Transfer of Affections (HP, Genfic, Vignette, All Ages)
It's Draco Malfoy's birthday today and I tried to write something for him. But all that I managed to do was tweak
Transfer of Affections
~o0o~
The Weasleys’ home had never been as resplendent as the night Fleur Delacour claimed the family’s eldest son, Bill, for her husband. Skeptics among those gathered had their concerns obliterated by the bride’s incandescent joy.
The festivities were long and merry, and Hermione Granger, guest and family friend, waited at the reception just long enough to determine that Ron Weasley was not going to ask her to dance before she made her escape. She had seen the gobsmacked look on his face when Gabrielle Delacour, Fleur’s now teenaged sister had arrived at the Burrow. Once before Hermione had watched him flaunt a relationship in her face, and she wasn’t about to endure it again.
Chatting with other guests, she maneuvered through the crowd, making sure to speak with Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood before quietly slipping out through the enormous marquee’s entrance.
“Leaving?”
She should have known.
“I’m tired, Harry,” she replied. “Tomorrow’s a full day.”
“We leave in two days, Hermione. Surely you could stay for a dance with me?”
Hermione finally looked into his eyes. They’d darkened over the summer into a deep viridian, and she knew it was a combination of grief and resolve which had changed him. It had changed them all, but Harry the most profoundly.
“Please, just let me go,” she requested. Involuntarily her gaze slipped past him, to where an ungainly redhead danced with a petite silver-haired girl, the only girl he’d danced with all night.
Harry turned his head, and when he saw what had gained her attention, the muscles worked under the smooth skin of his jaw. Illustrating that he was indeed Lily Potter’s son as well as his father’s, he said not a word, but wrapped her small hand in his Quidditch-roughened palm, and led her from the tent.
Together, the two friends walked through the uneven ground of the Weasley’s back garden, narrowly missing a garden gnome sneaking back to its comfortable warren, and around the corner of the house to the front stoop. For a wonder they saw none of the other wedding guests.
They sat on twin stone benches and stared at the moon as it played peek-a-boo through the clouds.
“He doesn’t mean it, you know. He cares about you.”
Her heart was a little too raw for this conversation, but he could be tenacious. She sighed. “I know he does. And she’s not really old enough. It’s just …” Unbidden tears blurred her vision and Hermione blinked rapidly to keep them from falling. “… just … if he can treat me like this when we haven’t even -“
Harry knelt in front of her, his face filled with sincerity. “But it’ll be different when you’re together.”
She smoothed his perpetually unruly hair. “I used to think that. And after the … after Dumbledore’s funeral … we were so close then. I thought --”
There had been so much promise, but it had faded during the days of summer, amidst preparations for the wedding. As if ashamed of having shown his vulnerability, Ron had avoided being alone with Hermione until she no longer attempted to find ways to talk to him. It had hurt, but it had only been a dull ache in the face of her shattered dreams of a seventh year at Hogwarts, or her childish hopes for being Head Girl, or her last innocent belief that Professor Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard in the world, one who could always make things right.
Instead, Hermione had thrown all her energies into helping Harry pin down likely candidates for the Horcruxes - engaging Minerva McGonagall as a Secret-Kept confidante and source of information. Harry had reluctantly agreed, but had been very pleased with the results.
Once Hermione had stopped paying attention to Ron in ‘that’ way he had relaxed. They’d returned to their former relationship while Hermione had hardened her heart. Her folly tonight had been the last flicker of hope, but that flame, too, had been snuffed.
“He doesn’t know how to show you what he feels.”
“He shows it very well, Harry, and you know it. Besides, it’s better this way. Fewer distractions.” She plucked at the hunter green lace on her sleeve.
He laid one hand atop the restless movement of her fingers, stilling their fretting. “I don’t believe that.”
She slanted her eyes at him. “You know you do.”
Ginny’s name hovered, unspoken, in the warm night air.
“Hermione.” There was a warning tone in his voice.
“I’m not going to say more, but we can’t afford anything to interfere, to distract us from our purpose. In a way I should thank Ron.”
“What do you mean?”
“After tonight, I won’t ever be in danger from him again.”
Harry shot to his feet. “What? What the bloody hell does that mean?
“Calm down.” She, too, rose to her feet, surprised to realize that he had grown and was now quite a bit taller than she.
“Don’t you trust him?”
“With my life, Harry, just not with my heart.” And then it was too much, and she began to cry like a seventeen-year-old witch whose heart had been broken for the second time.
Harry, as awkward as any young man around a crying woman, patted her shoulder. That made her laugh, and then he muttered, “Bollocks to this,” and pulled her into a rough but sympathetic hug.
Wrapping her arms around him, Hermione held him as tightly as he held her, and cried until she had no tears left. Then she tucked her disappointed hopes for Ron Weasley into the far recesses of her heart … never to take them out again.
She raised her head, brushing ineffectually at the mess she’d made of his robes. “Thank you. I’m sorry about ….”
“No matter.” Drawing his new wand from the sheath along his forearm, Harry cast a non-verbal Cleansing Charm. Then he pointed the slender ebony wood at Hermione’s face and she felt the telltale prickle of magic on her skin. He had removed the evidence of her tears.
Just then the twins called out that the fireworks were about to go off.
Harry said nothing, merely tilting his head in a query, and she nodded. In perfect harmony with one another, they returned to the festivities before their absence was noted.
.
.
.
The trio did indeed depart two days later.
For the following nine months - enough time for Fleur to bear the first Weasley grandchild, a little girl named Rosebud, with her mum’s delicate features and her dad’s bounty of reddish gold locks - Harry, Ron, and Hermione essentially disappeared from wizarding sight.
Yet every single member of the wizarding world knew when they appeared again, for it was during the unveiling of a statue dedicated to Albus Dumbledore in Diagon Alley … and it was during what would later be known as the Final Battle between Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter.
~o0o~
I'm afraid you can't find Draco in it even if you squint.
This was what was the beginning of lifeasanamazon's final drabble of my drabble offering (supposedly a Minerva/Snape friendship) which I worked on for a few days. Then my laptop got a virus and UberGeek had to fix it. 12,000 words were wiped out. I just haven't had the heart to try and reconstruct them, and I haven't been able to come up with another scenario yet -- I've really gotten sucked into the final arc of The Summoning.
This is all that remains, and when I thought I might use it to springboard into a Draco bit today ... well, it didn't happen.
Post Script: UBERGEEK FOUND IT! He woke me at 5:30 this morning to tell me he'd found two files on his old 'ghosted image of my laptop'! I absolutely adore UberGeek!
It looks like my little one-shot is alive and well, and it seems that I've teased you all unmercifully, but I do hope you'll all be okay with that.
Transfer of Affections
~o0o~
The Weasleys’ home had never been as resplendent as the night Fleur Delacour claimed the family’s eldest son, Bill, for her husband. Skeptics among those gathered had their concerns obliterated by the bride’s incandescent joy.
The festivities were long and merry, and Hermione Granger, guest and family friend, waited at the reception just long enough to determine that Ron Weasley was not going to ask her to dance before she made her escape. She had seen the gobsmacked look on his face when Gabrielle Delacour, Fleur’s now teenaged sister had arrived at the Burrow. Once before Hermione had watched him flaunt a relationship in her face, and she wasn’t about to endure it again.
Chatting with other guests, she maneuvered through the crowd, making sure to speak with Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood before quietly slipping out through the enormous marquee’s entrance.
“Leaving?”
She should have known.
“I’m tired, Harry,” she replied. “Tomorrow’s a full day.”
“We leave in two days, Hermione. Surely you could stay for a dance with me?”
Hermione finally looked into his eyes. They’d darkened over the summer into a deep viridian, and she knew it was a combination of grief and resolve which had changed him. It had changed them all, but Harry the most profoundly.
“Please, just let me go,” she requested. Involuntarily her gaze slipped past him, to where an ungainly redhead danced with a petite silver-haired girl, the only girl he’d danced with all night.
Harry turned his head, and when he saw what had gained her attention, the muscles worked under the smooth skin of his jaw. Illustrating that he was indeed Lily Potter’s son as well as his father’s, he said not a word, but wrapped her small hand in his Quidditch-roughened palm, and led her from the tent.
Together, the two friends walked through the uneven ground of the Weasley’s back garden, narrowly missing a garden gnome sneaking back to its comfortable warren, and around the corner of the house to the front stoop. For a wonder they saw none of the other wedding guests.
They sat on twin stone benches and stared at the moon as it played peek-a-boo through the clouds.
“He doesn’t mean it, you know. He cares about you.”
Her heart was a little too raw for this conversation, but he could be tenacious. She sighed. “I know he does. And she’s not really old enough. It’s just …” Unbidden tears blurred her vision and Hermione blinked rapidly to keep them from falling. “… just … if he can treat me like this when we haven’t even -“
Harry knelt in front of her, his face filled with sincerity. “But it’ll be different when you’re together.”
She smoothed his perpetually unruly hair. “I used to think that. And after the … after Dumbledore’s funeral … we were so close then. I thought --”
There had been so much promise, but it had faded during the days of summer, amidst preparations for the wedding. As if ashamed of having shown his vulnerability, Ron had avoided being alone with Hermione until she no longer attempted to find ways to talk to him. It had hurt, but it had only been a dull ache in the face of her shattered dreams of a seventh year at Hogwarts, or her childish hopes for being Head Girl, or her last innocent belief that Professor Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard in the world, one who could always make things right.
Instead, Hermione had thrown all her energies into helping Harry pin down likely candidates for the Horcruxes - engaging Minerva McGonagall as a Secret-Kept confidante and source of information. Harry had reluctantly agreed, but had been very pleased with the results.
Once Hermione had stopped paying attention to Ron in ‘that’ way he had relaxed. They’d returned to their former relationship while Hermione had hardened her heart. Her folly tonight had been the last flicker of hope, but that flame, too, had been snuffed.
“He doesn’t know how to show you what he feels.”
“He shows it very well, Harry, and you know it. Besides, it’s better this way. Fewer distractions.” She plucked at the hunter green lace on her sleeve.
He laid one hand atop the restless movement of her fingers, stilling their fretting. “I don’t believe that.”
She slanted her eyes at him. “You know you do.”
Ginny’s name hovered, unspoken, in the warm night air.
“Hermione.” There was a warning tone in his voice.
“I’m not going to say more, but we can’t afford anything to interfere, to distract us from our purpose. In a way I should thank Ron.”
“What do you mean?”
“After tonight, I won’t ever be in danger from him again.”
Harry shot to his feet. “What? What the bloody hell does that mean?
“Calm down.” She, too, rose to her feet, surprised to realize that he had grown and was now quite a bit taller than she.
“Don’t you trust him?”
“With my life, Harry, just not with my heart.” And then it was too much, and she began to cry like a seventeen-year-old witch whose heart had been broken for the second time.
Harry, as awkward as any young man around a crying woman, patted her shoulder. That made her laugh, and then he muttered, “Bollocks to this,” and pulled her into a rough but sympathetic hug.
Wrapping her arms around him, Hermione held him as tightly as he held her, and cried until she had no tears left. Then she tucked her disappointed hopes for Ron Weasley into the far recesses of her heart … never to take them out again.
She raised her head, brushing ineffectually at the mess she’d made of his robes. “Thank you. I’m sorry about ….”
“No matter.” Drawing his new wand from the sheath along his forearm, Harry cast a non-verbal Cleansing Charm. Then he pointed the slender ebony wood at Hermione’s face and she felt the telltale prickle of magic on her skin. He had removed the evidence of her tears.
Just then the twins called out that the fireworks were about to go off.
Harry said nothing, merely tilting his head in a query, and she nodded. In perfect harmony with one another, they returned to the festivities before their absence was noted.
.
.
.
The trio did indeed depart two days later.
For the following nine months - enough time for Fleur to bear the first Weasley grandchild, a little girl named Rosebud, with her mum’s delicate features and her dad’s bounty of reddish gold locks - Harry, Ron, and Hermione essentially disappeared from wizarding sight.
Yet every single member of the wizarding world knew when they appeared again, for it was during the unveiling of a statue dedicated to Albus Dumbledore in Diagon Alley … and it was during what would later be known as the Final Battle between Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter.
~o0o~
I'm afraid you can't find Draco in it even if you squint.
This was what was the beginning of lifeasanamazon's final drabble of my drabble offering (supposedly a Minerva/Snape friendship) which I worked on for a few days. Then my laptop got a virus and UberGeek had to fix it. 12,000 words were wiped out. I just haven't had the heart to try and reconstruct them, and I haven't been able to come up with another scenario yet -- I've really gotten sucked into the final arc of The Summoning.
This is all that remains, and when I thought I might use it to springboard into a Draco bit today ... well, it didn't happen.
Post Script: UBERGEEK FOUND IT! He woke me at 5:30 this morning to tell me he'd found two files on his old 'ghosted image of my laptop'! I absolutely adore UberGeek!
It looks like my little one-shot is alive and well, and it seems that I've teased you all unmercifully, but I do hope you'll all be okay with that.