Chapter Text
HERMIONE
They were back in Hermione’s flat, Crookshanks curled on her lap on the bed as Draco took title after title off her bookshelves to ask after them. The long lines of him were painted a faint yellow in the glow of the morning sun through her window, and she couldn’t help looking.
Had she known years ago how beautiful he was? Had she appreciated the shape of him then, too?
“You didn’t used to read so much fiction,” he noted, leafing through an old copy of Brave New World .
“I was addicted to academic achievement,” she reminded him. “Not much literature coursework to be found in a school for witchcraft.”
Selecting her copy of The Iliad , he strode over to join her, lounging across the foot of her bed as he flipped open the front cover. More lines of him curved and bunched deliciously. She stared.
“I’m still surprised at your interest in mythology,” she admitted.
He grinned down at the pages, and Hermione could feel her heart stutter at the sight.
“Would it shock you further to learn that my favorites are the romances?”
Her eyes rounded, and the second Draco looked up to see her expression, he laughed.
He had a beautiful laugh.
“Which ones?” she had to know, shaking her head in amazement.
“I suppose they wouldn’t be considered love stories in a modern context,” he rationalized, “but the narratives intrigued me just the same. Daphne and Apollo, Eros and Psyche…”
He gave her a darkly flirtatious look.
“Hades and Persephone.”
“Are you going to drag me to the Underworld with you?” she teased even as she felt herself flush crimson.
His smile widened.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he teased back, and for a moment, his rapt attention was too much, too powerful.
Her eyes flicked away.
“Don’t lose all that famous Gryffindor courage now,” he joked. “You did so well yesterday.”
“Give me a little while to work back up to it again.”
Her gaze returned to meet his, and he seemed to understand something beneath her words. The deepest truth of what she was saying.
That she liked him, that she enjoyed their time together, that she felt immense attraction…
But that she’d been acting out of character, or at least out of character from what she remembered about herself, and that while this was exciting, it was still new to her. She needed his patience.
If she had to take a break from time to time, he needed to trust that she would come back to him again.
“Speaking of yesterday…” she began carefully.
“Hmm?”
Slipping off the bed, Crookshanks padding over to settle in beside Draco, Hermione strode over to her window and bent down to retrieve the crumpled note Pigwidgeon had delivered.
I miss you. I’m sorry. Let me know if you want to grab coffee sometime.
Chewing on her lip, she handed it to him as she sat back down on the edge of the mattress.
“Does this meet your standards for an adequate apology?” she asked, and the sarcasm she let drip into her voice wasn’t with the intention to taunt him.
She knew what Draco would think of Ron’s lackluster attempt.
And she agreed.
“You must understand I don’t find this funny,” he replied, the note gripped in one hand, his thumb digging ridges into the parchment. “But I’m struggling not to laugh.”
“I know.”
“ I miss you. I’m sorry, ” he shook his head as he read aloud. “It’s still all about him. He misses you, then the sorry. Let me know if you want to grab coffee sometime. So it’s still your responsibility to mend things. He knows you’ll do all the work. He doesn’t even have the balls to ask you ‘Coffee on Monday at noon?’ It’s appalling.”
“I know. ”
Peeking up at her, he crushed the note in his fist.
“I hope you do,” he said.
“How would you word it?”
Draco raised an eyebrow.
“If we’d gotten into an argument and you wrote me a letter to apologize,” Hermione clarified. “How would you do it?”
“I can show you. If you like.”
“No, if we aren’t flying until later, I want to save the second memory for just before we go,” she waved the thought away, but Draco reached for her hand. His fingers slipped between hers so easily, and they tightened in her grip so steadily.
“Not a memory.”
Quirking her head, she studied the pained expression he wore.
“Do you… have a letter you wrote me? From back then?”
“Several, in fact.”
“You kept them?”
Draco sighed and sat up.
“You did,” he corrected gently.
After a moment, the pieces fell into place in her mind.
“I gave them back to you…” she realized. “Before you Obliviated me, I asked you to hold onto them for me.”
He nodded.
“Do you… can I see them?”
“Let’s start with one at a time, shall we?”
“Okay.”
Sitting up straight, he summoned a lidded parcel, about the size of a Muggle photo box. Soft green and white stripes decorated the lid.
“I have a hard time picturing you selecting this out of a craft shop,” she grinned.
“Guilty,” he muttered. “This was yours.”
Yes, it must have been.
“May I?” Hermione held out her hands for it.
“Do you mind if I do it?” he asked, clutching it a little tighter. “There’s… more in here than just letters.”
She nodded, and he lifted the lid. Right on top, she saw a small, red velvet satchel and what appeared to be a polished wooden jewelry box, slim and hardly as wide as her palm.
“Are there photos of us?”
Draco shook his head sadly.
“I would have loved one,” he said as his long, competent fingers lifted a stack of parchment to search for a specific page. “But we never took any together.”
“Maybe we could fix that soon.”
Smiling softly, he found what he was after and pulled a neatly folded paper away from the rest.
“I’d like that.”
Smiling back at him, she took the letter.
“Do I need context for this?” she wanted to know. “Was there something in particular to inspire an apology that I should know about?”
“You’re much too used to vagueries. I’m a very specific writer.”
Yes, she could see that about him.
Replacing the lid, he vanished it and waited, giving her time to unfold the note.
“When would this have been?”
Draco only nodded toward the paper and waited for her to read.
Hermione,
My floor is littered with the hundred drafts I’ve begun and discarded. How to begin a letter to the person you hold in higher esteem than anyone else you know and beg forgiveness for such a horrendous display of posturing and self-importance?
It was wrong of me to speak to you the way I did yesterday. It was selfish and cruel to suggest you weren’t equally committed to the house elves’ well-being. Dobby and Hokey have only ever had the most appreciative things to say about your efforts, and discounting them was not only childish, it was wildly unfair. You’ve done a great deal to advance their positions within the castle, even if progress is maddeningly slow. Your effect is felt, and although change is difficult for them, I know several of the elves are very grateful. To say that you misunderstood their circumstances wasn’t merely a poor choice of words. It was distasteful and arrogant. I admire your work, and I’m sorry that I threw it in your face the way that I did. I’ve spoken to Dobby, and I hope you’ll accept his delivery of this letter.
If you’re able, please come to the Room of Requirement tonight. I’ll go straight there after dinner and wait as long as I must. (No, I won’t make any more jokes about the bed it conjured up last time. If another appears, I’ll get rid of it.)
Forgive me. Please. I hate it when you’re upset with me, though I’ll accept your ire for as long as I must. Just not your silence. Never that, and I’m not above begging for mercy. Force me to do Arithmancy homework if you must, but please don’t shut me out. I couldn’t bear it last time (though that was well-deserved, too, I admit).
Hope to see you tonight,
x Draco
P.S. You looked beautiful at breakfast. Did you wear your hair in a braid to punish me? We need another solution that shows your face and your curls at the same time.
His penmanship was neat and precise. He wrote like someone who’d been taught how to add decorative flourishes but chose not to bother with them. He wrote like someone who wrote quickly and often but had never quite shed the aesthetic sensibilities that came with an aristocratic upbringing.
Hermione found herself transfixed by the curves and tilts of his handwriting even as she picked apart the contents of the letter.
Draco Malfoy had supported S.P.E.W.. He'd even spoken with the house elves on more than one occasion. He’d encouraged her to help them and recognized what she tried to do for them, even when they didn’t want her to. She truly couldn’t recall keeping S.P.E.W. going beyond fifth year, but she must have. And she must have done so with him.
Which meant this would have been early on in their sixth year. Amid all the chaos and worry of what was to come, he’d made time for an organization she desperately tried to expand while at school. An organization Harry had barely tolerated and Ron had openly mocked. Bullying Ginny and Neville into buying badges hardly qualified as gaining their support.
But Draco…
She looked up to find him watching her, his fingers idly trailing along Crookshanks’ spine.
“You were right,” she murmured.
He tilted his head in question.
“You are a specific writer.”
She could hardly rationalize that she’d ever accepted a half-hearted “sorry, ‘Mione” when she’d once been given such a painfully detailed admission of shame and regret.
“Did I come to meet you that night?” she wanted to know.
“You made me sweat it out until midnight, but you came.”
“I’m sorely tempted to ask for that memory next.”
“The day is yours,” he said with a wink. “You so rarely asked me for anything at all, I find myself somewhat desperate to spoil you.”
Hermione smiled down at the letter as she folded it back up again.
“You already have.”
“Mmm,” Draco hummed thoughtfully as he took the parchment back from her. “You and I have very different definitions of the term.”
DRACO
After persuading her to eat a light lunch and change into something warm, Draco found himself in her living room, draining a cup of tea and gazing out her front window.
He knew her garden gate was spelled to take her to either Muggle London or wizarding London depending on which way she turned the latch, but he wondered after the other residents of her building who shared the front walk.
Hearing her emerge from her bedroom, he asked over his shoulder.
“Are your neighbors all witches and wizards, too?”
“Mostly Muggle-borns,” she told him. “Easy enough to form bonds when you have shared experiences.”
“Do you split your free time evenly between both worlds, then?”
“What free time?” she laughed. “This weekend is practically a vacation in my book.”
He turned to face her, smiling appreciatively at her fitted blue jeans and her oversized wine-colored sweatshirt.
“It’s my pleasure to spoil you by your definition this time,” he told her, grabbing her by the waist and pulling her close. “I hope you’ll let me use mine someday soon.”
Hermione’s hands landed on his chest as she gazed up at him.
“You tried before, didn’t you?”
“More than once.”
“I’m going to guess it made me incredibly uncomfortable.”
“Right as usual.”
“Was there a time I took it well?” she asked. “Something you tried that I actually accepted, at least a little?”
“I have an instance or two in mind.”
Precisely two, if he was behind honest.
“Show me one? Can that be my second memory today?”
Smirking, he knocked back the dregs of his tea, set the teacup on the windowsill, and wrapped both arms around her.
“It can. Shall we walk this time?”
“I’d like that.”
Hand in hand, they strolled out of her flat, turned the gate lock, and stepped into Muggle London, much to Hermione’s obvious bemusement.
“I still can’t get over the fact that you willingly live on the non-magical side of the city.”
“I’m being sincere when I say I enjoy it,” he insisted.
“I know you are, but I’m still stunned,” she went on, shaking her head as they crossed the street into the park. “You’ve lived on the other side of St. James’s this whole time, and I never knew.”
“Are you emotionally prepared for an uncomfortable truth?”
“That you knew where I lived and chose your flat to be near me?” she asked, and Draco’s head whipped over to pin her with a look. “Oh, come on. You can’t go on telling me how brilliant I am and then look like that when I figure it out.”
“The more fool I.”
As Hermione ducked her head to hide her blush, Draco was gratified to see her hair didn’t fall in her face.
“Nice clip,” he teased with a nod to the small twist she’d done that pulled her curls away from her face but let the rest fall freely down her back.
“A better solution?” she said with a grin, squeezing his hand and making his heart pound.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he laughed. “You look exquisite with your hair up, too.”
“Hmm…”
“What?”
She shrugged.
“Out with it, Granger.”
Still blushing, she smiled up at him.
“You might be the only one who has ever called me ‘exquisite,’ and… I have a feeling you might have said it before.”
He squeezed her hand back as they reached the other end of the park.
“You’re taking it far better now than the first time I tried.”
Hermione slipped her hand out of his, and Draco felt immediately bereft at the loss of her touch, but what she did next stole his breath. Sliding her arm across his back and her other around his waist, she leaned closer as they walked in the biggest display of public affection Draco had ever received.
He wasn’t stupid enough to hesitate in returning it.
An arm around her shoulders and the other hand gripping her forearm, he held her close, slowed his step, and dropped a lingering kiss to the top of her head.
“Thank you,” she whispered into his sweater.
“Dare I ask?”
“Your patience with me. This can’t be easy for you.”
“I didn’t expect it would be.”
“Yet here you are.”
He smirked down at her as they turned onto his street.
“Worth it.”