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Draco watches the fuel truck headlights cut through the drizzling rain, sickly yellow against miserable grey, and slumps further against the window.
The flight to Reykjavík should have left five hours ago in the rosy evening, but a vicious winter storm had swept over the airport, illuminating the roiling clouds with flashes of lightning that rumbled thunder through Draco’s weary bones. Flights had gotten shuffled as the long night wore on, and Draco had wished, just for a moment as the attendant apologised for the third time, that he’d applied for an international travel permit instead.
Not that his application would have been successful. Draco closes his eyes and leans harder against his hand, an uncomfortable chill shivering across his skin. The Ministry never found enough evidence to throw him into Azkaban, but they’d kept him trapped all the same. First at Hogwarts, with that ridiculous extra year to “finish their precious studies,” and then at the ever-watched Manor where his parents wilted and withered with every passing year.
But their limitations were restricted to magical forms of travel. Draco was safe in this unsafe metal tube that had no business flying through the sky.
He's drifting almost to sleep, half-listening to the bustle of other passengers making their exhausted way onto the aeroplane, when someone behind him jostles his seat and mutters an insincere apology. And then, as if on cue, a small child starts crying.
Draco opens his eyes and sighs just as someone settles into the seat beside him. A woman, he guesses, from the faintly familiar floral perfume that wafts towards him, but he’s too tired to lift his head and peek at the window’s darkened reflection to indulge his mild curiosity.
A bag bangs sharply against his knee and Draco winces.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, and Draco starts at the sound of her voice, warm and richer than his well-worn and half-faded memories.
“The overheads are full, I’m so sorry, do you mind if I just,” and then the bag is half in Draco’s lap as Hermione Granger, of all people, twists and squirms out of her coat beside him.
Draco surreptitiously unfolds his coat collar and tucks his chin further into it.
“Sorry,” Hermione repeats, and he gets the impression of a flashing smile as she drags her bag back into her own lap and then carefully shoves it under the seat in front of her.
“It’s fine,” Draco says brusquely, his voice deeper than usual, and she tenses for a moment before settling back into her seat and snagging the safety information from the pocket in front of her.
He watches her, in the window's reflection, as she studies the card as though she’ll be quizzed on it later. Her unruly hair’s braided back, a long thick rope that slides over her shoulder when she bends down to switch the safety card for a muggle novel from her bag.
Draco hasn’t seen her since they graduated Hogwarts, and his heart twists painfully as her knee bumps against his, Hermione pressing closer towards him as a burly man takes the aisle seat with a grunt.
Hermione’s shoulders curl inwards as she hunches over her book. The trickle of passengers finally comes to an end, and Draco straightens, slightly, to peek over the sea of heads in front of him and half-heartedly watch the attendant motion towards the exits.
Not that it matters. If there’s a disaster, well, his wand is tucked safely into his sleeve, hidden from muggle eyes with several concealment charms. Hermione keeps her nose in her book, crossing and uncrossing her ankles as the aeroplane finally begins to move.
Her knuckles turn white around the pages as the aeroplane hurtles down the runway, the increasing speed sending a faint thrill of exhilaration through Draco’s veins. As though he’s on his broom, soaring above the Quidditch pitch, the roars from the crowd thrumming under his skin. He leans back in his seat, his hand naturally falling to the armrest, his fingers curling around the thin cushioning as the aeroplane begins to lift into the air.
Hermione’s hand closes over his and then jerks away. Draco glances towards her, sees the way her eyes are screwed shut and how her lips are a thin, panicked line. Her hands flutter around the book in her lap, her fingers twisting around each other.
Draco catches her hands with his and her fingers squeeze hard enough to hurt. He can feel the frantic beat of her pulse where his fingertip presses against her bare wrist. The soft wool of her jumper skimming across his exposed skin. Draco shifts in his seat, eyes narrowed as he watches her eyelashes flutter, flicker, fly open.
Her eyes are dark and inscrutable as she stares at him, their faces a handspan apart, emotions flitting across her face too fast to identify. His stomach drops as the aeroplane soars higher into the sky, and her fingers clench around his as she draws in a shuddering breath. Then another.
And then the pressure of the aeroplane’s take-off gently abates and she wrenches her fingers free from his.
“You seemed scared,” Draco says, his throat dry as he slides his hands back to his own lap.
“You,” Hermione says, her hand flying to her mouth and holding back whatever she’d been about to say. She glances around, as though searching for an escape, but she’s trapped in the middle seat as the lights of London disappear behind them.
Draco turns back to the window and props his chin in his hand, ignoring her the way he should have ignored her fidgeting fingers. But he watches, in his peripheral vision, as Hermione lowers her hand and curls her fingers around the book in her lap.
If he brushed against her mind with his Legilimency, he could know that her cheeks are flushing because of anger. But he turns his gaze back to the black expanse of night sky, the faint smudge of his own reflection, and closes his eyes.
The aeroplane’s passengers are quietening down as the lights begin to dim. It’s a short flight, but it’s been a long night, and Draco keeps dozing off, brought back to wakefulness by Hermione’s miniscule movements beside him. The way she brushes her arm against his as she rests her elbow on the armrest between them. The press of her knee against his.
The soft weight of her head falling against his shoulder.
Draco jolts into sudden wakefulness and then forces himself to be still. There had been smudges of exhaustion under her eyes when she’d stared at him, of course she’d fallen asleep. Better the shoulder of someone she knew and hated than the shoulder of a stranger.
He tilts his cheek towards the softness of her unravelling curls. Hermione doesn’t leap away with a shriek and half-muffled hex. Instead, she shifts under her coat-turned-blanket and nuzzles closer to his arm.
Draco wants to distil this moment into a crystallised memory, but instead he drifts off to sleep once more, his every inhale sweetly Hermione-scented, orange blossom and lilac.
A jolt catapults him from sleep. Draco’s eyes are gummed shut and he grimaces as he rubs them open. Every muscle in his body aches, his neck most of all, and he straightens and winces at the rush of agony.
Beside him, Hermione stirs, her arm bumping against his as she stretches and blinks, blearily, at him.
The aeroplane drops and her eyes go round and wide as she clutches at his arm.
“Just turbulence,” Draco says, his voice thick, as his stomach drops and settles back where it belongs. He pats her hand and Hermione flinches away from him.
“I hate flying,” she mutters as she bends and shoves her unread book back into her bag. “More than you,” she adds, under her breath, as she straightens back up and shoots him a glare.
If he points out that she slept on his shoulder, she’ll only glare harder, so Draco shrugs and shifts his hand away from the armrest between them. A silent offer, if she wants to cling onto it for dear life.
The aeroplane drops again and Hermione latches onto the armrest with a white-knuckled grip.
“Then why do it?” Draco asks in the flat and bored tone of voice he’d perfected as a teenager.
“Because,” Hermione says in a tight voice as she narrows her eyes at him. For a second it seems as though that’s all the answer he’ll get, and then she takes a deep breath and continues, her gaze fixed on his nose, or perhaps his chin. “I wanted to get away.”
He sneaks a covert glance towards her hands, her clenched fingers, but there’s no sparkle of silver or gold binding her to someone else. “From?” Draco asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Work,” Hermione says flatly. “Everything. Everyone.” She looks past him, out the tiny window, and her fingers clench against the armrest.
Draco shifts his head to block her view, making a show out of stretching his arms and adjusting his coat, even though the cramped space between seats makes it less production and more precarious. “And how is the Ministry?”
She makes a face at him and takes a deep breath. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Move your stupid head so I can see the lights.”
Draco rolls his eyes and leans back into his seat. “We’re about to land, Granger. You made it, safe and sound.”
“You’ll jinx it, Malfoy, shut up.” Her fingers around the armrest tense so tightly he can see the tendons on the back of her hand shifting with every miniscule movement. Her other hand is curled around the end of her braid, knotting into the soft-looking strands.
He glances out the window to see how close they are to the ground, but all he sees is his own pointed reflection frowning back at him. And Hermione, catching his gaze in their reflections, her dark eyes blurring as she turns away.
“At least the rain stopped,” Draco murmurs, just as the crackle of the captain announcing their landing spreads life throughout the aeroplane.
He holds his hand out, palm up, in front of the armrest, as the other passengers begin to stir and stretch and murmur conversations that echo in a cacophony around them.
The aeroplane skids onto the runway, and Hermione untangles her fingers from her hair and clutches at his proffered hand. Her nails dig into his skin, her grip tight enough to bruise, and for a second Draco wonders if she’s going to break his fingers as delayed revenge for all the harm he caused.
The force of the aeroplane careening down the runway pushes Draco back into his seat, makes his hand fall against hers on the armrest. The overhead latches rattle alongside the roar of the engines, and Draco closes his eyes and clenches his fingers around Hermione’s.
Like tumbling off a broom and landing, winded, on the cushioned charms of the Quidditch pitch. For a moment the aeroplane falls silent, enough time to draw in a breath and open his eyes, and then there’s a clamour, a clattering, people unbuckling their seats even though they haven’t arrived at their gate yet.
Hermione tears her fingers from his like his touch burns. Draco flexes his fingers as he settles his hand nonchalantly in his lap.
The man in the aisle seat lingers as everyone else gets off the aeroplane. Draco shifts, uncomfortable and impatient, against Hermione, who shifts against him.
“We didn’t fill out the customs paperwork,” she says, alarm flickering across her face as she adjusts her bag.
“We can do it inside,” Draco says, wondering when he and she changed into we.
“Right.” Hermione takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Her warm breath brushes against Draco’s lips, a ghosting kiss. “You’ll need my help, of course.”
He doesn’t. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he murmurs.
Draco stands. Holds out his hand towards her, wondering.
Hoping.