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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Draco and Lupin are coming back into the townhouse from somewhere important, and Walburga’s been left with her curtains open, again. No matter how much she yells, or Lupin growls at everyone, they always end up open, and she always ends up screaming insults at their largely mudblood Order. The moment she catches sight of Malfoy she starts off. 

“A Malfoy!” she gasps, eyes wide with some type of wonder, “I know that hair, a Malfoy!”

He barely gives her a second glance as he closes the door behind Lupin. 

She gasps again, realisation hitting her, “The most sacred house in the twenty-eight! Working with this lot! A blood traitor!”

Hermione, in the living room, pokes her head out of the doorway to see what the noise is about. 

“Blood traitor! The Malfoy family line is ashamed of you!”

He raises an eyebrow, “Yeah, and you’re a fucking halfblood!” She screeches with rage, babbling about how it’s not true. “Yeah, it is, and I know because you’re one of my direct fucking descendants!”

She starts yelling about Narcissa, and Draco raises his eyebrows like he’s really serious now.

“Don't enrage Walburga, Draco,” Lupin says. “Once Sirius spent twelve hours shouting with her.” Walburga starts ranting about Sirius, even though he's long dead, she still holds vicious rage for the wizard. 

Hermione steps into the corridor, intending to speak with Lupin about —

She forgot about the portrait. She hates Hermione in particular. Maybe it's the particularly thick viscosity of her blood. 

“MUDBLOOD!” she screeches and goes onto an incredibly loud tirade. Hermione covers her ears, staggering back from the noise, Lupin wincing too. Draco barely blinks, and turns sharply on his heel to shout back at her. 

“You're as stupid as your line is inbred!”

She gasps, and goes on about the sanctity of blood purity. 

“You married your brother, how in Merlin’s name is that sacred? !”

“You stupid little blood traitor, you know nothing of the struggles of you're ancestors —”

“Oh, I know about your fucking affair with the muggle, if that's what you mean, and no, I don't care if he was a lord!”

Lupin is shouting too now, trying to get it under control, but Draco ignores him to continue spitting words back at the witch, face pale, two high spots of color on his cheeks. Hermione starts watching again, the way he pushes his hair out of his face with frenzy

Lupin casts a spell, Walburga’s wail gets cut off suddenly, and Draco’s just shouting “Fuck you, you old bat!” into the silent foyer. He pants, gasps a laugh and turns to look at Lupin, friendly camaraderie showing on his face, “Oh, Lupes, let me have my fun,” he complains. “That was a good bit of stress relief.” 

He rolls his eyes. “I’d rather not lose my hearing, you know.”

Lupin sighs and walks past them, no doubt work to do, because there's always work to do when it comes to leading a rebellion against blood purists.

Hermione smiles at Lupin storming off, but her gaze slides off him like butter and lands on Malfoy, looking a bit lost, staring at her. 

“I—” he starts, then sighs, and starts again, “I wanted to apologise to you, um, specifically.”

“Yeah?”

“I was a total, utter git that probably made your life hell at times and the thing is, I knew it was wrong, and I was too afraid to change anything.”

“Oh,” Hermione says, trying to process. 

“It’s okay if this apology isn’t not enough. I — I get it.”

“You knew it was wrong?”

“Children grow out of their parents' ideals eventually, and I've seen you bleed and it looks just the same.”

She lowers her head, hair hanging in front of her face. She remembers that night, his refusal to identify them. At the time, sh’d thought it was just fear he had been wrong not wanting to summon Voldemort for a small matter. But….when Bellatrix had her, his face as she screamed. He’d looked...terrified, actually, eyes trained away from her, onto the wall, and his mother had been standing half in front of him to shield him from Bellatrix's eyes, if she had noticed. Of course she hadn’t, she’d had her to concentrate on. Hermione’s scar itches, but that's just because she’s thinking about it.

“Sorry, for — for bringing it up.”

“It’s fine. It happened.”

“Yeah,” he says, “it did.”

“Thank you. You saved us, when you would identify Harry.”

He smiles. “You were smart, with that swelling charm.”

“It was a stinging hex, but thanks.”

There’s a long pause, then he says, “at school….I always tried to beat you. That sort of ingenuity is why I never did. ” 

“You tried to beat me? I didn't notice,” she says, lips curving into a smile and when she looks at him, he is too. 

He laughs, “Merlin, looking back on it, I really was an arsehole, huh?”

She laughs. “Well, I was a swot, so it was fair.”

He shakes his head, “Oh, you weren't that bad, really.”

“I was.”

He grins, and Hermione finds herself watching that careful, quick smile, the one she’s only seen rarely, from across the hall as he’s laughing with his friends or after a successful Quidditch match. “Yeah…” he admits carefully, drawing out all of the syllables. 

She laughs uproariously. “It's good to have you here, Malfoy.”

“You too,” he says quietly, and it sounds like he means it.

Right then, Harry walks out of the living room and stops short at the two of them, standing there like conspirators. 

“Hey,” he says.

“Harry," she says, and feels the guilt of a cheater that's been caught for some reason. 

“Hi, Potter," Draco drawls, like nothing has changed from those days in Hogwarts. “You own this house, huh?”

“Yeah...um, Sirius left it to me."

"Hm. Thinking about it, it's kinda strange. How many people have lived here, I mean, not that's it's changed much over the years,” Draco says casually.

“What?” Harry starts, eyes darting to him. 

He half-smiles. “Hmm. Same horrible wallpaper, fuck, my great-grandmother had no taste. To be fair, she did it in the 1880’s, and that wasn't a good decade for interior design.”

“You've been here before,” Hermione says the obvious. 

“Hmm-mmhm,” he hums. “It was a Black family house after all, and my mother was a Black.” His eyes dart to her, and smiles a little nostalgically as he speaks, “Mother used to take me over for tea, in this very room. It was positively dreadful. My grandmother would leer over the table at me, call me sweet cheeks, of all things. God, I hated it, but my mother still insisted on taking me. She grew up in this house, and I guess she wanted me to see it.” He looks at the ground, and his voice is quiet, “I don't know what she wanted."

Hermione clears her throat, and he looks up from the floor. She smiles at him, for the first time, and it's a little heavy, a little frozen and stiff, but it holds as he just looks back at her steadily. “You know, you can see hers, Andromeda and Bellatrix's names carved in the attic," he says to her in particular, it seems, "There's dozens of them, they would bring all their friends up there to sign. She showed me when she was eight. Father’s is up there too, but he’s just put Lucy,” Draco laughs long and hard, not at anything funny, “fuck, Lucy. Funny. He used to be called Lucy.”

“We should go see,” Hermione suggests.

“I remember where they are,” he says conspiratorially back at her. 

“Sure,” Harry says, and Hermione is reminded that there is another person in the room. 

So they go, following Draco up the stairs and to the top floor. It’s Draco, Hermione be right behind and then Harry following her. 

“Here,” he says, standing in the corridors, pointing at a blank piece of wall. 

“Where's the door?” Hermione asks, staring at nothing. 

He steps forward, and taps a blank piece of wall with her wand. A door materializes, short and painted a dark tan. “Old disillusionment charm.”

Draco opens the door, and a set of stairs disappear upwards. 

Hermione starts to climb above them and Draco casts a lumos. Once Harry steps inside, the blond calls down to close the door. He does, and Hermione sees why he cast a lumos, it’s pitch black beside from Draco’s wand-light. They climb up silently, a few steps until the space opens up around them and Hermione finds him waiting for her, smiling shyly and guilelessly. 

Harry joins them and “See?” Draco says, holding his wand out. The light plays over the names, scratched deep into the timber beam.

They're all done clumsily, carved by wands before anyone has any practice. Hermione sees Narcissa first, the last A bigger than any of the other letters. Then Andromeda, then Bellatrix, and Hermione's arm burns as she reads the name. She sucks in a breath, and Draco looks over at her, his profile stark in the wand-light. She nods, and he looks away, but shifts on his feet, leaning closest to her. She keeps looking, and sees Sirius next, in jagged, loud script. 

There's a few dates on the wood, scattered here and there. ‘68, above a Selwyn, and '72 above a clump of names. 1962 is when it started, Hermione guesses, since it's large and right over the original sister's names. 

“Lucy,” Harry says, out loud, and points. In the corner, right at the edge, there it is. His handwriting is a little more polished, a little more practiced than all the others. There’s a crooked heart next to his name, and it wasn't written by ‘Lucy’, for sure. Hermione thinks of Narcissa, and thinks of how she must have loved him, really. A girl with all the world in front of her. The picture in Hogwarts archives, that Hermione had stumbled across in Fourth Year, of Narcissa grinning for the yearbook, Lucius smiling a little next to her. She hadn't realised who it was until she read the names at the bottom, and she’d just looked at the picture again, analysed everything in it and compared it to the slimy little git she knew. 

Draco laughs, and looks at it closer. “Yeah. Told you.”

“Who is Claire F?” Hermione asks, eyes caught on the scattering of names she doesn't recognise immediately. 

Draco steps forward, traces the letters, “That’ll be Claire Filch, Marcus Filch’s mother. Andromeda and Claire were quite close, for a time.” 

From there he goes through the list, telling them who each person is as he touches the letters. 

“Never even knew it was here,” Harry says wistfully, once every name and initial has been explained.

“Yeah. It was their secret. My grandmother would have gone  absolutely mad if she’d have known.”

"Good thing she never found out."

Chapter Text

A month later they implement the security questions, after a Death-Eater impersonates Lupin, and Luna nearly dies, barely fighting him off before the real Lupin gets there and stuns him. Let's say you’re coming in from a mission, you ask them one, they ask you one. Negative answer, stunning spell at best. Of course, you're meant to incapacitate them until you can confirm identity and they can be used as a source against Voldemort. 

Hermione takes a while to get used to it, she’ll see a teammate in a safe house, and it's five minutes before she remembers. Then Fleur stuns one of the Dolohov's (turns out there's a whole family of blood purists) after he impersonates a contact she’s meant to be meeting, and she starts to remember more easily. 

The others are finding it hard to adjust as well. Ron bitches about it every night, having to remember, and figuring out the questions. Hermione keeps her mouth shut, but her eyes always meet his, and he smiles dauntingly, rolling his eyes occasionally, when Ron’s said something particularly pigheaded.

—

She’s been sent up in Liverpool to correspond with their members there and do some research into possible horcruxes. It’s really only a few old wizards and squibs, but you never know when you’ll need a small parchment company or a baker. Anyone who’s on their side isn't on the Death-Eater’s. Connections are good, Hermione's learned. Connections are what really helps you win a war. They've got a safe house there, if you can call it that, for purposes unknown. It’s a nice house, just abandoned. A few wards, a few anti-muggle spells, and bam, they've got a cold little creaking 2-bedroom for themselves.

She stumbles as she lands on the driveway. Apparition gets harder and harder every time, it’s almost like they’re grabbing her as she goes, Apparition is a hard thing to control, but the Death-Eaters are trying. It gets tighter and tighter. You have to be quicker and quicker, too, and she always pictures somewhere else but actually goes to her real destination at the last moment. This time, she’d pictured the local pool in her childhood town. She hasn't been there in years. Since her parents moved. She remembers chlorine and sunburn and her best friend clutches her underwater. 

She rolls up her sleeves, wand out, and walks up the driveway to the little house half-concealed by a bout of scraggly trees. She thinks it’s empty inside. Nevertheless, she checks every room as she goes, only finding a couple of spiders and the smell of rats. 

She spells the lights. They don't work without a little help, and her blue flame jars don't throw out enough light. She wanders into the mostly empty living room and sits on the couch heavily. She's spending the night here before she goes out in the morning, mostly because she wanted to get out of the palace, and —

Fuck, what was that?

A noise. Feet crunching up the gravel driveway. She gets it on her feet, unspelling the lights. The door opens, closes. They're inside. No hesitation. 

“Hello?” he calls. It's a man, it’s a man, that's what she knows. He walks right into the living room, and calls again, “Anyone here? Granger?” 

She flies from where she’s couched by the couch, pushing him against the wall, hand on his throat. “Who are you?” she demands. 

Whoever she's got pinned groans out, “Fuck, it’s me — it’s me, Granger,”

Her eyes focus, and in the light coming through the kitchen window, Draco Malfoy looks back at her. 

“What’s the first thing you ever said to me, ever?” she asks, still not persuaded. 

He swallows. “Hi. My name’s Draco. I think we’re in some of the same classes. I — I’m looking forward to the next seven years of our lives.”

It was the first year, before the mudblood comment, before anything else. It was the third day of school, she thinks. Hermione didn't have any friends. She was too loud, too buck-toothed, too much. She'd thought it would be different, now that she was a witch. She thought she'd fit in more, but it turned out to be just like always. Class had just finished, it's lunch hour, and she’s...alone. The others bunch off into chattering groups, going towards the Great Hall, but she...she wasn't hungry. She goes to the library, instead, and misses her first ever lunch. 

He finds her there, all prim and proper, slicked back hair and impeccable robes. He hovers in front of her and her book for a moment. She looks up.

“Hi?” she asks, wondering if there was a rule about the library she didn't know yet.

He smiles at her, and it's mean't to look confident, but it doesn't, really. “Hi. My name’s Draco. We’re in some of the same classes. I’m looking forward to the next seven years of our lives.”

She blinks in surprise, then smiles warmly, “Oh. Hello, Draco. My name is Hermione Granger, and I am, too.”

He sat down next to her, and for the next fifteen minutes of that lunch hour they spent studying and talking quietly. Hermione left the library happy, convinced she’d made a friend. 

Of course, that was before all the purist bullshit, before he found out who she was, before the hate and the war and anything else. It was before she knew Harry and Ron, really. Fuck, has she known Draco Malfoy longer than Harry and Ron?

She sighs, but doesn't let the wand go. “You have a question?” she asks. 

He hesitates, not sure what to ask her. Finally, “was your tea cold?” he asks. 

“To me, it was.” She lowers her wand. He sighs. “You valued school as much as me, huh?”

He smiles, a little, hesitantly. “I guess I did.”

"It's funny...we didn't know what was coming at all."

"I found out sooner than you."

She doesn't move. Why doesn't she move?

“Malfoy...why’d you do it?”

He looks at her, and in the dark, his eyes are still inscrutable. “Once your classmates are writhing on the floor of your dining room, the glory of your pureblood lineage seems a little less...glorious. You bled the same, Granger.”

“Right.” She clears her throat. “Well.” She turns away, turns the light back on.

She walks back to the couch, drops onto it. He follows her, and sits in the armchair. It’s a rather close scene. Funny, as if they're friends, and she’s invited him around for a cuppa, barring the fact she just held him at wand point. Maybe they are friends, Hermione considers, and thinks of all the morning spent together, sipping tea, Draco eating toast in heinous, despicable, strange ways. 

“Why’re you here?” she asks. 

“Gonna go meet a friend,” he says, shrugging, as he drops his bag onto the counter.

“Draco Malfoy has friends?” she says at his expense. 

He smiles back at her. “Not half the time.”

They lapse into silence. Hermione stares at where a TV should be. 

“The tap is leaking,” he says quietly, looking over at the kitchen.

“Yeah, she says, and looks at it. Drip. drip drip.

“I — should. We should fix it,” he says, getting to his feet, like he has a plan.

Hermione’s so sick of plans. “Probably, but who cares.”

—

A few hours later they’re back in London, in Grimmauld Place. It’s after dinner, everyone with anywhere to be tomorrow morning is gone to bed already, like Lupin or Tonks or the fighters. She doesn't know half their names, they're all Aurors or wizarding folk she never met before it all went to shit, and it seems a bit macabre to meet them now, just when they're likely to die in some unfair way. She doesn't know them, but you can recognise them by sight, by the rings under their eyes, and the heavy gait, maybe a limp, the way their eyes scan around corners. They always look on edge, like they're ready for a fight. She thanks Lupin for shielding Harry and Ron and all the kids, even if some of them hate it, and Hermione does at times too, when they are banished to their rooms. It feels like a punishment, but maybe it’s a gift.

So if you take all of those aurors and important people away, there are a few stragglers that remain, who stay up later. The kids, Hermione thinks, and it's funny how growing up the adults would stay up late, and now it's the opposite. Harry, Ron, Luna, Ginny, maybe Terry Boot or Padma, George, Fred, even Charlie, who usually doesn't stay up, and finally Draco too. He’s sitting around the table with them like he's been there forever, his eyes sparking in the light, his hair worn-in and messy. Hermione can barely tear her eyes away, it's just the abnormality of it, she tells herself. Anyway, Ron's right across from her. She should be looking at him, her boyfriend. 

“Now, volunteers for dishes, hm?” Mrs Weasley asks, about to go to bed herself. Every night they have the same whiny conversation, and eventually two people are picked for sacrifice. Hermione went last week and she reckons she has a few days left before it's her turn again. All the others make a big game of it, arguing for what seems like hours over who should wash and who should dry, and there’s always protests when someone’s picked, last night Ginny threw a plate at Ron, only saved by Hermione's cushioning charm. Not tonight, since Malfoy’s opening his mouth and saying, “I’ll do the dishes, Mrs Weasley.”

“Oh,” she blinks back in surprise at him. No one ever volunteers. Mrs. Weasley hasn't held the same deep grudge against him as the others have, but she's still heard all the stories from her children. Hermione remembers that she went to Hogwarts with his father. It must be strange for her too, to see the product of an old classmate who maybe wasn't such a git back then, hear how deep he's gotten into the dark side, and his son. His son, who has come back to the light. It's a funny cycle. 

Silence reigns. Draco shifts on his feet uncomfortably. “I do know how,” he jokes a bit sheepishly. 

Hermione, desperate to undo the tension says the first thing she can think of. “When did you learn?” They’re all frozen, unused to this sort of banter they engage in, until he chuckles. 

He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Well, um, perhaps last week. I've been watching you all, you see, and I think I’ve gotten the hang of it.”

“There's not that much to do, mate,” Harry says.

Draco shrugs. “How much dish detergent to use, and what that even is? How hot should the water be? Gloves or no gloves? How full the sink? What do you wash first?” He shrugs, “there’s a few, I guess.”

“I’ll dry,” Hermione says. Ron’s eyes flick to her, burning into the side of her head. Hermione pointedly ignores him. 

Draco looks at her, smiles. “Thank you.”

So then they stand next to each other, silently, washing and drying, and sometime between the kitchen emptying and filling like the tide, Ginny chasing Fred around and a few of those Aurors Hermione was talking about troop through the kitchen, one of them dragged along by two others, bleeding through a bandage. Their elbows touch because the sink is too small, and normally it wouldn't matter, Hermione wouldn't even notice, but it's not Ginny, or Ron, or Harry, it's him. Some suds and water have trickled down from his hands, and they wet the elbow of her long-sleeve, and Hermione doesn't dare breathe for a moment as the warm water seeps through the fabric and becomes cold, and she doesn’t quite know why.

Chapter Text

They’re on a mission, somewhere north of London, in an old, abandoned factory that used to make something to do with lead, Hermione thinks, and shudders, refraining to touch anything. 

Hermione turns a corner of the maze of offices connected to the factory, and there’s Draco, wide eyed, coming towards her. 

Oh, he gasps, “Uh, where’s the broken tap?”

“Liverpool. Do you know how to wash dishes?”

“Yes. Look, we’ve gotta go now, I think, there’s a squadron closing in from the — 

“Draco?” someone says behind them and a — a Death-Eater’s pulling off his hood, a bolt of fear is running though Hermione, as she raises her wand and Draco steps forward, infront of her. The hood is pulled off, and it’s…. Blaise Zabini. One of Draco's old friends, and an old classmate. Whenever she looked over at a meal, he was always roaring with great laughter, slapping the table with it. He was snarky, and funny, and deeply satiric, she remembers from overheard conversations. And he was always next to Draco, more than Crabb and Goyle. 

“Blaise?” Draco says, and his eyes go impossibly wide. “Blaise? What are you doing here?”

“Fighting for purebloods everywhere, obviously,” he says, and tries to smile. Hermione’s seen that smile a lot, lately. The tired smile, the sad smile, everything’s-gonna-be-alright smile, and it never quite convinces you but it’s better than nothing. Blaise gives up the ruse quickly, and just admits, in a small voice, “I— I couldn't get out. Not like you. Things have changed, since. Couldn't hide in Italy anymore. Had to….join him. He’s — he’s got mum.”

Draco stumbles forwards, closer to Blaise. Hermione wants to stop him, but she can't quite say it's a trap, not when Blaise is looking at Draco like that. “Oh, oh, fuck.”

Blaise smiles a grim, half smile. “He likes taking parents, doesn't he? He took both of yours.”

“Yeah,” Draco just says and avoids Hermione’s eyes. She thinks that they have to go, but at the same time, that they can’t. She can’t take this moment away from him. 

Their only warning is a slight clatter, and then there’s a wand aimed at them and a mean set of eyes behind. Hermione shoots a stunning spell, and she thinks — she thinks she's done it, for just a half second, she thinks that everyone's alright, and so does Draco, by the look on his face. But, she should never think everything’s alright, especially not because of her doing, not when Blaise gasps, holds his side and shudders. Draco there with him in an instant.

“Oh, oh, he got me,” Blaise says, his eyes a little wide in shock, pupils dilated. “He got me,” he says finally. 

They should have gone. Hermione should have said something. Too late. 

“What is it?” Hermione asks, by Blaise’s side in an instant. Draco cuts into the fabric of his robe with his wand and rips it until you can see the curse against Blaise's tanned stomach. It’s hideous, bloody purple and red. It’s a new one, Hermione's seen it a few times in the Hospital ward. Death-Eaters have been using it lately. They don’t have a counter-curse, even though Hermione’s spent hours trying to find one. “Oh,” she says. Fatal. She can’t save anyone from this. Draco knows it too, by the tightening of his knuckles against Blaise’s robes.

“I'm dying, aren't I?” Blaise asks, and it’s meant to be a joke, but it's really not, by the pained expression that crosses his face when Draco brushes the corner of the curse with his finger. 

“You're not dying,” Draco denies, lies to him, and Hermione knows she would do the same, if Harry or Ron or anyone else ever asked her. 

“Okay,” Blaise just says, like he’s letting him fib.

“You're gonna be okay, Blaise. Really.”

“Okay, mate. I believe you.” He doesn't, but little condolences are useful, in times like this. “I didn't want this, Draco. Not to be a fucking Death-Eater. And — the ceremony? The —”

“No, mate, no,” Draco says again, cuts him off. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I know.”

“It fucking ruined something inside me, I think.”

“Let's not talk about it, mate,'' Draco says.

“Pansy’s — Pansy’s half dead, too. They've married her off to some abusive —” he chokes on his own blood. “— abusive arsehole, and — I don't know, anymore. You know Pansy.”

Draco laughs through a tight chest, because apparently that means more than she'd ever thought it would have. “Yeah, yeah, I know Pansy.” It's like peering into some different world, a different reality she knows nothing about. She feels like she's intruding. 

Blaise gasps out, like every neighbour gossip, like it’s true but he doesn't want it to be, “Last time — I saw her, she said — said she’d kill herself.”

“Oh, Pansy,” Draco says, and hangs his head, Hermione remembers a relationship there. Him and her. Draco and Pansy. All through school, she thinks. Getting caught in the corridors after hours, and walking together to class, some Valentines Day kerfuffle. She doesn't remember much. She was either studying or trying to defeat Voldemort.

Blaise sees him in his grief and reaches out, clings to Draco’s shirt, catching his eye. “You have to let her, Draco. It’s the — the kindest thing.”

“How?” he says. “How is it the kindest thing?”

“I know you, I know you want to help her. Get her out. You won’t. There's only so many times you can pull that shit off, and Pansy’s never been free, you know. She wouldn't know what to do with herself.”

“Pansy’s never been free,” he repeats, soulfully.

Blaise groans, his side hurting, and Hermione sneaks a peak, it’s grown and consumed all the skin she can see through the rip already. Fast acting, this one. Probably for the best the analytical part of Hermione whispers, and she hates herself for one solid moment, looking at the way Draco's clutching his best friend and here she is, reducing it to a good thing. 

“When I heard you’d — defected. Become a traitor, whatever, I — I cried for you, and I don't cry, Draco. I just don't, it’s not some toxic masculinity thing. I just don't. But I did, for you, then I laughed. I'm — I'm happy you got out.”

“We should have gone together,” Draco says, like he’s ashamed.

“Yeah, and we should have gotten Theo and Daphne, and Crabbe and Goyle, and the Greengrasses, and the pet rabbit I never had and a unicorn, and we'll all go live in Disneyland forever and get fat on ice-cream and dreams.”

“Fuck off, Blaise,” Draco says, and he’s crying, and Hermione’s never seen him cry before, he does it quietly, with a lot of head-hanging into Blaise’s chest and tears slipping down his face. 

Blaise smiles wetly. “I love you mate, and not in a weird way.”

“I know, I know,” Draco says, and whispers, “I love you too.”

“There we go, Drakey,” Blaise grins, and it seems just like they are back in Hogwarts again, walking through the hallways. “Finally.”

“I wish we were in Italy again, like — like that bit of summer holidays before it all went to shit,” Draco says. 

“Yeah, me too,” Blaise says, fingers his sternum, where Hermione imagines the curse has spread to by now.

“I remember it so well, too. The sun and the sea, and — and when we nearly drowned? Remember that?”

Blaise tries to smile. “Well, you nearly drowned. I can swim.”

“So can I,” Draco says, and his eyes flick between Blaise’s eyes and where the curse hit. “Just not that day, I suppose.”

“Or any,” Blaise says quietly, and Draco doesn't say anything, just continues on with his reminiscing. 

“And when I puked off the balcony? Half of it was olives and tequila,” he laughs, then shakes his head, “I felt so sick, I swear that old woman poisoned me,” Blaise laughs a rocking laugh. Draco’s almost panicked, now, because the curse is appearing at his neck, crawling further upwards with every second.“And — and that drive, to the Tuscany house, when all the other’s fucked off the Milan without us? We got that muggle car, that convertible you picked out, the red one, and we drove for once through all the hills and vineyards, the green and gold hills, and — and all that, and there was that sunset? Yeah, that sunset, just before we got there, and you looked at me, and smiled and I — I thought we were thinking the same thing, but I never asked. I wish I asked, Blaise,” Draco sobs. “I wanted to cry, then, Blaise, because I knew what was coming. That was my last real moment of peace, you know. Fuck, that holiday was perfect. It was so good.”

Blaise grips Draco “I’m sorry. I didn't want this,” he says again. “Tell them. Tell them, promise.”

“I promise. I know you didn't," Draco whispered, “neither did I.”

“I’ll see Pansy. What do you want me to say?”

“Say hello, from Drake, say Drake, Blaise — you gotta say that, and that — I don't forgive her for cheating on that last game of Wizarding Chess, but I’m not angry with her. I've never been angry with her, not in any real way.”

“Okay,” Blaise rasps, “I’ll tell her. She’ll laugh.”

“Yeah, she will,” Draco agrees, and she’s crying, dripping silent tears onto Blaise's chest.

“I love you mate. I wish we were in Tuscany.”

“Me too. Me too.”

Blaise’s breath stutters. “In the — in the orchard. On the living room floor.”

Draco bows his head. “Think of Tuscany, mate,” he begs, “think of Tuscany and us in a bright fucking red convertible like a couple of Muggles and we were just kids, we were just kids and I fucking loved you. You and me in the orchard under the orange trees. You and me, you and me, Blaise. Think of us in the dining room, and the record player, and the window we broke that one night, and the garden, and -- and it was so perfect, and I loved you, and it was just you and me, okay?” Blaise doesn't answer him, and from what Hermione can see, he’s slumped over, nothing holding him up. It’s done it. The curse has killed him. Draco lets out a painful noise, “Blaise?” he asks, like he expects an answer. 

There’s voices coming toward them. It's already too late. 

Hermione bends over him, and she’ll hate herself for this later, even though she has too, otherwise they're all dead, “we...We have to go, Draco. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” He looks up at her, shakes his head wordlessly. “We’ll die, too,” she says, to try and convince him. It works, maybe, because he nods, and she gets him to his feet, and they run out of the factory into bright sunlight.

They land in the house in Liverpool, or in the driveway. She gasps, holding her side, holding her stitch. 

He collapses into her, and she holds him, holds him like she holds everyone who has seen someone die on a mission, the hold she's gotten so good at, and it doesn't matter that he’s Draco Malfoy, she's Hermione Granger, it just matters that she’s here, and he’s clinging onto her like this, face pushed into her shoulder.

“Lets —let's get inside, okay?” Hermione says, and drags him in, casts a spell to check the house, as she puts him on the couch, casts a warming charm.

“Are you okay?” she asks him, then thinks again, “Are you hurt?” 

He shakes his head wordlessly, then says, “No.”

“Okay,” she says once to him, and then again to herself, “okay.”

He clears his throat. “Are you?” he asks her, ignoring the drying tears on his face. 

“Yes, I don’t think I’m hurt,'' The thing is, she never realised when she was. All the adrenaline, the desire to make sure everyone else is safe, she never realises.

He knows this, apparently, because he says, “Check, Granger.”

She’s not hurt. She almost wishes she was, because at least then they'll be something to do, not just sit in the empty house.

—

Later that day, they're still in the living room, on the couch, sitting next to each other. The one thing grief does is unite, at least in the immediate. 

“I shouldn't have just left him there,” Draco says dully, his voice rasping. How long has it been?

She shakes herself out of stupor, “you — you couldn't have done anything else.”

“I— I could have. I should have.”

She sighs, turning to look at him. “No, no, you couldn't have, Draco. We barely got out ourselves, we couldn’t have carried a body too. You did all you could.”

He blinks at the wall. She thinks it’s resolved. 

“I— I miss that house, in Tuscany. We’d go, whenever we could. Me and Blaise. It was for me and Blaise, because he loved it. I said that the others ditched us, but really, we’re the ones that ditched them." Hermione doesn't say anything, just watches him, the curve of his jaw, the jut of his nose.  “He always took the master bedroom, I took the second. We flipped a coin. There’s a little orchard there, too. Oranges and some grapes. He wanted to make wine once, but we ended up eating more than we picked. We got bored. We never made it. I don't even know how,” he laughs. “I don't even know how to make wine.”

“You gotta leave it in a barrel for like two years,” Hermione says. She doesn’t really know, either. She thinks of Andromeda and Tonks, and gaining some family just as you lose the rest of it. 

He ignores her, eyes trained on a place far away. "I was always closest with Blaise. That's why I just took him. I wanted a place just for us, maybe. I did everything there. I was happy there, and I talked to him there, more than I ever talked to him in school. I told him about my marking ceremony there. I drank there, for the first time, and threw up after for the first time," He smiles at the memory, like it's particularly fond, then tells her, "the wine cellar was never locked, I guess father or whoever was staying there before us just forgot one day and no one ever locked it again. Blaise figured it out maybe the second time we went, gave a big shout -- I thought he'd died -- but no, he came up the stairs, holding his bottle above his head like it was the Holy Grail, and after that we just never stopped. That sounds sad, like we were alcoholics." He shakes his head, "No. Just teenagers."

"We used to drink, in the common room. After a game or something, the twins or maybe Jordan Lee would sneak butterbeer in for everyone, and a bottle or two of firewhiskey. Ron would beg for a bit, and we'd all get a little -- practically a drop, but it didn't matter, the boys were so chuffed. I hated it. Why would you want to drink something that burns your throat?"

"To get drunk," Draco answers, and laughs. "That sounds nice, anyway."

"It was nice. I didn't appreciate it enough."

"Me neither," he says quietly, "I can talk all I want now, but back then I didn't see the significance." 

Hermione nods, and thinks of breathless, laughing, roaring fire-red nights around the table, Mrs Weasley telling them to be quiet but Ron starts cracking up again anyway, and she's left with that warm feeling in her stomach. "I think that's how it goes, all the time."

Draco ignores her, but his hand finds hers, and it's tentative, at first, gentle, as his fingers hover over hers. She, in one, fatal, rash decision locks them together. He continues like nothing ever happened. “There was this old record player. My aunt, I think. Before she was...like that. Batshit. I think she left it there. She liked the house, too. Blaise always turned it on, there was a couple old records left lying around, and danced, in the — kitchen, first, then right around the house. He’d try to get me to join, but I never would. I was too embarrassed, I think. Blaise was never embarrassed. I wish I'd danced, Granger. The only thing I wish is that I’d have danced with him, like he always wanted me too.”

“I know,” she says, and cradles him to her, their hands still locked together. “I know, believe me I know.”

“How?”

She starts thickly, staring at the wall. “I wish I’d told my parents I loved them, and maybe come home for the summer once in a while. I always went to the Burrow," she explains, and ignores the lump in her throat as she pictures her parents, and how much they loved her. "I hated being a muggle," she admits, "I never fit in. I was strange. I did things wrong and weird, and I scared people. Once, when I was 6 and a half, I shattered four windows because some girls were teasing me. I was a bookworm, and academic to a fault, and no one else was. When my letter came, it was the best day of my life," and she smiles past the water in her eyes, lifting her head to stare at the ceiling, "I fit in somewhere. I wasn't abnormal, there were other people like me. I had a home. I was so excited," she describes, almost gleeful, remembering clutching her letter in her hands, hiding it in her closet and looking at it every night, seeing the Hogwarts Express for the first time, and Diagon Alley. A whole new world for her to explore, and learn about, and belong in. Her smile drops from her face as she remembers the next bit, "Then I learned I didn't fit in there either.” She's never told Ron about this. Or Harry, or anyone. It would just isolate her more. 

“Oh,” he says, and that means everything, doesn't it. 

“No, no, I’m sorry,” she panics, “I shouldn't have brought it up — I wasn't trying to talk about you —”

“Don’t be sorry, Granger. Not yet," he says, and looks at her, and Hermione's noticing more and more how beautiful he is, and now is one of those times, with his hair falling over his forehead just a little, deliciously messy, and his lips parted and red, and just his symmetrical fucking face, with the cheekbones, and jaw. 

What does that mean? “What do you —” 

He kisses her. 

She gasps a little, and he pauses, falling away from her slightly but before their lips can even leave each other, she’s kissing him back, pulling him back towards her. 

He — he groans and tugs her onto his lap so she’s straddling his thighs. His hands land on her hips and slide upwards to her waist. Fuck. Ron never kissed her like this, and neither did Viktor. No one has ever kissed her like this. 

And Hermione — Hermione's enjoying all of that. Until her brain catches up with her and she gasps, ripping them apart. He sighs like he was expecting it as she clambers off his fucking lap awkwardly, he doesn't make a move to help her, just lets his hands slip from her body as she goes. 

“I can't. I can't,” she babbles frantically, leaping away from him, pacing the floor in front of the couch. His lips are even redder now, and his cheeks flushed too, but not in a sweaty gross way, in a decadent, kind of sexy way, and his hair's all been mussed up in the endeavour. 

He doesn't move, just watches her. “Weasel,” he says, it’s not even a question.

“No,” she says, and points at him for some reason, “well, yes, but also you're — you’re grieving an incredibly traumatic death, and yeah, you’re right, I— I’m in a fucking relationship and I’m not that person, who cheats.”

He grits his teeth. “Don’t...Don’t say Blaise is the reason, like I’m grieving and I’ve lost my mind. I’m more sane than I’ve ever been, Granger, and I’ve wanted to do that since the Yule Ball.”

She stops short, staring at him. “You have?”

He nods, eyes staring right through her, “Yeah.”

“Oh, my god.”

“Don’t get weird, Granger,” he warns. 

“How can I not get weird! How? We’ve just — we're just kissed. Everyone single one of your ancestors are rolling over in their graves, and —”

“Not every single one,” he interrupts, watching her blithely. 

“And Ron, oh my god, Ron —”

“There was my second Great Aunt Tessa, who was very — very kind to the muggle women who worked for her, let’s say, and —”

“Oh, this is just a mess, such a fucking mess,” she moans, holding her head. 

“Oh, and all the Black side deserters. Sirius and Andromeda. Well, they might mind, considering, well you know—” 

“Shut up about your goddamn relatives!” she snaps.

He sighs. “Granger, what I'm trying to say is it’s fine. We’re fine, okay?”

“I can't,” she says again, pulling her eyes away from him.

“Granger…”

“I— I can't do that to Ron.”

“You don't love him,” he says, and again, it’s not a question. 

“I— of course I love him,” she says. 

He rolls his eyes and says, bluntly, “Cut the shit, Granger. Stop deluding yourself. How do you love him? Why? Anything with any substance, please.”

“I don’t have to explain myself.”

“No,” he says, “but it would help.”

“I— I like his eyes, and his family, and there’s so much history there, he was one of my first friends at Hogwarts, you know.”

“After he insulted you.”

“How do you know about that?” she demands.

He just shrugs. 

“And..and you know, he’s so kind, and sweet, and kinda like a puppy, in a weird way —”

He raises his eyebrows, “You want to fuck a dog, Granger?”

“No! Of course not!” she yells, scandalised, then sighs. “I--I don’t know what to say.”

“I don't think you can say anything, you know. I think you can just admit it.”

“It’s not true.”

“Look, Granger, if you’re happy. Really fucking happy, I’d — I’d back off. Tell me you are, and I’ll back off,” he looks at her, and she thinks it might be true, by the fucking look in his eyes, all too inscrutable. He’s looking at her like he loves her, and Hermione knows what love is. Hermione knows that love means you'd do anything, and right now he’s looking like he’d do anything for her, even back off. It’s just the war, she tells herself. The war makes everyone like this, all intense, because you have to combine all your days, your whole life into just a few because you don’t have any time left, or you might not.

“I am,” she lies, and she knows it. “We’re happy. I’m happy.”

He sighs, rakes a hand through his hair. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she says.

He walks out the door, and she doesn't want to let him go, then the guilt hits her. 

Chapter Text

Is she? She thinks, when she can’t sleep. It's three am and it's all dark and quiet, everyone's gone to bed and no ones got up yet and here she is, with a shift in the hospital and a mission in the morning, laying awake over some cryptic conversation that shouldn't even of happened, because it's not even a question that she loves Ron, right?

It’s been foretold and flirted with since First Year, and it just seemed like it would be them, the rational choice. Everyone started pairing off, Harry and Ginny, Angelina and George, Bill and Fleur, so obviously, they were next. Well, after the Lavender issue. 

But at the same time, they've spent so much time together, she should be in love. Nights in the common room, and the Burrow and in the living room or the kitchen here, not to mention the horcrux hunt, even though that didn't go very well in regards to Ron. Hermione thinks of chasing him in the rain, sobbing into her sleeping bag when she was 90% sure Harry was asleep. It hurt, but she forgave him, because she's been forgiving him since she was 11. She's been forgiving him for stealing her notes and trying to cheat and doing stupid things like taking a flying car to school, so what's one more dumb thing?

There has been good stuff, like nights in the common room, and laughing over some stupid shared joke. Or summers at the Burrow, soaking in the sun, and watching the Weasley's play Quidditch far above her.

The truth of the matter is they're barely even together anyway. They sit apart at the dinner table, and laugh awkwardly and politely when Mrs Weasley talks about marriage, and babies and all that, and everyone jokes about them, including them in the list of couples ™. Lupin and Tonks, Harry and Ginny, Hermione and Ron. He kisses her nicely and chastely and nothing like Draco does — does ? Like it's a regular occurrence? — did she corrects. Like Draco did, once. Past tense. 

Ron would be sad if she died, and he protects her when he can, and always hugs her tight after a close miss, but they don't spend time together. She’s busy, sleeping or working at the hospital or fighting or at the house in Liverpool, and he’s fighting or with Harry or his family, and their paths only cross at mealtimes and missions and sometimes when everyone gets together in the living room or the kitchen or something. 

When did they last have a conversation? Not that they ever had conversations, really. Hermione likes books and intellectuals and figuring things out, and Ron likes Quidditch and talking to his mates. He's got the emotional range of a teaspoon and whenever they talk past a hello, a kiss, and a goodbye, they fight. 

But they just are, they've been since First Year. Hermione’s been in love with him forever, right? Even when he was dating Lavender. Even when he left her and Harry, even when he's hurt her, she's been in love with him forever. 

-

It’s five am by the time she realises she doesn't love him, and she probably never will. She rolls over, lets out a long sigh, and smushes her face into the pillow. Fuck. 

It's a week before she can get the courage to go to him. 

They see each other in the morning,but it's not the same. He's nice, polite. He makes her tea occasionally and laughs when she says it’s too cold, but he doesn't look at her the same, and she could deal with it, when she was fooling herself into thinking she loves Ron, but when she's realised she doesn't, she can’t deal with it anymore. She wants to talk to Malfoy again, and her younger self wouldn't have believed it but it's so terribly true. 

It's 5.00am and they're in Liverpool, with a whole bunch of others, just back from a mission in Sussex. Lupin and Charlie are making toast and tea in the kitchen, but she’d stepped outside into the still dark to breathe. To clear her head. Neville had nearly died, tonight. And Luna, and Malfoy, and she’d healed Luna’s burns and everyone else had been fine, but it still seems too close.  

“Hey,” someone says, and it’s him. He’s followed her out to the cold, and he’s still in his gear, holding his mug of tea, half-eaten, folded over, toast in his other hand. They didn't have honey, so the edge of his bite bleeds red jam. He looks... tired, with his messy hair and dark circles and she thinks it might be driving him mad, too, because he's been so lackluster and dim and just...not himself that she overheard Fred joking to George that he's depressed, or something. 

“You were right,” is all she says, because it's all she can say. 

“Obviously,” he says slowly, taking a bite of toast. “What about?”

“I don’t love him,” she admits, for the first time. “I think I might have, once. Or at least what I thought was love.”

He leans forward, gets her to look into his eyes. “Will you ever love him?” he asks her, and all she can think about is the open door behind him. She can hear the others in the kitchen. They're so close. 

“As a brother?” she deflects, because she regrets bringing this up. 

“Not what I asked,” he says steadily.

She gasps out a trembling sigh and releases for the first time, “No, I don't think so. We don't work.” It feels good to say it. Because you can admit you don't love someone, but when you admit you don't, you never will, that's different. 

“Okay, so —” he starts, and he’s going to suggest something lascivious, next to the fucking house with the door sill open a tad otherwise it’ll lock, and she just can’t even joke about it.

“We’re still not...good to go," she says quickly. 

He buffers for the moment, his mouth closing abruptly, and his eyes narrowing with confusion. “What's the problem?” he asks, and when she doesn't respond he rolls his eyes. “Work with me here, come on.”

She rolls her eyes back, “I'm still with him, Malfoy," she says plainly. 

“Don't call me that," he asks of her, quietly, and he won't look her in the eyes, so she's just left staring at the side of his head. 

“Draco,” she corrects, softly, and then feels the need to repeat, “I'm still with him, Draco.”

He looks up at her again, but it's not the same. He's all hard. He knows nothing he says will change her mind. “Break up with him, then. You've admitted you don't love him.”

“That doesn't — I just can’t."

“Why? Granger, really. Why?” she just shrugs, she doesn't know. “Are you scared? I don't understand.”

“Neither do I,” she says, and she just might cry. “But I can’t leave him. Not yet. It's a war. Not yet.”

“Hermione, I…” he trails off as she answers whatever question he was trying to ask. 

She’s got to talk, otherwise the lump in her throat will keep growing and growing until it’s her whole head. “Draco, I...I shouldn't have done that. Kissed you back. For a multitude of reasons, okay?

“You wanted too, though,” he mumbles, like an eleven-year-old again. “You were into it.”

“Yeah, but it's not the best thing. We’re both not in the position to do that with each other. Just...we can’t. You understand that, right?”

“Yeah,” he says finally, just to end the conversation. “I understand.”

She tries to smile, but it's as weak as the coffee Harry drinks. “Okay.” Too much milk and sugar -- that's how Harry drinks it, and maybe you could say it's the same, but Hermione's issue isn't too much sugar. 

“We should go,” he says, and turns towards the door, walking back into he warm house with all of her fucking friends inside before she responds. 

“Yeah,” she says, even though he’s gone, “we should.”

— 

She gets back to the house a few hours later and immediately runs into Ron, who pokes his head out of the living room as the group steps inside and walks towards them, smiling, and Hermione thinks of a puppy, again. 

He says hello to Luna and Neville and Lupin and etcetera, then finally turns towards Hermione. Draco squeezes past her and follows the others. They’ve stopped in to say hello to the living room,where everyone else is, judging by the laughter and chatter. 

“Hermione, hey, I've been looking all over for you,” he says gently. 

“Oh,” she laughs, and he kisses her chastely, and she thinks of Draco’s mouth slanting over hers, hot and — 

“You okay?” he asks, as he guides her towards the living room, Hermione catches Draco walking up the stairs two at a time out of the corner of her eye. 

She swallows past the lie. “Oh, yeah. Just...tired, is all.”

He stops her, looking concerned. “You should get some sleep, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, trying to smile, but it's bland and breaking. He should know something's wrong, he really should. 

“Where have you been?” he asks her, and maybe he does know something is wrong?

“Oh, just — safehouse, after the mission," she explains. 

“You hurt?”

She shakes her head. “No, no, just — needed some space. You know how it is.” After a mission, they all like to dewind in a safehouse. Debrief, then relax. Eat something. Be glad you're alive. Deal with whatever. 

“Yeah,” he says, then a beat, “With Malfoy?”

Her heart rate speeds up, but she keeps her face still and clam. “And everyone else.”

He clears his throat, looks away from her. Ron's not as oblivious as she thought. “Anyway, you should go get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees, and takes the escape so so gratefully.  

She walks up the staircase to the room, turning the corner and there Draco is, grinning at her Cheshire Cat, all handsome and smile -- how does his grin take up half his face?!

He seems to have forgotten all about his little strop, by the way he's smiling, leaning into her personal space. “Christ, it's like he’s your mum," he snickers into her ear. 

She just scowls at him and stomps down the hall to her room, where she slams the door behind her and then tries to convince herself she's not angry.

Chapter Text

She’s in the kitchen the next week, sitting calmly, staring at her tea. She'd had breakfast alone today, Draco's off on some mission. She'd been woken up early in the morning with them all leaving, combat boots stomping by her door. The last week’s mornings have been full of innuendos and comments, and Hermione has bitten back, too, but she’s not quite as cutting as him. She doesn't know what he wants, or, she does, but she can't give it to him. 

Harry joins her first, smiling at her softly as he comes down the stairs, making another cup for her as he makes his own tea -- he knows she likes two if she can.

After that, Ron comes down in a ratty T-Shirt, slumps into the seat next to Hermione, slings an arm around the back of her chair, more as a place to put it than anything else. She leans forward, elbows on the table, and tries to take interest in Harry making tea, not Ron at her shoulder. 

Ginny is last, she jumps down the last step and pulls out a chair loudly, then collapses onto the table, most of her upper body slumped onto the wood. Ginny's funny like that, she'll jump down the stairs and yell, use all this energy, and then turn back into a zombie. 

Hermione spends a few minutes in peace, zoning out, drinking the new tea Harry made for her, idly listnening to the others chatter. That peace is shattered when Ginny gossips, still rubbing sleep from her eyes, “Did you hear about Malfoy and Gabrielle?” 

“What?” Hermione asks, quickly. Anyone would think she cares. She feels Ron look at her. 

Ginny shrugs, Hermione's eyes intent on her. Ron looks back at her sister, and Hermione sighs internally. “They're, I don't know...dating.”

“Shit, Fleur’s sister?” Ron says, spraying cereal across the table. 

Ginny laughs. “Yeah, Gabrielle was bragging about it yesterday in the line for the bathroom.”

“Bragging?” Harry asks dubiously. 

Ginny rolls her eyes. “Absolutely bragging. Malfoy’s a bit of a catch.”

Ron sputters at that. Harry looks at Ginny, raised eyebrows asking a million questions. 

Ginny cracks a smile, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “Of course I love you, Harry, but….” Hermione thinks of Ginny and Malfoy like... that and feels a bit sick. “He’s so incredibly good looking —” she continues dreamily, and Hermione just sips her tea. Ginny’s eyes dart to her, “Hermione back me up, he’s fit, yeah?”

“Yeah?” Hermione says hesitantly.

“Jesus, ‘Mione,” Ron grumbles. 

Ginny defends her vivaciously as Hermione sinks back in her seat, cowering from him. God, imagine if she'd said, yeah, I think he's that much of a catch that I kissed him, sorry Ron. She smirks into her mug, and whne Harry asks her what that's about, she just shakes her head.

—

She comes down the stairs the next morning, to him drinking his tea in the kitchen. He turns to her, framed in the light like some sort of angel, which is rather ironic. People wouldn't call him that. 

“Hi,” he says, twists his mug in his hands. Is he, the great Draco Malfoy, nervous?

“Hi,” she says back, and unfreezes. She walks across the kitchen and grabs a cup, re-boils the kettle, even though it's still hot. Draco smiles at her in the reflection, and it makes her irrationally angry. She pivots on her heel. 

“So, Gabrielle, huh?” she asks, ready to fight, ready to fuck whatever she can up. 

“Yep," he just says, easily. 

“Why?” she asks, and doesn't know why she does. She doesn't know why she cares, why she feels a little betrayed, only that she does. She knows it's irrational. She'd turned him down, even after she admitted she didn't love Ron. It's her own fault, like Ginny said, he's a catch. She can't expect him to be single all the time.

He rolls his eyes like he’s been expecting it, and leans forward dynamically, “Granger, she’s pretty and fit and I like her enough.”

“Enough?” Hermione pinpoints 

“Yeah, enough. She’s enough.”

“Oh,” Hermione says, and feels small, and not enough, which is stupid she knows.

“You know all about enough, Granger, don't you?” he sneers, then pauses, “or is it not enough?”

She glares at him, “Shove off, Malfoy.”

He smiles at her without emotion, “Not yet.” She remembers the days of bullying and frizzy hair and beaver teeth and the memories bubble up seething hot and unwelcome, and it kindles some sort of vengeful, angry fire in her belly. She wants to hurt him, hurt him like she used to wish she could, when they were kids. 

“She’s two years younger you know, just 16 now,” Hermione says, looks at him icily, trying to get her eyes to scream pedo!

He just shrugs, ignoring her eyes and their screams, “no-one’s young anymore, Granger, you should know that.”

Hermione pivots, “she’s French, too. Aren't you as well?”

“Sure,” he says easily. 

“Hm. Sure you're not related?” she says, innocently, then her eyes narrow, then her voice turns scathing, a tone long practised on the boys “Of course, you wouldn't mind, would you? Probably be even better, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, can't have these recessive genes disappearing,” he gestures at his hair and his eyes. Blonde barbie bitch, Hermione thinks viciously, and isn't even shocked at herself, like she would have been a few years ago. 

Hermione looks at him, with her brown eyes, and her brown fucking hair in her face like always and just — thinks she’s gonna throw up. She turns and practically runs for the stairs, leaving her cup on the table, passing Harry who’s coming down for his tea. He shouts after her but she doesn't answer, blurry tears in her vision, slams the door behind her. 

She leans against it and cries not to cry. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, she tells her burning eyes. Please, no, don’t cry. Not over him. Not worth it at all. 

— 

Hermione’s just walking, no harm about it, just walking towards her room to change and K.O, and… and he’s kissing her, Gabrielle, in the middle of the hallway. She coughs discreetly and she’s the one that breaks them apart, not him. Gabrielle flicks her straight blonde hair over her shoulder with an embarrassed chuckle and leans into him, and he leans back.

He loops an arm around her waist and says, “Oh, hi, Granger,” with that disarming grin.

She pulls her mouth tight and pushes past them. Draco’s laugh echoes in her ears, dark and cynical and mocking her. 

She can't sleep that night, and wonder why she keeps thinking of them coiled together, pretty and perfect and -- stop it, Hermione. Sleep. 

She tries, and partly succeeds. She stops thinking about Draco and Gabrielle, but starts thinking about her and Ron. Them. Together, especially. She thinks about it more than she thought about it when she decided she didn't love him.

They've always been combative personality types, fighting and clashing and she thought maybe if she loved him more it would be okay. And even when she knew she didn't love him, she didn't want to let it go, because that means letting everything go. She's spent all of her magical life with him, and maybe a part of her though that leaving him would be leaving that. 

What would the others think, if she left him? They'd be confused, surely, because to Harry her and Ron are like him and Ginny in his eyes, the perfect couple. Maybe Molly wont look at her the same, because she wants them together and happy and married so badly, ever since the first time she came to the Burrow, and that would really break her heart, Molly's been there since the start of everything, she's practically her mother, since her own wasn't able to be there.    

What do they both want, after the war? Hermione wants...travel, and work, and love, and an all-around good life. She wants to be happy, and have a flat in Muggle London with Crookshanks, and she wants….none of what Ron wants. Ron wants to play Quidditch professionally, a job that's hard in every way imaginable, and he wants to marry, and have her pop out a bunch of kids so they can grow up like he did, with a stay at home mother and lots of siblings. He wants a house in the suburbs, where the kids can play in the backyard. Hermione doesn't want that. She doesn't even know if she wants kids yet. She doesn’t even know if she’ll live through this war.

Hermione thinks about the quote she’d read just before leaving Hogwarts, and she'd always remembered it, and thought about it when Sirius and Dumbledore died, when she lost her parents, and Victor, and everyone else she’s ever lost. Anything you lose comes round in another form. It’s by Rumi, an old Persian poet that lived a thousand years ago. He died in 1273, but here, now, in a completely different part of the world, and in an age he probably never even imagined, she’s thinking about him, and what he said. 

She believes it, too. Everything that goes around comes around. Atoms truly never end.

— 

She hesitates, hovering in the doorway. "Ron, I think we need to talk."

He laughs, looking up at her with those pale cornflower blue eyes, and suddenly, she's not sure this is the right thing to do. “Oh, Hermione that's never anything good.”

She closes the door behind her and steps inside. “It kind of isn't.”

He chuckles, again. “Go, then, hit me.” He's never expecting the worst. God, she hates himself. 

She tries to prepare herself, maybe she should be preparing him. Then she just spits it out. “I— I don't think we should be together anymore.”

He gapes at her, and she knows that he never would have predicted this. Ron’s always been so oblivious, she should have guessed that he didn't know that they're breaking apart, even with his suspicion. “Why, Hermione? Everything’s good.” He says it like he doesn't understand why she’s here, saying these things. Like she’s the monster, she’s the one doing this without prompt. 

She shakes her head, she feels like crying, out of the frustration of it all, “No, it's not. You know it's not.”

“I--I thought it was. I know it's a war, and it’s been stressful, but—”

“When was the last time we spent time together?” she interrupts rudely, her tone curt. “Or kissed, or had sex, or even had a conversation?”

“We do those things all the time,” he says and he's almost angry as if it's an insinuation that he’s a shit boyfriend, not a problem with both of them, or that it's a reflection of himself. Maybe it is. 

“No, we don’t,” she says, and her voice starts loud but drops off as she loses her confidence.

“Hermione…” he sighs, like he's tired. Like he doesn't want to deal with this. 

“It’s not just now, Ron. It’s not just the war. We want different things after the war, and that's fine, okay?”

“No, I don't, I don’t,” he repeats, shaking his head. “What do you want?”

“I want travel, and a job, and a flat in Muggle London,” she lists, and the look on his face, he doesn't want it, he knows he doesn't. 

“I--I want that,” he tries to convince himself, and not very well. 

“No, you don't, Ronald. And that's fine. That's okay.”

He shakes his head, and says, almost to himself, “I don't understand why this is happening.”

Hermione has thought the same thing, but she's figured it out, finally. “We just...fell out of love, if we were even in it.”

“I do love you,” he says softly.

“I'm sure you do. I love you, too. I'm just not in love with you, and I don't think you are, either."

“Christ,” is all he mutters, and hangs his head low. Hermione doesn't see anything else worthwhile in his conversion, so she gets to her feet and makes a beeline for the door. 

She hesitates here, about to swing it open, but she makes the fatal mistake, and she fiddles with it too much. “Yeah. Anyway, um, I guess I'll talk to you later.” 

“Is this because of Malfoy?” Ron says suddenly, looking up at her, and there’s something in his eyes, something she hates. Doubt. Fear. Uncertainty. That's when Ron lashes out, that's when it all goes bad. 

Her jaw drops, “What? Are you crazy?”

“You spend more time with him than me,” he says, to defend himself. 

She takes a deep, calming breath, “Maybe that's the issue, Ron, that I don't spend any time with you.”

He clears his throat, and rubs his eyes, and picks at a spot on his jeans, and mumbles, “just..sometimes you look at him, and —”

“I’ve told you the reasons we’re done, and I don't know if your memory has the same capacity as your emotional range does, but Malfoy wasn't one of them!”

Ron rakes a hand through his hair, and talks to her like she's a child not making any sense, “He’s a Death-Eater, Hermione, why do you like him so much?”

“He’s not a Death-Eater!” Hermione defends hotly. She needs to calm down, this is just incriminating him more. 

“Yes, Hermione! He hates you!” Ron shouts at her, and Hermione just wants to fucking kill him. Put her hands around his throat and kill him. 

“No,” she says, and quiets her voice, this isn't going to end in violence. They are going to part as amicably as they can. She is not going to kill him, she is not going to even try. “He doesn't.”

“And how do you fucking know?” he asks, and his voice shakes. Anger, or fear, or desperation? 

“You don’t know shit, Ronald,” she hisses. “I was there — right there when his best friend died, okay? In his fucking arms. You’ve shouted at me after people have died. You’ve been irrationally angry, but he wasn't. He just cried in my fucking arms, Ron. He wouldn't have done that if he hated me. Not even close.”

His face sobers. She opens the door and nearly steps out of it. Does she ever learn? Leave when you can. You'll always regret it. “Ron….I just can’t — can’t do this anymore. I'm sorry.”

“Yeah,” he says, sniffles. “Okay.”

“Nothing to do with Malfoy,” she says again.

“Okay, okay. I'm sorry,” he apologises, halfheartedly. She's tired. She's so tired. 

“Me too,” she says truthfully, and gets that sharp feeling in her sternum, like the whole world's crumbling and she can only hold on and blame herself. 

She goes back to her room and cries, not because she wants him back or she’s sad about it — she truly believes it's the best thing to do, but because it's just the end of a fucking era. She feels so alone, as she hugs her pillow to her midsection, tears pouring down her face, keeping her breathing quiet so no one hears.

Chapter Text

“What are you doing with Malfoy, Hermione?” Lupin asks one day, when they're in the room they use for strategizing. It’s dingy, and small, and smells faintly of mold. 

“What are you talking about,” Hermione laughs, barely glancing up at him. She’s spreading out a map just to do something with her hands.

“Come on,” he says, leaning against the wall, his eyes bore into her. Hermione feels like a kid again, like it’s Third Year and he’s her professor scolding her.

“No idea, Lupin. Draco and I are friends, nothing more. You know he’s a good person, so I don't know why you're acting like Ron and Harry.”

Lupin says. “It’s not about him being a good person, Hermione.”

She snaps. “What is it about, then? A weird virginity complex? It’s alright when I'm fucking Ron, but not anyone you haven't deemed good enough for the little golden Gryffindor princess?” Hermione sneers, and Lupin winces and looks away. “You’re the same, Lupin,” she continues, “even for all your talk, you're the same as all the others. You haven't accepted him, haven't believed him, haven't internalized all your talk, and you're punishing him, and you're punishing me for believing he’s a good person.”

Lupin sighs shortly. “Hermione...maybe you're right. Maybe I’m still thinking of little prick in the infirmary for messing with Buckbeak, not the person he’s become. The young, honourable man he’s become.” Hermione stares him down, and he wrings a hand over his face. “Look...just be careful, alright? He’s….he eats through people, I think. He hasn't been raised like us, not in the slightest. He’s like Sirius in that way.”

“Oh, he’s a heartbreaker?” Hermione says sarcastically. 

“Something like that, Hermione,” Lupin says, then gently, “you understand my concern, yeah?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course I understand your concern over us being friends, Lupin,” she says, rolling her eyes.

He shakes his head simply. “That's not what I'm concerned about.”

“What, then?” she asks irritability. 

Lupin looks at her, directly. “You falling in love with him. Him falling in love with you.”

“Why’s that so bad?” she asks, and is not because it's true, it's because it’s confusing. 

“We don't need more love, Hermione,” he says, easily, and steps towards her. 

Tears form in her eyes, “What do we need?” it's a real question. She doesn't know what they need, anymore, to win this war. It’s hell. It’s never ending. Maybe she's dead already and this is her torture loop. 

“I meant what I said,” Lupin says, and looks at her, kindly. “He’s a lot like Sirius. He looks just like Lucius, but he’s too much like Narcissa, and Narcissa was like Sirius. They spent all their summers together. I met her a few times, even though she was a year below.She was beautiful and even more kind. Lucius is a heartless prick, but I think he really loved her. She and Sirius would have the same look on their faces whenever they talked, mischievous and joyful and just… it made you want to be around them. Draco can be abrasive, but he's magnetic.”

Hermione doesn't say anything. 

“He’s got her kindness, too, but he tries to hide it.”

“He is kind," Hermione says, and thinks of a boy introducing himself to a classmate, and that same boy asking if she's okay after his best friend's died. 

Lupin looks far away. “Sirius….he would have loved Draco. The humor, the dark wit. The sarcasm. They laugh just the same. It’s...it’s painful sometimes, it’s like he’s still in the room.”

Hermione bows her head and thinks of what she suspects, about Sirius and Lupin.

“I loved him,” Lupin whispers, “Sirius.”

Hermione reaches out, holds his hand. Lupin accepts it, and his palm is calloused and large around hers. “I know.”

“He...Draco, that is, he...he’s got a hold on people, he’s captivating. He’s been raised for it, you know. They all are, the purebloods, or the sacred twenty-eighth, they go to lessons and their mothers scold them when they're not captivating enough, when they are too sharp, or too crass, or anything other than perfectly...perfectly likeable, and poised, and polite.”

“I know,” she says.

“You don't. Not really.” he sighs, covers his face. “I know what falling in love with a Black is like, Hermione, and I understand. It’s...it’s inescapable.”

“I'm not falling in love with him,” she lies. 

He smiles at her. “I told myself that a lot, too. And then it was too late.”

She thinks of the curtain, and that dreadful whispering,and closes her eyes tight. Behind her eyelids, Draco screams soundlessly at her, falling backwards into that shimmering black curtain. 

“I thought we didn't need more love, Lupin,” she says softly.

He shrugs, and pauses by the door. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe love is what we need.”

Chapter Text

The next morning, all chatter stops when she walks into the kitchen. She rolls her eyes. “Guys,” she says plaintively.

“It’s just….we heard about you and Ron,” Harry says, looking at her all too much. They're all looking at her too much, everyone around the table. Ginny, Harry, Luna, with her big eyes and Charlie and Molly, with her sad ones, Lupin, Tonks, who looks kind and sorry. He’s there too, watching her quietly, 

She sighs. she knew it was coming, and she's been preparing her speech since last night. “Honestly, I’m glad,” she says, rehearsedly. “It was a natural end. We weren’t really together for a while now, and honestly, I’m just happy that it’s on the right track for both of us moving on. It doesn’t have to be harder than it should be.” She thinks about sobbing in an empty bedroom and then pushes that thought away. 

She walks into the pantry, rifling through the cupboards, to find something to eat, anything. There’s been a bit of  food shortage, lately. Hermione doesn't know why. She doesn't ask anymore. 

He follows her, evidently, because there's warm against her back and his breath in her hair when he reaches over the top of her, long fingers grabbing a box of crackers, apparently just as a ruse since he murmurs, in a low tone, “You've broken up with him, then?”

“Obviously, Draco,” she says. “It just wasn't…” she can't find the word. 

“Working. I know.”

She raises her eyebrows at him. “You know?”

“Everyone can see it, Granger.” he shrugs, and steps back. “You're just not right for each other.”

“Who is?” asks quietly, heart in her throat.

 He smirks at her. “We don’t know yet, do we, Hermione?”

“How’s Gabrielle?” she asks, almost just to distract her from his eyes, from just...him. 

He smiles a little, and it’s like they’re just two old coworkers who have bumped into each other at a supermarket, and says with such a casual, light ease she’s almost jealous, “a little lonely.”

She stares at him, all wide eyed and he just smirks easily and grabs a cracker from the box, walking out like that's what he came for.

—

They're in the living room, talking about muggle vs. magical weddings, of all things. Everythings been an uneasy, shifty peace treaty. Ron’s been avoiding Hermione, Draco’s been spending more time with the group, and they’re accepting him, genuinely. They like him, as they should. He’s funny, and quick, and he fits in well. Hermione thinks if he’d been in Gryffindor it would have always been like this. 

“I mean, purebloods marry each other off all the time,” Ginny says, then freezes, eyes darting to Malfoy, who sips his tea like he hasn’t heard anything out of the ordinary. His eyes flick to Ginny, and just stare. “Sorry, Malfoy,” Ginny says sheepishly. 

He takes the cup from his mouth. “For what?”

Ginny squirms in her seat. Hermioe thinks Draco just likes to see other people uncomfortable.  “I mean, just...you're pureblood, is all.”

“So are you.”

“Yeah, but I’m a blood traitor, and all that.”

“So am I,” he levels back, one eyebrow raising, and it seems like it’s going to be an issue, he’s going to take offence, but then he shrugs and all tension dissipates. “Anyways, it’s true. I'm technically engaged.”

“What?” Hermione nearly spits out her tea. Harry looks at her sideways. 

“Yeah,” he nods at her, like it doesn’t matter. “Arranged. It’s Astoria Greengrass? She was a year or two below us at school. Her sister, Daphne was in our year.”

“What, just like that?” Hermione asks, forehead creasing. She doesn't know anything about this world. Ginny and the other wizard-born folks don’t seem to think it strange. 

He shrugs. “That's how it works. I'm not marrying her though, she’s a terrible bore and it would be terribly awkward with her sister considering there are a few incidents after a smuggled bottle of firewhiskey or two.”

Hermione blushes and thinks of one night on her Prefect rounds, the amount of times she’s found Draco outside the Slytherin Common rooms with his friends, ushering in more booze, or just talking animatedly, his cheeks flushed, eyes flashing with something else, something dark and teenage that she never really expirenced. The time she’d found him and Pansy, on one of the ‘on’ stages of their on off relationship, and she coiled all around him, hands in his hair, moaning, muttering filthy things as she kissed him. She’d waited a moment before giving them detention, and she didn't know why then. 

“So, why Astoria?” Ginny asks. 

Draco leans back into his chair, and his eyes flick across the ceiling, taking in the high ceiling and all it’s scones. “She’s not very related to me, since her family came over from America a couple of decades ago, and the Greengrasses hold a good reputation in society. It’s only a formal contract because I was going to marry Pansy, since her father was selling her off to the highest bidder,” he smiles, wide, like remembering good times, “My parents had a fit when they found out. Apparently, Pansy’s got a Veela Grandmother. The horror. Anyways, they properly engaged me off of her so I couldn't pull the same trick again.”

“They just...did that?”

“It wasn't out of the blue, I think my father made a deal with her father when I was about five. It was the Greengrasses that needed convincing after my little stunt.”

“So are you like, stuck now? Unable to marry anyone else?” Hermione asks, decidedly not concerned about Draco’s marital status. 

He gives her a crooked grin, “No,” he shook his head. “It’s just an engagement, it can be broken any time. Especially with my...estrangement, from the Malfoy family line, I doubt the engagement even still applies. It concerned Draco Malfoy, and I would say I'm not really a Malfoy anymore.”

“You're not?” Harry asks, surprised as well. Hermione remembers that even though he’s a half-blood, he wasn't raised like the others, as a wizard. 

He sighs heavily, rolling his shoulders, and his whole body moves in one fluid line. “Well, I'm sure I've been properly exiled by now, so yes.”

“That can happen?'' Harry asks again, his forehead creasing into a million different lines.

He laughs, but it’s short and a little croaked out. “Merlin, yes. I wonder if they’ll let me into the fortune after the war? Provided we win, of course.”

No one says anything, until Ginny brings up Luna’s new earrings — calcified bones.

It’s midnight, and the others have gone to bed, Ginny and Harry trudging up the stairs. Hermione said she’d stay up for a bit longer, finish her tea, and Harry had barely hesitated before nodding, leaving just them, Malfoy stretched out across the couch, careful eyes watching Harry's dubious look. 

Harry’s footsteps fade, and Hermione clears her throat. 

“Astoria Greengrass, huh? She’s pretty.” She was. Young and delicate, with pretty features and blonde hair to rival Luna's.

He chuckles, shifting to lean forward, an elbow on his knee. “Don't get jealous now, Granger,” he grins. 

She shakes her head, disputing the way he’s sitting, all leaning forward and interested. “I'm not jealous. Why would I be jealous, when there’s nothing to be jealous about?”

“No?” he teases, tunts, that fucking smile she hates crawling up his face, “then why have you looked so terribly, terribly green all night.”

“I do not!” she says hotly, her cheeks heating up. 

He smiles at her, oh so sweetly, and says the obvious, “I'm not with her, Granger. I'm here. With you.”

“Draco, I —”

He sighs, cuts her off like he’s tired of her saying the same thing every time. “Yeah. I know,” he says, and casts his eyes to the wall.

“Look, we...we can’t. We can't, it’s just — so horribly impossible it hurts my head.”

His eyes flick back to her, a desperate intensity behind them. “Why is it impossible?”

“Look who we are! I'm a mudblood —”

“I'm not racist anymore, Hermione. I've apologised for how I treated you, and you said you forgave me. Was that true?”

“Of—of course it was,” she stammers, and she wonders if she’s lying right now, if she ever truly forgives him. 

“Really?”

“Yes,” she says, and she really knows it's true now, thinking of him saving her, time and time again, missions and Yaxley and all of that. “Yes, I’m sorry. I shouldn't have used that.”

“Okay,” he says.

She doesn't know what else to say anymore.

He smiles, gets that look on his face as he's about to make a joke. “You can continue with your reasons, you know,” he smiles. 

She takes a deep breath, tries not to smile, “okay, we have nothing in common. We were raised so incredibly differently. I’m from a little town that no one’s ever heard of and you live in Wiltshire, for Merlin's sake. You're literally from the most sacred house in the 28, the purest of the pure, and I'm the dirtiest I could be.”

“Stop it, with that, the blood stuff,” he says, seriously, his eyes crease, then his eyes flick to the ceiling and he smiles, his whole face changing, “and I don't live in Wiltshire, anymore,” he adds. 

“You may as well.”

“Merlin, you’re just being stupid, now. I’m a blood traitor, now. Practically the same as you.”

She covers her face, rocking back. He’s so fucking infallible. “Why do we even like each other! Come on, Draco, think.”

He rolls his eyes.“Hermione, we like each other because we’re the same goddamn person.”

Hermione blinks. “What are you on?” she asks seriously.  

“You're first in class, who's second? You’re fucking impossible to argue with, and I've been told the same. Okay, we’re ambitious, loyal, and smart. And fit.”

“Did you just call yourself fit?”

“No, I called you fit,” he agrees back, and his grin is so disarming that Hermione actually isn't mad, for a moment she’s starting to smile but then, “Hey,” Harry says, at the door again, a funny look on his face. 

Draco leans back and resumes his previous position, all relaxed and splayed out on the couch. 

“Hey,” Hermione says, quietly and ashamed. 

Harry swallows and sits back down, eyes the space between them. 

He doesn't leave until Hermione does.

Chapter Text

They've got a mission to a house buried in the woods that the Death-Eaters are using as an operations base, plans and records and names. Valuable. Only, the call for backup quickly, there's too many, a few trainees that aren’t very untrained. 

Charlie yells at them to get out and Hermione's sprinting for the apparition line when something — someone is colluding with her heavily,  knocking all the breath out of her.

“Mudblood bitch,” Yaxley growls at her. 

She screams and kicks him, trying to find her and — where, oh, fuck, it’s flown out of her hand.

Before she knows it there's another body on her, but it’s hit Yaxley sideways and is pummelling him to a crisp,

She writhes across the ground, reaching for her wand. “Curse him!” she yells, finally grabbing it. 

Draco says the fatal words, and Yaxley falls silent, forever.

“Forgot myself there,” he pants, his knuckles are all bloody.

“We’ve got to go,” she just says.

He grabs her, and they spin back outside of their safehouse, Hermione must have just barely crossed the apparition line when Yaxley tackled her... When did she start thinking of it as theirs, she wonders, staring at the blue sky, spotted with white columbus clouds. Without a word, they just breathe. Her mind’s whirring, working, figuring out everything, analysing Yaxley and Malfoy and his fist in his face, the look in his eyes, the blood, her wand and then - then her mind’s caught in the present, in the way he's looking at her, even though his knuckles are bleeding and bruised and there's some blood on his cheek, Yaxley’s blood, and she had seen the way he crushed his nose into his face. 

“What?” she asks, still panting, and he smiles the tiniest smile and steps forward, and she's still confused, still caught up with the mission, and then he’s leaning down over her, hands on her jawbone, mouth slanting over her. 

She’s not kissing him back. He withdraws. 

“Uh, sorry, if —”

“No, no, I've just got to go. I can't be here.”

His face goes hard. “Yeah. Neither can I.”

“Right,” she stammers, nervous, “ It’s just I said I’d meet Neville at Grimmauld, and Madame Pomfrey needs--”

“I got it, Hermione.”

“Draco, I—” He turns, looking back at her questionably. “I’m sorry?”

He just shakes his head and he's gone. She sinks to her knees.

—

Hermione comes home a little bit later, gravel marks still imprinted onto her knees after her mild panic attack. She comes in quickly through the door, just trying to make it to her room, but of course, oh of course Harry walks in to see who’s arrived. 

“Hermione! Uh, what’s your patronus? 

“An otter. What’s your least favorite flavor of Bertie Botts Beans?”

Harry scrunches up his face in disgust, “Earwax.”

“Okay,” Hermione sighs, lowering her wand.

Are you okay?” Harry asks, seriously, and with a beat that means he doesn't just mean generally, he’s got something specific he’s curious about. Harry’s so obvious, Ron, too. They could never be spies. 

“Yeah, of course,” her eyes narrow suspiciously. “Why?” 

“Okay, it’s just...Malfoy just stormed through here, sour look on his face and you two normally apparate together, so I—”

She sighs. “It’s fine, Harry, don't worry about it.”

She walks past him, fully intent of trying to convince herself she hasn't just made a major fuckup for four hours while working herself raw, then dropping dead, hopefully. 

“Hermione?”

She turns, looking back at Harry. Harry, her best friend. That messy hair, and the eyes. Why couldn't she love him instead? It would be so much easier, wouldn't it? “Yeah?” she asks, keeping her throat clear. She isn't going to cry, no. Not right now. 

“Um, you’d tell me, yeah?” Harry says, awkwardly. 

“Tell you what?” she says carefully, and wonders how to play her cards. 

“If you were...whatever with Malfoy.”

She frowns, wondering how she knows, and remembers breakfast, that day and that night, where he’d called her fit in the living room that night, and Harry had walked in. She wonders what he thinks she’s done. If she’s cheated, or just emotionally. If she’s in love with him. She’s not. She’s not in love with Draco Malfoy.

“I’m not,” she just says, and stares at him. 

Lupin walks past, and says, “after mission debrief.”

She pauses, “oh, can’t it wait? I've got a shift.”

He shakes his head, “No, it can't. Pomfrey will understand.” She drops her jumper. Shit, that's serious. Normally Lupin lets her catch up later, but not today, it seems.

She hurries in with all the others, and ends up sitting far in the corner of the kitchen, surrounded by everyone. It's a squeeze to get them all into the kitchen now, with the Aurors and the permanent residence and a few strategists. 

“Yaxley has been killed,” Lupin says seriously. Next to him, even Tonks has an uncertain look on her face. There's a general murmuring throughout the room, heads tuning to each other, Hermione looks at Draco, whose face is impassive in the corner. “Fred saw his body on the way out. Who did it?”

Draco leans forward. His face is blank. “I did.” Everyone recalibrates, adding this new information and reacting. Half the heads swivel to Lupin and the other half to Draco. Hermione doesn't say anything, just remembers watching Draco pummel the living shit out of Yaxley.

“You beat his face in,” Fred says. “And I mean it, when I say that.”

“Yeah,” Draco says, and shrugs, like it’s just the weather. “He was a bastard, always has been. Used to laugh at me, when I was a kid. Say disturbing shit.” Hermione looks at his hands. They're red and across his knuckles there's a strip of scab. No one else has noticed.

“What happened?”

“I was retreating, like Charlie had ordered, when Yaxley tackled me. We fought, I got on top of him, and...well, then I remembered myself and killed him, and left. Went to Liverpool. I was alone.”

Hermione blanks. Hmm. Is he trying to protect her? Is it because of what happened when they got back?

“Why didn't you use your wand earlier?” Charlie asks, looking at him curiously.

"It flew out of my hand when I fell."

“You can't do that again,” Lupin insists. He's been more worried lately. More things have been going wrong, and everytime he gets wounded tighter and tighter, gets more anxious. Even Tonks doesn't help; she usually has a calming effect, but not this time, "we don't have time for fist fights."

Draco turns impish to apologetic, “I know, it was a stupid mistake, I won’t again and I'm just lucky no one got hurt because of my blunder.” His eyes dart to her, Hermione pushes her chin out at him.

“Draco...be careful,” Lupin says with a sigh, and Draco's eyes leave hers so quickly it's like they were never there.

“Of course, captain,” he says, as if he’s listening, and Hermione watches him saunter out.

Chapter Text

The week after the kiss, they don't see each other, at all.

She has the distinct impression he's avoiding her, seeing as it is conveniently never at breakfast, and dinner, and lunch, and they aren't in the same strategist meetings even though they are meant to be, and the Liverpool house is continually empty, but Ginny mentions she’s seen him around, so she knows he’s not dead, atleast. Rotting in some ditch, it makes her stomach turn.

Hermione just wants to tear out her hair. It was a mistake. A fucking mistake, it was just a fucking mistake, and now everything’s fucked.

She doesn't know how she feels. Angry. Sad. 

Maybe just angry. 

How fucking dare he ice her out like they never even existed. That day, she had a hospital shift and she had to meet Neville and do a thousand fucking other things, and she tried to tell him. He wouldn't take it. He got angry at her, like she was choosing to leave, and stormed out, like a toddler having a tantrum.

She tries to seek him out, after that realisation. Hangs around in the kitchen, and tries to figure out where he's gonna be. 

She never runs into him. Like he knows where she’s gonna be. It’s actually impossible. She’s really going to tear out her hair, she is, and leave it on his doorstep. Maybe then he’d talk to her. 

She pushes her hair out of her face and thinks about cutting it short. She was half-joking before, about tearing it out, but now...she takes her hands over her skull, and she wants it short. She wants a transformation. Physical representation to show she’s changed. Long hair isn't Hermione anymore, it’s not. It’s not practical for war, either. It can be grabbed during combat, and it takes too long to get ready in the morning. She’s sick of it. 

—

“You sure?” asks the muggle hairdresser in London. She’d gone to them on purpose, she didn't want Molly to do like she normally does, calling everyone in for half an hour where she chopps an inch or two off everyone when they get too shaggy. She wanted this to be special. 

“Yes,” she smiles at Charlene, and keeps her eyes open, focused on her head as Charlene gets out the scissors. “Do it.” she says, more to herself. 

Okay, honey,” Charlene says, and starts. 

She lets out a breath as her fist curl falls. 

“Wow,” she says, when it’s done. “Wow.”

“You like it?” Charlene asks, smiling at her all kindly. 

“Yeah, I do,” she says honestly, and laughs as she reaches up, touching her new hair. 

Her new hair doesn't curl past her ears. It’s trimmed close to her scalp, and she likes on her face with it. She looks...prettier. Stronger. It’s like before, the focus was on her face, and now it’s just on her features, and they're delicate but they are bold, too. She’s been through shit. She’s fought a war at seventeen, and  Her eyes have changed since she was a kid. She's not so scared anymore, or not as anxious of the small things. You can see it, she hopes, as she looks at herself in the mirror. She juts out her jaw. 

She comes home after her appointment, still smoothing a hand over her head every minute. It feels so strange. So light. So empty. 

“Hermione,” Harry says, shocked.

“Hi,” she says shyly. She’d only mentioned to Madame Pomfrey she was gonna do it, who had smiled and said she should, and started talking about her days of youth. Hermione had smiled and listened, yearning for it, rather than...this. 

He remembers himself and asks a question, “How did we defeat that troll?”

She smiles. “Wand up the nose.” Oh god, the start of it all. Her turn for a question: “On the train, in First Year, what was I looking for?”

“Trevor,” he says, and walks closer to her, “I like it, your hair.”

She smiles shyly, and puts her hand there, where her curls lay close against her head. “You do?”

“Yeah, it suits you,” Harry says, and catches her eyes. “Really. It does,” he says, and she smiles at her closest friend like they’re still in Hogwarts.  

“Thanks, Harry,” she says, and she means it.

“Why’d you cut it?” 

She shrugs, tries to smile. “Just wanted a change. It's more practical.”

“Okay,” he smiles back at her, so her smiles - or attempt— must be working. “Anyways, I gotta go. Meeting with Lupin.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you, Hermione.”

“Yeah,” just says, and knows it’s true. They never drift far from each other, Harry and Hermione. 

— 

Everyone likes it, or she thinks they do. She gets lots of “Nice hair, Hermione,” or “that's new,” or “wow, different!” She almost forgets she’s cut it until she gets another one, it becomes her metric of time, almost. Her system, I haven't seen Fleur for at least a day and a half, because she’s complimented it as she’s come in. 

“Oh, Hermione, that's...different,” Molly says, but she smiles at her fondly and adds that she likes it.

“Hermione! Rad!”Hermione laughs back at Tonks and thanks her.

“Blimey, ‘Mione,” Ron says when he sees it. She blushes and smiles tightly. “That’s...new.”

“Yup,” she just says, and watches him carefully. 

He continues. “It’s...nice. Uh, new. Never seen you like that.”

“Thank you, Ronald,” she says curtly, and leaves.

Everyone except him. Everyone said something but him. It’s infuriating. She didn’t do it for him, of course, she’d never just do anything for a man, but she’d at least like him to notice.

— 

She’s with the others, Harry and Ron, staggering through the door, and it's the first time she’s been out with Ron since...since the breakup, but it's fine, it's been okay, he just won't look at her.

“Potter, where did I ask to meet you, for that duel in first year?” it’s him, Draco, standing at the top of the stairs, wand out.

“Trophy room,” Harry says.

There’s a beat of silence, and she realises they don't know what to ask him. they don't know anything about him to ask. 

She clears her throat, his eyes dart to her, and widen, maybe at her hair. He hasn't seen it since she cut it, and she's strangely self conscious. “What's the one thing you wish you’d done?”

He looks at her. “Dance. With Blaise.” She feels like she's crossed a line. She feels like she’s crossed a line. 

She sighs. “Okay. Okay, it’s him.”

Ron shifts a little, and she can feel his eyes burning into her, waiting to interrogate her. Even after they're done, his suspicion of them doesn't end. 

She ignores him and runs up the stairs, pushing past Malfoy. 

—

Ten minutes later Hermione’s had a vigorous screaming match into her pillow and is just now collecting herself, pulling tendrils of hair back from her flushed face. 

Someone knocks at her door. Cautiously, she calls to come in.

The door opens and it’s Harry. It’s just Harry. She sighs in relief and dual regret. 

“Hi,” she says, and he walks inside, taking a place next to her on the bed.

“What’s that about, Hermione?” he just says, and he looks as tired as she's ever seen him. 

She plays dumb even as her heart rate speeds up. “What is?”

Harry isn't deterred. He knows her too well. Drat. “The question.”

“Uh, Harry —”

“Hermione, look.  It’s just...you running around with Malfoy, it’s worrying all of us, especially after what happened with Ron, Hermione. You've been with him forever, and then you—” 

“I didn't dump Ron for Malfoy, Harry,” she says, incredulously. 

“Hermione…” he says. 

“What are you, crazy?” she says, and laughs loudly, “me and Malfoy! no!”

“No! No, just look at the facts, alright? You — you spend all that time with him in the morning, drinking tea and laughing and shit, remember that night, and I walked in and he was fucking flirting with you! That house in Liverpool — you practically fucking live there!”

“I do not!”

“You have quiet little arguments, and you get all — sad and fucked up whenever they happen, and — and lemme tell you the timeline, ‘Mione! You are dating Ron, happy! He started dating Gabrielle and literally three days later, you dumped Ron, and then he did too! What the fuck are you doing, Hermione? Playing some sadistic game of chicken?”

“No! You’re making me out to be the fucking villain all the time!”

“Because you are, Hermione but not — not like that! Just...you’re acting fucking crazy, with him.”

“Honestly, Harry, you're totally fucking reaching! I dumped Ron because I wasn't happy with him! I spend time with Malfoy because I like him, because he's a nice person.”

“He's a fucking Death-Eater, Hermione!”

“He's not a Death-Eater!” she defends him hotly, hands clenching at her sides, fingernails digging into her palms. 

“He was!” he says,“He was a Death eater though! He was. Okay, he believed in that shit, he lived in that shit, and that just doesn't go away.”

“That's fucking ridiculous, Harry. Give him a chance, Harry. You heard Lupin’s speech.”

“I just can't forget it. Forget seven fucking years of him being a git, and now he’s reformed?”

“Well, everyone else has! Stop holding onto shit, Harry,” she says angrily, grabbing her coat and getting ready to go.

“Where are you going?” Harry demands. 

“I have to go to the hospital. Madame Pomfrey needs help.” She doesn't actually, or not particularly. She always needs help. 

“Hermione —”

“I actually have to go, Harry. Unlike you, sitting on your arse all day being the boy who lived and hounding me about my nonexistent love life!”

She slams the door in his face and rushes down the hall to the stairs. 

“Jesus Christ, you won’t believe what Harry’s just said to me,” she complains, dumping her bag on the hook, stomping towards the matronly nurse. 

“Oh, god, what now,” Pomfrey says, by far used to it by now. 

“He’s gone off at me, saying I'm in love with Malfoy, and accusing me of breaking up it Ron for him!”

There's a long pause, then Pomfrey says, haltingly, “Well, if the shoe fits, dear."

Hermione gapes, offended. "It doesn't!"

Madame Pomfrey holds up her hands in defence, "I'm not blaming you! I've seen him, you know."

Hermione cackles a laugh, "Ms Pomfrey, you're twice his age!"

"Never said for me, dear. I've heard the rumours, and every girl needs a boy like Malfoy, at least once."

"There are no rumours," Hermione refuses stubbornly. 

Pomfrey raises her eyebrows. "Really? So he hasn't been flirting with you, and he didn't date Gabrielle to make you jealous?"

"Of course he didn't do that," Hermione scoffs. 

"Hm. I'm told they spent a lot of time being...affectionate in public. If I was an emotionally constipated young man who wanted the attention of a girl, maybe I'd turn to the same methods."

"Pomfrey."

"Dear, I'm just pointing out the correlation."

“Well, I'm not dating Malfoy now, am I?”

"Not yet," she murmurs, carrying a box of supplies across the room. 

"Poppy!" Hermione yells. 

Chapter Text

She fumes for an hour at the hospital until Pomfrey tells her to go home, that she’s doing more harm than help in this mood. Hermione, pink-cheeked, accepts and goes home. She lets herself in quietly, Walburga’s curtains are closed, and no one sees her come in. 

“Hermione..” her name drifts in from the living room. She freezes, but she's not being called, she’s being discussed. In conversation. 

She, as silently as she can, creeps towards the door, listening quietly.

“Look, I'm just telling you what I saw,” Harry? That's Harry, for sure! “Don’t get mad at me, okay?”

“I'm not mad, Harry. It’s just, my fucking girlfriend, shagging Malfoy? It’s an anger-inducing topic, is all!” Ron says hotly. 1. She’s not Ron’s fucking girlfriend. 2. She’s not shagging Malfoy! Why does everyone think that!

“She's not shagging Malfoy, alright. I’d know if she was shagging Malfoy, Hermione’s so obvious you could tell from a mile away,'' Ginny! That bitch. They’re gossiping about her! Those slimy, good for nothing, dirty little fuckers. Hermione narrows her eyes and steps into the room.

“I'm not shagging Malfoy,” she says, raised brow. “Thank you for discussing it without my presence.”

“Hermione,” Ron just says, mouth dropping open like he’s trying to catch flies. That focuses her rage on him.

“Also, Ronald, I am not your girlfriend! I haven't been for weeks!”

“I was speaking in the past tense,” he defends himself hotly, “and we figure if you were sleeping with him now, you were probably sleeping with him then.”

“I've already said I wasn't sleeping with him, and you really think I’d cheat?” Well….

“No! It’s just...you've been acting so strange.”

“It's a fucking war, and my so called best friends are sitting here disscussisng whether or not I’ve cheated on my boyfriend, with the boyfriend in the room!”

“Hermione…”

“No, this is ridiculous. I’m leaving.”

“Hermione…” Harry says, soulful eyes lingering on her. 

“You're being stupid, and mean, and not at all like my best friends, and really I'm quite disappointed in you all. We aren't in school, anymore, but you're acting like schoolchildren.”

She scoffs at them and walks away before anyone can respond. Before she goes she sees the looks on their faces, shell-shocked and confused and sad. 

When did it all change?

This never would have happened before the war, before their close knit friendship got torn apart. She's not even sure when it happened, was it before Malfoy or after? Was it one night, when Ron came in, white-faced and sat there all night, saying nothing? 

The saddest thing is Hermione doesn't even care. 

Chapter Text

She’s late to  meet Lupin — she has to pick up some potions from Snape, and change some bandages, and check on Padma, who’s meant to be waking up from a magically induced coma today. She steps out of her room, takes two steps and freezes. He’s come up the stairs, going to his room, obviously. It's the first time they've seen each other since...the kiss.

Fuck, he looks...tired. He’s got dark circles under his eyes, and his skin’s pale, but not like normal,  a little pallid. his hair’s messy, and not in the cute just-woke-up way, in the never went to sleep way. 

“Hi,” she stammers, and his eyes drag up the floor to land on her. 

“Hey,” he mumbles, and keeps walking, passing her. She closes her eyes and wants to sob, because it's all fucked up, they were friends, she liked him. It’s all fucked up now, and it’s her fault. 

“Draco,” she says, and he stops, turns, but keeps his eyes cast away. “Draco,” she says again. “I— I’m sorry.” His eyes flick to hers, and she’s careful, waiting, biting her lip. 

He tries to smile, play if off. “For what, Granger? Nothing...nothing happened.”

Her brow creases. “I’m sorry that I fucked it all up. Mornings drinking tea and talking to each other like we’re friends, and — sitting on the couch in Liverpool. I liked that. I liked doing that with you, but I fucked it all up.”

He shrugs, leans on the wall gingerly. “Not your fault.”

It feels like he's gonna turn around and leave again, and she's desperate to keep him there, so her words flee from her tongue without thought. “I'm sorry about the question, too.”

He blinks in surprise. “It’s fine. I know you had to.” 

“I wish I could have thought of something else to ask,” she says, anyway, and her chest hurts, aches with something else. Regret and sadness and just pure plain suffering. Goddamn empathy. 

He speaks, this time. “I’m sorry...about the— the kiss, too,” he says, and it sounds real, his head lowered in shame, “I knew you weren't… interested, but I did it anyway. I couldn't fucking help it. Once I got a little of you, I just wanted more.”

She malfunctions, her brain grinds to a halt. “Wait, What?”

“What?” he asks, tilting his head in reaction to her. 

“You — you think I'm not interested?” she asks, pointing at him, trying to work through it. 

He shrugs, “Well, yeah.”

“Are you stupid?” she snaps bluntly. 

“Granger —” he starts but Hermione's sick of that ‘Granger’ shit, this isn’t Hogwarts anymore. 

“No. I call you Draco, you can call me Hermione.”

“Hermione,” he says, like he’s testing it out again. 

“What makes you think I'm not interested?” she says, almost angrily. 

He looks uncomfortable now, holding his spine too stiff, string up at the ceiling to get away from looking at her. “You didn't —”

She sighs and doesn't let him finish. “I had to go meet Neville, Draco. I had to go do a thousand things and stitch up whoever Madame Pomfrey needs helped with. That night, we lost two people, because I was late. Not everyone just goes home after nearly dying and has time to do things like….like that!”

“I—” he tries again, but she’s sick of letting him talk, or, not talking, if he had his way. 

“Ron, Harry, all of them, they think I left him for you, and they've been treating me like some whore, and I put up with it not because I have to, but because it's true. Okay? I left him because of you, and then I didn't have time to kiss you back, so you throw a little fit and avoid me for a week?”

“Granger —”

“Hermione,” she corrects.

“I'm sorry,” he says, and looks at him with those eyes like he means it. “You're right. You're always right, so I should have known. I'm sorry. I was...I’ve been acting up this whole time.”

She didn't notice when, but he stepped forward. They're as close as they were...last time. Right as she's making that realisation, that's when he leans forward, kisses her. She kisses him back tangling her hands in his hair, pulling him closer to her. Distantly, she thinks about how she's already late, and this is a public corridor, and then his hands land on her waist and she stops thinking. Four minutes later, her bedroom door is kicked open, then shut again, and she’s carried across the room, deposited on the bed with greeting hands undoing her shirt.   “I've got to go. Shift at the hospital,” she murmurs. 

He groans, hands stilling. “You have terrible timing.”

“I know, I know.” she leans down, kisses him quickly again, then climbs off the bed and does her shirt up. 

“Oh my god, I love your hair,” he groans.

“You do?” she murmurs, and he gasps at the doubt.

“God, yes,” and his hands land on her jaw, glide upwards and cup her skull.

She can see him grinning like the cat that got the cream, so she says, a little spitefully, she'll admit. “I'm still mad, you know. I'll avoid you for a week if you're not careful.”

“Oh-ho-ho,” he says, and watches her fix her hair. “You're not that mad, surely,” he says, a moment later, just a little uncertain, but he tries to hide it.

She raises her eyebrows at him. “You have to figure it, won't you?”

He covers his face with one hand, says to her,“Hmm. why don't you come over here and I find out?”

“I'm late for my shift,” she reminds him, and promises herself she's not missing it. 

“Hermione, you’re fucking impossible,” he complains. 

She shrugs, happy and content in that knowledge. “Yeah, but I'm free at the safehouse tomorrow,” she offers, watching him carefully.

“When?”

“Meet me there at 11?” she suggests. 

He grins, “done.” 

She steps out into the hallway, and closes the door quietly. She’s grinning so wide her cheeks hurt her entire shift, and Madame Pomfrey asks what's up, curiously, gossipy, and she just shrugs and says, “good day.”

Chapter Text

She apparates to their regular safehouse with the leaky tap and the sofa and everything she’s come to love about it. It’s theirs, she always thinks. Other people use it, because sometimes there's a spoon left in the sink or something, and she knows George gets sent up here sometimes, but it's still theirs in her head. 

She wanders up the drive, lets herself in quietly, walks down the hallway to the kitchen, where — where he is, standing quietly, eyes fixed on the doorway. 

“Oh,” she laughs. “Hi. You scared me.” her eyes rake up and down him, leaning by the counter. 

“Oh,” he says back, and something’s not quite right — maybe in the way he’s holding himself, or in the way he’s looking at her, or how he’s spoken.

Her forehead creases for a moment, “Um, how do I take my tea?”

He doesn't even hesitate before he says it. “Way too much milk, Granger, it’s shameful.” 

She doesn’t know who this is, because it’s not Draco. Draco wouldn't have talked about milk, no, no, he’d of talked about the heat that could melt diamonds, and he called her Granger. He agreed no more Granger. They’ve gotten the tone right, though, and the ‘it’s shameful’, because Draco would 100% say that, in fact he probably has. 

It must show on her face he’s gotten it wrong because before she can get to her wand he’s in front of her, close, too close, and one hand’s around her neck, and the other’s grabbed her wand, thrown it across the room, and this — this isn’t Draco.

She screams and her leg knocks into the wall, leaving the side of her knee throbbing. “Who— who are you?” she asks desperately as he dragged her into the kitchen. 

His face warps and melts for a moment, then flickers back, and she can only watch in horror as Draco — no, not Draco, — whoever this is, his whole form changes, taller, broader, stronger, and his face changes, nose moving upwards, and chin out, and lips lengthening into what she’s realising is a smile.

“No,” she gasps, “no.”

“Good timing,” Lucius Malfoy says. “My charm wasn’t going to last long anyway.”

She cries out, “What do you want with me?”

He smiles, almost like Draco smiles and Hermione wants to throw up, suddenly, a dark pit of dread opening up in her stomach. “Nothing much. Nothing that can't be expected.”

She gasps, and fights for a lie. “There are people coming, you know. Soon.”

He smiles, and Hermione still can’t get past Draco, Draco’s features. “Well then, I better extract all of your memories and kill you quickly, then.”

She gapes in horror. “Uh—”

“Not what you thought I'd say?” he chuckles, eyes boring into her.

She tries to kick him, fight free, but he slams her against the counter and she goes still, mind racing, thinking of the women they save from the Death-Eaters, and what they do to them. “Why is it only you?” she asks, a sob fighting her words in her throat. Don't cry, don't cry, Hermione. Don’t let him see you cry.

“Do you love my son?” is all he says, eyebrow twitching upwards. Hermione thinks of Draco again. 

“I thought he wasn't your son anymore?” she spits out. 

Lucius shakes his head, ignoring her and her scorn. “You don't have to answer. I see it in your eyes. You do.”

“Do you think he loves you back?” Lucius asks, and laughs at her. 

“I—” Hermione says, and then stops. She doesn't know what she thinks. 

“I thought you were meant to be bright,” he says, and sounds pensive, almost sad.

“Well, I didn't fall for your pitiful disguise,” she hisses. 

He smiles at her, but it’s cold, so dreadfully cold. “For a moment, I had you fooled. The great Hermione Granger. ‘Oh, you scared me’,” he mimics, and laughs. “I had you. Pity I guessed wrong about the tea, we could have had more fun.”

The door bangs open, and “Hermione?” someone calls, and oh, god, oh god it’s him. It’s him. 

She screams, before his hand is covering her mouth. 

She hears his muffled swear, and the creak of his footsteps in the old house as he advances further. “Hermione?” he calls again. Her foot thuds into the cabinet. 

He turns towards the kitchen, and steps through the doorway. “Hey, dad,” he says after a moment of silence, his eyes wide and flicking between them, between Hermione's eyes and his hand covering her mouth, and all of it. It's a rich tapestry. 

His lip curls. “Draco. You're calling her Hermione now, son?”

Draco ignores him. “What’s — what's the first thing I ever said to you after I defected, Hermione?” he asks, and his voice is trembling, and his hand is trembling. 

Lucuis moves his hand, the one kindness he's given her. Maybe he just wants to see how it plays out. “Where’s the bread,” she gasps out, as answer.

“Okay,” Draco pants, “okay.”

His father raises an eyebrow. “What's all this, Draco? You know how pure your blood is, and you want to throw it away over some mudblood? The Granger girl? Oh, you are a fool.”

“Let go of her,” Draco commands, and there's not a tremble in his voice.

Lucius tilts his head. “Why?”

“Just — fucking do it, alright?”

“You've gotten so soft, son. You’d have ever of done this. I should have sent you to Durmstrang, but your mother’s the same, isn't she? I never should have married into the Black line, they’re too soft. Her sister’s a blood traitor, for god's sake. Her cousin too, that Sirius. Weak. Bella should have killed him earlier”

“No,” he says quietly, “no, I haven’t gotten soft, I’ve gotten out of the fucking Manor! I’ve escaped you, where I had to be hard, I had to be cruel all the time to survive. Now...now I don't have to be, and I like that person.”

“You're fighting the losing side of the war, Draco, and you think you don't have to be hard? Maybe that's why you're losing.”

“We’re not losing,”Draco says levely, and raises his wand a little more.

He scoffs, and eyes him up and down. “You wouldn't, Draco.”

His wand hand trembles. “Blaise died. You know that?”

Lucius is unperturbed. “I heard,” he says casually, as if discussing milk prices, then dismissively, as if addressing the dirt on the bottom of his shoe, “He was never committed to the cause.”

“I was with him,” Draco says, and he’s not crying, either. “We were best fucking friends, father, and I don’t even know how, because war doesn't exactly breed love.” He stablihes himself, and takes a deep, shuddering breath and repeats, “I was with him, when he died, and I wish I’d with him then too. I'm the one that did bad things, not him. I let the Death-Eaters into the castle and I practically killed Dumbledore, but I'm the one that got to live. I have friends father, fucking friends. And Blaise is dead. I'm the one that deserves it.”

Lucius lips his lip to snarl, “You deserve worse than death, traitor.”

Draco’s wand hand doesn't shake. “Pansy… she’s been married off, you hear?” he says, and looks right into his father's face. He doesn't respond, then Draco curses under his breath and says, “I wish you’d let me marry her. I wish you had.”

He scoffs. “Please, that Parkinson bitch was never an option. You only fooled yourself into it.”

Draco’s voice is full of rage when he speaks, “Is she dead yet?” 

“Parkinson?” Lucius says, as if it needs clarification. 

Draco raises his voice. “Who the fuck else, father?”

 He ignores him answering questions calmly. “Yes. Last month. No funeral. Her parents were too ashamed.” There’s a breath of silence where Hermione’s heart stops, because she’s never seen that look on Draco’s face. “I don't blame them,” Lucius adds. 

His hand shakes. “You're a fucking monster, you know.” Draco spits, voice deathly low. He means it, Hermione knows. He means it down to his soul, and Hermione thinks of little slicked-back Malfoy from school saying that, and can’t. 

“You were never very strong. I thought maybe we could fight it out of you, or at least get a few heirs out of you I could raise to continue the Malfoy line, but here you go, consorting with this scu—” 

He doesn't finish his sentence. “You underestimate me, father,” Draco says to the corpse.

Hermione, with the sudden loss of his hand tumbles to the ground, but Draco’s there instantly, his wand dropped somewhere along the way, holding her, cradling her against his chest she screams into the fabric of his t-shirt. 

“Oh my god, oh my fucking god, I—” she sobs.

“Hermione, Hermione, breathe, you gotta breathe,” he reminds her gently. 

“I thought — I thought it was you,” she gasps, and kicks Lucius away from her. Draco grabs his wand, and levitates the body away without moving from her, just unlatching one arm and turning away momentarily to do the job. 

“I know, I know,” Draco shushes, when he returns to her. “It’s okay. I'm here, I'm real.”

“He got the question wrong,” she says, numbly, but she’s still gasping for air.

“Okay, calm down, Hermione. What was the question? Huh? Focus on that.”

“Uh— how do I take my tea? He said — he said too milky”

“Too milky? Please, you take it fucking boiling, okay? It’s shameful, genuinely, I'm ashamed,” he jokes, and tries to laugh, but doesn't succeed when she only breathes heavily into his shoulder. He holds her a little tighter, “I’m here. I’m here now.” “I wouldn't let him hurt you, not you, not you. 

She drags in shuddering breath after shuddering breath and she 's okay again, momentarily. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, right as she thinks it. 

She just kisses him, and there’s a moment of shock, his eyelashes fluttering against his check, and his lips still, but then he’s moving, he’s kissing her back, desperately, hands landing on her waist.

Then her brain catches up with her, and it all hits her. She breaks the kiss, gasping for breath, still clutched close to him, “Oh, I’m sorry, I'm sorry,” she apologises frantically, and she knows she shouldn't, she should do it because — 

“Shut the fuck up, Hermione,” he says, and kisses her again. “I am so tired of your overfuckingthinking,” he says it all as one word, pressing in between their mouths “I fucking love you, you know,” he murmurs.

Hermione allows herself one more second and separates them one final time.“You love me?” she asks, quietly and she can't quite believe it. 

He rolls his eyes, sighing the words a little irritably at her obtuseness. “Yes, Merlin.”

She lets out a throaty laugh and leans forward, kissing him again.

The door bangs open, half a dozen people flooding inside the kitchen. She shrieks, skidding back into the cupboard. 

“Oh, yeah,” Draco says dumbly, “I sent a patronus.”