smiled, but it was only the shadow of a laugh. “As it turned out, the curse wasn’t actually a curse, rather a rare genetic disease that passed from mother to daughter and that could manifest itself—as it was happening with Astoria—or could stay dormant and let the woman live a long and happy life—as it is the case with her sister. Actually, if there is a silver lining to all this, is that after finding out she was a healthy carrier, Daphne is now helping with the research, which is incredibly scarce on the topic.”

He sighed as his hand went to his glass again. He didn’t drink. Just looked at the swirling liquid, shoulders a bit hunched.

“When it was unquestionably clear that there was nothing that could be done for her, Astoria made a bucket list. She could have lived for another thirty years or another thirty days—no one could say for certain. So, she decided she wanted to live the remaining time to the fullest. We’d started to enjoy travelling, despite the endless offices and the countless hospital wards, so we kept doing that. And with the Ministry-imposed restrictions, the stretches of time between approvals and all that, we took long holidays. Sometimes some of our friends would tag along, but it was mostly just the two of us.

“That is how I became good at domestic charms,” he winked. A small, genuine laugh escaped Hermione. “They’re part of the…” he gesticulated around, looking for the right words with a grimace, “pureblood female upbringing, so Astoria was an absolute master at them, and she taught me bit by bit in all the places we stayed at.”

Was.

“Then, one day, I got news that Mother was getting an early release. Which wasn’t a surprise per se, but we still wanted to celebrate. And that was when Astoria told me she wanted to get married.” He clicked his ring against the glass in his hand. “And, well, with Mother coming home, it was the perfect occasion, because she would have gotten the chance to see me getting married—and I’m pretty sure she had lost all hope.”

“You let Astoria ask you?” Hermione teased him. Something in her was growing desperate to find out if she could witness in real life that happiness Malfoy had splayed all over his face in the photograph.

“No, hold on,” he said, chuckling lightly. “She said she wanted to, but I did everything that was required of me to do, thank you very much, Granger. I took her to Paris for her birthday, and then I proposed in front of the Sacré Cœur at sunset—”

“Shouldn’t it have been the Tour Eiffel?”

“Sod off, okay? She hated the Tour Eiffel.” He smiled, and Hermione smiled back. “There was a photographer there, and I flew our friends in to celebrate afterwards.” He averted his eyes and they got lost somewhere Hermione couldn’t have reached. “She always says she’d told me her dream because she had chosen me, but I’m not really sure what that meant. It just made sense that it was me… Even though I did have to fight Nott off, at some point. The insufferable prat. And I always thought it was just the obvious choice—what with the money, and the free time, and all that—but she kept insisting that she wouldn’t have done it with anybody else.” He glanced at the photograph between him and Hermione. “And I’m glad I did it. I really am.”

Hermione felt the absurd urge to draw him close and lay his head on her chest. To hold him tightly, and gently stroking his hair. To wrap the two of them under a heavy blanket and stare at the outside storm while he kept telling her about this one, pure and selfless act of love.

“We got married three weeks after Mother got released,” he continued after clearing his throat. Suddenly, and for the first time, Hermione realised his voice had changed, and that the one she anticipated in her head had nothing to do with his lower, deeper one. “It was in Australia—in the North, where it’s always summer, because Astoria loves the summer.”

Loves.

“I think it was the same day Hogwarts fully reopened. I remember because Pansy had already acquired the Witch Weekly and she’d made sure the whole thing disappeared among the news cycle. It was…” His eyes got lost before focusing again. “A beautiful day,” he said quietly. “And Astoria looked absolutely stunning, the ceremony was perfect, and even Mother cried because she’d just assumed,” he winked at her, and Hermione gave him an eye-roll, “it really would have never happened. We went to Argentina for our honeymoon. And for the following years we kept checking things off her bucket list.”

Draco drew in a sharp breath then, catching his lip between his teeth for a second before continuing.

“She…” His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Astoria died in August.” Hermione could see the redness in his eyes before he tried to blink it away. “Which was a pity, because Astoria really loved the summer. But she said she was happier this way, because at least she’d managed to enjoy a last one. We were in Greece, on this tiny and crowded island, because she’d found out that she loved being around people, and getting to know their stories, and expanding her horizons as best as she could.” His voice broke on the last words, and Hermione suddenly remembered that, throughout their childhood, she’d seen Malfoy cry more times than she’d seen her own friends.

“She really is the best of us,” he said with his tearful eyes fixed on his wine glass. Then, belatedly, “Was,” he corrected himself, pushing his hair away from his eyes. “She could see that little grain of… I don’t want to say goodness. More like… authenticity. In everyone. And she did everything in her power to bring it out to the best extent. Out of all of us, she’d always been the one who was the most critical of our parents’ views, even as a teenager. And not because she thought everyone was fundamentally good—she once explained this to me, but I don’t have her way with words. She said that every human is incredibly flawed, and that living a nice life basically means to be able to deal with those flaws. Your own, and those of the people you care about. Until one day, they stop being flaws and they’re just another detail of the kaleidoscope of emotions you’re built of.”

Hermione stared at him as he rubbed his grief-shadowed eyes. In the sad curve of his mouth, she saw her own devastation of years before, when in front of the castle that had become her home she’d heard Voldemort announce Harry was dead: a soul-shattering feeling that no amount of words would be enough to describe.

She was familiar with death. But the trick with it was that it always caught her by surprise. Every time she recovered from the shock of a new loss, she thought that would make her stronger, better equipped to handle the next one.

It didn’t.

It never made her stronger. If anything, it made her more vulnerable, because it carried all the past pain with it.

She wondered what kinds of deaths Draco had dealt with before Astoria’s. Had he been prepared? Had it been painful? How was she—his wife—in the end? Judging from the way his fingers were fiddling with his ring, from the way his eyes clouded and his jaw clenched, the only thing Hermione could be certain of was that, if pain and love are proportional, Draco had loved Astoria immensely.

And maybe she knew. She definitely knew, Hermione thought. That’s why she had chosen him.

“I’d be proud if I managed to become half the man she thought I was,” Draco said, pulling her from her thoughts as he put his signet ring back, next to the wedding band.

Hermione looked at the photograph again. Ten days before, Draco Malfoy didn’t even exist in her mind. Now, she was looking at his wedding photograph and had a billion different feelings about it that were making her heart beat like a caged bird in her chest.

She put two fingers on the picture, sliding it back towards him.

“Have you?”

His eyes snapped to hers. If Hermione focused enough, she could smell the lingering scent of smoke on his clothes. A beat, and then he lowered his gaze on the photograph again and placed his hand on it, just resting there. He didn’t pull it towards him. He didn’t touch her. She didn’t touch him.

“You know, she was the one who booked this place,” he said, his fingers brushing the film absentmindedly. “Months ago. After everything happened, I didn’t want to come, but Nott insisted we should spend Christmas here together and he offered to handle the papers, but… well, he made a mess, as you’re aware of.”

An explanation of sorts. But Hermione’s head wasn’t really focused on that, at the moment. She left a minute pass before speaking.

“Why are you telling me this?” A less emotional version of herself might have felt annoyed at the fact that he’d spun the situation around and made it about himself. Or, perhaps, that was just what she wanted to tell herself.

Draco shrugged. “I don’t know. People. Assumptions. Relationships. This life isn’t easy; there’s always something asked of us.” He paused for a moment. “We learn to live with the pain.”

Had she been a better writer, Hermione would have locked those words in the back of her mind for later use. But she wasn’t a better writer, she was just a writer, and all that her mind seemed to be able to focus on was finding the right expression to describe the feeling radiating from the man sitting next to her. The right adjective. The right metaphor.

Draco Malfoy never stops looking at you while you talk to him, but then averts his eyes when it’s his turn. He should be an adult who was asked to grow up very early, too early, but everything in his features screams to the world that he still sees a long-lost kid when he looks in the mirror.

“Granger?” It was a whisper over the cracking noises coming from the fireplace. Hermione hummed, still lost in her thoughts. “Will you slap me again if I try to kiss you now?”

Ah, yes. The kiss.

So he’d thought about that, too.

His lips were curved into a grin when she glanced at him. Inviting. Open. Sad.

Hermione chuckled softly, a bit nervously. “Yeah, that was…” Why was he mentioning it now? Right after everything he’d just said?

His hand stopped hers when she started drawing it back. Hermione shivered at the contact, surprised at the warmth of his palm.

“I didn’t slap you.”

“No, I know.”

Outside, the snow kept falling soundlessly. Again, Hermione’s gaze went to the picture under their hands. What kind of man was Draco Malfoy? Had the one ready to marry his friend just to make her happy always been there or did he come out of a chrysalis of pain and destruction?

She didn’t have to think, to decide to lean into the mood change; not consciously, at least. After all, the imaginary therapist would have also said that it wasn’t Hermione’s place nor job to deal with Malfoy’s trauma, just like it wasn’t his job to deal with hers. Besides, even if she wanted to, she didn’t have the strength to do it; Draco’s hand was so… 

“This isn’t real.” She didn’t know whether she said it to herself, to Malfoy, or even to Astoria—maybe to all three at the same time. “Is it?”

“What isn’t?” His thumb brushed hers.

“This,” she repeated, moving her eyes around, unable to find the courage to explain what she really meant. “You and me. This isn’t real.”

Draco reached over to her face, tucking a rebellious curl that had escaped the hairpin behind her ear. His eyes scanned hers for doubts, or questions, or answers—piercing grey eyes staring into her soul.

He had a light, two-days old stubble, she noticed. Something rough framing the softness of his lips.

“It’s starting to get real, Granger.”

He lifted her chin, and when he closed the distance between them, Hermione’s lips parted effortlessly under his.

Chapter Text

10th of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

Draco tasted of burnt, dark smoke. The lingering flavour of nicotine rested on his tongue and blended into his scent, enthralling Hermione’s senses as she let him kiss her.

Quietly.

Delicately.

His hand moved over her jaw, cupping her face, long fingers resting on her neck. Hermione curled her hand over his, the peaks of his knuckles sharp against her palm. A chill ran down her spine, and the blood rushing through her veins pumped so quickly that everything else became muffled, around her and inside of her. 

She stood without breaking the kiss when he pulled her towards him, the noise of the chair scraping on the hardwood floor echoing in the kitchen. Silently, she went to sit on his lap, her legs on either side of his long ones, hair tickling their faces as she angled her head down and kept kissing him. Their lips parted only to breathe, for the briefest of seconds.

His arms wrapped around her torso, finding the frame of her body under her oversize, heavy jumper. Hermione cupped his cheeks, his stubble scratchy under her fingertips as she caressed his face. Draco tilted his head backwards and her hands sank into his hair, fingers raking through his short locks while he kept kissing her, kissing her, kissing her, like he was following the captivating rhythm of a perfect lullaby. Slow, calm, unhurried. Nothing rushed him, nothing fretted him, and he searched her mouth and her body taking his sweet, sweet time.

There was no room for worries of any kind in her mind, and Hermione derived a distinct feeling of bliss from that. Every time she let her senses take control of her feelings, every time she gave her restless brain a break, every time she managed to flee her heavy, complex, and intrusive thoughts, dipping into pure and uncomplicated nothingness, she wished it could last forever.

When she registered the way Malfoy was holding her—close to him, hand on her spine, the other one in her hair, her lip between his teeth—a soft moan curled at the bottom of her throat; something that begged for more.

She grew hungrier. Her hands became frantic, pacing the planes of Malfoy’s chest over his cashmere pullover, before heading towards the hem. She was already clutching the fabric when he stopped her, murmuring against her lips, “Easy, now, Granger.”

Hermione frowned. The calm lake inside of her swirled dangerously towards confusion, something akin to panic emerging from the depths of it. “Do you… am I…?”

“No, it’s okay.” His palms rested soothingly on her hips. “I mean, if it’s okay for you.”

“It’s okay for me,” Hermione replied breathlessly, reaching for Draco’s lips, mesmerised by the way they had turned a glistening pink.

Their noses brushed together, and her hands slid again between their bodies. He pulled back once more.

“Malfoy, what—”

“On the kitchen chair?” Hermione blinked at him, wide-eyed as his mouth curled into a smirk. “I mean, I get it,” he gestured towards his body, prompting her to roll her eyes, “but I could, um… use with a little more comfort.”

“Cry me a river, idiot manchild.” She stood up though, quickly spinning on her heels and striding toward the bedroom as the need to cocoon herself back inside Draco’s frame started to spread somewhere between her stomach and lungs.

She never broke their connection—couldn’t fathom doing it now. His hand was in hers. Smooth. Trimmed nails. Sharp bones. Warm.

“Oh, we’re already discussing nicknames?” he joked, following her as she crossed the threshold of what she thought was her sacred space. They were going to desecrate it, now; or perhaps it had never been pure in the first place. “I have a few in store for you—”

“We,” Hermione cut him off, facing him, “are not doing anything.” Her hands went back to his jumper, keenly. “You and I, on the other hand…”

Malfoy sealed her lips with another kiss, chuckling at her satisfied sigh. Maybe it was something in the way he did it, or maybe it was simply the silky feel of it that made it unnecessary for her to consciously decide to clear her mind. Draco pressed softly, sucked tenderly, and the thousand thoughts flying around Hermione’s mind faded away. The only thing she could make sense of was a litany of yes, yes, yes, more.

“Do you want me to take it off?” he murmured in her mouth while Hermione crawled backwards on the bed towards the headboard, still tugging at his pullover, still kissing him like it was the only instinct she had to respond to.

“Yes, please, if you don’t mind.” Draco smiled as he slipped out of it, and his lips were already back on hers when the garment landed carelessly on the floor. Hazily, in a remote corner of her mind, she must have thought she could have kept kissing him for ages.

Hermione’s hands went to his skin almost by magnetic attraction—slowly, not all at once: nail, fingertip, palm—and she began tracing the defined lines of his body. Eyes shut, the tactile experience was the only way for her to commit him to memory. The mental image she’d had of him started to change, to reshape itself to better fit the truth.

Malfoy was skinny, but not bony: lean. Where she expected him to be a gaunt sort of angular, he was instead muscular, if a bit wiry. Hermione’s curious fingers moved all over him, down his back and up his chest, down the sharp cuts of his hip bones and up the taut hills of his shoulders. He never flinched nor tensed, not even when she found herself tracing diagonal lines that didn’t match the regular anatomy of a male body—jagged and ridged like barbed wire, slightly embossed.

Draco grabbed her chin to angle her head and started leaving kisses on her neck. That’s when Hermione opened her eyes and saw it: crooked, pink lines crossed his torso two or three times, resembling a frazzled Z, or S.

Something tried to tug at her conscience—sirens blaring in the distance about Sixth year, and Harry, and Sectumsempra—but Draco shifted slightly, his hand sliding under her jumper, and her eyes closed again.

She let herself fall back into her blissful haze as he whispered in her ear, “Do you want to keep this on?”

She mumbled something, shaking her head, and then took it off quickly. “Weird question.” Her hands rushed back to him. His palms, too, were on her skin in a matter of seconds, and she let out a content sigh.

“I wouldn’t know your preferences.”

Beat.

“Weird preferences.” He spread a hand over her side, his thumb resting under her breast and stroking back and forth languidly; the other fingers matched the curved bones of her ribcage.

An odd kind of feeling, to know that her own hand curled on herself like that, too, sometimes. Even odder to realise that the way she would try to mimic the sensation was nothing compared to the real thing.

And, oh, how she’d missed the real thing.

She glanced up at him: he was looking at her, taking her in, measuring her with his hand.

“You don’t have to be shy.”

“I’m not being shy, Granger.” He caressed her, then leaned down until his forehead met hers for the first time, like two strangers sharing pleasantries in a bar. “I’m just not in a rush.” His hand moved, cupping the soft flesh of her breast. “Are you?”

Hermione kissed him, drawing him closer and crushing the small space that separated them. There were still notes of red wine on his tongue: she could pinpoint the exact shade of it to an almost analytical extent.

She found her way to his shoulder blades and held onto them as Draco’s fingers tweaked her nipple.

“You look in a rush.” His voice was low and alluring, and Hermione pushed more against him, losing a battle against gravity she wasn’t aware of fighting.

“Are you complaining?”

“No.” His hand covered her whole breast. His fingers dig into her, squeezing, holding. “But I personally don’t have much else to do, so…”

“I’m sure there’s some movie you could be watching right now.” Her voice came out hushed, breathless when Draco brushed her nipple.

“Maybe. But I don’t really feel like it. And if you could just relax for a second…” His arm curled around her. Hermione leaned back on the pillows and his lips—his magnificently soft lips—finally wrapped around her nipple. 

The deliberate languidness of his actions, the way he was taking his time, everything was making Hermione go insane with want and need. Her hand tangled in his hair as Malfoy shifted between her legs, making room for himself while fondling the shape of her body. Her breath hitched when he bit the bottom of her breast gently, and her eyes opened when he soothed the spot with a kiss immediately after.

To a clear mind, the scene before her would have been absurd, ridiculous even. Weirdly enough, though, it elicited a strong sense of déjà-vu in Hermione, which made her wary all at once.

Draco noticed it right away.

“Are you alright?” he asked, pushing himself off of her, worry shadowing his face. “Do you want to stop? It’s fine if—”

“No. No, it’s okay, I’m fine,” Hermione replied quickly, her hand still on his neck, firm in its hold to prevent him from pulling away. “I’m fine,” she repeated, comfortingly for him, steadily for herself, and pushed him down again. “You can keep going.”

Draco eyed her with a frown between his eyebrows. “Granger, we’re adults, we can deal with…”

“I said it’s fine.” It was fine. “It’s fine.” It was just a fleeting memory. “I mean it.” Another push, this time a bit more demanding: “Keep going.” She moved her hips, already aching from the absence of his touch. “Please.”

She could see he wasn’t completely convinced, but then the chilly point of his nose was brushing against her breast, and Hermione sighed as she felt her core clenching. She relaxed back on the pillows, her mind focusing only on Malfoy’s hands toying with the elastic band of her pants.

He looked at her through his lashes, lips a breath away from her wet nipple, her skin reddened where the short and thick hair of his beard had scratched. “Yeah?”

“Mh-hm.” Her hand slid from his neck to his cheek, thumb dragging alongside the cutting angle of his bone and reaching the haughty curve of his nose. Draco turned his head to leave a kiss on her palm while his clever hands disappeared under the fabric around her hips, before pushing it down past her ankles and tossing it on the floor.

When he stroked the inside of her thighs, Hermione felt something cold against her skin that pulled her back to reality, making her tense up.

The rings.

The other night.

The rings.

Plural.

“Fuck,” she mumbled, covering her blushing face with both hands and closing her legs just enough for Draco to lift himself from her body. “No, Malfoy, wait—” She stopped him before he could pull away completely, and a strident feeling of relief took hold of her when his palms went to hold her hips tentatively.

His eyes were full of questions when he looked at her.

“I’m—I’m just a bit in my head,” she apologised, sheepishly. “That’s all.”

Draco frowned, confused. “Do you mean like… you don’t want to be fully present…?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s…” she trailed off, giving up on her attempt at an explanation with a groan. Honestly, she wasn’t even sure she could explain it herself. Something about having a little bit of a ring kink, mixed with the fact that one was a Malfoy signet while the other one was a wedding band, sprinkled with the lingering embarrassment of having thought about the former during her alone time, loaded with the new knowledge of the heartbreaking story behind the latter. A lethal combination, really.

“Granger, seriously, we can end this amicably…” Malfoy was inexplicably chill about the entire affair.

“No, shut up, it’s just…” She covered his hand with hers, afraid he was going to lift it again, and this time the cold sensation made her shiver. With what, it was unclear. Want? Shame? No one could say.

Draco followed her eyes, and when he realised what was making her so agitated, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

He freed his hand from her grip. “It’s about these?”

Hermione forced herself to look at the hand hovering in front of her, feeling a blush of humiliation spreading on her face. She tried to hide it, but failed miserably.

“Um… I… It’s… um…” Maybe they should have just stopped.

“Oh. You want me to take them off?”

It was the obvious deduction, of course, that she was uneasy because of everything the rings meant. Instead, what arose in Hermione’s chest was… annoyance. She did not want him to take them off; but at the same time, why was he that willing to do so?

“Don’t be absurd. Why would you—”

“I mean, I understand why it feels weird for you. And I don’t mind,” he explained, calmly slipping them off.

There had to be something wrong about her wanting to ask him to forget about his wedding ring for a short while. Simply had to be. And with the rest, too. I would actually kind of love the idea of coming into deep contact with your family ring, is that sick and twisted? Probably. And there might have been something wrong, or maybe just weird and strange (alarming?) about him deciding to slip them off his finger that easily.

“You can keep them on, they’re just cold,” she started, helplessly looking as Malfoy placed them on the bedside table. “Why would I even ask you to take your wedding ring off, that’s insane—and why would you take it off, that’s…”

“It’s just a ring, Granger, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. Where was he, headspace-wise, when it came to his feelings for Astoria? How was it possible for him to slip his wedding ring off his finger so effortlessly, after everything? They should have had that conversation in the kitchen earlier. Why didn’t they? How was it possible for him to be laying in bed with her now, after everything he had told her just minutes before?

How was it not a big deal? It should have been a huge deal. Where did this new and frankly baffling version of Draco Malfoy, who wanted her, Hermione Granger, to be a hundred percent comfortable while hooking up, come from? And why was she overthinking this?

“Maybe we should… shouldn’t… I don’t know…” The voices in her head were growing louder by the second, impossible to ignore. She started retreating in a fetal position, legs pulling back towards her chest without even realising it.

“Hey, Granger, wait,” Malfoy said, hands on her raised knees. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Try as she might, she couldn’t find the words to describe the spiral of thoughts that was getting the best of her. She didn’t even know how to name them herself. 

“Okay,” Draco said after a moment. “That’s fine, I’ll just…”

“Wait.” Somehow, she couldn’t bear the idea of him letting go of her. Maybe the only thing she needed was for him to hold her until she couldn’t remember her own name. “Wait,” she repeated, a whisper in the quiet of the night, “don’t go.”

Hermione grabbed his arm and pulled him towards her.

She slipped under the covers and Draco followed her easily, if a bit tentatively. She didn’t look at him: there could have been anything in his usually cold gaze, and she didn’t want to gamble her chances. Was it selfish of her to want him exclusively on her terms? Egotistical, to willingly ignore how he was feeling about all this?

Hermione squeezed herself against his warmth, and her eyes flickered shut. Her head moved up and down following the calm rhythm of his breathing, and his heartbeat boomed inside her skull. Draco’s arms were around her shoulders, holding her close.

Her hand went to his chest, tracing it mindlessly. “Sorry,” she mumbled before she could think better of it. Her fingers brushed one of his scars, crossing it like a bridge.

“What’s there to apologise for?”

“I don’t know.” She shrank even more into his embrace. “I felt weird, all of a sudden.” Déjà-vu. Her voice grew smaller, almost paralysed by the weight of the sudden rush of memories. “Did I upset you?”

“What?” He turned, searching her eyes. “No. Why would you even ask that?”

Because… 

The first boy Hermione had walked into a dimly lit bedroom with was Marcus Brown. It was fun, and exciting, and she had felt nervous all over, not knowing what to do. Marcus had sat her on his bed, black curls falling on his eyes, inexperienced hands palming her juvenile curves.

“You’re pretty,” he’d told her, making her giggle.

“You think?” she’d asked, not really believing him, and casting her eyes away when she noticed him staring at the swelling on her chest.

“Yeah,” he’d replied, “and my parents say you’re crazy smart, too. That’s why you don’t go to school with us.” His accent was thick, so different from the one Hermione had grown used to at Hogwarts.

At fifteen years old, Marcus’ fingers, too, smelled like cigarettes.

When he’d kissed her, it felt new. And a bit weird. Her stomach had plummeted, and for the first time since her kiss with Viktor, she’d felt her brain stop—which was so nice.

Those days, it was impossible for her not feel haunted by a thousand different things: the image of Cedric’s lifeless body on the ground, Harry’s pale and terrified face as he held on to it, devastated and powerless, the emptiness in his eyes as he told her and Ron about Voldemort’s resurrection. The uncertainty of tomorrow had been growing unbearable, and her fourteen-year-old mind was not equipped to handle it in the slightest. That’s why finding shelter in the emptiness that Marcus’ kiss brought with it had been the next best thing.

When he’d started to make his way towards her legs, though, her hand had shot up to stop him.

“What are you doing?” 

“Just relax a bit,” he’d said, tugging his hand free.

“Hold on,” she’d insisted, and he’d frowned.

“What? Hermione, what do you think we’re doing?”

“I don’t know.” He had looked disappointed then, pulling away from her. Hermione had panicked. “Wait, no, sorry,” she’d said, grabbing his hand and placing it hastily under her shirt, right over her cotton bra. “Keep going. It’s okay.”

Marcus had palmed her small breasts, kissing her, and when he glanced at her, Hermione had thought his expression looked completely fake. Still, she’d mimicked it, afraid he would move away again. 

His hand had traced the path to her legs, and this time Hermione forced herself to stay still. But when his fingers had slid under her leggings and touched the hem of her knickers, she’d whispered, “Can you not go under that?”

Marcus had looked up, confused. Maybe he hadn’t been sure of what exactly they were doing, either. “Hermione, I don’t…”

“It’s okay,” she’d said then, kissing him in the hopes to comfort him. “Just…”

She knew that would be a major breaking point. There would have been a before-Hermione and an after-Hermione, and the only thing standing between her innocence and everything else was the cotton barrier of her underwear. She already felt like she had lost most of it the moment she’d walked through the castle doors for the first time, given everything that had happened since. There was this one thing left. Did she really want to let it go? 

“Just do it… over it.” Do what, she hadn’t even known. “Can you?”

Marcus had sighed, but Hermione had reached over to kiss his neck, making small sounds like the ones actors used to do in films, and he’d relented. His fingers had moved over her underwear, up and down applying some pressure, and she’d found herself canting her hips against his hand. Marcus’ lips found their way to her chest and bit on her nipples; the bruises he’d left healed only after a week. Hermione would look at her reflection for long minutes the following days, tracing the purple-ish shapes with her fingers, digging her nails where the teeth marks were. She would carefully check that her mother wasn’t in the bathroom every time she had to take a shower.

“Can you do me?” Marcus had asked after a while, breathing heavily in her mouth.

“How?” She’d been scared, but also determined to go through with it.

“You know…” he’d mumbled, retreating his hand from between her legs to open his trousers, “with your hands.”

No, she hadn’t known. But she couldn’t tell him that. He’d stood to slide his jeans down his legs, and Hermione had buried her face in the pillow, suddenly terrified.

“Hermione?” he’d called, but there was no worry in his voice. Slight annoyance, rather.

“Sorry,” she’d apologised again, eyes still squeezed shut, “it’s just that I…”

“It’s okay if you’ve never done it, you know.” Irritation.

“Yeah, but I never…” Was she supposed to feel like… that? Shouldn’t she be—was happier the right term? “Is it okay if I don’t look?”

Silence. There, I blew it, she’d thought.

“What do you mean you don’t look?”

“I just… I never… I’ll do it, it’s okay,” she’d put a hand out, “just don’t let me see it.”

The noise of cotton fabric pulled down. “It’s not gonna bite you.”

“I know. I just don’t know how to… can I just…” She’d waved her hand around. “You do it.”

A moment later, her fingers were curled around him. She’d shivered, but then followed Marcus’ instructions. After a while and after he had repeated “It’s just flesh ” more than once, Hermione had peeked from the corner of her eyes.

And just like that, the fragile glass of her innocence had broken irrevocably.

Hermione hadn’t stopped meeting with Marcus that summer, nor had she stopped when she’d come home, those handful of times over the following couple of years. She had actually come to crave the moments she was alone with him: there was something rapturous in being able to escape her mind and enter her body that easily. It would make her euphoric to hold his face between her legs, firmer and firmer until she’d come shaking around him.

The only thing Hermione had never let him do was the one thing Marcus was constantly asking for.

One day, she’d thought she’d made up her mind and was ready for it; she’d told him, and he had suddenly become jumpy, sloppy, greedy. That day, his hands had moved roughly over her, lacking both the patience she’d taught him and the awkward hesitation of the first times: Marcus had just wanted to get to it, before she could change her mind.

But Hermione did, or maybe she’d never made it up in the first place, and when she closed her legs, silently urging him to stop, she’d had to look away to hide her tearful eyes.

“Are you crying on me?” He had looked at her like she was a lunatic.

“Sorry,” she’d whispered for the umpteenth time. “I don’t know why…” He’d thrown his hands up, falling on the bed cross and grumbling.

“Way to kill the fucking mood.” She’d glanced at him after a minute, mortified, feeling guilty for everything and nothing at the same time, but decided to swallow it all down and touch him, peppering kisses over his chest, hand reaching down to stroke him.

“Sorry,” she’d repeated, “I felt weird, all of a sudden. You know how I am… Even if we don’t do that today, we can do something else, right?”

That flustered, almost angry look that Hermione remembered clearly on Marcus’ face was nowhere to be found on Draco’s.

Her heart clenched.

Did I upset you?

Why would you even ask that?

“I don’t know,” she replied, back in the present. “I’m sorry I told you to stop.” A moment later, she let out a small yelp when Malfoy made her sit up abruptly, before looking at her square in the eyes with a serious expression.

“What are you on about, Granger?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, closing herself in her arms. “S—”

“Stop apologising.”

A beat. “Okay.” Another one. Why did her own mind betray her like that? It wasn’t like it was the first time she had sex after Marcus. Could she have a single moment of peace? “I didn’t really want you to take your ring off.”

Malfoy made a sound. “Okay.”

“Ring. Singular,” she added, mumbling, as if it was just an afterthought. He scoffed, and she found herself hating him with a passion.

“O-kay.”

“But I don’t want to ask you to… you know.”

He slowly started caressing her calf. “Granger, I promise you it’s just a ring.” His lips curved in a small smirk. “And if you have a particular preference for the other one…”

“Shut up,” she chuckled, smacking him lightly as he reached over to the bedside table to take his family ring and put it back in its rightful place. Well, maybe not exactly, Hermione noticed, since she was almost positive he used to wear it on the other hand… 

The light in the room reflected eerily on the metal surface, fascinating Hermione with the chiaroscuro around the capital letter. She took his hand in hers, tracing it, exploring it, feeling the stark contrast between the warmth of his skin and the coldness of the band.

“Do you still want…?” she asked, not averting her eyes from Draco’s long fingers, her index following the lines on his palm. She could see his veins through the pale skin of his wrist.

“If it’s okay with you,” he whispered back, already curling his arm around her.

Possessively?

Protectively.

Hermione placed his hand on her cheek, dragging the cold ring across her features and down her neck, slowly, following an invisible path towards her warm core.

Collarbone.

Sternum.

Belly.

“Fuck.” She exhaled when their hands reached her underwear and Draco pressed his finger on it. He kissed her, and Hermione searched around his mouth hungrily, avidly.

When he moved the knickers aside to dip his fingertips into her folds, Malfoy chuckled at the whining sounds she made. The cold ring brushed against her clitoris, and Hermione mumbled something incomprehensible, shifting under him to better angle herself against his hand. 

“Is it the ring itself or is it more the history behind it?”

She groaned against his lips. Yes, there might have been something poetic about fucking herself on a bloody Malfoy heirloom, but that wasn’t the point. “If you must know, it’s the hand with the ring.”

Malfoy flicked his index back and forth. “And is it more the hand or the ring?”

Her hips twitched and buckled. “Combination of both.” Two fingers sank deeply into her, the ring coming to meet the sleek edge of her entrance. “Fuck. Finally.”

“That’s a word full of anticipation.”

If only he knew what happened the last time some fingers were nearby.

“Can you…” He curled his fingers, making her grunt. “Just… get it over with?”

“Get it over with? Salazar’s sake, Grang—oh, sorry, does that disrupt the mood?” he grinned when Hermione grimaced.

“It kind of does, yeah.”

He laughed, a short, happy sound that echoed in her mind. “Well, then, Merlin’s sake —you really need to relax a bit. Let me handle this.” He pulled his fingers from her but pressed her body against his. His hands curled around her waist, palms sliding up towards her breasts and making her feel oh-so-easily held, as if she was something fragile and delicate that needed unique attention. Hermione abandoned herself to it, relaxing back on the pillows, opening her legs to accommodate his torso first and then his shoulders.

When he kissed her, she didn’t close her eyes: she wanted to remember the perfect image of Draco Malfoy’s flushed face between her thighs.

She swore when his tongue traced her lips, gasped when it swirled around her clit, once, twice, and more, before he sucked. Her fingers clung to his hair, keeping him firmly against her, and Malfoy slipped his ringed finger inside of her again, claiming space, breaking the warmth. He pumped it lazily in and out, his mouth lapping up her juices.

Her panting grew shorter and louder the more time he dedicated her, coherent thoughts slipped away the softer his lips worshipped her cunt.

A chill ran through her body when he spread her open with his thumbs, and her back arched when he murmured quietly, reverently, “Such a tight little pussy.” She pushed against him, canting her hips against his face without a trace of embarrassment. “You want it too much, Granger,” he grinned, his mouth shimmering with a mix of saliva and her wetness. Hermione wanted to kiss it away.

“No shit,” she managed desperately, breathlessly, trying to find the best angle for herself.

“Greedy.” Again, the signet on her clit, rubbing the engraved top in small circles over it. Coated in her juices, it almost didn’t feel cold anymore.

She squeezed her eyes in concert with her cunt. “Arsehole.”

“What a great idea.”

Hermione didn’t have time to wonder why he stopped his ministrations, because in the blink of an eye Malfoy brought her legs over his shoulders, making room for his tongue to keep playing with her glistening hole and for his fingers to reach the other one. The sudden, unfamiliar, but not unwelcome feeling was so strong that she briefly felt her brain snap out of her ears.

Her vision blanked out when Malfoy’s thumb traced the ridged surface, and her legs spasmed when it pressed lightly. She could sense her whole body squeezing and releasing around him. When an all-encompassing fullness overwhelmed her, Hermione knew she was dangling right over the edge of the precipice, her empty spaces claimed by him.

“M-Malfoy—fuck, I—oh …”

She whined when he pulled his tongue back with a smacking sound, and then his hands, too. It took her a while to realise he was making work of his trousers.

She pushed on her elbows and helped him with trembling hands. He wriggled out of his clothes, kicking them on the floor, before Hermione hastily pulled down the elastic band of his boxers, setting him free.

The first thing she thought was that, well, the rumours were true.

The second thing (even though she would gladly die before admitting it out loud) was that, anatomically speaking, she didn’t know if there was enough room.

She blinked.

“Don’t,” she warned him before Malfoy could utter a single word. He was curving his lips in a seemingly innocent way, but it wasn’t hard to read his expression. “Don’t,” she repeated more softly, urging him to lie down with a push to his shoulder. He complied, and she climbed on top of him, legs on either side of his body.

“Not saying anything,” he smiled cheekily, his back resting against the propped up pillows.

She slid back until her wet and pulsing centre met his hard groin. Leaning down, her lips brushed his ear, bosom almost touching his mouth.

“Alright?”

“Are you sure, Granger? We can flip…”

“Piss off, who do you think you are?” she retorted, rubbing herself on his length. A beautiful sound left his throat, somewhere between moaning and grunting. “Yeah?”

Malfoy nodded this time, pulling up until he could fold himself around her. His hands went to hold her hips, his lips pressing on her sweaty skin. For the briefest moment, Hermione felt an aching divide between the dull throbbing of her core, where she so desperately wanted him, and the glorious bliss of feeling his body, hands, and mouth all over her.

She lined herself and let him sink deeply into her.

Her eyes squeezed shut, breath laboured as she felt the stretch to accommodate him, almost to the limit.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, gently rubbing her hips, moving her hair away from her face. Hermione took deep breaths, embracing the feeling.

“A bit, yeah. But it’s okay, I just need…”

“Yeah, no rush. Take all the time you need.” He leaned back, taking her hand to kiss it—thumb, index, middle finger; ring finger, pinky, palm; knuckles, back, wrist—and Hermione exhaled shakily.

She gave a tentative squeeze, and Malfoy groaned. His head fell back when she jerked her hips and leaned down over him.

Every time she welcomed his length, the burn came anew, and yet each time Hermione felt the desperate need for it. Her pace quickened as she balanced herself with her hands on Malfoy’s scarred chest, and his arms went around her to hold her close when her breath became shorter.

“That’s it, Granger. Make yourself come.” He said it with his lips pink, his hair ruffled, his eyes glazed and voice hoarse, and Hermione gripped his shoulders, sweaty skin against sweaty skin, nails digging into muscles, hand palming soft flesh. She kissed him deeply, fiercely, carelessly.

Draco kissed her mouth, kissed her cheek, kissed her jaw. A trail of kisses down her neck, the slope of her shoulder and collarbone, until he attached himself to her breasts, arms tight around her back—possessively, protectively—hot all over except for that singular point of coldness on his hand.

When she came fluttering around him, gasping for air and scratching his back, Draco followed suit with a long groan. He kept holding her, even as his arms shook, even when they fell back on the sheets, boneless and exhausted. Hermione didn’t move her head from its position on his chest, rising and falling with the rhythm of his evening breath.

After a while—seconds? Months? Minutes? Years?—she felt him stroking her hair, fingers running through her curls.

“Don’t fall asleep like this,” he said quietly.

“Sorry…” She pulled herself up, heavily. The coldness of the night was harsh on her damp body.

“Why do you keep apologising?”

“Habit.” He made a face, and she ignored it. “Merlin, we made a mess,” she complained once she slipped off him, sore all over. “I need to… oh, right.” She sighed when Malfoy cleaned the sheets with a quick movement of his hand. “Wandless, even? That’s pretentious.”

He grinned. “That’s more like it.”

She went to the bathroom, where she quickly cleaned herself and put her pyjamas on almost mechanically. In a similar manner, after leaving the room to Malfoy, she curled under the bed covers in a tight ball, alone, feeling sleep claiming her.

It was with the last shreds of consciousness that she saw Draco standing outside, peeping in the bedroom, about to close the door for her.

“Malfoy,” she called, a faint string of sound in the lonely room. “Come here.”

The silence that followed was so long that she thought he didn’t hear her.

“Yeah?”

Hermione moved the duvet aside, a silent plea for him to join her. “Come here,” she repeated. “Stay.” With me.

If he looked questioning, confused, or even wary, she was too spent to tell.

And maybe that was the reason why his arms felt so welcoming, why his embrace felt so comfortable—or maybe she was somehow seeing clearly through the haze of sleep, but what she did know was that Draco laid down next to her, and she fell asleep curled against him, the soft tune of his heartbeat echoing in her ear.

Chapter Text

11th of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

There is a short moment, when we wake up, in which we’re not actually awake yet.

Our eyes open groggily, and we float in a sort of in-betweenness of sleep and real life where the weight of everything hasn’t crushed our conscience yet. It’s fleeting, instantaneous, ephemeral, sometimes so quick we don’t even realise it happens. But that moment is there every morning, something we unconsciously cling to before bracing ourselves for a new day.

A brief wrinkle in time that welcomed Hermione as she woke in the comfortable warmth of her bed, blissfully unaware of where she was, who she was with, and even her own name.

She blinked once, looked at the shadows cast by the curtain on the wall in front of her, followed the way it played with the feeble light of the rising sun, and it was gone.

The sheets rustled as she turned around, the awareness of life bombarding her all at once. And yet, upon seeing the figure of the man lying next to her, she didn’t feel the dread she would have expected, had she been presented with this possibility only ten days before.

Not that anyone would have ever fathomed Hermione Granger waking up next to Draco Malfoy; but hypothetically speaking, if someone had said, “You wake up, and bleach-blond Draco Malfoy is sleeping next to you, and yes, you spent the night together, like that, what do you do?” she would have answered, without a doubt, “Run. As fast and as far away as possible.” Or maybe, possibly, she would have just laughed in the poor person’s face, and they would have gone home like a Cassandra of modern times.

Malfoy was sleeping on his side, with his back to her and the pillow squashed between arm and head. His shoulder rose and fell under the heavy duvet. The collar of his pyjamas t-shirt was so rumpled that Hermione could peep the hollow line forming between his shoulder blades, the one that continued downwards.

She wanted to touch it.

She was about to do it, when he shifted and turned around. She tucked her hand under the pillow as she watched Malfoy rub the sleep from his eyes, frowning and squinting like a kid.

“Hi, Granger.”

Who knows what would have happened if someone had asked him the same question, with the dutiful changes: “You wake up, and curly-haired Hermione Granger is sleeping next to you, and yes, you spent the night together, like that, what do you do?” Maybe he would have laughed, too. His younger self would have probably had a stroke or something, and the person who had dared ask the forbidden question would have had to live with Malfoy’s life on their conscience. Tragic.

The corners of Hermione’s mouth pulled up. “Hi. Did you sleep well?”

Draco reached to his lower back to massage the soreness away. “Actually, yes. Finally.”

A genuine chuckle escaped her. “Yeah, I bet it must have been an amazing improvement for your bones.”

“I’d started to feel them cracking whenever I moved around. Even as I stood up. I’m not sure how healthy that is.” 

His hand abandoned his muscles to reach for Hermione’s waist and tugged her closer. She went with no resistance and decided to place her own fingers on the swell of his back, digging in and making small circles to try and bring him some relief. Her touch was gentle, palming each vertebra underneath.

Everything about that moment felt so normal and ordinary that Hermione was having real trouble focusing on the dizziness huddled in a corner of her mind that was trying its best to underline the very out-of-the-ordinary-ness of the situation.

Who cared, anyway. In that bedroom, in that cabin, it felt as though they’d slipped out of their usual suits—or maybe it was just her, but there was no way for Hermione to be sure, so she just assumed.

In there, she wasn’t Hermione Granger, war hero and former Golden Girl of the Gryffindor tower. She also certainly wasn’t an aspiring novelist constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown and a certified personal disaster with a fragile psyche she refused to acknowledge and tackle. And he wasn’t Draco Malfoy, ex-classmate and redeemed Death Eater, heir to the largest fortune in the wizarding world and, as of recent discoveries, grieving widower.

They were just two people who had had sex and had quite enjoyed it—and might also enjoy doing it again. Two people that no one knew were even spending time together.

It felt… freeing. Exhilaratingly so. 

“You men are so dramatic,” Hermione commented, rolling her eyes for good measure. “It’s a perfectly comfortable sofa, and if your back hurts it’s because you watch the TV in horrendous positions, not because you slept on it.”

“Sure,” Draco mumbled in her hair while she kept pressing and rubbing on his sore spots. “Mh, yeah, a bit to the left. Right there. Yep. Merlin, that feels good.”

A phone buzzed after a minute, bursting the delicate and torpid bubble. Malfoy stretched with a groan before burying his head in the pillow as Hermione reached for her mobile on the bedside table.

“Who’s calling you on a Sunday morning?”

“It’s Monday.” She slid the notification open. “And it’s Ginny.”

“Is it about baby Potter?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t see why you would—oh, for Godric’s sake.” On the screen, a picture of Harry holding a small red Quidditch onesie, the name JAMES written in capital letters on it, number 7 matching the one on the jersey he was proudly sporting himself.

Ginny’s message read, help the man’s gone full dad and i don’t know if im scared or horny or both.

Malfoy peeked at it over her shoulder. “Well, that certainly is an excited father-to-be.”

“Shut up,” Hermione replied, shoving him away, “I’m the only one allowed to make fun of my best friend. Leave him alone.” His chuckle was a welcome sound as she looked at the picture; the cheerful and unconditionally happy glint in Harry’s eyes made her heart swell.

All things aside, he deserved this. He really did. At the end of the day, it was everything he’d ever wanted from life, what he’d looked for while sitting at Molly Weasley’s table, and what his hands had almost taken a hold of when he found Sirius, before it was cruelly snatched away: a loving family. Now he had it, and it was his. Let him be ridiculous and over-the-top about it.

“You have a face,” Draco said, just as she began to type her answer (Both is good. Tell him you don’t know if he’ll be a Gryffindor yet).

“What face?”

Ginny: he says it’s in the blood.

“This,” he repeated, poking her on the temple, “face.”

Hermione locked her phone and tossed it on the mattress. “That’s my normal face.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I think I know what my normal face looks like.”

“Are you sad?”

Hermione’s eyes almost jumped out of her sockets. “Beg your pardon?”

“I said,” he replied coolly, “are you s—”

“I’m not sad, what makes you even think that?!”

“I don’t know.” His eyes never strayed from hers. “It’s just a look on your face.”

“What do you know about the looks on my face, Malfoy? Why would I be sad that my best friend is going to be a dad, do you hear yours—”

“What’s your stance on kids, Granger?”

Hermione reined back a gasp but couldn’t stop her heart from beating faster. She’d woken up ten minutes before and he managed to make her angry already. Maybe it was just irritation; or maybe self-consciousness, it wasn’t clear. Still. What was clear was that Malfoy was doing everything in his power to remind her exactly who he was: Draco bloody Malfoy, and not some random man who’d keep his mouth shut on business that wasn’t his to discuss.

 “What?”

“Are you sad because you want a kid, too, or—”

“I am not sad!” A long pause followed, in which Malfoy held her cross gaze. “Can you stop that, please?”

“Stop what?”

“That,” she remarked, pointing an accusatory finger at his face. He stared at her, and she tried and failed to read his expression. Her heartbeat was still out of tune.

“You know, I get sad about it, sometimes,” he said quietly, then glanced away. “I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

This made her frown. “About your friends having kids? Do your friends have kids?”

“No, not them. I mean in general. People… creating families, I guess.” He rubbed his neck, pulling a face. “I get this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach of something like longing, I think. And it sucks. But I also don’t think about it too much.” His eyes settled on her again. “So you can tell me if it makes you sad. I’m not going to judge or make fun of you.”

Bzz. The notification gave Hermione an excuse to avert her eyes. Another picture, this time from Harry: Ginny looking exasperatedly at him, holding a stuffed animal that looked too much like a hippogriff to be simply coming out of Harrods. PLEASE give us your blessing, she wants to take it back to the store. Now that Hermione knew what to look for, the swell on Ginny’s belly was impossible to miss.

“I’m not sad,” she repeated, mostly to herself. “I am incredibly happy for them, so happy in fact I can’t even put it into words.” Her voice grew quiet as she put her phone away after answering Harry (Tell her I’ll get it for you anyway, if she doesn’t want to keep it). “What I think I feel is some kind of… envy, I guess.”

“Envy?”

She was past asking herself why on Earth she was confiding in Draco Malfoy, at that point. He really had a certain way of looking at her that just made her want to vomit everything out like she never had before. The more instinctual part of her deemed it uncharacteristic of him, and it tried to tell her that it would probably be wise to find out where it had come out of before trusting it blindly; but all of this came inevitably second to the primal need to dislodge some heavy burdens from her chest, so Hermione talked.

“I mean, what kind of certainties do you have, to be willing to bring another life into the world? Into this world?” She layed back on the pillows, body suddenly tired. “I don’t know if I have that, or if I will ever have that. Honestly, I don’t even know if I will ever find the kind of relationship that makes me feel sure about myself, let alone another human being.” Somehow, the words slipped out without her fully acknowledging it. “So, yeah,” she shrugged, as if to shake away the uneasiness from her shoulders. “That’s it, I think.”

Silence lingered between them for a while. Eventually, Draco spoke, quietly.

“Do you envy their certainties or their relationship?”

Hermione didn’t know the answer to that, so she kept looking at the ceiling.

“Because, you know, you could have one without the other,” he went on, as though he wanted to draw her out. “There are people who want kids without partners, and there are people who—”

“I know, Malfoy, thank you for the civics lesson.” She rolled her eyes, then exhaled. “Neither. Both. I don’t know,” she said, and turned on her side to look at him. His lips were twisted in a sweet mix between a pout and a smirk. “Do you want kids?”

His thinking frown was cute.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I haven’t thought about it.”

“You never talked about it with—” She stopped herself before completing the sentence. Draco smiled, as if encouraging her. “Sorry if it’s an inappropriate question, but you never talked about it with Astoria?” Her voice grew smaller on the name.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” There was a blue nuance to his tone, though. “Yes, we did talk about it. She didn’t want one.” His eyes went to the wardrobe and stayed there. “Not because she didn’t want one, in the most absolute sense of the term, but because, you know… Since she didn’t know whether she was going to die in minutes or in years, she’d decided that she didn’t want to pass on the burden of that uncertainty to a child.”

Hermione pondered over it. “Isn’t that the human condition, though? Every parent knows they’re giving that specific burden to their child. None of us know when we’re not going to be there anymore.”

“That’s what I told her. But she said it was different. And she wasn’t completely wrong, I get it; but that’s why she didn’t want to risk it.” He ran a hand over his stubble, feeling the short hair. He was probably going to shave later, Hermione thought. “Anyway, that’s it. No kids.”

She didn’t give herself time to think before blurting out the question. “Would you have done it? Had she asked?”

Draco kept staring at the wardrobe doors. His jaw clenched and released a couple of times.

Then he turned to her, and instead of answering he said, “What did you mean when you said this isn’t real?”

Her eyebrows rose, taken by surprise by the sudden remark while simultaneously trying to think of how to dodge the question, not sure about the answer herself. “Nothing, really. I say a lot of things.”

“And if you’re still the same person I used to know, they all mean something. What did that one mean?”

“You are not the same person I used to know, so I don’t see why I would be,” she retorted, crossing her arms. He poked at her with his foot, and she sighed. “Nothing. It’s a… philosophical kind of trip I thought about a couple of days ago. Meaningless, really.”

“What kind of philosophical trip?” 

“For Godric’s sake, what do I have to do to shut you up?”

“I have an idea or two,” he smirked. “But I also want an answer, so I’m not  sure that would be helpful right now.”

“Then I want my answer first. Would you have done it?” she demanded firmly.

Draco didn’t exactly sigh. But in the moment before answering, as he chose the right words, it looked like he deflated, like a worn-out balloon.

“I would have done anything for her.” His fingers wriggled; thumb and index went to touch the rigs on his left hand, and Hermione almost averted her eyes at the devotion that gesture conveyed. “Anything.”

She deflated, too, arms going slack along her sides. Maybe what she envied was the relationship, after all.

Silence settled in the room. Not heavy, but somewhat charged with a presence that couldn’t really be dealt with; and yet, neither of them seemed to make any effort to chase it away.

“I just meant that something happening here, in this cabin, without anyone else knowing about it, isn’t really real, because the rest of the world is completely unaware,” Hermione said slowly, before clearing her throat. “Technically, this,” she moved her hand between her and Malfoy, “isn’t reality for anyone else except us.”

(She hadn’t known about Astoria until a handful of hours before. Did that make her any less real?)

Malfoy seemed to contemplate her reasoning for a while.

“Feels pretty real to me.”

A beat of silence passed, as quick as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings.

“It is real for us.”

“Then it’s just real.”

“No,” she insisted, “because if it’s just us against the rest of the world, you understand there’s at least a numbers issue here.” 

One of his hands reached over to touch her wrist, thumb brushing along the pattern of her purple-green veins.

“I think I’m fine with what’s real for me.” He tugged a bit, and Hermione found herself shifting on the mattress to get closer. “And as far as I remember, last night was real for me.”

“But, you see, memories are even trickier,” she said while Malfoy pushed her right sleeve up past her elbow, caressing the skin of her forearm with the tip of his nails. “Sometimes we forget things, sometimes we make up details, simply to protect ourselves from the absurd and to find some resemblance of quiet and peace. How can you rely on that to decide what’s real?”

“Because you shouldn’t be looking for an all-encompassing definition of reality.” His hand moved to the curve of her waist. “Reality for me is what is real for me, no matter whether my memories are ‘real’ or not. They’re in my brain, so they’re real to me.”

She rested her hands on his chest. “That would mean to completely tear the very fabric of the world down to pieces.”

“Who cares about the world, Granger.”

“I care about the world. A lot of people care about the world, actually, you dull Slytherin prince.”

Hand sliding under her pyjamas top. “Love the nicknames. Keep them coming.”

“I have trouble with my memories, sometimes.”

Draco’s hand never faltered, continuing along its path, but it was firmer now, more determined. It reached the small of her back and stopped there, mirroring the position Hermione’s hand had itself occupied on his body just a little earlier before.

“How do you mean?”

“After I reversed the Obliviate spell on my parents, it took a toll on me, and since then I’ve had trouble remembering things from time to time.” Actually, her Mind Healer had told her it was very much plausible that some of her memories had vanished due to a certain degree of trauma response and not because of the spell, and that attending therapy sessions might help with that—but again, Hermione had yet to book an appointment with that imaginary therapist she liked to think about at times, so she just took her diagnosis and went on with her life.

Malfoy didn’t comment on the spell, and Hermione did wonder whether he knew what she was talking about or not; but then he was speaking again, and the flash of wartime fled her mind.

“What kind of things?”

“Oh, you know. This and that. The first film I saw at the movie theatre. Some arguments I had with my friends over the years. Old relationships.” She narrowed her eyes. Weird, trying to scan her mind to find out where the missing pieces were. How do you even realise that something is not there? “For example, I don’t remember the first time a guy went down on me, nor I remember the first time I gave head, even though I’m one hundred percent sure both happened, because I remember all the other times.”

His palm was still on her back. “And that’s all because of the spell, or is it because of, um… because we want to protect ourselves from the absurd?”

Hermione shrugged and leaned closer to him, their bodies sharing warmth.  “I don’t know. I’m not sure I care.”

“There’s a difference, though. In terms of reality.” She arched her spine under his touch. “What you don’t remember because of the spell is simply gone. What your mind makes up or erases for you, that’s more like you lying to yourself. Isn’t it?”

“You just said that what’s real in your mind is real for you, full stop. Are you backtracking already?” If she tilted her head just so, Hermione could kiss the hollow over his collarbone.

“No, you’re right, I said that.” Draco’s hand made its way to her lower back, her waist, her hip, before skimming her belly. “I guess, what I really want to know is—will your mind play games with you and make you forget this? Is this why you say it’s not real?”

Her eyes darted to his. “I don’t know.” Flecks of green in a sea of grey. “Why?”

“Because this is real for me.” Open-close, like the beating of a living heart. “No matter how absurd it might be.”

She blinked, incapable or, more likely, unwilling to dwell on what Malfoy was telling her. Then she leaned up and her lips met his, puzzle pieces trying to determine whether they fit or not, left locked together on the table while the rest of the image was being worked out.

It felt electrifying. Or even electrocuting.

Draco quickly stripped her of her top as she climbed on his lap. His hands went around her back to draw her closer, mouth dashing for her nipple to kiss, and bite, and suck, and kiss again. Hermione cradled his head close to her chest, fingers sliding into his hair, eyes closing while little sounds of delighted pleasure left her throat.

Was it real? Was it a real thing that was happening in the real world? How was it going to affect her? Was she going to remember it? How was he so certain of the realness of that situation? The answer didn’t matter: her brain was too occupied by the discharges of pure energy Draco’s lips and teeth and tongue were sending to it.

When he circled his tongue around her nipple, Hermione felt the first throbbing between her legs and a very present emptiness in her mouth.

“Wait, let me…” she breathed out, climbing off of him to take her pyjamas bottoms off. Mere seconds later, her hands were impatiently working on getting him rid of his clothes, too, and Malfoy chuckled.

“I think I should prepare you a bit before… I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Do you think you have some magical creature down there?” And yet she had to blink twice when he was completely naked before her. Big was the only possible word to describe him, and Hermione felt a sting inside of her, remembering how it had felt the night before and craving it again.

His hand reached around her, shamelessly resting on her arsecheek, kneading it slowly. “Just looking out for you, Granger. You could thank me.”

“Sod off,” and she threw a leg over his body, sitting on his abdomen facing his legs.

She licked her palm.

“I would actually prefer it if I could see y—oh, fuck,” Draco groaned when Hermione took him in her hand, fisting slowly up and down. His skin was smooth, almost silky to the touch; there was an angry vein running for the whole length of him that pulsed against her palm.

Her thumb brushed on the tip, and Draco grabbed her bum, urging her to slide up towards him, muttering incomprehensible things. Hermione pressed down on his body, but let him spread her legs as he looped his arms around her thighs and drew her close. She moved her hair to one side with a smooth movement; the sight of his hard cock was making her mouth water and her cunt drip.

Her lips wrapped around the head at the same time his tongue tasted her pussy. 

She moaned around him, and Malfoy flicked her clit before mapping the road down her entrance. His hold on her legs tightened as his tongue played with her, twirling and swirling and giving long and broad strokes. His fingers moved to cup and squeeze the softness of her bum, and when he started poking her slit, Hermione took his entire shaft in her mouth, letting the tip hit the back of her throat. She swallowed around him, coughing a bit, but she was determined to keep him inside the warm alcove of her mouth, so she took a deep breath before she started sucking.

The sound of smacking skin ricocheted around the room loud and clear, making Hermione yelp and pull away.

Draco had slapped her.

She turned her head, unsure whether to tell him off or to do it again, but it didn’t matter: Malfoy’s tongue was inside of her and his hand was on the nape of her neck, urging her to resume her previous activity.

“Sorry, Granger, you don’t like that?” he muttered against her folds, hushed and quick, lapping up her juices and rendering Hermione speechless. “Because I, on the other hand, quite liked it.” She swore, panting against the base of his cock as she gripped it in her hand. The sounds he made as he licked her were obscene. “But I can just focus on your pretty little cunt here, if you prefer it.”

Hermione trailed a path of kisses up his length before focusing on the tip: she pulled the foreskin back to expose the head and swirled her tongue around it, tasting the first drops of precum. Malfoy’s hips bucked up and she grinned, then ran the flat of her tongue along his hard cock; she felt lewd as it brushed her cheek, but alive with unfamiliar desire.

Her lips pressed small pecks at the base, softly, sweetly, while her thumb grazed the slit. She pushed her bum out towards Malfoy’s face; it was both a silent answer and request.

His chuckle sent a shiver down her spine. Then, in rapid succession, his palm smacked against her skin, before his hands went to sooth the reddening spot with gentle caresses as his mouth sucked on her clit.

The snapping in her lower belly was impossible to misunderstand, and Hermione moaned loudly as the mixed sensations made her tumble towards a shuddering climax. A gush of wetness coated her thighs; she could hear slurping sounds in her post-orgasm haze.

Warm fingers drawing random patterns on her heated skin lulled her back to reality. Blinking her eyes open, Hermione saw the pulsing vein of Malfoy’s erection: her walls clenched, and a whispered “fuck” came from behind her before two fingers entered her.

Eagerly, almost wildly, she took him back in her mouth, straining her jaw and trying to keep the gag reflex at bay.

She felt his hand on her neck again; this time, though, his fingers tangled at the base of her curls. He gripped hard and tugged.

A gasp left Hermione’s mouth as she pulled up. 

“Such an obedient girl…” 

She keened, but whether it was from the praise or from the way his fingers curled in her pussy, she didn’t know. Malfoy loosened his hold, but his hand stayed on her nape, holding her firmly and silently telling her to keep going. 

Hermione did. Wet lips dragged over the thick length of him, alternating between kisses and licking. Saliva started running down her chin, and with a hand she reached over to fondle his balls. The response was immediate: Malfoy groaned and then grazed his teeth over her clit before sucking hard at it. His fingers left her cunt to grip her arse, digging in. It almost hurt, her button too oversensitive, but the prominent feeling was an ache for more.

 She needed to be full—of him, of the feelings he was eliciting in her, of the reality they were creating together.

Taking him back in her mouth, she hollowed her cheeks and swallowed around the head, a mix of heady tastes engulfing her throat. She felt Draco part her folds with his fingers before his tongue penetrated her again. Hermione’s moans of pleasure were interrupted by a loud gasp the moment his thumb slid up, stroked over the puckered skin of her arsehole, and pushed in. 

She choked on his cock, and his hips jerked.

“Granger, fuck, I’m gonna—”

He was slippery and covered in spit when she pulled away, taking him in her hand. Hermione turned, and the sight made her walls flutter: Malfoy’s face was flushed, hair crumpled, heavy-lidded, fingertips white as they firmly held onto her. Her voice was hoarse when she spoke.  

“Will you stop afterwards or do you think you can handle two rounds?” 

He grunted as her fist kept pumping him. “I’m not a teenager anymore, Granger.”

“Feel like risking it?”

There was a challenging glint in his gaze before he closed his eyes, shifted to press his mouth to her centre, and shoved his fingers inside of her, crooking them to tap on her most sensitive spot. Full in both holes, Hermione pushed down on his face, desperate for more, feeling his stubble tickle her. Her hand stopped her ministrations, wanting to indulge in the new sensations for as long as she could, but Draco moaned anyway as soon as he tasted her again. She almost let out a sob.

Was it as addicting to him as it was to her?

The burn in her rim when his thumb thrusted in made her hiss, but she moaned in disappointment when his hand left her arse to roam her body. From thigh to hip, following the curve of her waist, up to the shoulder and down again, it left a scorching trail behind it before joining the other one.

Both hands now kept her spread open and firm against him, like it was his only mission to snatch another orgasm out of her with his tongue alone.

When Draco glanced at her and arched an eyebrow, while giving a hard lick from entrance to clit and back up, Hermione quivered and immediately leaned down to take his dick in her mouth. She almost pushed herself to her limits, sucking deftly around the tip before she bobbed her head up and down until she gagged and sputtered and her eyes watered.

As his tongue was buried deep in her cunt—where he sucked, and sucked, and sucked again—Hermione felt him twitch, once, twice, and then he was spilling his seed down her throat. Draco groaned against her folds, muttering nonsense and body trembling under hers.

His hands were touching anything they could reach, and a second orgasm tore through her when he gripped her tits and squeezed hard—her toes curled on either side of Malfoy’s head, her nails dug into his thighs, and black spots blurred her vision.

A minute passed before she could catch her breath. She started to stroke him, slowly, as though measuring him again for the first time. Draco eased his grip, gently caressing her hips and kissed her inner thigh.

“Think you can take me, Granger?”

“Fuck you,” she muttered, then pulled herself up and slid down his body, her back still to him.

His hands snaked to her front as he sat up, too. He held her waist to help her angling herself: Hermione got on her knees, hands balancing on his legs; Malfoy took himself in his fist, chin resting on her shoulder as he looked down.

“Correction,” he whispered in her ear. “You are fucking me.”

The crown of his cock slipped into her, and Hermione groaned, leaning back against his chest. She pushed down, welcoming more of him inside. Malfoy’s breath was hot against her neck.

“Careful. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

“I’m not—shut up,” she managed, before sheathing him completely. A sharp sound left her mouth, her brows creasing together. “See?” she remarked, panting as the girth stretched her out.

Draco placed a hand under her chin, tilting it to kiss her neck while giving a tentative roll of his hips. His left hand gripped her jaw, and the sudden ring-shaped point of coldness on her neck made her shiver.

“Good girl.”

Her eyes flickered shut, and Hermione squeezed hard. The indecent sentence leaving Draco’s mouth made her pick her pace: she started bouncing up and down with growing need as his hand roamed her chest, lips and teeth stubbornly attached to the pulse point on her neck. She threw her head back, screaming unabashedly at every new plunge, pain and pleasure mixing together until they both fell off the cliff, gasping for air and grasping at each other.

Draco’s arm was still around her waist when Hermione came back to her senses, and her nails were still digging in his shoulder when his breath evened out.

“You alright?” he asked after a bit.

She made an affirmative sound. Her skin was sweaty, detaching from his with a smacking noise. “You?”

“Yeah.” A pause. (It could have been filled with a kiss.) “I’m fine.”

He rubbed his palms on her body, carefully, almost tentatively, helping her off of himself. 

Hermione stood up on shaky legs, and Draco waited a bit before rising from the bed, too: he sat on the edge of the mattress, holding his face in his hands, breathing deeply. She padded across the room to reach the window, drawing the curtains open.

The sunlight wasn’t strong, but it was stronger than the day before. She could have sworn there were less clouds, too.  

The storm was drawing to an end. For good, probably.

She turned, blocking the morning light from Draco’s face with her frame. Too bad he still had to cover his too-clear eyes when he stood. He mumbled something, looking at the crumpled and stained sheets.

“Let me clean…”

“Wait.”

The storm was drawing to an end.

Hermione held out a hand for him, taking a few steps towards the door. “I have yet to have a proper bath since I arrived.”

Malfoy glanced at her open hand, then at her, then at her palm again.

If Hermione had looked more closely at his expression, she would have seen something dark flash on his face for the shortest of seconds before he took her hand.

She didn’t, though.

Pulling Draco towards the bathroom, her mind was already caught up in anticipation of how they were going to fill the rest of the day. For the same reason, she didn’t notice that the hand she’d offered was her left one.

And being still naked, that meant she’d stretched out her left arm, too.

Bare in the sunlight.

Scar in plain sight.

Chapter Text

11th of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

“I’m hungry,” Hermione mumbled against Draco’s lips.

It was later at night, and they were snuggled on the sofa. A magical flame in the fireplace, snow falling outside, a film on TV neither of them was paying enough attention to (Hermione knew Just By Luck like the back of her hand anyway).

Draco traced the braid pattern of her knit pullover, one arm flung over her shoulder, the other around her waist. “You want me to get something to eat?”

“No, it’s fine,” she said standing up, shivering as her body left the warm cocoon under the blanket. “Actually, I still have the lasagna in the freezer, if you fancy it.”

“Potter’s one?” He groaned as he stretched his long limbs before reaching the coffee table for his smoke. “You’re not trying to poison me or something, are you?”

“You’re poisoning yourself,” she remarked, glaring at the cigarettes. “Besides, that would be counterproductive for me, at this point. Don’t you think?”

Draco smirked, taking his time rolling the cigarette before bringing it between his lips, perfectly aware that Hermione was staring at the motion. He held the packet out for her.

“Want one?”

Hermione cleared her throat. “No.” So her voice was a bit hoarse. Big deal.

She headed to the kitchen while Malfoy went to the balcony. The sudden gush of wind that swept through the house as he opened the glass door was so cold that she squeezed herself in her arms.

“Aren’t you freezing out there?”

He sat on a chair outside and propped his legs up on the parapet. “Dealt with worse.” Then, “Hey, Granger!” he called, before closing the door. Hermione stared at him curiously. “Look,” he mouthed.

His fingers snapped, and the tip of his cigarette lit up.

She scoffed, mostly disbelieving that she was turned on by such an innocuous thing. “Show off.”

Malfoy flashed her one last smile before turning away to exhale a cloud of smoke.

The unperturbed expression of tranquility on his face was still there when he walked back inside a few minutes later, shrugging the coldness from his shoulders, breath stinging heavily of tobacco. Hermione stopped typing and looked at him from behind the laptop screen; she used the distraction to take her glasses off and rub her eyes. His clean-shaved cheeks had become flushed in the cold air.

He’d shaved earlier, which had been fun. He’d searched for his wand in the bathroom, telling her there were at least a thousand different spells dealing with body hair and that shaving was one of the easiest ones, but Hermione had insisted on doing it the Muggle way.

“I don’t even have a razor,” he’d said, putting on a bathrobe while Hermione was still lounging behind in the lukewarm water.

“We can transfigure a knife. I did it countless times during the last years at Hogwarts.”

“I didn’t know you had to shave a beard, Granger.”

“Ah-ah, really funny.” She’d emerged from the bathtub and wrapped a towel around her body. “I’ll just answer by saying that someone had to keep Harry’s hair in check.”

She’d sat him down on the edge of the bathtub and took the transfigured razor in her hand, then gripped his chin between her fingers to tilt his face, looking for a good starting point. Malfoy hadn’t uttered a word as she shaved him with precision, but a subtle smirk settled on his features; it didn’t disappear even when she’d cut him a little on the cheek.

“Shit, sorry,” she’d mumbled, wiping the blood away with her thumb before mindlessly pressing it to her lips. “Did that hurt…?” Her eyebrows had raised at Malfoy’s low growl.

She’d glanced at her finger, and then it was her turn to smirk. “Talk about weird preferences.”

“Talk about it,” and he’d tugged her closer.

Hours later, his cheek was still sporting the cut, even though she’d offered to heal it. She didn’t let herself wonder the reason. 

“How’s this coming out?” Draco asked, crouching to look at the baking lasagna inside the oven.

“Pretty nicely, I’d say, judging from the smell.” Hermione saved the file and closed the laptop, ignoring the fact that she was incredibly behind on her schedule and focusing on which wine she was going to open for the night instead. She kneeled next to him, opening the oven door. “I think it’s done. Can you pass me a fork?”

Malfoy reached for one on the sink, handing it over for Hermione to stick it in the middle of the lasagna. Satisfied with the result, she turned the oven off and stood up.

“Right. Get the table ready? I’ll just leave the laptop in my room—why are you smiling?”

An annoyingly endearing grin was taking up Malfoy’s face. “It’s amazing how easily you boss people around.”

“Fuck you, I don’t boss people around,” she retorted, halfway between amused and offended. “Stop smiling like an idiot.”

“But how can I, Granger,” he said, catching her by the waist to whisper the next words directly inside her mouth. “You fuck me so good I can’t wipe this smile off my face.”

Hermione laughed against his lips, instantly turning a violent shade of red, and gave him a weak slap on the chest before going to the bedroom.

Dinner was already served when she came back and sat at the kitchen table, paired with a full glass of wine.

“How’s the book going?” Malfoy asked as Hermione started cutting her lasagna in regular pieces, examining it still; it didn’t exactly look like Harry’s one, but it was close enough, she determined. At least she hoped so.

“Uh, you know. It’s going… somewhere,” she said before taking a mouthful. Pointing at Draco’s plate, she mumbled something incomprehensible, wiggling her eyebrows in question.

“Yeah, it’s good,” he answered, “and I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s not poisoned.” She poked her tongue out, making him chuckle. “Can I ask you how you decided to write a book? What happened?”

“Nothing specific, really,” Hermione shrugged, trying to downplay it. “I worked at the Ministry for some time; but while Harry and Ron were Auror training, I realised I didn’t really care about it, not the work I was doing at least, so I quit and joined the Prophet. Which, if you know a bit about the Prophet, wasn’t exactly the lesser evil, but, well. I felt like I had a bit more room to do things I cared about. And Ginny was there, too.”

Which had been the unexpected turn of events that set everything into motion. Everyone had assumed Ginny was going to have a brilliant career as a Quidditch athlete, but when it came down to signing the contract, she couldn’t bring herself to leave her family. Sure, Bill was still alive and not even doomed to the moon cycle; Arthur was holding up well for his age and his wounds; and even Percy had managed to mend the relationship. Still, the missing chair next to George’s always felt like a ghost limb.

And it was due to that everlasting hurt, that deep grief that never grew smaller, that Ginny decided to stay and help her brother, rather than set her foot out in the world to chase her dream on a broomstick. George himself fought with her about it, but she had been adamant in her decision: she was going to stay in London whether he liked it or not. And since she was already there, it would have been the better choice to at least try and take advantage of her, instead of acting like a too-tall child.

Otherwise, if George had preferred it, there would have been the possibility of asking Ron and his fantastic businesslike mind for help.

Ginny had said he didn’t argue too much after that.

“She’d become a contributor to the newspaper, all the while working at the joke shop. She found she quite liked that, so she agreed when Luna proposed to open their own publishing house. Long story short, I followed in her footsteps at first, and now she’s my editor. So to speak.”

“So to speak?”

“I mean, I’m not an author yet. So I’m not sure that what she does could actually be considered editing.”

Malfoy hummed, swallowing a bite. “You haven’t answered my question, though.”

“What question?” The wine was delicious. Another one of his bottles.

“Writing. Fiction. What happened, why do you do it?”

“Why do you want to know?” she asked, defensively.

“Can’t I be curious?” 

Hermione sighed, momentarily occupying her mouth with another bite of lasagna. It had really turned out great. She ought to tell Harry.

“Well, what can I say.” Her eyes stayed focused on her dinner. “I’ve always loved books, and for a long time I felt like they were the only ones who could understand me. So it only feels right for me to be entering that world. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Draco hummed in his glass. “And the honest answer?”

Her gaze darted up to find him already looking at her.

One breath. Two heartbeats.

“Merlin, you’re a pain in the arse.” Hermione sighed, tiredly pushing some curls away from her face. “I’ve always thought I would have a story to tell, but then I became a story. The first time I crossed the castle doors—or even the first time I opened Hogwarts, A History—I pictured myself years later, with my life firmly in my hands, recounting all the choices that brought me… wherever I was. I was so solid in that position that my mum was convinced I would become Minister for Magic one day.

“Then, I don’t know when, but it occurred to me that I had no control over anything. People called me whatever they preferred, they all had an image of me in their heads that I was somehow supposed to match, and that persona was the one newspapers would speculate about and everyone would make assumptions on.”

Draco smiled softly, “That sounds familiar.”

“Yeah. I felt like a character in a novel, when I’ve only ever wanted to be the writer. So I told myself, why not. It started as me trying to regain control over my life, but now it’s…” she groaned, gesticulating. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if I have a story to tell anymore.”

“Sounds like the book isn’t really going somewhere, after all.”

She glared at him, but he had a point. “I fear the main issue is that I not only feel like a character, but like a side character—someone who has to deal with things happening to her without the means to control them in the slightest.”

She hadn’t always felt like that. She could still remember a time when she had the courage of her convictions, a spark that made the Hat send her to Gryffindor. But then…

The war. Somewhere in between all that madness, she’d gone from being fearlessly sure of every step she took, to feeling completely overwhelmed by minor inconveniences.

She had gone from fighting it to letting it happen to her.

When her eyes landed on Draco, she found he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Not in the eyes. Instead, his gaze was fixed where she was absentmindedly gripping and scratching lightly on her left forearm. She had rolled her sleeves up in order to not stain them with the food.

“Ah.” For some reason, Hermione turned her arm around to look at it better under the light rather than hiding it immediately. “Right.”

After eight years, her maimed flesh didn’t even look mangled to her anymore. It was just smooth skin interrupted by battered lines. She traced them, like she hadn’t done in ages: M, and then U, and then D, and then B… and so on.

At first, it had seemed like the cuts were never going to heal. Bellatrix Lestrange’s darkest magic and a knife that smelled like it had been devoted to black rituals ever since the dawn of time were a lethal combination. Hermione had bled for hours, for days, under Fleur’s bandages. To this day, she still didn’t know what kind of demonic curse the witch had placed on her; what she knew was that the pain kept coming anew when she least expected it, burning like she was being cut open for the first time again and again, until she had screamed for someone to do her a favour and cut her arm off.

Eventually, thanks to a combined effort coming from healing techniques and skilled werewolf aftercare, the pain had subsided and the cuts had started to scar. Being magical wounds, it would have been impossible to make them disappear for good, and Hermione had stared at the jagged lines with a blank mind as Fleur explained it to her. She’d told her she could teach her charms to disillusion them, some that Bill used and that Remus had passed along; they were temporary, but could do the trick when needed. But Hermione, still looking at her damaged skin, had refused to learn them.

“It’s true anyway, isn’t it?” Hermione had said, voice broken as tears soaked her cheeks. She’d passed her fingers on her skin, feeling the split where the knife had cut in, committing it to memory. It was going to feel like that forever. Fleur’s blue eyes had been mortified, utterly unable to help her friend.

“I am a Mudblood,” Hermione went on, digging her fingers in her arm. “I don’t have the excuse of being a Half-Blood, like even fucking Vo—You-Know-Who himself, and I can’t even have the twisted dignity of being a blood traitor. At least that means you’re choosing what your stance is in this goddamn war. I can’t have that because I am a fucking Mudblood, through and through, and my only crime is that I was born!”

The other woman had hugged her tightly when she hid her face in her chest, crying desperately, shoulders shaken by violent sobs. And yet, nothing she told her had stuck to Hermione’s brain, too fragile and too troubled to be thinking clearly.

She’d pushed through that day. And then she’d pushed through the next. And the next. And the next. She had focused her efforts on what really mattered. Help Harry. Find the horcruxes. Win the war.

And then she’d learnt how to change the bandages by herself, quietly, using her teeth to pull the gauze. And when there was no need for bandages anymore, after the war, she’d bought long-sleeved shirts. She’d forced herself to accept that scar as a part of her. If she couldn’t get rid of it, she would learn to deal with it.

The first time she went to the beach with her friends, she had a panic attack in the car. Years later, though, she was finally able to buy sleeveless dresses again.

And yet, even though—or maybe precisely because—she didn’t pay the scar that much attention anymore, those few times she was abruptly reminded of it were becoming harsher than ever to tolerate. Mostly because they bore the knowledge that other people saw it, too.

How many times had Malfoy seen the scar without her noticing? The previous night? That morning? In the bathroom? Had she walked around the house with a t-shirt? Had he seen it then? When they’d had dinner the first time and she’d rolled her sleeves up, like she did now, like she does every time? What had he thought about it? Did it upset him? Did it scare him? Did it bring back memories that left him gasping for air?

She would have felt like that, she mused. Had she been in his place, she would have felt like that. What other possible reaction was to be expected, when presented with such a present, permanent, ugly reminder of what she had gone through, what she was, how different that made them—

A gasp left her mouth, her eyes darting to Draco’s arms.

They were crossed on his chest.

Long sleeves down.

Gaze fixed on his left forearm, her mind was reeling through the last 24 hours. How had she missed it? It was impossible to miss…

“You want to see it?” His voice came out clipped, but honest. A genuine question. And Hermione simply nodded.

“Yes.”

Draco cleared his throat, once, twice. He turned his forearm up, curling his fingers in a tight fist on the hem of the sleeve. Was it poetic or was it just appalling that the left side of his body, the one that guarded the heart, was the same one where he carried the memory of his family, of his wife, of the war? 

And what was Hermione supposed to make of the fact that both their left arms had been cruelly vilified?

He pulled up the sleeve with a sharp movement, arm landing on the table with a thud.

The first thought that crossed her mind was that the Dark Mark wasn’t dark at all. In fact, it looked a lot like her own scar, minus the evident scar tissue. If anything, it reminded her of a faded red tattoo.

The skin wasn’t ruined—not plainly so, at least. The lines that formed the skull and the snake were large and long, and they occupied the entirety of Draco’s forearm, from elbow to wrist. But they weren’t black like she remembered.

“It’s blood magic,” he answered her scrutinising frown. “It was linked to the Dark Lord’s life, so it was black only while he was… alive, alive. Actually, my… my Father told me once, after I… that there might be a chance that it disappears, had he… died.” His voice jumped, stuttering on every sentence. “Because during those fourteen years before he got another body, the Mark had almost faded, like this, so… But yeah. No such thing.”

Hermione realised she had leaned over the table when she balled her fingers in a fist, stopping herself from touching his arm.

“It looks…” She was unsure of how she was going to end the sentence. “Clean.”

Draco scoffed. “Yeah. It does.”

“Sorry, can I…?”

He outstretched his arm towards her. Hermione rested a finger over it, tentatively, slowly.

Under her touch, the line on his skin felt like a slightly-too-large vein. It was definitely there, but it wasn’t as startling as the scars on his chest. Surely not as the scar on her arm. Hermione traced the Mark inch by inch, following every curve, every angle, every pattern.

“How…?”

His palm was tightly closed in front of her, knuckles white. “There’s a ritual. It’s long and complicated, and half of the spells are in Ancient languages I didn’t understand—but it connects the bodies, in a way. To bind the Mark’s bearer to the Dark Lord on one hand, and to harness a collective power from everyone else who’s already marked on the other. It’s about loyalty; but also, and even more so, about control. He could summon us from anywhere, just by activating it. During the Tournament, when Diggory… I saw Snape and Karkaroff grip their left arms at the exact same time, and I knew it’d happened.” He was following the path of Hermione’s hand with his gaze carefully. “I had no idea about the pain, though.”

“I might know a thing or two about that.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head, “no, you don’t.”

Her finger stopped in its tracks. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t mean it like that. The opposite, actually…” Draco pressed two fingers to the corner of his eyes, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “You know, my… um…” He pointed at her arm. “That was supposed to have some of the same magic. She came to me, asking for details, because she thought it was ‘fresher in my mind’. I didn’t know them anyway, so she tried whatever came close enough—but she failed to consider a very important detail.

“In order to take the Dark Mark, you have to be willing. You really need to want it, because otherwise not only the spell won’t work, but you’ll die. Simple as that.” He paused, nodding at her arm. “That was unwilling. And since the grounds for the spell were similar, it means that—”

“Mine was more painful.” She pulled her hand back, smiling humourlessly. “Well, that certainly brings so much relief.”

“I just mean that I don’t know what you went through, and we shouldn’t compare…”

“Oh, fuck off. You fucking know what I went through, because you were there !” Hermione snapped, spitting out the words out with all the venom she had in her body. “You were right there, and your aunt asked you about the spell, and you knew how that felt, and even if you didn’t, you heard me, because you were right there.”

Draco stared at her with knitted eyebrows. “You’re right. I was.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“What else do you want me to say? That I’m sorry?”

“No, I don’t want a stupid apology.”

“Good, because I don’t think you need it.”

“I can’t believe this,” Hermione scoffed, suddenly feeling the need to stand, to jump, to throw something at the nearest wall, to walk outside in the barren cold with no clothes on. “You sit there and you talk to me like some kind of martyrised version of yourself—I don’t know what you went through, I can’t imagine the pain, everything that happened to me is nothing compared to what happened to you… you think I don’t fucking know that? You think I’m just going to romanticise your life to fit some kind of twisted idea about the illusion of choice?”

“Okay, so what is it that you want me to tell you, Granger?” His arm was still bare on the table as his eyes narrowed and his voice charged with coldness. “The opposite of that? That what I had to go through is something you won’t ever be able to understand? Does that sound better? Does that make you feel better?”

“What would make me feel better?”

“I don’t know. You’re talking like you’re desperately looking for an excuse to hate me.”

“I’m not looking for—”

“I can see your mind working in there, I can feel it. And I know nothing about what you’re thinking because you keep it all to yourself.” All Hermione could hear was the growing spite in his tone. “Are you trying to make me fit into a stupid scene you’re playing out in your head? Is my real presence not matching the one you have in your head?”

Why the fuck would she even try and talk to him, if this is what she got in return?

“Do you think people should look at you as a paragon of redemption, Malfoy?” she asked, tilting her head emphatically and fixing him with her stare. “Is that the idea of yourself you have in your mind?”

“You’re being absurd. I’m sorry if I grew the fuck up and developed enough self-awareness to be able to look objectively at my life.”

“I’m not being absurd, I’m genuinely asking,” Hermione insisted. “I bet it’s amazing to draw a breath of relief and say well, thank fuck that’s all gone, I can live with myself now that the only reminder is a faded scar.”

“You don’t know how I live with myself,” he said, voice dangerously low.

“I hope miserably,” she retorted, unsure whether she believed her own words or not.

Draco paused. Took a deep breath.

“I’m not asking for forgiveness, Granger.”

“Good,” Hermione said, echoing him. “Because I don’t think you deserve it.”

His jaw visibly clenched, and his fist, if possible, tightened.

Hermione hastily pulled her sleeve down and finished her glass of wine, and all the while Draco kept looking at her. 

“Do you think I’m a coward?” he said then, glancing at his arm.

Daring, nerve, and chivalry were supposed to be Gryffindor’s main qualities—according to the Sorting Hat, at least. It had been easy to assume that bravery was a natural consequence of those.

The first time Hermione had really thought she was brave had been that night in the Shrieking Shack, in third year. She was clinging to Harry’s arm, trying at once to keep him from doing something utterly stupid and to hold herself up as she felt her knees being just a second away from buckling, and she’d looked at Remus and Sirius pointing their wands in Pettigrew’s face, eyes murderous.

“You don’t understand,” the man had whined with that ridiculous voice and that trembling pointing finger. “He would have killed me!”

Hermione had looked at Remus’ knuckles go white around his wand before focusing on the way Sirius’ dried-out features, vexed from all those years in Azkaban, had exploded in a desperate roar: “Then you should have died! Died, rather than betray your friends!”

Bravery. That must have been bravery. That was what she had just done, when she’d entered the Shack and stepped in front of Harry without thinking twice about it, telling a wanted criminal, a convicted felon, that he would have to kill her before getting to her best friend.

Harry had been quick to say that Pettigrew was a coward, afterwards. As far as he’d told her, in his dreams Voldemort had called him a coward, too. But was he, really? Someone who didn’t think twice when it came to selling his ‘friends’ to the Dark Lord, someone who survived for twelve years as a rat just to run back to his master as soon as the moment was right. Was that what a coward would have done? Daring, nerve, and chivalry: his morals were devoted to a genocidal cause, but…

Draco had taken the Mark when he was sixteen. He said he had to be willing to take it, but then he’d lowered his wand in the Astronomy tower. He said he had to be willing to take it, but then he hadn’t identified Harry, Ron and her at the Manor. He said he had to be willing to take it, but then he’d looked away while his aunt was torturing her.

“I don’t understand you, Malfoy. I don’t,” Hermione said, shaking her head and deliberately delaying her answer.

“I’d say it’s because you’re missing pieces.”

“Like what? What am I missing about the Manor? Why didn’t you identify us? Why didn’t you tell Bellatrix the spell?”

“Because I didn’t know it,” he answered, glossing over the rest.

“And what if you knew it? Would you have told her, then?

He looked at her. She couldn’t possibly bring herself to understand the look on his face. “We can’t deal with what if’s.”

Hermione took a breath, then another. She wanted to yell at him, and she wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again at the same time.

“Why did you take it?” Draco stared at her, silent. “You said you had to be willing, but said nothing about loopholes. What made you willing?” Before he could answer, she went on, “No, actually, don’t tell me. It was your family, wasn’t it? With your dad locked up and your mum alone with her psycho sister, and even Voldemort being your roommate, you wanted to do something to protect them, didn’t you?” Slowly, he pulled his sleeve down. “Bravery.” The word dripped of sarcasm.

“So you do think I’m a coward.”

“I think you had two very clear possibilities. One,” she held up a finger, “take the Mark like almost everyone you’ve ever known, for whatever reason truly moved you, agree to the murder of your Headmaster, and take part in a war you probably had no real opinion on.” She raised a second finger, pointedly. “Two. Do nothing of all that. Come to our side.”

Malfoy picked at the hem of his sleeve with his nails. “You really think it was that black and white?”

“What I think—no, what I know,” she said, factually, ignoring every possible implication, “is that there were at least three people in your family who took the second path. So I can’t possibly imagine what stopped you.”

He started spinning his rings. “Do you feel like you had a choice in the war, Granger?” Hermione frowned, crossing her arms. “Because I don’t think you did. I think you were defined by your blood status so you either fought it or died in it—and the scar on your arm proves it. That is clearly the product of someone else’s agency defining you.

“This,” he held his arm up, “this is a choice I made. And, you know, I never really felt the need to be at the centre of my story, not like you described it anyway. But when it came to this… I had to toy with everything my family meant to me. Because, yes, you’re right, there are exceptions, but unfortunately for me I have always loved my parents terrifically, despite the way they wrecked me.

“And I still love them, more than anything in the world, even if they don’t deserve it. It took me years to realise how much they broke me, and sometimes I still feel like my foundations are shaking—but I love them anyway. And when I was sixteen, it was a no-brainer: take the Mark in order to help them? Okay, fine, I’ll do it. Was it dumb? Yes, probably, even though the circumstances were… Which bears the question, was it a true choice, or did I let everything around me define who I am? I don’t know. In any case, I’ll have to live with it forever.”

He said it with his grown up face, with his adult voice, with his tired eyes. But for just a second, shorter than the blink of an eye, Hermione had a flash of him during that crucial year, with his funeral-black suits and his ill-looking features.

“Would you do it again?” she ventured, a mere whisper bouncing against the red cabinets of the kitchen.

“Honestly?” he said, looking at his covered arm. “I think so, yes.”

Their breaths were the only thing you could hear for a long time.

Then Draco cleared his throat and resumed eating his lasagna. Hermione rubbed her eyes tiredly, feeling the unwelcome sting of tears in the back of her throat. There was so much more she wanted to say, so much more she wanted to ask, so much more she felt like she needed to talk about.

“I don’t think you’re a coward, by the way,” was all she managed. Draco’s eyes snapped up, wide in surprise. “I think we all just tried to play with the shitty hand we were dealt. And to have that kind of weight on your shoulders at sixteen years old is unfair.”

He hummed lowly. His fringe had fallen into his eyes.

As in a dream sequence, Hermione pictured herself standing, crossing the space between them, pushing the hair off his face and saying, I didn’t mean you don’t deserve forgiveness—if anything, forgiveness is not deserved, it’s earned. What I wanted to say is that you shouldn’t be asking for it in the first place, even though I’m not sure I wholly believe that, and would you forgive me for it?

Instead, what she said from her place was, “I’m sorry I slapped you the other day.”

On cue, Draco smirked. “It’s fine. Sorry I kissed you back.”

Hermione smiled. “Apology accepted.”

She finished her dinner, and he emptied the bottle of wine. When they finally cleared the table, after they went to the bathroom and got changed, and after she glared at him because he went for another smoke after brushing his teeth, Hermione watched him awkwardly glance at the sofa with the corner of his eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, taking his hand and walking him to the bedroom.

He didn’t say much, after that. They slipped under the covers, and then he slipped inside of her. Hermione clung to his shoulders as he moved on top of her, tasting the fresh cigarette on his tongue, feeling the weight of him on her body, gasping in his mouth when his hand cradled her cheek to kiss her.

A small voice in her head was screaming at her to tell him, This is real—you and I, we’re real, I’m going to remember this because this is real. But it sounded too much like a faint chime in the wind, and Hermione didn’t listen to it.

Instead, she kissed him hard and deep when Draco spilled into her, moaning and clutching her hair. She kissed him again when he pulled out, and again when he cleaned the sheets, and then again, and again, and again, silently.

And he kissed her back. Again, and again, and again. Silently.

He curled himself against her, arms wrapped around her waist and head resting under her breasts. She ran her fingers through his hair, slowly, humming an old lullaby and wondering what would happen to them when the storm inevitably subsided.

She fell asleep with the feeling of his lips on her belly.

Chapter Text

13th of December, 2006. Somewhere in the Dolomites.

In the morning, everything was calm.

The bed was warm when Hermione woke up, maybe even warmer than when she’d drifted to sleep. Squeezing her eyes, she rolled onto her side, still wrapped in the duvet, and stretched out her arm, seeking a body to cuddle with.

Her hand landed on wrinkled sheets.

A head of messy curls emerged from under the covers, bleary eyes blinking open at Draco’s absence, but the sudden spike of puzzling anxiety abated when Hermione saw him walking into the room.

“Looking for me?” He smiled endearingly as he sat down next to her and tucked some locks of hair behind her ear, away from her face. She grumbled something about smoking or going for a walk. “A walk? With this weather?”

“Looks sunnier,” Hermione mumbled as she fell back on the pillows, hair fanning out all around her. She was sure she’d had a scrunchie when she’d gone to sleep, but Godric knew where it had disappeared to.

“It does.” Draco was perched on the edge of the bed with a strange look on his face, something glinting in his eyes. Something Hermione was getting too good at recognising.

“What?”

He hummed noncommittally, stroking her leg over the comforter. Hermione followed the movement, her mind tying together the way his hand moved and how it felt on her body. His eyes darted to hers, white lashes illuminated by the cold morning light.

“I was wondering…” he said quietly. “A few days ago, you said you had your period.” Hermione felt a blush creep up her neck but managed to keep a straight face and narrowed her eyes. “But when we had sex you didn’t… you know.”

“I don’t actually recall saying that,” she said, feigning indifference.

His hands sneaked up her waist, her hip, her arm, until he fiddled with the top hem of the covers. “You said that you had to run to the bathroom for a ladies’ emergency. That’s why you apparated.”

“Did I?” The most embarrassing thing was that she was feeling her insides heat up. Or maybe that wasn’t embarrassing at all.

“Why did you run to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Granger?”

Merlin, she loved his low voice.

Hated. She hated his low voice.

“Maybe I had to dump one.”

“Classy.”

“I know.”

Draco smirked, moving the duvet aside. “Can I make a vastly inappropriate suggestion?”

“Only if I can answer by lying.”

“Were you… how can I say this…” He kicked his slippers away and sat cross-legged. “Enjoying yourself? In your bed?”

Her heart was thrumming against her chest, but she decided this wasn’t a hill to die on. “As a matter of fact, I was.” She sank deeper into the mattress as Draco pushed her pyjama bottoms down her legs. “I was also thinking of you.”

He grinned before placing a kiss on her belly. “What an honour. What were you thinking about?”

“Your hands. Your ring, to be specific.”

“That’s a strong kink you’ve got there, Granger.” Draco slid her knickers off her and pocketed them, his breath inches away from her inner thigh.

“I know,” she sighed, as if she was genuinely sad about it.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“Am I really?” Hermione cocked her head to the side while her fingers tangled in Draco’s hair. “I guess you’ll never know for sure.”

She pushed a little, and he hid his smirk into her already dripping folds, making her moan loudly with her voice still throaty from sleep.

As it turned out, over the previous couple of days Hermione had had the pleasure of confirming the veracity of the whispers that used to run around the Hogwarts rumour mill. The man could really do anything, and she didn’t feel like complaining about it. 

Draco just had a way with her. She didn’t know how to explain it, but he did. It was like he understood all of her cues, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Hermione could simply abandon herself to the moment without needing to direct her partner’s actions.

(It was also the first time in a very long time that she finally had a partner that could understand her wants and needs thanks to a thorough study of her body, but that was beside the point.)

Draco, being the diligent student he’d already proven himself to be in school, had learned quickly what it was that made Hermione lose every last one of her marbles. She liked the ring? Good. She would feel it against her clit, or have it scratch her entrance, or brush the tight rim of her arse. He would drag it along her bum, rest it over her breast, dig it against her nipple, slip it inside her mouth with her tongue wrapping around it as he thrusted inside of her.

She liked it when he slapped her? Then he would find the perfect moment to do it, like he could read the thought as it entered her mind, and—smack—his palm would meet her arse, or even her cunt, and then he would always kiss the spot lasciviously, soothing the sting, making her sob with a different kind of pleasure, flirting with the line between dominance and whatever else Hermione wasn’t open to. It was on her terms, and Draco knew it.

She liked him to tell her how good she felt, how superbly she took him, how wonderful she looked with her lips wrapped around his cock? He would tell her as he fucked her hard into the sofa, whisper it against the shell of her ear as he pressed her to the wall or the freezing cold glass of the window, murmur it into her shoulder blades as he gripped her hair in his fist and made her spine bend, repeat it endlessly while he mapped her territory, learning the geography of her, tracing hills and skating over planes, connecting moles and freckles, naming them like they were constellations.

“This one here looks like the moon.”

“The moon isn’t a constellation.”

“It is here, I decided so. This one looks like a centaur.”

“Where do you see the centaur?”

“Right here.” Fingers brushing her skin along invisible lines, Hermione giggling because of the tickling. “Use your imagination.”

“It’s just spots.”

“I’m the expert on the matter, Granger, alright?” His hand tightening around her waist, fitting between her ribs and her hipbone. “If I say it’s stars and constellations, then it’s stars and constellations.”

And Hermione, who had spent her whole life striving to be the best at everything, desperately trying to make a name for herself, overachieving and blowing everyone’s expectations, who always, always had to have the last word—for once, Hermione didn’t put up a pointless fight. For once, she surrendered, raising her hands with a smile, laughing when Draco leaned down and started mapping the sky of her with his lips, and she let him take control.

After all, what happened in the cabin stayed in the cabin.

Who cares about the world, Granger?

“Fuck, you’re so easy when you wake up,” he mumbled into her cunt that morning, his hands holding her gently, his mouth kissing her delicately. Hermione’s back arched and twitched, her body too responsive in the first hours of the day. It took Draco little to no effort to make her come, her limbs stretching languidly, and she was soon sighing contentedly with a hand gripping his dishevelled hair.

He made his way up her body slowly, engulfing Hermione in his warmth. When she came back to her senses, she found him hugging her tenderly, fingers shaping her curls absentmindedly.

She burrowed her face in the crook of his neck. There was a note to his scent that she was still trying to figure out, something that the lingering smell of smoke almost cancelled out.

“What time is it?”

“Almost ten. The kettle is ready if you want some tea.”

“Thank you. I think I’ll shower first and then I’ll have to force myself to write something.”

“Oh.” Draco searched her eyes. “Can I read it?”

Hermione disentangled herself from him with a frown and got out of bed. “Why?”

He shrugged, sitting up. “I’m curious.”

She crossed her arms. “Ginny is the only one who reads what I write.”

“Are you not writing a book with the purpose of publishing it?” he teased.

“I mean before that, obviously.”

Draco smirked that annoying smirk he was terribly good at. “Come on. Maybe I can help with ideas.”

“I don’t want your ideas, Malfoy, thank you very much.” Hermione concluded the conversation by putting on a pair of loose trousers and throwing a heavy jumper on before padding to the bathroom while sticking her wand in her hair to create a messy updo.

She went through her morning routine and had some tea. In the bedroom, Draco made the bed and opened the window to change the air, then took his beloved seat on the armchair and turned the TV on.

Hermione peeped at him over the mug. “What do you have against the sofa?”

He was already scrolling through movie titles. “My back loathes it now. Thanks to you,” he added, making her chuckle.

After taking a few sips of Earl Grey, she asked, “Why are you so obsessed with romcoms?” The Princess Diaries. Two Weeks Notice. Life as We Know It. One Day. He’d already watched half of the catalogue.

“I’m not obsessed,” Draco remarked as he finally landed on a decision: 13 Going on 30. “Astoria was. They were on the telly a lot, and I came to actually like the stories. They’re fun.”

Hermione fell eerily silent as the film started, something lodging in the back of her throat. She tried to wash it down with some tea, but the drink was already turning cold; it did nothing but cement the unwelcome feeling in its position.

From the armchair, Draco must have sensed the change in her attitude because he turned around. “You okay?” She nodded, still drinking. “You know, I don’t mind talking about Astoria.”

“No, I know.” He’d shown her as much. He didn’t mind a lot of things when it came to that part of his life. “I’m fine,” is what she said, pouring herself some more tea and charming it to stay warm. “I’ll leave you to it. I have to work anyway.”

Draco eyed her with pinched brows as she made her way back to the bedroom, keeping his gaze on the closed door for a few moments before turning back to the screen. He lowered the volume a bit, then settled on his seat.

In the bedroom, though, Hermione’s mind started pacing so quickly that she felt like her breath was being knocked out of her lungs by some alien hand sneaking inside her mouth and going all the way down through her larynx.

What was she doing? What were they doing? Malfoy was sitting in the living room like he’d been doing for thirteen days, as cool and unbothered as always. He had arrived there and had been quick to accept the disgraceful fate that it was the two of them having to share a small space, which was weird. Incredibly weird. Why hadn’t he turned and left immediately? Why hadn’t he told anyone she was there? Why hadn’t her presence bothered him? Godric knew his presence had bothered her.

He’d lost his wife only four months before, and yet he seemed barely affected by it. Well, not barely, that wasn’t true nor fair. He was clearly affected by it—but he was able to sweep it away with a snap of his fingers. How had it been so easy for him to take the wedding ring off? Hermione had spiralled the second she was reminded of Astoria—which, in her honest opinion, was the normal reaction. The man in the other room was a recent widower, and she’d already slept with him more times than she’d slept with her last recurrent date.

Maybe she was the problem. Maybe she was unable to look for the right details. Maybe it was her perception of him that was completely off-chart, and that was the reason why it all felt completely absurd. Maybe Draco hadn’t actually been that ready to jump into bed with another woman, but she’d forced his hand somehow. It had been her who had kissed him the first time.

But he had kissed her back. And he’d kissed her again. And again. And again. Were those the actions of someone whose hand was forced? He’d seemed pretty willing to Hermione. Objectively speaking, she could have misread his behaviour in the early days, but afterwards? There wasn’t much up for discussion about the way his tongue had claimed her mouth that afternoon on the sofa. 

Was there a switch he could turn on and off whenever he wanted that gave him the ability to forget about his dead wife and focus on Hermione? Was she asking him to do that? She probably was—she did tell him about her thing with the ring. But how could he do it? Could she have done the same, in his shoes?

Maybe.

Most likely, since she was able to ignore not only that he was a grieving widower, but also the fairly significant fact that he’d been a Death Eater who’d willingly taken the Dark Mark at sixteen years old, and had an active part in a war that targeted her and people like her, only to sleep with him without any weight on her conscience.

But that was different. Wasn’t it? A bothersome nagging in her brain about that whole situation was already there before. It had been there for a very long time, ever since she’d first rolled her eyes when Harry told her he thought Malfoy had taken the Mark in sixth year. There were layers to that, layers that Hermione wasn’t entirely sure she fully understood but that she knew were the reason why she was able to look at him and see two people whose faces were engraved on different sides of the same coin: Draco Malfoy, her classmate; Draco Malfoy, the Death Eater. It was impossible for her to ignore everything they’d both gone through, and she knew it all came down to shared trauma.

What would she have done if it had been her husband who had died of a terminal illness only four months before? Would she have slept with another man that quickly? Was it quick? Would it have made a difference who the man was? Not really. How little would she have had to care to simply put all her grief aside like that? Was he putting all his grief aside like that?

Hermione plopped down on the bed, head in her hands, nails scratching her scalp, and stayed like that for the longest time.

A gush of cold wind startled her. She went to close the window and stopped to stare at the sky: for the first time in almost two weeks, the mountain peaks were visible.

The realisation that the storm was over crashed onto her like a bucket of ice-cold water.

She reopened the window, perching herself on the sill, fingers clinging to the frame, and inhaled the clear, frosty, open mountain air. The gathering grey clouds that had welcomed her a fortnight ago were now a pale shade of white, foggy-like in their haze. They still encircled the mountaintops, but not in a menacing way. If anything, they looked like the fluffy clouds that kids would paint in their drawings: decorative sprinkles of dirty white.

Further down the street, towards the village, the lights were on inside the shops. She could spot people setting up Christmas decorations on windows and door frames. It looked like they were assembling the street decorations as well.

Somewhere to her left, the sky still looked dark, storm-promising. But on her right, it was turning light and baby-blue, typical of the first days of winter. The solstice was drawing closer and closer.

With a sigh, Hermione closed the window, huddling up in her jumper, and grabbed her phone. Ginny answered after only a couple of rings.

“Babe! How are you? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Hermione lied not-so-easily. “Hi! How’s the baby?”

“Oh, James is living his best life in here. I live in constant fear of when he’ll kick for the first time. My mum tried to explain the feeling to me, but she didn’t do a great job, to be honest.”

“Isn’t it a bit early for kicking?”

“I haven’t got the faintest idea,” Ginny sighed, making Hermione laugh. “But hey, did we have a scheduled call I forgot about?”

“No, no, I’m just calling because…” She hesitated. Hermione herself didn’t even know why. Was she going to tell Ginny about Malfoy? “There’s something…”

She was going to tell Ginny about Malfoy.

“Hermione? Are you there? Is the connection still jumpy?”

“No, I’m here, I…” She couldn’t. How was she even going to start explaining that? “I need your advice on…”

She couldn’t tell Ginny about Malfoy.

“I just… I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish the book in time.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, as if Ginny was weighing her words. Like that Egyptian myth about death, when Anubis weighs the dead person’s heart with a feather in order to find out whether it was good and truthful or not.

And Hermione’s heart felt as heavy as the biggest of stones.

“And that’s a huge problem for you because…?”

It wasn’t like it was a complete lie.

“Because! I feel like everything I write is utter shit, and there’s nothing I can do about it. And then this makes me slow down with the rest of my writing because I can’t get a single thing done, and then I don’t write because I’m stuck and then I’m stuck because I don’t write, and it’s a never-ending hell-loop.”

“Hermione, we went over this at least a dozen billion times,” Ginny said quietly, putting on her best comforting voice. “Your first draft is just word vomit. It’s fine if it sucks.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Hermione pushed, nervously rubbing her forehead. “It’s more than that. There’s something missing.”

“What’s missing?”

“I don’t know! I wouldn’t be stuck if I knew, would I?”

Ginny kept silent for a moment. “What are you so afraid of?”

Hermione felt her face crumple up. “What?”

“What do you think is going to happen when you finish the book?”

“I can’t finish the book.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s lacking something.”

“What is it lacking?”

“I don’t know, Gin, something! Something real!”

Hermione recoiled immediately, like she’d been kicked in the guts. The answer was so simple, and yet so impossible to accept.

“What if this isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing?” she added quickly, before Ginny could begin to answer and before Hermione could process her own answer entirely. “What if it’s not what I’m meant to be?”

“Okay, you want to go there?” Ginny said, switching tone to something a fair share more challenging. Tough love was her specialty. “You’re not, actually. You’re supposed to be Minister for Magic.”

“Shut up,” Hermione snapped, suddenly irritated. “Don’t even—”

“No, you know I’m right. That’s what you’re supposed to be.”

“I can’t stand the Ministry. How about that?”

“You won’t be able to do anything about it with your silly little book.”

“I don’t want to do something about it.”

Ginny ignored her. “You’re supposed to be Minister just like I’m supposed to be flying on a broom all around the world, but here I am instead.”

Hermione frowned. “Do you really feel like that?”

“Of course! But not in a bad way,” her friend continued, softening her voice. “I chose my life, and every day I choose it again, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.”

“Aren’t you…” Hermione hesitated, looking for the right words. “Don’t you ever think about…”

“All the time,” Ginny anticipated her. “But the two things can coexist, honey. If you want to write this book, you can write this book, even if it’s not what you’re supposedly meant to be doing.” Hermione stayed quiet for a long time. “Has Harry ever told you about his Sorting?”

She cleared her throat. “What do you mean?”

“That the Hat was about to send him to Slytherin?”

“I think so. For the horcrux.”

“Yeah. He told the Hat he didn’t want to be sorted into Slytherin and that’s why he was sent to Gryffindor instead.”

“Because he asked?”

“Because he made a choice. Because it’s our choices that define us, Hermione, not what we’re ‘meant to be.’ We decide that.”

It made sense. But it also didn’t. Draco had been right when he’d said that Hermione had taken part in the war because she’d had to. Harry had been right when he’d said the war had happened to them. But Ginny was also right, now, as she told Hermione that she still had the ability to shape her own life, to tell her story.

But how could she, if she felt she was lacking substance even in real life?

“I don’t know, Gin. Sometimes I feel like I have lost grip on my own life. The world spins on, and I only spin with it for inertia.”

There was a long minute of silence after that.

“’Mione, do you want me to come there? I can stay with you for a few days, it’s no trouble—”

“No,” Hermione vehemently stopped her, too late now to take the word back. “No, don’t worry.”

But Ginny insisted, sounding worried. “Are you sure? I think I read the storm quieted, I could take a plane—”

“No, seriously, I’m not making you travel in your condition.”

“I’m pregnant, I’m not about to die.”

“I’m fine, Ginny, I mean it. I’m okay.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone. You sound very lonely.”

She wasn’t alone, though. Draco was right beyond the wall.

Hermione turned towards it, picturing him on the other side, sitting in some incredibly uncomfortable position on the armchair, eyes fixed on the TV, laughing every now and then in that way that made his shoulders wriggle just a bit.

Ginny had no idea.

Being alone and being lonely were two very different things.

“I’m okay. I just needed to vent.” She cleared her throat, turning her gaze back to the window. “Thank you for listening.”

“Anytime, honey. But seriously…”

“I’m fine, Ginny. Can I call you back?”

“Sure,” her friend relented, sighing from the other end of the phone, more than a thousand kilometres away, in another plane of existence that was happening at the same time as Hermione’s. “Keep writing. You can do this.”

“Yeah,” Hermione smiled sadly. “Love you.”

“Love you, too. Can’t wait to read!”

When Hermione gripped the door handle, moments later, she had no idea where they would end up.

The movie was still on when she stepped into the living room, but Draco’s eyes were on his phone. They snapped up as soon as he heard her footsteps, and he paused the film.

“I just heard from Giacomo,” he told her as Hermione stood near the wall, arms folded against her chest. “He said he’d tried to call you first, but your line was occupied. The lockdown has been lifted. The storm is over.”

“Oh,” she said, emotionless. “That’s good. I told you it looked sunnier.”

“Yeah, right,” he smiled. “He wanted to ask me how we should arrange to move me to the other cabin, but I told him we would call him back since… well.” He chuckled. “You know.”

Hermione felt her jaw clench. “Do I?”

Draco’s eyebrows raised. “I think so?”

She wrapped herself in her arms. “I mean, this is what we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? You weren’t supposed to be here in the first place anyway.”

He blinked at her. “That was thirteen days ago. A couple of things have changed since then.”

Hermione shrugged, silent.

“Don’t do that,” Draco said, and when she looked at him his head was cocked to the side like a little kid, eyes pleading and confused. “Don’t shut me out.”

“I’m not doing anything.” The irony wasn’t lost on her as she headed to the kitchen.

“Yes, you are!” He followed her, throwing his phone and the remote somewhere behind him. “You make your mind work all on its own and you disappear, and all I’m left with is bits and pieces of a conversation that’s incredibly more complicated in your head.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She fumbled in the fridge, looking for something to do. Get a sandwich ready. No. Fill the water bottles. Already full. Have a glass of wine. Definitely not. She closed the refrigerator doors, hands empty.

Draco stood inches away from her.

“Talk to me, Granger.” He reached for her hand. “Please.” She drew it back.

“There’s nothing we need to talk about.” She averted her eyes, trying to ignore the discouraged look on his face but failing miserably.

“For fuck’s sake—I think there’s plenty we need to talk about.”

“Look, I’m sorry if I…” Hermione sighed, biting her lip. “We shouldn’t have done this. Whatever this is. It was—”

“Don’t.” His coarse voice cut right through her.

“You know I’m right,” she remarked, stubbornly avoiding his gaze. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

“But I am. And this,” he gestured between the two of them, “this happened. It did. In real life.” Hermione scoffed, regretting it too late. “Oh, right, sorry, this isn’t real life, this is just some parallel universe that exists only for the two of us.”

“As a matter of fact, it is.”

“This is ridiculous. You sound insane.”

“Maybe I am insane.”

“Stop it. Please, stop it. What is it? What’s making you like that? Just tell me.”

“Nothing is making me—you’re making me like—I don’t even know what you mean.”

“Granger, for fuck’s sake, just…” His eyes turned haunted as he ruffled his hair. “Why are you asking me to leave?”

“I’m not asking you to leave, we—”

“You’re not telling me to stay!”

“—already decided you would leave.” She closed her mouth, gulping down saliva that felt like lead. Draco looked completely hopeless. “It’s the first thing we decided. The storm goes, you go with it.”

For the briefest moment, his eyes were glassy. But then he blinked, and they were clear again.

He took a deep breath. “We can change our minds.”

“I haven’t changed mine.”

“You haven’t—oh, for Salazar’s sake,” he laughed almost hysterically before his face hardened. “You haven’t changed your mind? Did I imagine you kissing me on the sofa, the one right there?”

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

“And then sleeping with me?” he went on, ignoring her, voice raising and charging with anger with every new syllable. “Once, twice, I lost count of how many times? Did I imagine you asking me to stay in bed with you? And our conversation the other night? Did I imagine that, too?”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say, Malfoy.” Hermione was angry at herself, at him, at the weather, at everything and nothing at all. “This—this was—this is inconsequential.”

Draco’s eyes widened, exuding betrayal and so much more she couldn’t name. If she wasn’t breaking her own heart, Hermione would have found it almost comical.

“You think this is inconsequential?!”

“What do you want from me, Malfoy?” She dangled dangerously between pure rage and absolute despair. “Did you really think I was suddenly going to be part of your life and you mine?! That’s impossible.”

“I don’t know, Granger, I thought we would talk about it!”

“This is us talking about it! We’re literally talking about it right now.”

“Oh, you think we’re talking about it? Does this sound like a mature conversation to you?”

“Get off your fucking high horse—who do you think you are? Do you think you’re better than me? Do you think you’re more grown up than me? Do you hear how condescending you sound?”

“Don’t flip it—you’re shutting me out from one second to the other.”

“What is this about? You can’t go to bed with a girl without needing to be part of her life afterwards?”

“You know as much as I do that what you and I have is different from a random hook-up.”

“You and I have nothing, Malfoy,” she spat out, conclusively. “We are nothing. Whatever happened isn’t going to have consequences on our lives because it’s nothing.”

“Right, yeah.” His mirthless laugh was a punch to her gut. “The last two weeks won’t exist anymore as soon as I walk out that door.”

“You’re acting as if you told anyone a single word about me being here!”

“Because you were clearly upset by the whole situation and I didn’t want to add that on to you!” He was openly shouting now, incredulous. “Or do you think I was keeping you as a shameful, dirty little secret?”

It struck her like lightning. Hermione zoned out for a never-ending second, horrified at the thought that she was the one who had been doing that.

Maybe she was the coward, after all.

A light flickered in Draco’s eyes—something like pain, or passion, or impossible hope.

She took a breath, doing everything she could to rein in the shaking.

“I think you should leave, Malfoy.”

He stared at her.

Stupidly, as if they were characters in a story she was bringing to life in that very moment, she pictured him saying, No.

Instead, what really happened was that he kept staring at her.

Yet, as the author of the story in her head, Hermione made herself answer, This is all wrong. We’re… opposing pieces, it’s crazy to even try and think to…

His indescribably grey eyes were still fixed on her.

Character-Draco spoke: Stop it, Granger. It’s real. You and I, we’re real.

Real Draco, though, the one there in flesh and bones, not the one made of words and imagery, opened his mouth for a millisecond, and his jaw clenched when he closed it.

It’s not, Hermione said in her imagination, and you have a wife to mourn, and a Mark on your arm, and you used to look at me like I was the scum of the Earth, like my name on your lips was the most disgusting and revolting thing you ever had the displeasure to taste, and now you say it so gently, so warmly, with such depth and sentiment that I can’t even recognise it anymore—I can’t even recognise you anymore, what happened to you? And what happened to me? Who are we? What is going to happen to us?

She didn’t make character-Draco answer that; instead, she made him take her in his arms, and she broke down crying against his chest, with his arms around her body.

But obviously, that only happened in Hermione’s mind.

In real life, as she felt the sting of tears at the corner of her eyes, Draco’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat when he swallowed down Godric knew what kind of words. His jawbone snapped one, two, three times, as if he was battling with himself.

When his eyes narrowed and his chin lifted, Hermione knew nothing good was going to pass his soft lips.

“Do you know why Weasley broke up with you?”

The breath vanished from her lungs, and Hermione was left with such little life force that she couldn’t even bring herself to cross her arms. And so she left them dangling at her sides and she was unbraced, vulnerable to whatever it was that Malfoy was about to throw at her in that nasty, cruel way she remembered all too well.

“What would you even know—”

“It’s because you have a paralysing fear of commitment, Granger,” he spat out, ruthless, with vicious honesty, and Hermione’s heart shattered. “You need to have everything under control all the time, you need everything to be perfect and you can’t accept that real life and perfection are two incredibly different things, and you can’t deal with the fact that being in a relationship means sacrificing that egomaniacal control for the sake of the other person’s feelings and needs. So you simply shut off and force everyone to run away.”

“You know nothing about what happened between Ron and I.” Her voice trembled as her fists balled up.

“Don’t I?” he sneered back. “‘I love him, but it wasn’t right’ —weren’t those your words?”

“Leave him out of this.”

“And now aren’t you doing the exact same thing with me?”

“Do you think that whatever this is you can call it a relationship? Do you think you can compare this to what I had with Ron?!”

“It was easy for you to do all of your trauma dumping because we had an expiration date, wasn’t it? It was okay to fuck me because I was going to leave all the same, am I right?”

“I think you fucked me, too, Malfoy. Or was that a one-sided thing?”

“Fuck off, Granger. Literally, go fuck yourself. And there I was, thinking you were actually sensible and could have talked about this with me.”

“There you go with that condescending tone again.” It made her furious. “Do you even hear yourself? I’m the great and noble Draco Malfoy, heir to one of the largest blood-money fortunes in the world, and I was a disgusting, bigoted, prejudiced little shit my entire life, but ever since I survived a war bigger than me without having to move as much as a phalange and someone slapped some good fucking sense into me, I started to think I’m better than everybody else on the moral level, too.”

“You have no idea about what I had to do in the war,” he growled.

“You talk about my relationships like you have the faintest idea about them! What has made you such an expert on relationships, pray tell? What the fuck do you know about commitment? And love? You? Who probably married Astoria only because you knew she was going to die—fuck.”

It was too late. Her despicable words were out.

Draco’s eyes shot with blood, and the breath he exhaled sounded like his last one.

“No, wait,” Hermione stammered, panicked, taking a step towards him, “I didn’t mean that. I swear I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—that’s not what I meant.”

When he took a step back, it felt like the darkest, deepest abyss had opened between the two of them.

“No,” she repeated, whimpering, pleading, voice wobbly with unshed tears, “no, I—”

Hermione realised her hand had moved out towards him, that it wasn’t happening in her head, only when Draco flinched away from it.

“Don’t touch me.” His voice felt like bullets, vibrating with rage.

His eyes were flaming when he looked at her, and her vision watered. Her heart drummed maddeningly in her throat.

“I didn’t—that’s not—I’m sorry—” She reached for him again, not thinking, and Draco took another step back, features distorted with disgust.

“I said do not touch me.”

“Draco,” Hermione called desperately, helplessly, looking at his back as he turned around and marched into the living room. “Wait… please…”

“You wanted me to leave? You got it,” he said, not even pretending to look at her. “I’m leaving.”

Wand in his hand, his things were packing up neatly and quickly in the suitcase. Hermione felt dizzy, her vision swimming in front of her, head heavy and incredibly light at the same time.

“I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“Get the fuck off me,” he snarled, shrugging her off the moment she brushed his arm. “I mean it, Granger, before I say or do something I will inevitably regret.” His knuckles around the wand were whiter than ever.

Trembling, Hermione stood perfectly still as Draco gathered his things, threw his coat on, and headed for the door. She watched as he tried to open it; she always kept it double locked, for no reason other than that Giacomo had told her to do so.

“Wait,” and she meant to tell him she was going to get the keys, but Draco mumbled something that Hermione was probably better off not hearing and pointed his wand at the doorknob, flicking it with more energy than was necessary.

It flung open, with the same force it would have if Draco had yanked it with his own hands.

The cold air slapped on her cheeks mercilessly, and Hermione almost stumbled on her feet as she hurried outside, following him.

“Draco!” she called again, unable to make sense of the fact that he was actually leaving. Wasn’t that what she had wanted all along? “Draco, please, wait—I’m sorry!”

He opened the door of his car, his face a mask of hatred and resentment, and climbed inside without ever looking at her.

Hermione ran to the Range Rover, and it didn’t matter that her feet were only covered in slippers and the snow was at her knees and it was freezing—nothing mattered except the chaos that was spreading through her like a pool of spilled pitch-black ink.

Her palms slammed on the window. “Please, Draco, I’m sorry.” She knew she sounded pathetic, she knew she looked miserable, she knew she wouldn’t have stopped if their roles were reversed.

And Draco didn’t. He looked at her through the glass, cruelly, bitterly, sadly, for a moment that would forever live branded by fire in Hermione’s mind, before turning the engine on.

He shifted into reverse, and slipped away from her hands, leaving her to stare helplessly at the clearing sky and the tyre tracks in the otherwise pristine snow.

Like the last two weeks never happened.

Like it had never been real.

After what felt like ages, Hermione slowly walked back inside in a mindless haze. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it to catch her breath, shivering like a too-thin leaf.

In front of her, the cabin was a wasteland.

On the TV, the film was still paused where Draco had stopped it.

On the armchair, the blanket under which they had shared carefree moments was thrown hastily aside.

She had just thrown it all away.

A panic attack was around the corner. Hermione could feel it, she could sense it—could see it in the way her vision blacked out in spots, could touch it in the way her hands kept trembling and gripping on themselves, could breathe it in the ragged air coming out of her lungs, could hear it in the blood roaring in her ears, and could taste it in the mix of salty tears on the back of her tongue.

Out of the blue, she remembered the most idiotic of things, and she wanted to rip her brain out of her head: Draco had kept her knickers.

She headed to her room, mute, dragging her feet, trying to even out her breathing. For lack of anything else to do—refusing to deal with what had just happened by calling Giacomo and telling him that, in the end, Mr. Malfoy had actually left and stripped of the possibility of calling Ginny because her own stubbornness had stopped her from telling the truth to her best friend—Hermione sat down at the desk and turned her computer on.

She stared at the lifeless screen, completely emptied of any kind of feeling.

How was she supposed to be an author, how could she convey emotions in her stories, if she couldn’t deal with them in real life?

Maybe Draco was right. She strived for perfection, and that made her detached from what was real.

Real.

What was real?

What did it mean?

Was there even an answer?

There was that lingering smell in her nostrils, the one she couldn’t pinpoint but that smelled like Draco.

Or maybe like his absence.

Guided by an instinct Hermione couldn’t name, she clicked on a new blank document.

Steadily, she began to type.

“Yes, no, I see it. No, I see it, yes, I’m alive, don’t—look, I’ll call you back, okay? I just—I think the guy’s here, and I just have to get off this bloody car and—I’ll call you back. Promise. Okay? Bye, love…”

Chapter Text

4th of January, 2007. London.

The building had been Luna’s particular choice. 

She’d wanted it halfway between muggle London and wizarding London; with a park nearby but also close to the tube station—not because she used it, but because she expected to gain enough muggle clients that it could be useful; with a decent Floo network that would reduce renovation costs to a minimum; and then, obviously, it had to pass her thorough search for Nargles (which, unsurprisingly, had been the hardest part).

But typical Lovegood shenanigans aside, she eventually landed on an office in Soho, one that Ginny fell in love with the moment she set eyes upon it. It consisted of two floors: the lower one sported a small library featuring all of Girandola’s publications, along with several other titles that ranged from classics to contemporary novels, while the upper floor was dedicated to technical machinery and offices. Both Ginny and Luna occupied a corner of it, from where they directed the publishing house’s operations in perfect sync.

The morning of January 4th, heavy scarf wrapped around her neck, Hermione was in Ginny’s corner, waiting for her friend. After hanging her coat on the coat rack, she surveyed the tidiness of the luminous space. It was almost too organised for Ginny’s own good, which always made Hermione wonder where her friend had come from; Godric knew her brother loved throwing things around as if cabinets, drawers, and shelves were mere house decorations. Yet, while Ron—and most of the Weasleys—could live with chairs and sofas becoming branches of his wardrobe, Ginny had developed the opposite approach to order. It wasn’t exactly maniacal, but it did feel that way to Hermione.

She stood in front of the window, watching people strolling either lazily or hurriedly in that peculiar crispy new year haze that had draped over the city like gift-wrap. Her attention shifted to the plants on the windowsill. The position was perfect: the window faced south-east, which meant the carefully lined and colourful vases were always bathed in the right amount of sunlight during each season. The fact that Hermione possessed this tidbit of knowledge intellectually didn’t mean that she would be able to look after them in practice: she once managed to make a cactus die even though Neville had sworn up and down it would have needed less than minimal care.

The sound of footsteps reached her ears and Hermione turned around with a smile.

“Hermione!” Ginny exclaimed with her arms open wide, new knit Christmas jumper on, and the biggest grin brightening her face. She covered the distance between them, and soon enough Hermione was being squeezed in a warm embrace.

“Hi,” she smiled in the crook of Ginny’s neck, wrapping her arms around her friend. “Happy New Year!”

“Happy New Year, darling.” Ginny hung her coat and handbag on the hanger, then gestured toward the chairs in front of the desk. “We missed you, it was a pity you couldn’t make it.”

“I know, sorry about that,” Hermione said, finding it not so easy to wipe the guilt off her face.

She had purposely avoided going to the Weasley’s for the holidays, even though it had become tradition for her and her parents to attend dinners there during the Christmas season. Her father loved searching through niche antique shops to find the most bizarre presents for Arthur; he seemed to never get enough of the wonderstruck look on the older Weasley’s face when presented with a new muggle artefact that was entirely for him to figure out.

But this year, the whole situation (and Ginny’s ignorance of it) had led Hermione to convince her mother of the importance of spending the holidays with family, thus managing to get her parents out of England and to continental Europe. The Grangers had spent a lovely couple weeks in France, where Hermione had pretended to laugh at her long-distance cousins’ terrible jokes for hours on end.

“Mum said she was going to call Molly today.”

“Ah, good luck with that. The phone broke again because… well, I don’t know what dad did with it, but it doesn’t work anymore,” Ginny rolled her eyes, making Hermione chuckle. “Anyway, I’ve got your present here!”

“Oh, right, same!” Hermione took a box out of her purse. Ginny was still tearing the gift-wrap when Hermione fake-sighed at the new cat toy in her hands. “I thought it was my present?”

“Shut up, how long has it been since you bought Crooks a new toy? Where is he, by the w—oh. Talk about my present,” the redhead mock-groaned then, holding up a baby onesie with the words You think I’m beautiful? You should see my mummy printed out on the front.

“What?!” Hermione giggled. “It’s a compliment for you!”

“It’s more clothes for my baby! I can’t believe I haven’t gotten a single present for me this year. You people suck.”

Hermione laughed, playing with the toy Crookshanks was inevitably going to destroy in seconds. “Luna should be bringing Crooks here soon, by the way. He’ll be pissed when he realises we’re going back home. He loves staying at her place, and after an entire month there, he’ll throw a tantrum.”

“Maybe it’s because she has enough toys for him.”

It was Hermione’s turn to glare. “Shut up. I know what my cat needs.” Ginny chuckled, folding the onesie and putting it back in the package. “How’s the pregnancy going?”

Odd, Hermione thought, looking at Ginny’s belly. A whole new life was forming there, and her friend was acting… normal.

“Oh, this?” the redhead said, flattening her jumper, making the baby bump pop out. “Everything’s perfect. We have another scan next week. Also, I’ve already attended all the mandatory classes at mum’s—she does have a certain authority, given her six pregnancies, so… I’ve got a lot of support.”

Hermione smiled, looking at the round swelling. “I have a feeling you’ll have a lot of…” A baby. A Potter-Weasley baby. “Fun.”

“I hope we chose the right name.” At that, Hermione snorted. “Imagine if he comes out extremely calm and quiet, and just generally an easy kid.”

“You’d have to change it.”

“Oh, you don’t want to know Harry’s other options,” Ginny said, emphasising the declaration with a roll of her eyes. “The man is mad.”

“Nothing new about that.”

“Yeah. Ah, look at this! It’s stupid, but I just learned it.” Ginny grabbed two glasses, and they filled with water with a wave of her hand. “Ta-da!”

Hermione’s laugh froze on her face. Out of all the things that could have reminded her what she was there for, domestic charms were not on her bingo card.

Her heartbeat rose; it buzzed in her ears, like an annoying fly.

“So,” said Ginny, clapping her hands and twisting her fingers together. “Let’s get to work. This thing you sent me.”

Hermione stalled, taking long sips of water. After putting the glass down, she played with the condensation on the surface, drawing lines absentmindedly.

“I must say, it took me by surprise. What happened to the original novel you wanted to write?”

Hermione cleared her throat. “I didn’t feel like writing it anymore.” She should have had a speech ready. She had thought about coming up with something to try and lead the conversation, but everything had felt dreadful. And besides, what if Ginny hated the story? She would have braced herself for nothing. “Did you like it?”

When she looked up, Ginny had her head cocked and eyes narrowed. “Can you tell me why you changed your mind, first?”

Hermione opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her tongue snapped against the roof of her mouth, making a smacking sound that filled the room. “I don’t know if it’s publishable.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I’m getting to that. I don’t know if it’s publishable, but I had to write it anyway. I wasn’t—I—I had…” She trailed off, looking for the right words to make sense of something utterly preposterous. “There was this story in my head, so I had to get it out.” Ginny was watching her, sipping on her glass. “It’s probably shit, since I wrote it in something like ten days, but… there you are. I had to do it.”

“Ten days?”

“Yeah, I…” She scratched her forehead, rubbing her eyebrow. “At the cabin, I did work on the original novel, but then… and I wrote this in ten days. I edited it over the holidays, and now you have it.”

“Okay,” said Ginny after a moment of silence, “I have another question. Why does the—”

“No, wait,” Hermione interrupted her. “I answered, now it’s your turn. Did you like it?”

Ron had Arthur’s eyes: baby blue, like the clear sky on a spring day. Ginny had Molly’s: warm chestnut, like the tree trunks in autumn.

“You can tell me if you hated it,” Hermione added when Ginny didn’t answer immediately. “I can take it.”

“I didn’t hate it,” she reassured her, shaking her head.

“But did you like it?”

“I think,” Ginny started, filling the glasses again with a smooth movement of her fingers, “it’s very compelling. It’s a great story about pain, and regret, and the way our lives make us question our own position in our story. Are we the main character, or are we the villain? And if we’re the villain, then who is that person that we always saw as the anti-hero? Besides, you know I’m a sucker for the soulmate trope.”

Hermione felt like her lungs expanded and shrank at once. Those were all wonderful words, and she should feel relieved and happy that she had actually managed to start and finish a novel, that with some more work she was going to have a real book in her hands, that maybe her insecurities were simply born from her overthinking and not rooted in real life, but…

“But?”

“But,” echoed Ginny, pushing Hermione’s glass toward her, “I have a question.” Her friend searched her eyes, but Hermione averted them, crossing her legs and bringing her hands together in her lap instead. “Why does this, um… why does this man remind me of…”

The name rested on the tip of Hermione’s tongue, but she sealed her lips to stop it from rolling out.

Still, it resounded in the room as if she’d shouted it to the top of her lungs, loud and clear.

Even if Hermione had tweaked the context, changed the names, and come up with different background stories, the cues were obvious to a trained eye.

“I mean, I get the idea of reflecting upon the war,” Ginny hurried to add when Hermione stayed silent, biting her lips. “It’s a great device, having two people who used to know each other forced in the same place like that—they are bound to explode, somehow. And I love the way the persona they both expect each other to be clashes with the reality of things because that’s what drives them towards opening up and sharing their traumas and their pasts; I really think it cements the relationship.” Hermione was nodding along, the praise lost as her mind focused on how she was going to explain the unexplainable. “But why… him?”

She took a breath and puffed her cheeks out while exhaling. Moved her hair out of her face, making it fall on her back. Blinked her glassy eyes and looked at Ginny.

“Okay,” she said, “I know how it’s going to sound, but there’s no other way around it.” Ginny leaned back on her chair, raising her eyebrows as to say that she was all ears. “That story, the whole story…” No going back now. “It's a true story.”

Silence.

The blank expression on Ginny’s face turned into a frown. “Pardon?”

“It’s a true story.” Hermione’s heart was in her throat. “When I arrived in Italy, I, uh… well, D—” she choked on his name, “um, he was there, too. He thought he’d booked the cabin for himself, there was a mix up, and—and—” Her fingers fished in the air to catch elusive words. “And then we were forced in the cabin together due to the weather alert.”

For what felt like an hour, Ginny just blinked.

Then, tentatively, “When you say he… you mean…”

“Malfoy,” Hermione blurted out, his name now too easy on her tongue. “Yes. Draco Malfoy.” Her stomach wrenched on itself.

“Oh, fuck,” Ginny exhaled, covering her mouth with a hand. Hermione gulped. “Oh, fuck. Really?”

“Yeah. Yes, we, uh...” Weird, that she still had a beating heart. “Really.”

“Okay.” Ginny’s voice changed as she slowly took the news in. Then a different kind of frown creased her eyebrows. “And you didn’t tell me a single word about it?”

Surprised by the sudden twist of the conversation, “How could I?” was Hermione’s retort. She found herself slightly annoyed at the fact that the first thing Ginny seemed to think about was her part in the whole thing. “Imagine that conversation! Hey, Gin, I’m stuck in the middle of the Alps during a blizzard and bloody Draco Malfoy is here with me. But how are things with you!?”

“Okay, you may have a point, but still! Hold on,” Ginny said, probably backtracking to the moment when she first read the manuscript. “How much of this is fiction and how much is real?”

Hermione pondered over it, sheepishly looking at Ginny’s expectant expression. “I mean, there are some poetic licenses, so to say. The finale is made up. The last time I saw him was when he left.”

“And when was that?”

“Um, mid-December.”

“Okay,” Ginny nodded, as if rearranging the story in her head to fit the new information. “And what else? In the… autobiographical part?”

“It’s not an autobiography.”

“You know what I mean.”

She hadn’t spared any details, really. “It’s, erm...” Ginny loved erotic novels anyway. “It’s pretty accurate… otherwise,” she mumbled, looking down at her hands.

“Oh.” A pause from Ginny. “Okay. Fine.” Hermione swallowed on nothing. “Fuck.”

A beat.

“Is he really—no, you know what?” Ginny raised her hands up when Hermione’s eyes snapped to her, “I don’t want to know. Don’t answer that. I’m just gonna—don’t say a single thing.”

Hermione, in response, let her head fall into her palms and groaned. “This is a mess. A tragedy. A tragic mess.”

“Godric help me,” Ginny exhaled, looking around the office in despair. “I can’t even have a drink to process this. Does he know you wrote a book about it?”

Hermione lifted her head with what felt like a herculean effort. “I sent it to him, but he hasn’t replied yet.”

“You—you sent it to him? You mean the whole book?”

“Yeah, the whole book,” Hermione confirmed as if it was the most obvious thing ever. “I think it would have been weirder if I just told him, hey, I wrote a story about you, but you don’t get to read it until it’s published.”

“So you do want to publish it.”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“First of all,” Hermione said, refraining from transfiguring her glass of water into a proper drink, out of solidarity, “because I would need his permission, I guess.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s about him?”

“But it’s your art. Who cares about that?”

I care, Hermione didn’t say. She tried to push that specific matter aside. “Well, you figured it out right away, and I’m not sure I’m completely okay with that.”

Ginny rubbed her eyes. “I mean… I told you, I think it’s a great premise for the themes you analyse. If people don’t know it actually happened in real life, I don’t see why they would question it.” A moment of silence, in which she kept reflecting on it. “They would ask themselves why it reminds them of a certain person, maybe, but I don’t think they would really care that much. And besides, I think we could hide it easily enough.” Her eyes wandered around the room as if scanning it, and Hermione was certain Ginny was flipping through the pages of the story in her mind. Sure enough, when she looked at Hermione again, Ginny asked, “Is the part about the wife—?”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

“Yup.” The question was exceptionally clear in her eyes, and Hermione sighed. “It’s Astoria Greengrass. I think she’s—was a year younger than you.”

“Yeah, I remember her. Her sister was in the twins’ year, right?”

“I believe so.”

“I had no idea about… anything, actually. It’s crazy, I just completely erased them from my life. All of them.”

Hermione made a non-committal sound. “Same.”

Ginny’s eyes darted to Hermione’s again, stormed with a billion different inquiries. She landed on one. “So, how are you feeling?”

Wasn’t that the million pounds question. “I… have no idea.”

“Did the, um… parting… really go as you described it?”

“Gin, just assume that, like, ninety-nine percent of what I wrote in there is exactly what happened.”

“Okay, so that’s shitty.”

“I know,” Hermione sighed, sagging in her chair. “I know that, but I don’t know what to do about it. I’m just waiting for a reply.”

“When did you send it?”

“On New Year’s Day. I don’t even know if he’s in London or somewhere else; he could be anywhere in the world.”

“Can I ask you—and don’t take this the wrong way—why do you want to clear it up? In real life, I mean.”

“Because I said a horrible thing.”

“Okay, yes, but…” Ginny seemed to search for the right words. “Do you… how can I say this… Story aside, are you hoping for a happy ending for you you as well?”

After a moment, Hermione said, “I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Right.” Ginny sniffled, rubbing her forehead. “So, from what I gather, what happened is that you went to the Dolomites to work,” she raised a finger, “you found yourself stuck in a small cabin with Malfoy,” two fingers, “didn’t tell a single soul about it,” three fingers, “had a couple of chats with him in which you found out that he might actually have become a decent person,” four fingers, “then, um…” She closed and opened her entire hand a couple of times. Hermione winced. “Well, shared a mattress with him, and finally… he left. And you see that as you having driven him away.”

“Yes, because that’s what I did.”

Ginny nodded slowly. “Which brings me to my question… You wrote a happy ending for your characters, who clearly fell in love, so they deserved that.”

“That’s the one percent of fiction.”

“Right, obviously.” Ginny didn’t sound too sure about it, though, so something akin to panic arose in Hermione. “But could it be that you might want that in real life as well? For you?”

She stayed silent, disregarding the implications of what her friend was suggesting.

“I still don’t follow you.” Lie.

“Why did you write this book, Hermione?”

“Because it was the only way for me to deal with what happened.”

“Yes. But what exactly did you have to deal with? The fact that Malfoy,” Ginny grimaced a bit, “is not the man you expected him to be, and therefore this is an examination on perception and prejudice—”

“I am no new Jane Austen, calm down.”

“—or did you want to delve into the emotions that realisation brought with it?”

Hermione’s eyebrows raised. “You read the book. You should have an answer already.”

“Alright, Hermione, let’s make this simple: yes or no,” Ginny said, without ambiguity. “Do you have feelings for him?”

The silence that followed was eerie. The swirling of Hermione’s thoughts was flat, her heartbeat too even.

“Yes,” she pronounced, slowly. “Of guilt. And a bit of confusion. And I need to apologise.”

“Don’t even try that with me. You know exactly what I mean, and I’m already trying to keep at bay all the things I have to say about the fact that the subject here is Draco bloody Malfoy—do you have feelings for him?”

As though Ginny had pushed her down a cliff, Hermione’s heart rate rose increasingly, her thoughts grew louder, and something like adrenaline coursed through her body in an overwhelming rush.

Did she have feelings for Malfoy? Yes. Obviously. He’d crossed her life, and she obviously felt a certain way about him. She’d felt a certain way even when he appeared at the cabin’s front door: flustered, angry, nervous. Those were feelings, and she had them for him. It could be easily argued she had always had some kind of feelings for him.

But were those the kind of feelings Ginny was talking about?

No.

Ludicrous.

Unthinkable.

Impossible.

How could she? When would she even have developed them?

“I…” she started venturing, unsure how the sentence was going to end. Do? Don’t? Fuck if I know?

Thankfully, there was a knock on the door followed by a familiar meowing.

“Good morning,” chirped Luna, opening the cat carrier she was holding under her arm and letting Crookshanks jump straight into Hermione’s lap. “Sorry I’m late. Hello, darling!”

Hermione’s hands were already deep into Crookshanks’ thick fur when Luna bent to kiss her on the cheek. “Hi, Luna. How’s your father?”

“He’s fine, thank you. We had a good time during the holidays, including a lovely Christmas dinner.” She sat on the chair next to Hermione’s and took a glass of water.

“Since when do you celebrate Christmas?” Ginny asked, but Luna just shrugged.

“Since we wanted to have a Christmas dinner.” 

Hermione chuckled, her attention completely devoted to her cat, who was purring softly beneath her hands. She scratched him on the head. “Hi, baby. Did you miss me?”

“He’s a great cat, you know. Very perceptive,” Luna commented.

“You say it every time,” Ginny sighed.

“I know,” Hermione said, still looking at Crooks and with her cuddly voice on. “People have said it for ages, haven’t they?”

“One could say he takes after his mum,” Ginny joked.

“And they would be a hundred percent right,” Hermione nodded, serious.

“On her good days,” Ginny winked, and then added, changing her tone: “Luna, since you’re here, riddle me this.” Hermione groaned, hiding her face in Crookshanks’ fur. Luna eyed her curiously before turning to Ginny. “What would you do if you found yourself stuck in a limited space for an indefinite amount of time with someone you have severe prejudice against, and who you know feels the same about you?”

“They have the same prejudices as me, you mean?”

“No, just—generally, this person doesn’t know the real you but has always judged you over the years, and therefore you two have developed a sort of non-relationship.”

Doesn’t know the real you. Hermione twisted and turned it in her mind like a worn-out sock. Doesn’t know the real you. The real you.

Real.

She knew the answer was just around a corner of her brain, but she didn’t know how to grasp it.

She didn’t know if she wanted to grasp it.

“Mh. Well.” Luna thought about it. “I don’t know. Who, for example?”

“Let’s say, hypothetically,” Ginny said, “it would be like Hermione here finding herself stuck with, um…” A breath. “Draco Malfoy.”

“Claw my eyes out,” Hermione whispered to Crookshanks. “Please.”

“Oh, that would be nasty, wouldn’t it?” Luna remarked.

“Extremely nasty,” Hermione mumbled.

“But what would you do?” Ginny insisted.

“It’s pointless to ask,” Hermione sighed, bracing herself, “because it’s already happened.”

“You mean it really happened?” Luna asked, turning towards Hermione, brows raised. “You and Malfoy?”

The witch sighed, “Yes. Apparently. Since you all know about it, now.”

She spared them a tirade about the relativity of reality when she saw Ginny’s confused frown (even though she’d read the book) and Luna’s understanding nod. Vaguely, Hermione wondered whether the fact that she was sure Luna wouldn’t bat an eyelid at her explanation was a good or bad thing. 

“Last month I was in Italy, and I was actually stuck with him in a cabin in the Alps.”

Luna blinked at her a few times. “Oh.” When neither Hermione or Ginny added further detail, Luna said, “And what’s the big deal?”

“She wrote a book about it.”

“We had a fight, in the end, and I want to apologise.”

The two women had spoken at the same time, and the older one looked at the mother-to-be with exasperation written all over her face.

“Wow, a whole book about it? That’s a lot,” Luna commented. “Why did you feel like doing that?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione repeated for what must have been the gazillionth time, hating it as if it was the first. “I reckon I had to deal with those emotions, somehow.”

“She sent him the book.”

“Oh. I see,” Luna nodded again.

“What do you see?” Hermione asked, desperate. “Because I can’t see shit.”

“How is he?” Luna said, cocking her head to the side. “I haven’t seen him in a while. He got married, didn’t he?”

“How do you know that?!” the other two exclaimed at the same time, wide-eyed.

“Dad wanted to run a piece in the Quibbler,” Luna shrugged as if she was commenting on the weather, “but Pansy Parkinson stopped him. Words flew around. I’m not sure how I feel about her.”

“Oh, did you know that Witch Weekly got the news about the baby? I don’t know how.” Hermione flinched, but Ginny didn’t notice. “Harry told me he found out, but they had already decided not to run it.”

“They also leaked the news about Ron and Padma.”

“Oh, how is that going?” Hermione asked, taking Crooks off her shoulder and repositioning him in her lap. “How did Molly take it?”

During her time in Italy, Hermione had called Ron one day. He’d answered quickly, and his tone was as cheerful as always as he’d caught her up on how it was going with Padma.

“Wasn’t it ‘just a fling’ no more than two months ago?” Hermione had joked.

“It was, but we thought… you know,” he’d chuckled on the other end of the line. “I mean, I’m not sure you really need a long time to know that it’s right, do you? You just know.”

“Yeah,” Hermione had hummed, mindlessly scrolling through the document of her manuscript on the laptop, words rolling back and forth in front of her eyes. “You don’t.”

“Oh, mum’s over the moon, obviously,” Ginny replied, rolling her eyes but failing at hiding her fondness. “This has been like her best Christmas ever.”

Luna smiled but was quick to wave the matter of Ron’s love life away. “But how is he? Draco?”

“Well, he’s… fine,” Hermione mumbled as she gave Crooks his new toy. “He’s fine.” He squeezed it under his paw, and it made a weird squealing sound.

“Is he still an arrogant arsehole?”

“According to our manuscript here, no, he isn’t,” Ginny answered before Hermione could even open her mouth.

“Then I’m missing the issue, here,” Luna said, eyebrows pinched.

“Ginny argues that I might have feelings for him,” Hermione cut to the point, feeling herself growing tired, nervous, and impatient. “You know. Romantic ones.”

“You wrote a whole book to elaborate on how you felt about your encounter and to dissect your relationship, going into deep detail of the reasons why you felt like you pushed him away, and you gave your characters a happy ending, so. Yes. Very romantic feelings.” Ginny pursed her lips and turned to Luna. “What’s your take on this?”

“How can I know? I haven’t read the book.”

“I’m forwarding it to you right now.” Ginny turned on the computer while Hermione scoffed, or rolled her eyes, or made an equally strong display of annoyance.

“Look, the book doesn’t matter, okay? It’s simply impossible,” she said, unequivocally.

“Why?”

“Because!” Hermione exploded, bursting open like a party balloon meeting a sharp heel. “Do you hear what you’re saying?! Do you remember who he is? Do you know who I am? How is it possible for me to fall in love with him?!”

Silence fell in the room, covering the three women like a heavy blanket. Not even Crooks dared to meow.

“I…” Hermione started, her sentence echoing in her mind. “I know what I said. I shouldn’t have said that.” She eyed a specific point on the ceiling as if it were the most interesting thing in the office, possibly the most interesting thing she’d ever seen in her entire life.

“I didn’t say you fell in love,” Ginny said slowly.

“I know. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But you did.” There was an infuriating degree of smugness in her voice.

“I know. I misspoke.”

“Would that be so out of the world?” Luna asked with disarming curiosity.

Hermione turned to her, feeling dangerously close to hysterical. “Yes.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Again,” Hermione repeated, her throat uncomfortably clogging up, her forearm itching, “do you remember who he is? You were with me at the Manor.”

Ginny tensed, but Luna seemed to just file the issue away. “That was a long time ago.”

“Not that long.”

“But you’re not talking about the same person, are you?” Luna’s eyes were gentle but held unwavering determination. “You’re the one who spent the last month in a cabin in the Alps with him. You should know.”

“It was just ten days,” Hermione corrected sharply. “How could someone fa—develop feelings in just about a fortnight?”

“I know it sounds crazy to you, but you can’t treat emotions with logic, Hermione,” Ginny interjected then. “If it happens, it just happens.”

“Oh, can you?” she grumbled back, narrowing her eyes. “Weren’t you the one who decided she was going to ‘get over Harry’ when you were fifteen?”

“That’s different,” Ginny accused, even pointing a finger. “What was I supposed to do? Wait around for him until he hit a wall and realised I had a thing for him?”

“He already knew you had a thing for him,” Luna added.

“Precisely,” Ginny remarked, looking at Hermione in a ‘beat this’ kind of glare. “Besides, it doesn’t look like I ‘got over him’ since, you know,” she brought her hands on her belly, “I’m carrying his child.”

Hermione groaned, and when she shifted on the chair Crookshanks jumped down, heading for the plants. She looked at him pulling a face, both worried for the vases and appreciating the twisted irony of even her cat deciding to walk away from her.

“No. It’s impossible.”

“Merlin’s beard,” Ginny muttered, exasperated at her stubbornness. “You’re impossible, Hermione. Look, I’m not even thinking of the billion things I could say about the fact that the matter we’re discussing here is Draco Malfoy, because that would take me energy I don’t have—actually, no, you know what?” She pointed a finger at her. “That phone call we had, around mid-December. Where you sounded miserable. Was he there?”

Hermione had known for a long time that it was impossible for her to lie to her best friend’s face. “Yes.”

“Oh, wow, so that’s reassuring,” the redhead exclaimed, eyes widening in a disappointed-but-not-surprised expression.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Hermione retorted defensively. “I had my own issues, and I think that’s also clear in the book. It’s got nothing to do with him.”

“See?” Ginny opened her arms, turning to Luna to look for support. “You’re already trying to make up excuses to justify whatever it is that’s going on in your head.”

“I’m not justifying anything,” Hermione crossed her arms, “I’m just saying it as it is.”

But Ginny shook her head. “My point is—I don’t care. I mean, I do, obviously, because I care about you, but it’s because of that, that I can see something happened to you. And you’re refusing to acknowledge it because you’re the one getting stuck on the fact that we’re talking about bloody Malfoy.”

“What does that even mean?!”

“You’re depriving him of the chance to prove you wrong.”

“On what?!”

“On the fact that something could happen!”

“Ginny, for the last time, I’m not in lo—”

“I’m not saying you’re in love with him, I’m saying you’re terrified of finding out you could fall in love with him!”

Luna, whose head had been ping-ponging between Hermione and Ginny, exhaled a small “Oh” of quiet awe.

Ginny, taking advantage of having rendered Hermione uncharacteristically speechless, went on.

“You know, in here you talk a lot about assumptions,” she said, pointing a finger at her computer screen, “but you fail to acknowledge the fact that you’re an incredibly judgmental person.”

Hermione sparked up. “I’m not—”

“I’m not saying it as a bad thing,” Ginny cut her off immediately, “it’s just who you are. You rely on judgment a lot, and it’s the reason why you’re both so logical and so reluctant at admitting you’re wrong. Because you trust your judgment blindly.” They stared at each other for a moment. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s the exact same thing I could say about Harry, except that he’s instinct-driven.”

“I reckon Malfoy is very judgment-driven, too,” Luna chipped in.

“Oh, that’s great, thank you,” Hermione commented sarcastically.

Ginny didn’t waver. “You keep repeating it’s impossible because it’s way easier for you not to deal with everything that could happen—and that already happened.” She reached for Hermione’s hand over the desk. “And I get that there’s a lot more and that you’re scared for a hundred different reasons, and I also know that having to admit you’re not always right is agonising for you.” That managed to steal a chuckle from Hermione. “But I don’t think you should deny yourself the opportunity of finding out what’s next.” Ginny paused, then decided to force some more words out. “Even if we’re talking about Draco Malfoy.”

Hermione looked at her, at their twisted hands, and then at Luna. Her heart felt severed in two: half of it was dying for her to listen to the third and objective party; the other one was remarking how her judgment had kept her safe all those years.

(But had it ever made her happy?)

A breath escaped Hermione’s lips, and Ginny’s head fell between her shoulders. She looked so resigned that Hermione felt stupidly guilty.

Then, Luna spoke, batting her lashes in the way she usually did when quoting something by heart: “Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Hermione’s head snapped towards her, flabbergasted.

Luna was smiling slightly, only the right corner of her mouth pulling up.

“I’m not surprised about that,” Ginny scoffed as her head rose, frowning at the way Hermione was looking speechlessly at Luna.

“No,” Hermione said, feeling quite dumbfounded at the sudden connection and raising a hand to shut Ginny up, “you don’t understand. It’s a quote. Since when do you know Alice?”

“We both might love books, Hermione, but the Hat put me in Ravenclaw and you in Gryffindor for a reason.”

“When I was a kid,” Hermione started, the memory slamming to the front of her brain with the strength of a tidal wave, “I used to drive my parents absolutely crazy, because they couldn’t understand what was happening around me. Magic would just spring out of me and I couldn’t contain it. Anything happened—my hair never straightened, drawers would fly open when I got mad, I would find myself on the top of tall trees with no memory of how I got there. I once levitated ten lollipops out of the store because my mum wouldn’t buy them for me.

“For my fourth birthday, or fifth, I can’t recall, my dad bought me Alice in Wonderland. It was an edition with Through the Looking Glass at the end. And I just read the shit out of it. I was obsessed. I would bring it everywhere, I reread it countless times, I read it to other people, I dog-eared it, I wrote on it… It’s a miracle my copy isn’t falling to pieces. And I remember, we repeated the quote about six impossible things every day at breakfast—it had become a mantra, a sort of ritual between my parents and I. And when something impossible for me to explain happened, I would just throw it in the list.

“So, it went like, one: there’s a potion that can make you shrink; two: and a cake that can make you grow; three: animals can talk; four: cats can disappear; five,” she smiled at that, tearing up. “There is a place called Wonderland. When my letter arrived and everything made sense, it felt like finding the rabbit hole.” Luna looked sly, while Ginny’s grin was growing bigger by the second. “And then, six: I can slay the Jabberwocky, would just be me saying something like ‘I can make my hair turn pink.’ We would wrap it up and my parents would avoid looking for actual hair dye in the house.”

Hermione bit her lip, looking at her six raised fingers. She was back in her parents’ kitchen, eating cereal and pushing her already rebellious curls off her face, eager to throw herself into another book at kindergarten and anxious to show her friends that she could make her fingers sparkle in the dark.

She had always been able to do impossible things. The people around her dreamed of them, wrote about them, stargazed thinking of them, made up complicated realities to role-play them, but not her. It was real, for Hermione. “My beautiful, impossible girl,” her dad used to call her, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head before tucking her in at night.

“Well,” said Ginny after a moment, while Hermione felt her cheeks turn redder and redder. “There is a spell that makes you shrink.”

“And one that can make you grow,” Luna said, holding up two fingers.

“I’m not sure animals can talk, but people can turn into animals, so I’d say that’s close enough.”

“And you can definitely make a cat disappear, if you want to,” Luna nodded vehemently, looking at Crookshanks.

Hermione looked at the two of them, gulping down saliva that made her stomach twist up.

“There is a place called Hogwarts…” Ginny smiled comfortingly, as if trying to nudge her toward the inevitable conclusion.

When she was little more than a baby, Wonderland had been the first place that made her feel like she belonged, simply because it had made her believe that the impossible could become possible, inside those pages. That book had been her first safe haven, and that feeling of both shelter and power had only rushed over her one other time.

When, under the magically charmed roof of the Great Hall, she had known that the impossible could become possible.

That it could become real.

“Six,” said Luna, holding up an open hand and a thumb.

Hermione felt her heart beat against her chest like it was begging to be released from its cage.

It was impossible.

Entirely absurd.

Absolutely mental.

Completely illogical.

Out of the reality of this world.

But she could do impossible things.

“I can…”

Six. I can fall in love with Draco Malfoy.

Ginny’s face opened in a broad smile, and Luna shrugged knowingly.

“I have to go.” Hermione stood up abruptly, chair knocking over as she scrambled to get her coat. “I’m leaving Crooks. I’ll be right back.”

She didn’t even give herself time to hear the girls’ shouts of encouragement because she was already out of the door, searching her bag for her wand while flying down the stairs at the speed of light, trying to think of a way to find him quickly. Maybe a locator spell? But she didn’t have anything of his. She didn’t know where he was, who he was staying with, if he was in London or somewhere else entirely, like Madagascar. Perhaps she could storm the Witch Weekly’s offices? Pansy Parkinson would know where he was.

Her feet touched the pavement in front of the building, hand tightly gripped around the vine wood of her wand, and she was already visualising the magazine’s headquarters to apparate there when her steps faltered.

Her heartbeat skipped, and her breath pushed out of her lungs in a heavy puff.

The voice that had pestered her dreams every night for the previous fifteen nights said the single word it had never uttered before.

“Hermione.”

It took her by surprise, the way her name sounded so effortlessly beautiful when it rolled out in the world with his voice.

Her brain froze in the middle of its restless reeling, giving her the distinct sensation of having just stepped off a rollercoaster—faint need to throw up included. There was nothing else for her to do: slowly, Hermione turned around.

Draco was standing right in front of her.

The same black coat covering his shoulders. The same set of grey eyes that always caused such a turmoil inside of her pointed right on her face, staring into her soul.

She blinked at him, incapable of making a sound.

Around them, people kept walking, busy with a million different things, unaware of the impossible becoming possible that was happening right in front of their eyes.

Draco raised an arm, holding some sheets of parchment and printed pages. 

Wild guess: her manuscript.

He flicked it, and as the pages moved in the light breeze, Hermione spotted some notes on the margins, written in a delicate, although sharp, handwriting.

His brows were furrowed in a harsh line.

“What’s this?”

Chapter Text

4th of January, 2007. London.

Astoria had always joked that he could have been an engineer, in a Muggle life.

“You can fix things,” she used to say. “You’re good at that.”

“Engineers don’t fix things,” Draco would reply, ever the petulant child, “they build them.” A retort which would prompt Astoria to roll her eyes affectionately. “Besides, I can fix things with magic.”

“Magic, physics,” she’d shrug, and then her small palm would rise to cup his chin, sliding delicately over his cheek as she walked past, ghosting a kiss on the top of his head. “Same thing.”

But now, lying on the bed of an ordinary bedroom in his mother’s new house at 2 a.m., wedding photograph between his fingers, Draco was going over and over and over again the one problem to which he couldn’t find the solution, not sensing his engineer's side coming to the rescue. 

The indisputable facts were the following.

One: when he’d arrived in the Alps, he was ready to get properly hammered on his own for a week before Theo joined him.

Two: when Hermione bloody Granger had greeted him at the door, that perpetual expression of contempt for the sole fact he was breathing air painted all over her face, he’d decided to stay out of sheer spite.

He had tried to find that feeling again when he finally told Pansy, Theo and Blaise everything, but it felt unreacheable—which was simply insane.

***

They were in Narcissa’s living room, sharing a cup of tea and picking at slices of panettone. When Draco didn’t answer what must have been his friends’ eighth question, Theo snapped his fingers in front of him, blinking him back to reality.

(Reality.)

“What?”

“You’ve got your dramatic look on,” Pansy said.

“I don’t have a dramatic look on,” he scowled.

“Sure you don’t.” Sarcasm dripped from Blaise’s words.

Out of the blue, without planning, Draco blurted out: “I need to tell you something.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to him, and his throat constricted with guilt and nerves.

“But you can’t tell anyone, okay?” Murmurs of confused agreement. “Pansy?”

“Why me?”

“No one.”

She groaned. “Get to the point, then.”

“Alright. Um…” Draco’s fists clenched and unclenched, mimicking a heartbeat. “So, a thing happened. Um. Yeah.”

“Wow,” Theo drawled. “You should win the Nobel Prize.”

“They should make one specially for eloquence,” Blaise nodded along, “and give it to you.”

Draco ignored them, forcing down the waves of dread threatening to overcome him. “You know the cabin in the Alps?”

“The one you so rudely kept Nott out of?” Theo raised his cup to Pansy in thanks.

“Yeah, that one,” Draco confirmed briskly. “Well. I wasn’t—um.” He gulped, words and images flashing before his eyes. When he closed them, he had the distinct sensation of being aboard a ship, lurching left and right according to the sea’s will.

He was going to be sick.

“Draco?” Pansy sounded worried, which wasn’t usual. He might have actually turned green.

“I wasn’t alone,” he said in a single breath. 

Beat.

“In the cabin.” Puzzled expressions looked back at him. “I wasn’t alone,” Draco repeated, trying to convey as much conviction as he could.

Theo was the one to break the silence. “And who…?”

Draco squeezed his eyes, rubbing one with the back of his hand. “Do you—doyourememberGranger?”

Another moment of silence.

Then, three voices overlapped.

“Sorry, what?” (Theo).

“Sorry, who?! ” (Pansy).

“Did you say Granger ?” (Blaise).

“As in—Hermione Granger?” Pansy’s voice reached a shrilling tone.

“Yes,” Draco exclaimed, frustrated, “how many Grangers do you know?!”

“That Hermione Granger? The—the—” A manicured hand fluttered like an irate butterfly. When Pansy sought in vain the word she’d wanted, she repeated: “That one?”

“Again, Pansy,” Draco said, tight-lipped, “how many Hermione Grangers do you know?”

Her name on his tongue felt syrupy. Sweet. Alien. Welcome. Addicting.

“There was a mix-up with the dates,” he explained, hushing the voices in his head while trying to recall the linear timeline, “and then with the lockdown and the weather alert, we found ourselves stuck together. In the cabin. For two weeks.”

He didn’t dare look at his friends. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the Christmas tree. The lights flickered and changed colours as though following a waltz: one two three, one two three, one two three.

“Did you…?” asked Blaise eventually, and Draco cut him short: “Yes.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Did you—?” Theo clearly aimed somewhere else, but Draco stopped him too: “Yes.”

“Does she…?” then ventured Pansy, and Draco sighed, “Yes.”

Shocked silence filled the room, before he added, “She sent me a letter.”

He had received it a couple of days before. The parchment had materialised next to his laptop, and Draco was still terrified of reading it, though he couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

“As in a Christmas card?” 

“No, you prat,” Draco scowled at Blaise. “As in an actual letter. Ink, quill, parchment and everything.”

He’d thought more than once that perhaps he should just burn it. A pity he couldn’t bring himself to follow through.

“What did she say?” Pansy further inquired.

“I don’t know,” Draco admitted. “I haven’t opened it.”

“What are you waiting for?” asked Theo.

His head fell on the back of the sofa. “I… we… had a fight when I left. It was a whole thing. She was kind of a bi—um.” He winced, ignoring Pansy’s snort. “To be honest.”

“Well,” Blaise stated matter-of-fact, “you won’t know what she wants if you don’t read it.”

“You don’t fucking say, Zabini.”

“Hey, you’re the one not reading it,” Theo retorted.

“I don’t know if I want to read it.”

A moment passed before Pansy spoke up in a quiet voice: “Are you going to bite me if I ask you why?” 

“Because,” Draco groaned, sounding much like a pained animal, “she doesn’t get to apologise with a stupid letter.”

“Spiteful,” Theo commented with a small grin. “I’m impressed. I thought you’d lost the Slytherin in you.”

“Sod off, Nott.” Draco felt his chest tighten. “I don’t—what does she even have to say? Sorry that I treated you like shit? That I acted like a brat the moment I saw you, and then made you believe things were changing when they clearly weren’t, since I kicked you out as soon as I got the chance? She can shove it.” He nodded at nothing. “And she can save it.”

“Why are you so angry?” Pansy frowned. “What has she said that was so unforgivable?”

For a split second, Draco pictured Hermione in front of him, how her face had twisted and reddened as she spat out the words she’d immediately regretted—because he knew she did, evident in her eyes, in her pleading voice, in how she’d tried so desperately to reach for him.

The cry of her calling his name had haunted him every night since, a continual siren sound that kept echoing endlessly underneath the current of his thoughts.

But those words had cracked him open, exploded in his mind like a dose of hemlock secured in the back of his teeth, and keyed open the lock on the door of everything different the two of them stood for.

What the hell was he even thinking, trying to build a relationship—any kind of relationship—with Hermione fucking Granger? What in the bloody hell did he expect to gain, where did he think they could head to? 

“She… I think she believes that we are incompatible,” Draco said, listening to his thoughts as they finally took shape. “She thinks there is no possibility whatsoever for us to create anything, because there’s something fundamentally different between us that, um… that will tear the fabric of the world down to pieces.”

Theo’s eyes went uncharacteristically wide. “Those were her words?”

“Paraphrased,” Draco mused. Her whole dissertation on reality somewhat escaped him, and he wasn’t completely sure about the point she’d tried to make—but regardless. Hermione had made it pretty clear that she didn’t want to accept whatever was happening between the two of them as real and with actual consequences.

There was a lot more to it, but the main reason was obvious to Draco: she wasn’t willing to bet against all odds.

***

Three: Granger hadn’t cared for him in the slightest until she randomly kissed him one day. He still didn’t know why he’d kissed her back. Boredom. Curiosity. Inertia. Piqued interest. Something else. Something more.

(It had been two days after the four months anniversary. Maybe it was just loneliness.)

Four: Granger had slapped him right after The Kiss. To his horror, he’d felt somewhat hurt—emotionally speaking. Honestly yes, he’d acted like an arsehole for a while, for old times’ sake, but then he had really tried to make the situation livable. He’d even offered her dinner, Salazar save him.

Because of that choice, a weird sense of guilt had gripped him for two days straight, commanding him to face it. Except that he didn’t face it, and things got worse.

Or better.

Or worse.

It depended on one’s perspective.

Five: the failed relationship with Weasley had thrown Granger off her course, and now she dreaded emotional intimacy to an alarming level. But there was something else there as well, something about physical intimacy that probably didn’t circle back to Weasley, that Draco couldn’t put his finger on.

Six: nonetheless, Granger was really good at sex.

Seven:

(The simple fact that he knew this specific detail should have made him want to vanish from the face of the Earth. It didn’t.)

Seven:

Focus.

Seven: reality again. And kids. He hadn’t told her about Dennis, because it wasn’t important at the moment. He had just wanted to get inside her head. There was so much going on in there, he could feel it buzzing and twisting and turning and curling on itself like the mess she carried on her head that she considered hair.

He still wasn’t sure he’d completely understood it, though. Reality. All these things he knew, all the facts he was listing—were they not real because his memory was an unreliable narrator? Was that what she was trying to say?

No. Granger had said that what was happening between the two of them wasn’t real because no one knew about it, which was different. ‘Reality is what’s real for the majority of the world’ versus ‘Reality is what’s real for me’. There’s a numbers issue.

Eight: the scars on their arms were painfully real, no matter one’s stance on reality. Draco had felt her recoil and retreat behind her walls as she looked at the reminder of who they were and what they’d gone through.

Stubborn, she was so stubborn, and smart, and stubbornly smart—and why had she acted like that? Why hadn’t she let him…?

***

He was retelling Daphne the impossible tale when he received the one opinion he would never fathom asking for. His sister-in-law was looking at him sideways, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, mind working behind her fringe as Draco rambled on and on, reducing to ashes cigarette after cigarette. 

“You think she doesn’t want to… cross the divide?” Daphne asked, and Draco, in his very dramatic manner, sighed.

“I reckon she believes it’s not possible.”

They were too caught up in the story to notice, but on the balcony with them, gracefully adjusting flower arrangements and watering plants, was the Malfoy matriarch.

“Well, she’s right. Isn’t she?” 

Stone cold silence.

Slowly, Draco turned to look at his mother. “Beg your pardon?”

“What?” Narcissa raised her perfect eyebrows at the stunned looks on the two young faces. “You can’t possibly think about a relationship of whatever sorts with that woman.”

Daphne’s tongue snapped very quietly against the roof of her mouth.

“First of all,” Draco replied, chillingly calm, “what I think is not your business, Mother. And secondly, please don’t drag me into yet another pointless fight.”

“I’m not dragging you into anything,” Narcissa said, still moving flowers here and there. “It’s you who loves to rant about idiotic things that you don’t understand the half of.”

Draco felt his blood—his perfect, unblemished blood his mother had always upheld as the greatest thing that ever happened to him, the greatest thing about him—rushing quickly in his veins.

“If she believes there’s nothing to build there,” Narcissa added coolly, “then at least that confirms she does have a perceptive mind.”

“I don’t want to argue about this again.” Over the years, Draco had reached the point where he’d realised it was futile to dispute the matter with the older side of his family. It wasn’t as though Narcissa Black Malfoy was ready to change her mind on blood purity at over fifty years of age.

“There’s nothing to argue about,” Narcissa snapped, “and I really don’t like that tone of yours. I’ve been here longer than you, son. I’ve seen how people behave, and I believe I know a thing or two more than you do, even though you love to act and think of yourself as better than me. You want to believe Muggleborns are the same as us? Be my guest. But the reality of things is that they’re not .”

Draco could feel Daphne’s eyes darting from mother to son and back, gauging whether it would be best to intervene or to let them burn it out.

“It’s not a matter of refusing change, or the progress of modern society. It’s biological history. There is something fundamentally different about us, and it’s not just cultural—it’s chemical.” Draco scoffed at her rhetoric, disbelieving. “Oh, don’t give me that holier-than-thou attitude, Draco. Now you all love to explain magic as if it was science—there you go, then. We have a chemical balance that has been maintained for centuries. They have a malformation in the original system.”

“We have gotten inbreeding, Mother,” Draco laughed hysterically. “Do you really want to talk about malformations?!”

“I sincerely hope this madness is just dictated by a tantrum begot by your inability to accept people turning you down, Draco, because I can’t bring myself to understand how you could even pretend to entertain the idea of creating something—anything—with Hermione Granger.”

Those words burned his face red. “I don’t believe my private life should be any of your business, Mother.”

“I strongly disagree.”

“You know, if she were here, right now, she would know exactly how to reply and how to put you in your place.” Narcissa’s chin raised, her eyes narrowing to menacing slits. “Instead, look at this,” Draco gestured to Daphne and himself, “we’re two adults who can’t even respond in kind because we’ve got that hideous pureblood upbringing drilled into our brains . ”

“And that’s how it should be. That’s the kind of respect you should show your elders. And I have raised you to know that.”

“You think I don’t respect you?” His fingers clutched the balustrade tightly, knuckles going white. “Do I really have to remind you of everything I did for you, Mother?”

“You’re forgetting who you are, Draco. You think you can reshape yourself to fit whatever it is that the people want nowadays, but it’s a lie. You so desperately want to fit in a reality that’s completely made up. You’re a Malfoy. You’re a Pureblood. I won’t let you mingle with blood traitors, Half-Bloods, or even—Salazar spare me—filthy Mud—”

A sharp breath filled the air. 

For a moment everything stood still.

Hot rage coursing through his body, it took several breaths for Draco to realise that his palm was gripping the hawthorn wood of his wand as he held it under his mother’s haughty chin.

Daphne’s hand was clutching his arm, so firmly that it almost hurt. “Draco,” she said in a steady voice. “Put the wand down.”

Draco inhaled deeply, once, twice, looking at his mother in her defiant eyes.

“Look at my son.”

Ignoring Narcissa, Daphne repeated, “Put it down.”

Slowly, Draco lowered the wand. His eyes remained locked on his mother, who was staring at him with ice-cold determination.

“You don’t know the half of it, Mother,” he spat out, voice trembling with anger and disappointment.

Narcissa blinked, and her lips curled slightly upward. Before she could answer, Draco turned round and marched back inside, leaving the two women to wince at the force with which he slammed the front door behind him.

***

Nine: a Hermione-Granger-breakdown was a paradox coming to life. Her need for logic collided with her too-strong emotions, a lethal mix that left scorched ground in its aftermath.

Which brought him to ten: Granger was a fragile bubble constantly living on the verge of a mental breakdown. She hated people making assumptions about her, but she also got scared to death the moment she didn’t meet expectations. She was trying to make sense of a world that kept asking the best of her and never let herself even consider the possibility of failure. So, when it inevitably happened, she ran away from it without acknowledgment, like the perfectionist she was.

Draco held the photograph in front of his eyes. The edges were wrinkled, and the film had turned yellowish. Astoria’s smile, though, was still as bright as the day it was captured. He turned it over, and his fingertip traced the writing on the back. Mademoiselle & Mademoiselle's husband. He flipped it again, eyes following the moving picture closely.

*** 

He went to the cemetery the day after Christmas.

Daphne had asked him to go together when he’d returned to London, but Draco couldn’t bring himself to go then. So he’d made up an excuse and told her she could leave her two-year-old with him.

The toddler had the time of his life baking cookies with his uncle, until Draco made him believe he’d poisoned some of them, which had Dennis terrified of even touching the finished result. He loved joking around with his nephew. 

“You know, Anthony told me that Dennis once said you’re his favourite uncle,” Daphne whispered, nudging his hip with her elbow, when she arrived to pick her son up. 

She looked like Astoria in the way Narcissa looked like Draco’s aunts. It was something in the attitude, in the way her eyes widened when she got ready to listen, the way her smile brightened her face, the way she would push her hair off her forehead with a single tilt of her forefinger.

“I bet,” Draco said, quickly putting down the biscuit he was about to eat when Dennis looked at him. The kid was blissfully ignoring his father, who was trying to get him to wear a hat and also failing to convince his son that his uncle was a jokester. “Who else would give him poisonous food?”

Eventually, Draco did go to the graveyard. Still hungover from Christmas’ celebrations, cigarette hanging between index and middle finger, he walked to the austere place with a bouquet of chrysanthemums in hand.

The first time he and Astoria had gone to Italy, they’d discovered that people there used to bring chrysanthemums to their dead, while the English considered it more of a joyous flower. Astoria had smiled at the concept, and even more at Draco’s perplexed frown.

“It’s beautiful, don’t you see it?” she’d laughed.

“It’s not an appropriate flower.”

“Why would you want to bring sad flowers to dead people?” she’d remarked, tilting her head just so. “They’re already dead. We should at least try to liven up the place.”

He stood in obstinate silence before the stone. He hated the very idea of talking to it. It was stupid and meaningless. Daphne always talked: whenever she attended to her sister’s resting place, she chatted about everything and nothing at all. The few times Draco tagged along, he would usually end up listening to her. His mind would blank, a buzzing sound spreading in the back of his head while Daphne would go on and on about Dennis, and work, and Anthony, oh how vexing was Anthony, how dull on the bad days, but also how smart on the good ones, how lucky she was, how Dennis had his aunt’s eyes.

Not Draco. Draco just stared at the tombstone.

Astoria Greengrass (Malfoy). 16 May, 1982 - 6 August, 2006.

It felt like a lifetime already.

He felt the impulse to trace the engraved letters, but he didn’t. Instead, he curled his fist inside his coat pocket, and as his left hand closed on itself, his thumb snaked under his index and middle finger to touch the base of his ring finger, pad pushing harshly against the metal.

A muttered, “Fuck,” left his lips at the climax of an inner swirling of thoughts, hardly breaching his full awareness.  Astoria was dead; she couldn’t see him, she couldn’t hear him, she couldn’t answer him if he asked her anything. What would he even want to ask her? Why did he want to tell her about—?

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he repeated, shifting on his feet, eyes wandering around the ominous atmosphere. It was full of families heading to meet their loved ones, to share a festive day with them.

And then, just like that, Draco caved.

“What am I supposed to do now, hm?” he said to the stone, ignoring the rational voice in his head that told him to stop acting like an idiot. “Tell you the whole story and then wait for a sign, or something? Aren’t you supposed to know the whole story already? Since you’re—” he gestured towards the sky and about himself, “up there and all around here?”

His eyes focused on the grey plate. His lips, sealed shut, were dragged downwards in a pout.

“I know that you would say some shit to convince me to get in touch with her.” He was almost angry at the lifeless rock. “Because it’s ‘pointless to hold a grudge’, and ‘you’re acting like a child’, and, my personal favourite, ‘this isn’t who you are, Draco’—then who the fuck am I? Because, at this point, I’m not sure I know anymore.”

“This isn’t who you are!” Astoria used to scream at him every time they ended up talking about the scar on his arm. “It’s not, and I’m tired of you trying to force yourself into this villainous role.”

“I’m not forcing anything—I’m just stating facts!”

“Do you think I’m a stupid teenage girl who can’t understand how the world spins, Draco?” she would snap back, raising her chin and crossing her arms. “Is that why you love to patronise me?”

“I’m not—I’m not patronising you,” Draco would stammer, unable to understand Astoria’s stubbornness in believing there was something worthy of her love inside him.

“Draco,” she would say then, stepping close to him, rolling the r in his name like no one else ever did, “your past doesn’t define you. Your wrong choices don’t define you. Stop acting like a child.”

She had managed to convince him out of sheer stubbornness.

Except now, he’d met another kind of stubbornness, equally fierce, and Astoria wasn’t there to slap good sense into him anymore.

“I don’t even know what I’m feeling,” Draco muttered on the brink of tears, furrowing his brows and narrowing his eyes to keep the watery streaks away from his cheeks. “I should just forget about all of it—but I can’t. Why can’t I?” He scoffed. “And why am I talking to you about this?” Obviously, he would not receive an answer from a stone. He wouldn’t garner a response from anything. There wasn’t even a talking portrait he could turn to— even if there was, Draco was sure he would never pluck up the courage to actually talk to it.

He inhaled the brisk, cold air of the graveyard, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

“You know, she got so nervous when she saw the ring,” he said, staring at his hand. “As if the ring meant anything. It’s just a stupid ring. Her reaction sent me more down a spiral than the ring itself. And you know what? I actually do feel guilty. I think. There’s this sense of… betrayal…” He pressed his fingers to the corner of his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Draco,” Astoria had told him on his last birthday they spent together, when she was growing too weak to hold onto hope. “I’m sorry I’m leaving all of this with you.”

“Don’t be silly,” he’d answered, passing her a slice of cake. “I’ve always told you I never do things if I don’t want to.”

She’d given him a wan smile. “You’re going to have to live with it, and I hate it. I know you’ll make yourself feel miserable.” Her fingers had brushed his cheek. “I just hate it.”

“I don’t.” He’d grabbed her hand and left a kiss on her knuckles. “I really don’t.”

The peaks of the cypresses were swaying lightly with the breeze.

In a whisper, Draco admitted the one truth that had been gnawing at his heart for weeks.

“Can you believe I feel guilty because I don’t feel guilty?”

When his confession was met with silence, he rested a kiss on the tip of his fingers, touched them to the curved edge of the stone, and turned to leave.

***

Laying on his back, he scanned the picture, hearing Astoria’s voice in his ears, so familiar and yet fading away a bit more each day.

Draco liked to think things happened for a reason. Or at the very least, there were reasonable explanations as to why things happened. And yet, Hermione Granger, with everything that she brought with her, was an unsolvable brain teaser. What was the reason that brought him to her door? The reason why she’d booked the same cabin he had? That Astoria had? Was there even a reason, or was the world simply spinning in accordance with some chaotic and unplanned will?

It did feel like it, especially when he had found the letter.

It was dinner time on New Year’s Day, and his mother was calling him from the kitchen. Draco had reluctantly dragged himself out of bed, gathered the empty packets of tobacco scattered all over the room, and slapped his cheeks to look slightly more alive than he felt.

His gaze had fallen on the open suitcase by accident. 

There were some parchments on his laptop. The noises coming from downstairs had blurred out to a confused buzz when he made out, right at the very top, the words Dear Draco written in a hurried handwriting that looked so hasty it must have left grooves.

For a long moment, he’d stared at them, halfway through the threshold and unsure what to do. The longer he looked, the more he began to make words out. She hadn’t even bothered copying it anew: there were cancelled-out sentences, scribbles over misspelled words, last-minute additions. He could sense the fretfulness behind Hermione’s words.

Narcissa had called him again, and Draco was startled back to the present. He’d quickly closed the door behind him and joined his mother, mind reeling about what the ever-loving fuck Granger was writing him for.

Treacherously, the moment he lowered the photo, ready to forget about it all, if only for a few minutes, the letter caught his attention again.

He didn’t do it of his own free will, but rather almost automatically, robot-like: Draco stood, put the photograph in his shirt pocket, and went to his desk where he’d moved parchment and laptop. 

The silence around him was deafening as Hermione’s voice filled his mind, word after word.

~~~

Dear Draco,

I feel so stupid writing this letter. I can picture you opening it and making a face, one of those faces—and I wouldn’t blame you. It’s ridiculous. “Dear Draco.” What does that even mean? I’ve only ever called you Malfoy. But that would be even more ridiculous. “Dear Malfoy.” “Dear.” I don’t know.

And yet, I was taught that letters should start with “Dear someone,” so, for the sake of following rules:

Dear Draco,

I can’t even begin to say how sorry I am. I feel terrible, and I deserve every single one of the bad thoughts you might have about me.

Do you even have thoughts about me? I have thoughts about you. I think about you so often that I wish I could rip my thoughts from my brain, and I hate myself for it. Do you hate me for it?

I don’t know how I would feel if I knew with absolute certainty that you think about me. I tried picturing it, and I failed. Or, well, I didn’t fail. I just… I got mad when I convinced myself that you do think about me. Because, if you do, then why wouldn’t you do something? Why wouldn’t you reach out? You talk so much about being mature, and having conversations, and opening up to people, and then I get the silent treatment? Not that I don’t deserve it—what I said was hideous and I regret it with every fibre of my being, but. But.

But.

I also don’t think it’s fair or reasonable of you to fill your mouth with all those beautiful words and then leave me here to feel like shit. Mature people are able to accept other mature people’s mistakes. Maybe you simply think I’m not mature. I’m not sure I would blame you, and perhaps that’s the reason why I’m I get mad.

When I convince myself that you don’t think about me, I get equally mad, though. Because that would just be cruel. So incredibly cruel, and mean, and vicious, and spiteful, and it would suit perfectly the image of you I had in my head when you first appeared at the cabin’s door, but it clashes violently with the one that occupies my thoughts today. Are you really still the nasty teenager I used to know? I don’t believe so. You wouldn’t open up to someone the way you did with me and then completely wipe them from your mind, would you?

No, you wouldn’t. I realise it as I write it, because you told me as much. Apparently, I’m the one who thought I could do that, but guess what!

I wish I could. I wish I could just

What were the odds of us ever meeting again?

I don’t know what you did to me.

No, that’s not fair. You didn’t do anything. You sat on your stupid sofa and watched your stupid films all day long and somewhere between that and the things we told each other, I did something to myself, or something happened, I don’t know what, and my balance shifted and now it’s crashing to the ground.

Not that it was particularly balanced before you came into the picture, but... 

Actually, you know what, that makes it worse! But, again, it’s all on me. I don’t know. I can’t make sense of anything and I hate not being able to make sense of things.

Who would have ever thought that I would spend my 26th New Year’s Day on this Earth in my childhood bedroom, jotting down this letter to you, of all people, y o u, while my parents got lunch ready? We were supposed to go to the Weasley’s, you know, but I couldn’t face Ginny because she doesn’t know anything yet, and I couldn’t summon the cour knew she would guess something was wrong the moment she looked at me, so here we are. 

I don’t even know if I’ll actually send this letter to you. When I first started writing it, I thought I would type it afterwards, but I’m not sure I want to reread it now. I hate rereading my own writing. That’s Ginny’s job. Maybe I’ll just scan it and attach it to the email, or I’ll make it materialise wherever you are.

I’m sending you the finished manuscript.

It’s not exactly the story I told you about. It’s not that story at all. I don’t know if I’ll end up trying to publish it, to be honest. It’s a completely different thing. Ginny has a copy too, but I don’t think she’ll get to it very soon, so, if you’re a quick reader, you’ll be the first one to read it. Ever.

That is, if you even open this. Maybe I’m blurting all of this out only for myself. Maybe you’ll just throw it away the moment you read my name. I don’t know. I’m so confused. There’s a mess of emotions and words and feelings and memories in my head and in my body and I hate everything about it—I think I feel like a teenager, but in the way teenagers feel in the media, do you know what I mean? I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that back when I actually was a teenager. I was too busy running after Harry.

Please, read this. Not this this—read the book. And, I don’t know, maybe let me know.

(I hate that I use that sentence, “I don’t know” this much. I’m not that person. When have I become that person?)

I’m shit at expressing my feelings, I realise that. I’ve got so much going on in my head all the time, and I have a really hard time explaining it to people, and so it’s just easier to keep it to myself and not burden them. I mean, I see it as a burden taken off their shoulders, but I get that they—you—could see it as me distancing myself. It’s not. It shouldn’t be.

This is already too long. I hope you’ll like the novel. It’s still untitled. There’s a lot of myself in it, and there’s also a lot of me you might not know yet.

I    I hope you’re hav

Happy New Year

Hermione

~~~

A handful of hours later, after a sleepless night spent reading and rereading the 187 pages document named Untitled - HJG, its words still swimming in his brain, Draco was purposefully marching down a busy Soho street. His gaze darted from person to people restlessly: a family of four, an old lady with a dog, a bushy head, a couple—

His head swivelled so fast that his sight blanked for a second, and his heart vanished from the cavity in his chest.

A bushy head.

A bushy head and its owner appeared out of nowhere outside a building, frantically turning left and right, wand in hand.

Her name escaped his mouth without his permission or acknowledgment of the consequences.

“Hermione.” 

His voice was stern yet tender, at once reprimanding her for being ready to leave when he was finally there, and in turn hoping she would stay once she saw him.

She froze before turning around, eyes wide in shock and a thousand different things Draco didn’t have the presence of mind to identify.

The moment he locked eyes with her, the universe exploded.

A million feelings took the best of him, but the one that angrily elbowed its way to the front of his heart was the fierce impulse to grab her and hold her against his chest, fitting her in his arms, warming her while hiding his face in her gravity-defying curls.

Summoning a will he didn’t know he possessed anymore, Draco forced himself to stay still.

“What’s this?”

Hermione looked at the sheets of paper in his hand. “That’s… um…”

Salazar’s sake, he’d missed her so much.

So much, that now that she was actually here, it felt like a fever dream.

So much, that now that she was actually here, he wanted to slam his head into a wall for not seeking her out sooner.

“It’s… What are you doing here?” 

His grip around parchment and paper tightened. “I was looking for you.” Somewhere inside his stomach, a couple of butterflies flapped their wings—once, twice. “What’s this?”

“How…” Her eyes flickered shut, and for a split second it looked as though she might faint. “How did you find me?”

“Locator spell.” The pages shook in his hand when he flicked them to stress his impatience: “Can you please answer me?”

“Locator spells don’t usually work with letters,” Hermione said under her breath, looking at the parchment she’d sent him. “I’ve never… how did you…”

Draco drew in a sharp breath, averting his eyes and fixing them on the moving cars in the street. “I didn’t use the letter, Granger.”

When his gaze returned to her figure, she was frowning. “Then what…”

He sighed deeply, hoping it would be enough to convey the message, Have you ever noticed you lost a pair of knickers? You wouldn’t believe it. I found them in my pocket as I undressed the moment I got home. You probably owe me therapy, Granger.

“Oh,” said Hermione, very quietly, and so timely that Draco almost feared he’d spoken aloud. He was about to demand an answer—again—when an owl appeared out of nowhere, pecking at his shoulder.

Hermione squinted her eyes, trying to identify the seal on the envelope, while Muggles kept walking on, indifferent to the scene. 

“Leave me alone, you bloody—” Draco snatched the letter from the owl’s beak. He didn’t spare it a single glance, having recognised it immediately.

“Is that from the Ministry?”

Draco shot her a warning glare, and Hermione seemed to stop herself from taking a step back. “Yes, Granger. I told you I can’t Apparate.”

“Then why did you?” Always questioning.

“Because I was in a rush.”

“So what happens now?”

He pocketed the Ministry letter. “Nothing, I just have to pay a fee. And I’m banned from Apparating for four months or so.”

Hermione’s jaw ticked, and Draco knew she was trying to hold her tongue.

She failed.

“Well, since money isn’t an issue for you, you could have Disapparated as soon as you got to the cabin, paid the fee, and spared us the pity party.”

“Right, let’s get back to that, thank you,” Draco nodded briskly. “Can you please, for the ever-loving love of Salazar Slytherin, tell me what the fuck this is?”

Hermione blinked, chocolate-brown eyes staring at him. “That’s, uh… I believe that’s my book.”

And much like a snowflake falling on the tip of his nose and coming apart in a drop of water, or maybe more like the iced surface of a lake breaking under his feet, Draco felt something snap somewhere in his lower belly, ricocheting through his body.

A thousand different replies stormed his mind—You don’t say? I thought it was the Bible, silly me!, No fucking shit, Sherlock, Oh, you believe that’s your book? Astonishing, Granger. Your intuition is incredible!, Yeah, of course I know that’s your bloody book, I mean why the fuck did you write it?—and he must have said one of them out loud because Hermione flinched and crossed her arms, as she always did when needing an emotional shield. 

Draco wasn’t sure which of the countless variations had been his final choice, until she exclaimed defensively, “Well, it is!”

Right then, someone bumped against his shoulder as they walked past him, which made him become aware of the people surrounding the two of them.

They weren’t alone.

(Not anymore.)

Hermione seemed like she was actively trying to make herself as small as possible, as though she wanted to hide in a remote corner of the universe. As though she was afraid to be herself among the crowd and wanted to go back to their corner of the universe, too.

She glanced at the parchment in his hand. “I told you already.”

Draco’s eyebrows rose in mock-surprise, and he paired the grimace with a scoff that reeked of sarcasm. “Oh, you told me already!” he sneered. “Right. You said a lot of things here, didn’t you?” He flipped through the pages, aiming like a sniper for the line to shoot the perfect shot. “I believe the words were, There’s a lot of myself in it, and there’s also a lot of me you might not know yet. What do you expect me to do with that?” His eyes flashed on hers again, and Hermione tightened her arms over her chest. Draco understood the sentiment of wanting to disappear, but the hurt exceeded everything else.

“Nothing,” Hermione murmured, her voice smaller and smaller in the face of Draco’s vibrant anger. 

“Nothing, right,” he snarled, the paper trembling in his fingers. “What’s this? What’s in this?”

Hermione averted her eyes, and another spike of rage surged in him.

On the page, she’d covered it all. The flippant anxiety, the dreadful physical and emotional proximity, the mindless and at times suffocating overthinking about herself, about him, about her feelings, about his feelings.

But what the fuck did she know about his feelings?

“Do you really think this is an apology letter?” He was lashing out, ignoring the vulnerability emanating from her face and body. “What should I make of this book? It’s pages and pages of you whining about what a sad fucking life you have and how much you hate yourself, and then, incidentally, you pass judgement on me without knowing the first thing about my life.”

“I don’t whine,” Hermione started, lifting her chin as if a spark of indignation had lit up within her.

But Draco went on, reading aloud, “He’d lost his wife only four months before, and yet he seemed barely affected by it. Was there a switch he could turn on and off whenever he wanted that gave him the ability to forget about his dead wife?” When he looked at her, it was as if looking at someone who would have preferred to be six feet under. “What the actual fuck, Granger?!”

Maybe she was right.

Maybe it would have been best to pretend nothing of what happened between them was real. He could have gone on with his life unaffected, had he believed it hard enough. In time, surely.

Instead, here he was, shaking with remorse for something he refused to name—and it didn’t matter he already knew what it was, deep down, and that it was too late to save himself.

She opened her mouth to answer Merlin-knew-what, but Draco put both his hands up, stopping her. “No. No, save it , stop—you don’t get to say another word, it’s my turn now.” His index crushed against his chest. “It’s my turn now,” he repeated, merciless.

Wide eyes on him, Hermione closed her lips.

Stupidly, Draco wanted to kiss them.

In the novel, after the final parting, Lucille, the protagonist (Draco was yet to decide whether she was named after his father on purpose or not), sets her mind to find a way to get back Andrew, her love interest, (blunt, or maybe the opposite, if one thought about the fact that the greek word anèr, andròs means ‘man’), to apologise and set things straight. Lucille, tenacious as she is, boards a plane on Christmas Day and lands in a busy New York City, where she finally finds the address she was seeking in Brooklyn. When she knocks on Andrew’s door, in a sort of parallel mirroring their very first meeting, she blurts out a long apology, one that sounds improvised on paper, but that Draco knew was carefully lined up, word by word, comma by comma.

In the end, Lucille and Andrew get their happily ever after.

Unfortunately, Draco was keenly aware that real life isn’t fiction.

And no matter whatever Granger liked to postulate, real life—reality—wasn’t between two people or the entire world.

Reality existed, full stop.

“What is it that you’re trying to tell me?” Draco held up the manuscript. He’d started reading it on his laptop, until his eyes hurt; not losing heart, he’d turned his printer on and in a (quite literal) snap of fingers the novel was on paper, countless sheets that Draco had underlined, circled, and written on as comment upon comment had sprung from him. “That I should take this word by word as a written confession and then act as you expect me to? Do you really believe I would be waiting for you with open arms and that everything would be forgotten the moment you showed up at my door? Do you think you can anticipate and control people in your life like puppets? Do you think we’re going to fall for your guilt-tripping and let you treat us like shit because, poor thing, you had it so bad in your life?”

Hermione’s cheeks were turning redder and redder as she opened and closed her mouth, trying to articulate the right words.

“We already know that, Granger.” Draco forced himself to ignore how her face was crumpling. “You know where the actual issue lies? That you expect us—you expect me to read your mind and simply guess the rest of it. I have no idea about what goes on in that clever little head of yours, and you consistently kept me out of it without a single explanation. And now, instead of facing the situation like the grown-up woman you make yourself out to be, you send me this? I’m sorry, I’m shit at expressing my feelings, here’s a long word-vomit about what I’m actually thinking at all times, how do you feel for having walked out on me now, hm?”

Truth be told, Draco hadn’t pinpointed the exact reason why he’d left yet. Frustration, certainly. A single moment of extreme frustration that had taken the best of him and that he’d completely bent to. A hint of pride, too, probably.

And the fact that she really had been a bitch.

“I wasn’t trying to guilt-trip—”

“I can’t believe I spent weeks flipping it over in my head, every word, every moment, every stupid gesture, and now you march in here with your sad little opinions on how I should be living my grief, as if I wasn’t already feeling like shit all by myself. You say that you don’t know what I did to you—and what about what you did to me ?!

“Or do you really think this was a one-sided thing? You think I’m some heartless monster who can only use people for his immediate pleasure? Do you really think I do things exclusively for the outcome I could get? Is this how you see me? Am I someone with any substance at all, or am I just a pale character you get to shape when it’s of some use to you, a caricature of a person who can only gain a meaningful existence when relating to you?”

“Draco, let me…”

“It’s difficult for you to open up,” he went on, now speaking so loud that passersby started throwing wary looks at them. “Do you have any idea who the fuck you’re talking to, Granger? Do you really think you know what goes on in my head? How dare you think you’ve got so much control over other people that you can take me—me, my story, my life, my grief, and turn it into a story of yours?!” 

“Can we not do this here? Please?” Hermione tried, glancing around—but it was the wrong move to make.

“Oh, now you sound like my mother, too!” He ignored the astonished look on Hermione’s face. “You know, she actually agrees with you in your belief that we’re fundamentally different and will never be able to work together.”

“I never—”

“Silly me, I thought maybe—I don’t even know anymore. I don’t even know why I wanted something to work. Why is that, do you think? Since you’re apparently so good at reading me?”

“Draco, I never said I’m—”

“All you do in here,” he went on, the pages shaking in his hand like leaves, “is make assumptions about what I feel and why I feel it. You are the one running away from conflict and confrontation, you tell me half of the things you’re actually thinking, but then I am the one who looks like a piece of shit because of a fucking ring—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Malfoy, seriously?” Hermione snapped. “You’re that pressed about the ring? All I do in there is say how confused I feel and how scared it all makes me, and your takeaway is—”

“My takeaway is that you’re far more selfish than you like to admit, and the fact that you believe a book about you could somehow—”

“It’s not a book about me!”

“Isn’t it?!”

“It’s—I was—”

He stared at her for an interminable minute. Then, he leafed through the pages to reach a specific part that he read out loud: “In that bedroom, in that cabin, it felt as though they’d slipped out of their usual suits—or maybe it was just her, but there was no way for Lucille to be sure, so she just assumed. ”

When he looked at her, Hermione seemed to be battling an impossible fight within herself, and Draco had no idea what the outcome would be.

“It honestly baffles me how you can talk about people making assumptions about you and then come up with this shit. Do you think it meant so little to me? Do you even—”

“Actually,” Hermione interrupted him, eyes cast downwards, “if you just put yourself in my shoes for one second, you would understand that the message I’m trying to convey is that I’m probably wrong about what I think of you.”

Draco’s jaw settled and clenched. 

Hermione took a breath, and then another. When their gazes locked, hers was defeated. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”

Draco blinked at her, crossing his arms, perfectly still despite everything inside of him screaming and pushing for him to crash onto her.

“I don’t know what I was trying to do.” Her voice was trembling. “You’re right, it was shitty, I thought I was…”

Something in her expression was pleading with him, and something else was shimmering, like an enthralling charm that called to his soul.

The worst of it, the single truth that had made him catch fire the very moment he’d finished reading the book, was that he wasn’t really mad at all.

There had been a contradicting blur of feelings in the centre of his chest that made him want to scream and cry, but that also yearned for Hermione’s calming touch, for how she threaded her fingers in his hair, for the taste of her sweet, sweet kisses on his mouth.

Draco hated it, but at the same time, he couldn’t wait to confront her, to yell in her face and to have her yell back at him, unbending to the breaking point. He craved it like the most addicting of highs. There was such energy about her, such kicking force trapped inside the constrictions she forced upon herself, that he’d felt the pull towards it ever since she’d exploded the first time over a stupid film.

Hermione’s speech about reality, what was it, if not a way for her to justify the need to unleash herself, untamed at last? And what if it made him feel miserable, because she was also telling him that she still preferred to fall neatly into a meticulously crafted box instead of taking a leap of faith and crushing assumptions and expectations alongside him? It didn’t matter, in the end, because she could believe whatever she wanted—he still got to witness the hazardous force of her being when she was with him.

Arms still crossed, Draco’s right hand settled on his chest, right where, under the heavy fabric of his coat, was his wedding photograph in his shirt pocket.

“I… I was trying to make sense…” Shakily, Hermione inhaled a breath, and the back of her hand ran quickly to her cheek to wipe a stray tear—and Draco was aching to finally stride over, bury the axe, pause the argument, take her in his arms to tell her that he didn’t really care, that she was right when she said it sounded completely insane but that she could take his story and his life and do whatever she wanted with them, that he gave her the right, that he gave her the right to do anything she wanted with him, if she wanted to, if she asked, and even if she didn’t. 

“You’re right,” Hermione exhaled, still too many steps away from him. “I do need to have everything under control all the time, because otherwise I might go crazy. And whatever it is that happened, or that’s happening here,” her hand moved between the two of them, “it’s so… wild, that…

“When I said it wasn’t real, what I meant was, it didn’t feel real. You’re a whole new person that doesn’t fit into anything I believed to be true about you. Not because I had a wrong perception before . But because life happens and it tends to fuck people up and force them to change. I had all of these contradicting images of you in my head, and I… I didn’t know how to make sense of them. So it was just easier to pretend that… it was nothing.”

Someone in the crowd was walking with their nose buried in their phone, and it was Hermione’s turn to get bumped in the shuffle. But she didn’t notice, too focused on the effort of trying to express everything on her mind.

“But I was wrong.” Draco braced himself. “I was so wrong. What we have, whatever it is, it’s real.” Another drop of salty water falling on her cheek from her lashes. “It’s in my head, it’s in your head, it’s out in the world, and it’s… it’s possible, it’s real. I’m sorry. It always has been.”

A breath.

“I’m still battling with the idea that it’s possible, but…” A slight smile cracked her face open through the tears. “Maybe it’s not logical. Because life isn’t. Maybe not everything needs to have a logical explanation. And this feeling I have right here,” she pressed her fingers to her breastbone, “it might be completely illogical, because you’re you, and I’m me, but it’s very real.”

Hermione shook her head quickly, sending a curl tumbling over her shoulder—and that was the moment he knew. In a completely irrational way, Draco accepted the illogical fact that he was in love with her.

“I don’t know, Draco,” she repeated, finally taking that step in his direction, a sight that yanked his heart up through his throat. “I don’t have solid answers, and it’s scary.” Her hand reached for his, and he let her grab it. “And I won’t deny that there’s also a part of me crying that I don’t deal well with trauma, and maybe that’s also why I was trying to convince myself that… you can’t hurt me if it’s not real.”

Her palm was always a bit too cold.

A group of teenagers was glancing shamelessly at the scene, but Draco didn’t acknowledge them, his attention devoted to the manner in which Hermione’s fingers were entwining with his.

“I don’t… I’m not going to hurt you, Granger.”

“I know,” she smiled weakly, cocking her head just so. “But my head still plays games with me. So I don’t really know, and it scares me.” She brought their joined hands to her chest. His knuckles rested against her ribcage, and Draco could feel the way her heart was hammering against it. “But I want to find out. With you.” Her eyes bore into his. “If you want that. And if you’ll let me.”

They looked at each other for a second that stretched a lifetime.

The only real thing was her, her hand in his, her freckled cheeks damp with tears, the beautiful and maddening rhythm of her heartbeat.

“The book is great, by the way,” Draco muttered, drinking in every detail of her face as if it were both the first and the last time. “I didn’t mean it when I said the characters are flat.”

“You didn’t say that,” Hermione frowned, though it gave way to the smallest smile. Her upper lip was slightly chapped.

“Didn’t I?”

“I don’t know if I’ll—”

“No, wait,” he cut her off, gently cupping her mouth with his free hand. “I’m still mad at you.”

“You have every right to,” she said against his palm.

His fingers slid over her cheek, tangling into her hair, and Draco felt as though he were washing up shore after the longest time underwater.

It was so soft.

She was so soft.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione whispered, laying her cheek into his warm palm ever-so-slightly, like it belonged there. “I fucked up. And I’m not even good at apologies. I’m also pretty sure I’m a terrible person, and you shouldn’t forgive me.”

According to Lucille, forgiveness is not deserved, it’s earned. And as his fingers reached her nape and tugged down lightly, Draco thought what Hermione deserved was the chance to earn it. 

There were exactly thirty-seven freckles over her cheeks and nose.

He’d counted them.

“You know, Granger,” he rasped out. “I happen to like terrible people.”

She smiled again, and then laughed quite a bit. “Yeah, Malfoy. I know.”

When she kissed him, conquering the no man’s land between their lips oh so lovingly, like two long-lost lovers running into each other at a train station by chance, Draco thought that maybe after all, she was right. Maybe not everything needed to happen for a reason, and maybe life was just chaos.

He wrapped his arms around her, bringing her closer, tasting the happiness of her smile.

He bit her lip and Hermione giggled, and he decided that, in the end, it didn’t matter whether behind the twist of fate that brought them together there was a plan, or if it were just a house of cards falling messily to the ground.

Their futures had been sealed the moment a new beginning was crafted, and all that was left of them to do was build on the new foundations.

(Like engineers.)

source: saratinawrite

Chapter Text

4th of February, 2008. London.

On the passenger seat, Hermione’s nerves were shot.

Her knee couldn’t stop bouncing, she kept biting her lips and scratching her cuticles to the point that Draco feared she would draw blood.

He dared a sideways look at her. “Are you—”

“I’m fine.” 

He closed his mouth and ducked his head ever-so-slightly, eyes returning to the road ahead. In his peripheral view, Hermione was still the embodiment of trepidation.

“You know,” he tried again, “it’s okay—”

“I said I’m fine, Draco, okay? I’m fine.” She hastily waved a hand in front of her. “Mind the road.”

Draco threw his hand up. “Salazar’s sake, Granger, sorry for being concerned about you.”

“There’s nothing to be concerned about, I said I’m fine. Fine. I’m fine.”

He cleared his throat, deciding to let it go. If there was one thing he’d learned after one year of a relationship with Hermione Granger, it was that, despite the peculiar wording, the dragon one ought not to tickle when sleeping was in fact, her. Whenever something, anything, caused even a minimal spike of stress to rise in her, she became a ticking time bomb. Best not to approach, not even with the slimmest of quills.

Now, this observation didn’t mean that Draco didn’t try to approach at all. Just that he carefully measured his steps, checking each stepping stone before jumping head-first. At the present moment, the car pep talk didn’t seem like a stable one, so he backed away slowly, all the while throwing glances at his girlfriend and trying to conjure a solution to soothe her nerves without triggering a shouting match.

The tension spread in the cabin slowly but exponentially, coating them like thick and dark honey. Draco felt a breath finally release when they pulled up and stepped out of the vehicle.

Hermione—who’d shut the door without pomp and ceremony, prompting Draco to swallow his retort about being careful, for fuck’s sake—made a beeline for Ginny, who welcomed her with exasperation written across her face; but she didn’t let the redhead say a single word before striding toward the back of the library, leaving her friend to run after her. Ginny appeared as though she wanted to throttle his girlfriend, and Draco wouldn’t exactly be opposed to it right now.

He ran a hand through his hair and down his face, exhaling heavily. Between people setting chairs up, journalists arriving early, and caterers moving around at Luna’s directions, Hermione’s agitation was starting to get to him, so Draco approached the one face he was—Salazar save him—familiar with.

“Potter.”

Harry didn’t even pretend to cover up the heavy sigh he made before turning around. “Malfoy.” Before Draco could say anything, the spectacled man lifted a finger in warning. “No loud noises. If he throws a tantrum again, I’ll take it out on you.”

A huffing sound that could’ve passed for a laugh escaped Draco as his gaze fell to the small human in the baby carrier strapped over Harry’s chest.

“It’s his eighth month anniversary tomorrow, isn’t it?”

The sly edge in Draco’s tone wasn’t lost on Harry, who cut his eyes to him menacingly.

James Sirius Potter was born on the 6th of June, 2007—or, at least, that was what his father swore to be true. Technically, as Draco never failed to point out, James was born just after midnight. Ginny had been in labour since the late afternoon of the 5th of June. He remembered with great clarity how he was doing his best to distract Hermione from getting ready for his birthday dinner. She was even about to relent and give up on zipping her dress, when a panicked blue stag had barged into their living room. It had taken exactly six seconds for Hermione to slap a shirt on Draco and throw the two of them into the Floo to reach St Mungo’s. When she’d finally emerged from the hospital room, smiling broadly as the wails of newborn baby Potter followed her, the time stamp was 00:00:13 a.m.

Draco had simply decided those thirteen seconds didn’t count.

“No,” Harry remarked with his usual composure. “That’s in two days, Malfoy. Because my son was born on the 6th of June.”

Draco made a non-committal sound, and then leaned over the man’s chest when little James opened his eyes and splayed a tiny hand in the air.

“Hi.”

“Can you…” Harry made a distressed sound as he realised that he was actually trying to shield James from Draco’s face, which unfortunately proved to be an impossible feat. In turn, the other man was looking at him with something dangerously close to pity in his eyes. Definitely not good for Harry’s mood, still vexed with severe lack of sleep.

“Malfoy, I swear to bloody Godric Gryffindor, if you—”

“Language, Potter, come on now.” Draco extended a finger, and James promptly gripped it. “Weasley’s gone and you act like this? Think of the baby.”

“Oh, Merlin help me,” Harry muttered when he saw the strong hold that James’ podgy hand had on Draco's finger. With a shake of his head, and a palm rubbing his forehead, he decided to let it go.  Instead, he shot a glance to the back of the library, where Ginny and Hermione had disappeared. “What’s going on with Hermione?”

“Don’t know,” Draco replied, still looking at James, whose eyes were scanning his features curiously. “She’s been like this for two days now. The smallest thing will trigger a breakdown. I’m not engaging.”

“Smart.”

“Was that a compliment, Potter?”

Harry glared at him. “Shut up. Where’s Ron? Why isn’t everyone here already?”

“Traffic, probably.” James tugged on Draco’s finger, perhaps trying to get it in his mouth as a substitute for a pacifier. “Daphne said they’re late, too.”

“There’s a Floo connection in the offices.” Harry took James’ wrist, tugging in the opposite direction. “James, come on, mate.”

Draco was amused. “Tell your friend that. She made me drive here because of pictures.”

“It’s a wizard-magazines event only. Who the f—” Harry grimaced, scratching his beard. “Who cares about pictures?”

“Again, you tell her. You’ve known her longer, you should be able to handle her.”

“Oh, no, Malfoy, I don’t think anyone will ever learn how to handle her. She probably doesn’t even know how to handle herself.”

Draco pulled a face. Fair. He had to plan a different tactic, and he had to do it sooner rather than later.

James drew Draco’s finger close again, turned his eyes to Harry, and blabbered something.

“No, honey, not other people’s fingers—Merlin, where did I put…” 

As Harry patted his pockets to find his son’s dummy and Draco pushed his finger towards James’ mouth with a wink, Ginny appeared in front of them, arms outstretched towards her baby.

“She wants you. Give him to me.”

Harry frowned. “Why should I—” 

Draco instantly freed his hand from James’ grip. “Where is she?”

“Not you. You,” she told her husband with a vehement nod. “Give him to me, come on. Bathroom.”

Harry and Draco froze for a second, exchanging looks. 

Then, just as Harry’s face morphed into what could have only been described as triumph, Draco drew a resigned breath.

“Heard that, Malfoy?” When James understood he was leaving his dada’s chest, his face scrunched up and reddened. Though before he could start crying, Ginny quickly took him from the carrier and started shushing him, cradling him to her chest with fatigue coming off her in waves. Harry, oblivious to the imminent disaster, pointed his thumb at himself and looked at the old school rival with a shit-eating grin. “She wants me! Not you! Me!”

“Yeah, Potter, good job, congrats for the self-validation. Off you go.” Draco waved him away whilst trying to hide how Ginny’s eloquent eye rolling had a laugh bubbling in his chest.

Harry showed him the finger and turned around, marching toward the bathrooms.

“Is she okay?” Draco asked Ginny. 

“Yeah, she’s… well, no—I don’t know,” Ginny sighed, bouncing on her legs to keep the growing wailings of the littlest Potter at bay. “I think she’s getting cold feet, but she doesn’t want to talk to me.”

And what’s new.

Ginny threw her head back when her son decided to dial it an octave higher. “Oh, no, please, don’t, James, please. I can’t do this today.” Her pleading eyes turned to Draco. “Do you think he’s hungry? Should I feed him?”

“I don’t…” James wailed louder, and Ginny looked positively on the verge of tears when a couple of journalists turned her way with menacing looks. Had Daphne been there, she would have known what to do.  

Luna joined the two right then.

“Hi, Draco.” He nodded. “What’s going on with Hermione? People are getting a bit restless, I think.”

“I—I don’t know. She’s in the bathroom. Harry’s talking to her.”

“Oh.” Luna tilted her head. “And how do you think that’s going?”

“No id—James, please.”

At that, Draco extended his arms towards the screaming infant. “Give him to me.”

Ginny paused for the briefest moment. Then, muttering under her breath, she passed the child to the man who had unexpectedly become somewhat of a friend in the past few months. She stared in silence as he settled James in his arms, and exhaled again only when her son—now miraculously silent—grabbed Draco’s finger once more as Draco smoothed his hand over the small face.

“Yeah, that’s going into your mouth, isn’t it?”

“If you manage to keep him quiet, I’ll hire you as his babysitter.”

Draco smirked, still adoringly watching James’ chubby face. “And corrupt the perfect soul of baby Potter? I don’t want that responsibility.” He looked up when he sensed a squeeze on his arm.

Ginny’s smile was as soft as her words when she said, “Thank you.”

He nodded, returning the grin. “Don’t worry about it, Weasley. Go deal with today’s star.”

Ginny walked away with Luna, and Draco was left to look at the crowding library with James in his arms.

The kid tugged at his finger again.

“Let’s try something else, shall we.” He pulled back his hand and readjusted his hold on the boy. James promptly grabbed his tie, and Draco only just managed a wandless charm to prevent himself from suffocating. (He’d had enough of that with Dennis.)

Glancing round, he saw people who were leafing through the novel. Some photographers were snapping pictures of the library. The table at the centre of the room had three microphones pointed toward the main seat in the middle; there was an open book in front of it, a black marker for the autograph signing, and an unblemished copy on a small stand.

On the cover, the drawing of a typewriter sitting on a desk, facing a window. Snowy mountains outside.

The Odds.

A novel - Hermione Granger.

James made a noise, pulling on the silk.

“Yeah, I hear you, mate.” Draco sighed, brushing the thin hair on the baby’s head. “Where is she?”

As her boyfriend tried to quell his growing worry, the beloved author was locked in the bathroom.

“Hermione?” Harry called as he knocked on the door. “Are you in there? Ginny said—”

“Harry, thank fuck.”

The door swung open, and a hasty hand pulled him in by the shirt. Hermione’s eyes were wide with a storm of emotions Harry couldn’t quite identify. He only knew for certain that she was shaking, and badly so.

“Hermione, are you o—”

She put her hand on his mouth. “Shut up.” He raised both palms in surrender, then tapped the makeshift muzzle she’d put on him. “Sorry,” and Hermione’s hands started twisting on themselves again.

Harry’s green eyes searched her face. “Do you… need me to do something?” Hermione lowered her gaze, exhaling a shaky breath. His palms went to her shoulders. “Are you nervous about the book signing? Do you want me to convince Ginny to postpone? I’d hate you for that, but I would do it.”

“No. Fuck. It’s…” She scratched her head. Harry glanced up at the light bulb, wondering if the greenish shade on his friend’s cheeks was artificially created. Apparently, Hermione looked ready to throw up all on her own.

“Harry.”

His eyes snapped back to hers. “Yes?”

“You’re my best friend, right?”

Harry gulped. “Erm. Yeah?”

Her head vibrated, and her curls fell everywhere. “Is it a question?”

“No, no—wha—yes—Hermione, I—”

“Okay.” Hermione bent her head, and then Harry felt something poke him in the stomach.

Like a wand, but less cylindrical.

He frowned and looked down.

His brows didn’t unknit when he looked up. Hermione’s lips were pulled downwards in a nervous pout; she stared at the thing between them, exhaling a breath of insistence before poking him again.

Gazing back down, Harry blinked—and once was enough to fish out memories from Muggle commercials on the telly.

Realisation dawned on him like the brightest of suns.

“Merlin, is that—?!”

“Yes.”

“Is it po—”

“Yes.”

“Oh, fuck. Fuck.” His hands flew everywhere. Hair. Face. Chest. “Fuck. Fuck!”

“Yes, Harry, fuck, I got the fucking message!” Hermione was trembling so hard she looked like she might faint any moment.

“Okay, okay, sorry—wait.” He grabbed her shoulders again, then closed the lid on the toilet and sat her down as he crouched in front of her. “Is—is—is,” a loud and panicked groan escaped him. “Is it the only one you took?”

Hermione looked almost offended by the question. “No.” She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out four more identical white plastic sticks. She put them all on her legs. Three of them displayed two lines on the small window. “There’s a margin of error, of course, which is why one of them is negative.”

Harry rubbed his forehead. “Okay. But it’s still not…”

“No, I didn’t go to the gynaecologist.”

Harry forcefully suppressed his teenage instinct to pull weird faces at incredibly normal words.

“Ginny, uh… Ginny used a charm.”

Hermione shook her head. “I don’t know the charm.”

He took the opening. “I could call her and—”

“No, no, no, no.” Hermione hastily reached for his hand and gripped it. “No, Harry, no. No, I need you here, I’m sorry.”

Harry laced their fingers together. “But she can help you with—”

“Harry, please. Please,” she choked out. 

He held her gaze for a moment, scrambling for an escape. Except that there was no way out, because it was either Hermione’s way or the highway—and Hermione was already driving at an impossibly high speed.

“Okay,” he relented. “Of course, I’m not going anywhere.”

Hermione seemed to deflate, leaning forward until her forehead rested on Harry's shoulder. He brought his free hand up to her back, rubbing slow circles.

“Are they all from today?”

“No.” Hermione pulled away and tucked her hair behind her ears. “I took one on Friday night and it was positive, one on Saturday morning and it was negative, two yesterday—both positive, and now this.”

Harry nodded. “Okay. And why did you take it here?”

“I don’t know, Harry!” Her features were fraught with feverish anxiety. “I just had to know.”

“Hermione, I think you already kn—”

“I—” She released his hand, fingers going to press on her eyes. “I… fuck.”

Harry collected the sticks on her lap. “How, um…” He winced. “How late…”

“Two weeks and a half.”

“That’s—that’s a long time, isn’t it?”

“I mean, I’m not that regular actually,” Hermione started, “which is why I was on the pill, but—”

“Hold on. Then how did it happen?”

He practically felt the knives her eyes were throwing at him. “Well, Harry Potter, when a man and a woman give each other a very special hug—”

“No, no, thanks, no!” Harry shouted, shutting his eyes and covering his ears too for good measure. “I mean, if you were on the pill, then how—”

“I had to stop for a while, because it clashed with other medications.”

“Oh. And you didn’t…?”

“Evidently no, I didn’t, Harry.”

They stared at each other for a while, quiet. Hermione was the first to look away, her gaze scanning the wall in front of her as she flipped through a myriad of thoughts.

Harry could feel her mind pacing. Racing. Stumbling and tripping and reeling and—

His hand fell on her knee and her focus returned to him, wide-eyed and at a complete loss.

Collecting all the calm he had within, Harry said: “Tell me what you need.”

Hermione took a shaky breath and pinched her lips between her fingers. “Can I ask you to hug me?”

“No, Hermione, you most certainly cannot do that.”

She smiled a tearful smile before burying her face in the crook of Harry’s neck. Her hands raced over his back, gripping tightly the fabric of his shirt.

Harry, ever the unwavering friend, held her in a hug both gentle and firm, lips pressing for a brief moment on the crown of her head.

Hermione closed her eyes, hitting pause on the tempest vortexing in her mind. The one perception standing out in the charged silence was the distinct note of Harry’s scent: he smelled of clean laundered clothes and that peculiar something she was never quite able to name, though it instinctively brought her home each time. Just… Harry. 

Sinking into the embrace, Hermione exhaled slowly. “How did you and Ginny do this without telling anyone?”

Harry shook with laughter under her. “Well, we told each other.”

“Smart arse.”

“Besides, you know. We were actually trying.”

“Ew. Gross.”

He laughed again, one of his hands smoothing the curls down her back. When her shallow breaths evened out, Harry dared a new question: “Hermione, do you need me to…? I can take a car, we’ll find a way. I can drive you to a clinic straightaway if that’s what you want.”

Hermione pulled back, sniffling heavily and wiping her wet cheeks. “No. I think.” Her eyes closed shut. “I don’t know.”

Still balancing himself on his heels, Harry put his hands on her knees. “Okay, that’s fine, you don’t have to decide right now.”

“No, I don’t—I don’t think I want…” The thought was a single breath away from escaping her lips. She exhaled another heavy stream of air. “Fuck.” She cocked her head, squinting at Harry’s worried face and taking in how everything about him screamed ready-to-help. “Maybe I should tell him first.”

Harry’s face scrunched up with a deep frown. “I’m not sure about that.”

Hermione recoiled a bit. “What?”

“No, I just mean… It should be your decision first. And, knowing you, I’m sure that if you catch even the glimmer of something in Malfoy, it’s going to be impossible for you to focus on what you want.” She made a whimpering sound, and he rubbed a comforting hand on her arm. “What do you want?”

She felt her chin wobble. “How can I know? This is huge. How did you know?”

Harry shook his head, seemingly at a loss for words. “I just… knew.”

Hermione scoffed hysterically. Instinct-driven. “Helpful.”

“It’s different, Hermione. We knew we wanted a kid and we were actively—okay, sorry,” he chuckled as her face twisted in disgust and she averted her gaze. “But what I mean is, we just knew we wanted that. If Ginny stormed in here this very second and told me she’s pregnant again, I would still just know. So,” he tilted his head, trying to find Hermione’s eyes. “I think you already know, too.”

Hermione stared stubbornly at the floor tiles, her leg drumming. If there was one thing she’d learned after one year of relationship with Draco Malfoy—and it had been at the expense of several fights—was that the only way for her to stop over analysing every detail of her life, constantly teetering on an edged cliff that crested the broad and vast nothing, was by voicing her feelings.

A dreadful realisation that always left her far more vulnerable than what she’d liked, but when Draco said, “Cockroaches vanish in the light of day,” he was—sadly—right.

“I’m terrified, Harry.”

“Of what?”

“Of everything.” She caught her head in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees. “What if… I don’t know. What if we break up? What if he doesn’t want it? What if I’m a shitty mother? I could very well be an incredibly traumatising mother. How the bloody hell do I raise a child? How do I take that responsibility on myself? And my body is going to change so much—and do you know about all the absolutely disgusting stuff that can happen while giving birth? Do you know people still die from childbirth—”

“Hey, hey, hey, Hermione, breathe!” Harry pushed her hair off her forehead. His palms slid to her cheeks, cupping her face. “Alright, listen to me now. You and Malfoy have been together for over a year. You did not get together yesterday, and unless there’s things you’re not telling me, you definitely do not look like you’re going to break up tomorrow. And you and I both know you don’t really have doubts about you two breaking up because your relationship is—well, insane, granted,” Hermione chuckled, “but incredibly strong. And that’s for one thing.”

Harry caught a tear rolling down her cheek with his thumb. “And for another, I have never heard him say he doesn’t want kids. I have never heard him say the opposite either, but still. And besides… I mean, bloody hell, Hermione, the bastard would be so lucky.” She cracked another smile, her vision blurring past the point of no return. So much for mascara.

“You would be an amazing mother, Hermione. And I’m not just saying it, I know it for certain. If I’m still alive today to tell you this, it’s because of you. All that crap about curses and magic protections and whatnot—I wouldn’t have lasted a day without you. And, out of the two of us, I’m the one already handling parenthood, so, you know. If I can manage, you’re going to ace it.”

Hermione wiped her eyes, blinking rapidly.

“It’s a risk obviously. Like everything in life. You know what you’re leaving behind, and you don’t know what’s awaiting you there. And, again, your choice, I stand by that—but…” Harry paused, taking her hand in his. “You won’t be alone. You won’t. It’s the two of you. Together.”

He said it so matter-of-factly. As sure of it as he was sure that the Sun rose in the East.

Hermione let her eyes wander over those familiar features in front of her and measured her breathing with his, inhaling and exhaling to a calming rhythm. She searched his gaze, finding that spark of unwavering determination that had never died, and she then dipped into the pool of her own heart to grasp the courage of her convictions.

One year and a month before, she and Draco had apparated to her flat, messily stumbling over her still-packed bag. Another owl had appeared to deliver yet another fee, but they were already staggering to Hermione’s bedroom before the parchment touched down on the coffee table in the living room.

They’d made love once, twice, three times, and they didn’t worry about clothes, about noises, about open curtains, about thin walls.

And after that, they talked.

And talked.

And talked.

And talked again.

Hermione had apologised profusely, and Draco had rested his head on her belly for her to run her fingers through his hair even when she didn’t find the strength to tell him everything weighing on her heart. It was still too soon, at the time. But she’d listened to him as he told her about his nephew, and his mother, and about a billion other things Hermione stored in a carefully guarded part of her soul.

Day by day, she’d learnt to mirror his trust, day by day she woke up choosing to be open with him, choosing to give all of herself, to show all of herself, even at her most ugly, even at her most fragile. It wasn’t easy, and it was disheartening at times, and many days ended up in a fight—but it was worth it, because what they had was real.

And it couldn’t get more real than this.

“Harry?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think I’d be mad if…?” A hand went to her mouth, and the other one ran to her belly, rubbing and gently prodding something that was exactly as it had always been, just slightly different.

When she looked at Harry and saw him completely blurred in her vision, she smiled broadly as small sobs shook her body.

His lips turned up. “No, I don’t think you’d be mad. I don’t think you’re mad at all.”

She nodded, sniffling and biting her lips. “Yeah. That’s great, then. Yeah.”

“Oh, fuck. Come here.” Harry’s arms engulfed her frame, and then they were holding tightly on each other, as noises toying with the line between tears and laughter escaped them, impossible to control.

“Godric’s sake, I can’t believe this.” He wiped at his eyes behind his glasses. “A bloody Granger-Malfoy baby. I feel feverish.”

Hermione laughed, and she laughed so earnestly that everything fell into its rightful place under the light of her happiness.

As it turned out, Harry was right.

She did just know.

After composing herself and fixing her make-up, she emerged from the bathroom with a small smile.

“I apologise for the delay.” The journalists looked a bit irritated and fed up with Luna’s non-attempts at calming them, but Hermione was a woman on a mission. “I need one more minute, please.”

She followed Harry where Ron was taking his nephew from Draco’s arms and eyeing him with suspicion. She waved at her friend and his wife Padma behind him, before turning to her boyfriend. 

Draco was watching her with worry. His hands clapped her shoulders in seconds. “Granger, are you—”

She shushed him, casting a wandless privacy charm with a subtle movement of her hand. Her palm ran down the collar of his suit jacket to smooth imaginary wrinkles as she took a deep, bracing breath, her heart hammering maddeningly in her chest.

“Draco…”

His grey eyes bore into hers as his hands slid down her arms. Hermione held his gaze as her hand fished a stick from her coat pocket and held it between them. She poked him in the abdomen, just like she’d done with Harry, and his eyes flew down.

He blinked once, and then exhaled a single breath. His grip on her tightened.

When he looked up, Hermione didn’t need words to know exactly what he was thinking.

“Are y—”

She cut him off by pressing a kiss to his soft lips—small and yet full of meaning, so tender but revealing the fire and determination within her.

She let the stick slide into his shirt pocket under the jacket. Right over his heart.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He held her close for just a little while longer, pressing their foreheads together. His chest heaved with short breaths, matching the furious beating of his heart.

The words came choked out of his mouth, trembling with emotions too strong to be named. “I love you too, Hermione.”

Hermione smiled, touched her lips to his once more, then finally turned to join Ginny and Luna at the table.

Everyone was waiting for her.

“Right. Here I am!” she smiled endearingly as her eyes remained entranced by Draco—how he very slowly back-walked to the nearest wall, how he leaned against it in slow motion, how his right hand went to the shirt pocket, how his eyes never left her, not even when Daphne joined him, whispering something in his ear and sneaking a smirking glance at Hermione.

She answered question after question dutifully, if a little distracted. She joked, read passages of the book, and grazed the cover of her novel in such a delicate manner, almost in disbelief that it was actually there, underneath her hands. It had taken months of editing to get through it—and she’d started right from Draco’s notes.

Admittedly, most of them suggested a lingering anger, but they were rather helpful when it came to improving paragraphs, cutting scenes, tweaking context, expressing emotions, deepening characters. Hermione had gone over them time and time again, even when Draco gave her the updated versions; in her words, “These are never going to be as honest as the first ones.”

And then she’d worked tirelessly on the story. Over the span of interminable months, she’d reviewed everything, from the overarching plot down to simple sentence structure. The two people who had to bear with her process, and kept reminding themselves just how much they loved her, had been Draco and Ginny.  Many days had passed in which the former had flipped her off because she’d woken him at dawn to debate whether to use a specific word over another.

“During the presentation, Miss Lovegood claimed that this novel is a story about soulmates,” said an elderly man from a niche literature newspaper, pulling Hermione from her thoughts. “But from what I’ve gathered about you, Miss Granger, I get the impression that you’re not much of a fan of  Divination.”

“Oh,” Hermione chirped, as a laugh echoed round the library, “no, I am certainly not.”

“Then, why soulmates?”

“Well, you see,” she started, locking her fingers under her chin, “I’ll be honest, it’s quite fitting that you mentioned Miss Lovegood, because this theme is a detail my editors picked apart. It wasn’t something I specifically had in mind while writing—but I wasn’t opposed to it. I have many issues with Divination as a subject, mostly because I like to feel in control of my life. But I think there’s something intriguing in exploring how our free will and choices meet with… fixed points. Things that are bound to happen. As in two people meeting each other.

“Lucille and Andrew already knew each other, and they met again because of an event that seemed like a complete accident in the ordered chaos that is the universe. But, what if it wasn’t an accident? What if they had to meet again? They’re pushed together again—and that’s the fixed point. But the rest of the story is completely up to them. They can decide whether to build something from there, or just let go.”

From the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Draco covering his mouth: his cheeks were raised in a knowing smile. His other hand was holding Daphne’s.

“Once I pondered it further, I too, came to the conclusion that Lucille and Andrew are soulmates. And this resolution coexists with them actively deciding to create something. Something that is only theirs. Born from their choices.”

After a couple more questions, Luna, as timely as ever, was calling that the time was up, when a hand shot into the air. It was a young girl, so Hermione decided to hear her out.

“Last question—sorry Luna. Yes?”

“Thank you, Miss Granger, and forgive me for being so blunt, but I have to ask.” A sly look glimmered in her eyes, and Hermione already knew where she was heading. “Given your now public relationship with Mr. Malfoy, the community couldn’t help but notice one or two similarities between your shared past and some plot points in your novel. So, my question is this: is The Odds autobiographical?”

Hermione chuckled. “I believe all art is autobiographical.”

“Ah, certainly. But some literary art is more autobiographical than others, isn’t it?”

“If what you’re asking is if Lucille is me—”

“That is what I’m asking, yes.”

Pausing, Hermione kept smiling. Her eyes briefly slid back to the people behind the audience. Neville had arrived. He was holding his copy under his arm while wiggling his fingers in front of James, still in Ron’s arms. Harry was sitting next to them, and then there was Padma, and Pansy, too, along with Theo and Blaise. Antony was picking up Dennis to sit him on his lap and stop him from running around the shelves.  

Draco was still in the same position, but now Daphne was leaning against him, their hands locked firmly as with pride, his eyes fixed on Hermione.

Even at a distance, she could feel all the love of the world radiating from him in unstoppable waves.

Her heart felt lighter than ever, even when she touched the small weight in her pocket.

“Well, Miss…?” 

“Moore.”

“Miss Moore. A storm, the Italian Alps, a brief lockdown, there was only one bed, and two people who haven’t seen each other in ages.”

An eleven-year-old girl. She goes to school and she meets a boy who is the worst—he’s just the worst. ‘Bully’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.

A lot happens. Boy and girl go separate ways, and are very happy they don’t have to hear from each other ever again. Actually, they’re not even happy about that specifically, because the other person is just not in their life anymore, so they’re simply indifferent to one another.

But.

But.

Boy and girl are the fixed point in each other’s trajectories.

Like soulmates.

Funny thing, soulmates. Some people believe they’re a completely impossible concept.

Others, though…

“I mean,” Hermione said, a playful grin dancing on her lips and a heart full of incandescent happiness. “What are the odds?”

art by vlntcge