Fic: Save Me, San Francisco (3/3)
Title: Save Me, San Francisco (2/3)
Rating: T
Word Count: 20,000(ish)
Disclaimer: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK Rowling and 20th Century Fox, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.
Summary: In which Hermione has to find Malfoy and return him to his rightful place in Wiltshire.
Warnings: Language (sorry, guys - I just can’t control Malfoy’s mouth!), memory!fic
Author's Note: Written for the second round of dramione-remix, with the prompt being Dimitri and Anastasia from Anastasia.
Betas: eilonwy1, dormiensa, and callarose
Part One
Part Two
PART THREE
“Why didn’t you tell me you were back?”
Hermione looks up from her seemingly endless mounds of paperwork at her now-open door to see Ginny. Her friend looks less than pleased. “Sorry, Gin.” She sighs. Honestly, she’d been in a steady cycle of working and trying to sleep since … well, since she’d finished that job.
“So,” Ginny begins, and Hermione mentally braces herself. “How are you?” The question is pointed, and many parts of Hermione wish she could avoid any and all questions related to Draco Malfoy.
“I’m fine.” Hermione leans back in her chair, resting her hands in her lap in an attempt to dissuade any of her nervous habits from showing. When Ginny just looks at her-as if Hermione had actually called her an idiot-she continues, “Really. Just tired and trying to catch up.”
“Tell me you haven’t been in the office all weekend.”
“I haven’t.”
Ginny looks unconvinced. “Now tell me you haven’t been working all weekend.” When Hermione simply looks down at her desk, Ginny sighs. “You can’t work yourself like this. Aren’t you exhausted?”
Hermione shrugs. “It’s got to be done, Ginny.” She doesn’t know how many times she’s told Ginny that, as a consultant, she can’t just give tasks to anyone else. It’s her job, all of it.
“I suppose you haven’t even realised it’s lunchtime, have you?” This time, a smile graces Ginny’s face. She lifts up a small paper sack from the contents of her bag.
Hermione smiles as she recognises the logo. “My favourite. Sly move.”
“You look like you haven’t eaten in a week,” Ginny says as she sets the bag on Hermione’s desk. “My guess is that I don’t have to make you promise to eat it.”
“Yes, Mum,” Hermione teases. The aroma wafting from the bag is enough to make her drool. She’s always been incapable of resisting a good Pad See Ew.
“You’re working through lunch, aren’t you?” Ginny says with a short laugh.
Hermione resists rolling her eyes. It’s been a long while since she’s been self-conscious about her work habits. Instead, she nods. “But I think I’m going to go home a bit early. Do you want to come over for dinner?”
“Oh!” Ginny sounds surprised. Hermione supposes it has been a long time since she’s left work a second before five. “Yeah, of course. I’ll just let Harry know he’s on his own tonight.”
“I’m sure he’d be happy to have a boys’ night or something.” Hermione laughs. “Tell him I’ll owl him for lunch this week sometime, will you?”
Ginny nods. “Shall do! What time tonight, then?”
Hermione pauses, trying to remember if there are any groceries left in her kitchen. “I still need to pick up some things from Tesco, so how’s seven?”
Ginny lifts the strap of her bag higher on shoulder and smiles. “See you then!”
* * *
She walks in the door to her flat at just after five-thirty. As she probably should have expected, she hadn’t left the office at four as planned. But four-thirty is better than nothing, right?
With a loud grunt from the exertion, she drops three bags full of groceries onto her counter. Going to the market hungry is never a good idea-it always radically lowers her impulse control-but this is where last-minute planning gets you. Hermione quickly puts away the items she won’t need for dinner, puts the kettle on, and pads to her bedroom to change into something more comfortable. It had felt weird that morning to put on business clothes, after so long wearing denims. She’s looking forward to a quiet evening of lounging about in her favourite flannel shirt, complete with a bit of curry and tea. The only hiccup is sure to be whatever third degree Ginny will inflict on her.
At six-thirty, she’s sitting on her sofa with Dorian asleep in her lap, George R. R. Martin’s latest novel in one hand and her third cuppa in the other. Three sharp raps on her door startle her; little Dorian issues his complaint by repositioning himself on the other end of the sofa.
She frowns-Ginny’s early. They’d agreed on seven, Hermione had thought. Ah well, it’s not as if the girl’s never been early.
“Coming!” she hollers, moving the bookmark-this one the receipt she’d received upon purchasing the tome-to mark her page and setting both the book and her cup on the coffee table. En route to the door, she passes by the cooker to check on the curry chicken she’s making.
As she pulls the door open, she announces, “It’ll be ready in ten minutes, I-” Her mouth falls open when she realises that the person gracing her doorstop is, in fact, not Ginny Weasley.
Not even close.
“We need to talk,” Draco says-or perhaps ‘growls’ is a better term. “Do you mind?” He gestures towards the inside of her flat, and her body automatically flattens itself against the door to allow him in.
Eyes wide, Hermione turns her body towards the door as she shuts it-her back towards Draco-and takes the few seconds to calm her nerves. Her heart is beating a mile a minute, and it’s not the good kind. It’s much more of a fear-induced beating, much to her chagrin, but she’s just let the equivalent of a ticking time-bomb into her flat.
She slowly turns around, pressing her back against the door and crossing her arms across her chest. Draco is standing in her living room, gaze fixed on the various photographs that decorate her mantel. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and she can see the outlines of his clenched fists.
“What can I help you with, Draco?” Hermione wraps her flannel tighter around her body, cradling her elbows. Nobody is quite as able to make her feel vulnerable as Draco.
He lets out a bitter chuckle whilst he turns to face her, ending with a single raised eyebrow and incredulous smile. “Well.” He hums. “I suppose an explanation would be a good place to start.”
She scoffs. “What makes you think I owe you anything?”
She’d always found it interesting to watch his moods swing. The speed with which he can go from interested to bored out of his skull, or-as presently-teasing to angry, is fascinating. And also scary. The small smile, incredulous though it was, seems to literally drop off his face and what’s left is nothing but a blank expression, perhaps a little tight around the mouth.
“Let’s see. You literally kidn-”
“Let me stop you there, your majesty." Hermione takes two steps towards him, her hand raised to interrupt him. “It was a job, not a personal vendetta against you.”
“The larger question, of course”-Hermione can just hear the bitterness in his voice as he continues, each word slow and careful-“is how dare you?”
She offers him a bitter smile of her own. “Your mother is my client, and I delivered what was promised. End of story.”
“I see you’ve completely abandoned ethics in your old age.”
“I’m not the one who’s already got wrinkles. Must’ve been that sea air. Didn’t you know it’s not good for skin, Draco? Any longer in California, and you’d look like an old fisherman.” She smiles when his frown deepens. “Not that you’d know anything about ethics anyway.”
“Well, I’ve never lured someone across the world under the guise of a better life, only to-”
“To what? Return your memories?”
“Yes, just that.”
“Officially, that wasn’t me. It was your mother, and you can take that particular bone up with her.”
“That’s a non-issue. I don’t understand how-”
He halts mid-sentence, his gaze riveted on the kitten currently stretching on the couch, clearly unable to continue his nap with all this ruckus. She can see Draco working his jaw, and she closes her eyes once she realises-
“Dorian?” His words are soft as he recalls the name of her cat from his brief time in her flat as a Muggle, but Merlin, are they loaded. With a twinge of amusement, as if he’s just guessed the answer to a particularly difficult riddle. Not much, but it’s enough to make her immediately try to erect what remained of her walls. “That’s rather a loaded name, isn’t it?” he says, looking at her for the first time in five minutes.
Her eyes narrow. Of course he would see through that name, one shared by the lead character in her favourite book. And his favourite. It was one of the first things that she and Draco had found they had in common. She’d felt it only fitting when she first got the kitten, who’s grey from head to toe.
“And Crooks?”
Hermione’s eyes narrow even more. “What do you think? I didn’t trade him in for a younger version, if that’s what you asking.”
His eyes move to the book and cup on the table near the couch. “What has happened to your manners, Granger? You’ve not even offered me tea.”
“I don’t generally offer hospitality to men who barge their way into my flat.”
He shrugs. “Your tea was inadequate anyway.”
She rolls her eyes. “Who knew, even after all these years, you’d still be such a bastard?”
“We both know my parentage is no longer in question, Granger.”
After a long pause, during which she’d refused to dignify that with an answer, he continues. “So,” he says, his arms rising to cross his chest.
“So, what?”
“I’m still waiting for that explanation.”
She sneers. “You are in no position to demand an explanation from me. I told you: I owe you nothing.”
“Oh, and I suppose you think I owe you something?”
Hermione raises her eyebrows and tilts her head, incredulous.
“You,” he continues, “are the one who displaced me, forced my memories back on me, and then left.”
“I told you I didn’t have anything to do with the mem-”
“What makes you think I even wanted them back?” he yells.
Hermione rolls back her shoulders, straightening her posture to regain some of her height. “Do you even realise how miserable you were?”
“What makes you think my memories don’t make me that much more miserable? Oh, I apologise. It slipped my mind that you know everything.”
She ignores the insult. “Was your life so much more terrible than every other person who survived?” Her mind goes immediately to the likes of Fred’s family and friends, to Lavender and her new life, to little Dennis Creevey. “The war affected all of us.”
“Not everyone killed their best friend, now, did they?”
Hermione’s jaw slackens as she remembers.
Just before the last battle, he’d been tasked with one thing and failed-something he’d fixated on for weeks after. Arthur had mentioned once that his fixation had made him all the more ruthless-and so, useful-in the final battle at Hogwarts. Pansy Parkinson had been sent to deliver a small cache of medicine to one of the safe houses from St. Mungo’s, and Draco had accompanied her. They never sent anyone alone. Draco came back alone, and changed. Arthur and Remus had been tight-lipped about what had happened, but Hermione had pieced it together-with the few things they and Draco did say, and what he muttered in his sleep on nights he hadn’t taken a Dreamless Sleep potion. The details of the event reside only in his memory; what was important to her was Draco’s immense guilt. She could see, especially when it was just the two of them, just how the weight of Pansy’s death affected him, as if an ounce more would make his very bones disintegrate.
Her fingers twitch as she resists her desire to palm his neck, to caress his cheek, but barely. “You know it wasn’t your fault. I don’t know how many times I tried to show you-”
He scoffs. “Right. Accidents happen. The dangers of friendly fire. If I had a Galleon for every time someone’s said that-”
“Draco,” Hermione starts, but he recoils. It’s then that she realises that she’d reached out as if to touch him, and she immediately pulls her arm back to hug herself.
“If I couldn’t keep her safe, how could I protect anyone else? Who’s to say an accident wouldn’t happen again?”
She shakes her head. “Accidents happen. Life is unpredictable, and you can’t live like that. In fear of the hypotheticals.” There was a time when he’d railed at her for every ‘what if’ that passed her lips.
“I did what was necessary.”
Hermione stares at him, more than a little confused by what’s hidden in his words. She can only assume he means her when he says ‘anyone else’, but that’s an assumption she is too hesitant to make.
“What, to protect people? Yes, I can see how removing your memory and moving across the world was the best way to keep the ones you love safe.” She looks down at her fingers, digging out the day’s dirt from under her nails. “Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?”
“I was thinking of y-”
“No, fuck you. Don’t you dare try to say you were thinking of me when you left.” Hermione forces herself to exhale, trying to calm her boiling blood. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she can see why he’d run. But her own pain from his abandonment bubbles to the surface of her being, and she can’t see past it. She continues, her voice uneven, “Besides. We weren’t anything, remember?”
He crosses the few paces left between us and clutches her shoulders tightly, enough to make her wince. “Don’t. Don’t pretend I didn’t mean anything to you.”
“I never said that,” she says, attempting in vain to free herself from his iron grip. It’s too much to hope that he’d not made the connection-that when she’d spoken in San Francisco about the one who left, it’d been him. “But don’t pretend I meant anything to you. Not in the end.”
His mouth drops open, and Hermione can honestly say this is the first time she’s seen him speechless.
“I couldn’t-” He pauses, swallowing hard. “-couldn’t deal with it, Hermione. Any of it.”
She frowns, looking down at her shoulder, where his grip is more firm than vice-like now. “Draco-”
A loud knock interrupts her, and she turns to face the door. Draco’s hands immediately loosen and slip from her arms, as he steps further back. She can see him retreating in every sense of the word.
Hermione sighs when she looks through the peephole to see Ginny’s face, but she can’t tell if that’s a sigh of relief or disappointment. She swings the door open with a small smile, one that causes Ginny to halt her cheerful greeting.
“What’s wrong?” she asks suspiciously.
In answer, Hermione simply swings the door all the way open, and Ginny’s eyes widen at the sight of the blond standing in her living room.
“Ah,” Ginny breathes out. She looks back and forth between Hermione and Draco, who each grow more and more awkward. “Should I come back later?”
“No,” both Hermione and Draco say at the same time, their voices creating a cacophonous sound that Hermione thinks is what their relationship would sound like.
Draco looks at Hermione, startled, before continuing, alone this time, “I was just leaving.”
Ginny raises her eyebrows, clearly seeing through his fib, and then shrugs, making her way into Hermione’s flat. Dropping her bag on the dining table, Ginny offers a curt nod of both greeting and adieu to Draco as he sweeps out of the apartment.
Hermione turns away from the door before she can see him leave and pads to the small bathroom connected to her bedroom. Soon, the faucet is running ice-cold water, and she’s throwing palms full of it to her face. She coughs and hacks, trying to rid the lump from her throat so she can just breathe.
She feels so exhausted. Mentally, emotionally. Even physically, which is probably the most surprising of all. But Hermione’s never been the best at managing her feelings, always one to rationalise and rid herself of feelings through logic.
Over the sound of the running tap, she hears her kitchen timer go off, and she spins on her heel. Mild panic sets in, although she knows there’s more to this than the thought of an overcooked curry. To her surprise, when she opens the door, Ginny is leaned against the doorframe to her bedroom, arms crossed. In her hands is a pencil drawing, the folds well worn. Hermione thinks it must have been lying on her floor.
“I need to go check-”
Ginny interrupts her with a wave of her wrist. “The curry’s fine. I’ve Charmed it to stay warm.” She looks down at the drawing, her features softening at the sight of their old friends. “So what was that all about?” She sounds deceivingly calm.
“He’s upset,” Hermione says, pulling the bathroom door shut. “I’d expected as much.”
“Do you think he doesn’t have the right to be?”
Hermione looks up at her friend, unsure what she’s implying. “I suppose.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t feel betrayed?”
“I’m saying he’s not the only one to feel betrayed.” Hermione sighs. “Can we talk about something else?”
Ginny shrugs, and then lifts us the drawing. “How come I’ve never seen this? It’s beautiful.”
Hermione smiles, nostalgia setting in. “He drew that for me.”
“Who, Draco?” Ginny asks, surprised. “I had no idea he could draw. This is magnificent.”
She nods. “He went into art as a Muggle. He was always doodling at Hogwarts, so it’s no wonder.”
Hermione looks up in surprise when she feels a hand around hers, and Ginny pulls her in for a tight hug, the drawing falling forgotten to the floor.
“Are you all right, Hermione?”
She nods slowly, and once she finds her voice, says, “I will be.”
Ginny grips her face between her two hands, as if checking for any possibility of a breakdown. With an almost sad smile, she lets go of Hermione’s face. “Let’s have that curry, then. And wine. You definitely need some wine.”
Hermione humours her with a soft chuckle. The wine will put her straight to sleep, as Ginny well knows. But perhaps that’s what she needs: a night of uninterrupted sleep, of escape from the clusterfuck that her life has become of late.
* * *
“So the rumours are true,” Harry notes bemusedly. Hermione follows his gaze to find Draco seated on a bench near her building, his nose buried in a copy of The Guardian. Harry scrunches his nose. “Is that a Muggle newspaper? I never thought I’d see the day.”
Hermione nods. “Strange,” she mutters, trailing off. She makes a mental note to thank Ginny profusely for not talking to the boys about why Hermione hadn’t been around recently. She’s not ashamed, but Harry’s need to protect her at every turn has the tendency to complicate everything.
It’s impressive how quickly rumours about his return have spread, but then again it’s not beyond the realm of possibility for the head of the Auror Office to know these things. She’s more concerned with how close he is to her workplace. Call it paranoia, but another argument with him is the last thing she wants. She doesn’t have the energy for it.
She sends silent praises to the gods when Harry doesn’t even notice that she’s led them the long way to her office in an attempt to avoid that bench.
“I’m glad we finally got the chance to grab lunch,” she says when they reach her office. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
Harry nods bashfully. Hermione has to resist cupping his cheek. It amazes her how boyish he remains, even now. “I never knew it’d be so difficult to balance everything. Work, family, a social life.”
“I guess that’s what growing up’s all about, isn’t it?” she quips, dropping her bag on her desk and moving toward her fireplace.
Harry chuckles. “And what a joy it’s been.” He pulls her in for a hug, and she presses her face into his shoulder, inhaling the comforting scent that can only be described as Harry. Sometimes, she wishes she could bottle it up-there are few things that make her feel as safe as he does.
“I’ll see you next week, yeah?” he asks as he opens the grate, a handful of Floo powder already in his hand. When she nods, leaning against the end of her desk that faces the fireplace, he offers a quick wave and a bright smile and then disappears in a flash of green flames.
Even after ten minutes have passed, she’s still perched on the end of her desk, eyes riveted on the still-open grate. She hates unexpected things, hates surprises. And so, seeing Draco at the end of her lunch had put her on edge, something that she’s sure won’t be remedied until she has the chance to take a long, hot bath. And frankly, that’s not likely to happen even tonight.
She sighs, stretching to try and relieve some of the aches running up her spine. Her anxiety about having a run-in with Draco earlier is already taking its toll on her body. Hermione Granger has never been one to deal well with emotional stress. Give her a hectic exam period over this any day. Her sigh turns to one of relief when she hears the tell-tale sound of her spine cracking.
Hermione glances with some hesitance down at her bag. With a grunt, she slides onto her feet, turning to face the large bag. She reaches inside, pulling her hand out with a small leather notebook. She smiles at the sight and runs her fingers down the spine. This notebook has been a good friend to her for the majority of her post-war life. She’s never been good at confrontation, usually too flustered to say what she actually means except on rare occasion when the words that escape her lips strike true.
This little notebook is full of letters, to many of the people who have come and gone in her life. Some are letters to the deceased. She feels guilty, but there’s more than one letter raging at Remus and Tonks for leaving them, for leaving Teddy to repeat those parts of Harry’s life. Some are her juvenile attempts at avoiding fights with her friends. And others are her way of working through her feelings.
There are some that she still can’t look at, hasn’t since she first wrote them days and weeks and years ago.
Today is the first day she actually sends one of her notebook letters. She gently tears out the last page she’s written on, the words barely three days old. This one she’d written the night of her argument with Draco, after Ginny finally went home. In it, she offers and cries for explanations. These words that she’s ripped from some of the deeper caverns of her heart, where that pain has been festering for years.
Hermione’s fairly sure there are tearstains on the pages, but there’s no point in clearing them now. After sending this, she will have nothing to hide from him. The freedom is tantalising.
She takes a deep breath, her eyes caught on the end of the letter.
I needed the closure. And I think it’s safe to say that any remaining questions I had about where we stand are more than answered.
Welcome back to Wizarding society.
This isn’t exactly the closure she’s needed, but she’s long since accepted that she may never get it fully. The closure she does get from this note will have to suffice, she decides, folding the pieces of parchment and sliding them into a small envelope. Her hand shakes as his name follows the point of her pen, but she’s too tired in too many ways to care if her script is more messy than normal. Like he’d remember her handwriting anyway. They’d never been the note-passing type-perhaps they would have been, had they not been in the midst of a war.
Hermione clears her throat and rises, the envelope in her hand as she marches through her door and to her secretary’s desk. The young girl smiles up at her.
“Afternoon, Madeleine,” she says with a small smile. The stretch on her face is uncomfortable-she’s never been a fan of insincere smiles. “Can you please send this out as soon as possible?” She places the envelope face-down on the girl’s desk.
“Of course. I was just about to head to the owlery.”
“Also, I will be taking holiday time next week.”
“Oh!” Madeleine looks almost perturbed in her surprise but recovers with a wide smile. “That’s great! I’ll be sure to clear that time with your contracts.”
Hermione nods. All of her contracts are required, by law, to include a certain amount of holiday time, so she’s not concerned about the time not being cleared.
“I’m glad you’re finally taking some time off, Miss Granger.” Madeleine rises, Hermione’s letter to Draco in her hand. “I’ll be back just as soon as I owl these.”
Hermione nods, turning back to her office once Madeleine is out of sight. She nearly jumps when she realises that Narcissa Malfoy is standing next to her office door. There’s no telling how long the woman had been standing there, and Hermione hopes against hope that she hadn’t taken notice of the addressee of that letter. It isn’t so much shame as it is a strong need for privacy.
“Mrs Malfoy,” Hermione greets. “How can I help you?”
“I thought we might discuss that particular matter in the privacy of your office, Miss Granger.”
Hermione nods and follows the matriarch into her office, shutting the door behind her with her foot. She waits until Narcissa has made herself comfortable-or at least as comfortable as she will get-in one of the chairs before taking her own seat behind her desk.
“I’m sorry I cannot offer refreshments, ma’am. We don’t usually meet with clients in my office, as you know.” Every other time the two women had met, it’d been at a slightly upscale restaurant.
Narcissa offers nothing but a curt nod. “Right down to it, then.” She reaches into her small purse and removes a change purse.
Hermione frowns at the sight of it. Almost immediately, her hands come up to pause the older woman. “Mrs Malfoy, please. I can’t accept your money.”
Narcissa looks at her shrewdly, incredulous. “This is the agreed-upon sum, Miss Granger. You were tasked with delivering my son back to me, and as far as I can tell, you’ve done so without irrevocable damage to his person.”
Hermione sighs, leaning forward onto her elbows. “Please, keep your money.”
Narcissa leans back in her chair, letting the change-purse rest on her lap. Her head tilts to one side just slightly, as if that will help her better understand the woman sitting before her. “Why did you take the job, Miss Granger?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Considering they concern my son, I would appreciate you casting some light on the subject.” Narcissa laces her fingers together, settling her linked hands over the bags in her lap. “Even the kindest people do not just do such a thing and refuse the money.”
Hermione sighs, trying desperately not to roll her eyes. “Consider it my charitable work for the year, then.” She can see Narcissa’s mouth transform into a barely concealed sneer. “Please, keep your money. I’m sure there are much better places you could be investing it.” Her mind quickly goes to the various charities created to help war orphans and widows, not to mention one for Hogwarts.
Narcissa gives her another curt nod and stands gracefully, placing the change-purse back into the confines of her smaller bag. Hermione wishes she could better tell what the woman is thinking. This must be where Draco inherited his uncanny ability to hide every emotion. She’s always been rather jealous of that.
“We are hosting an event this Saturday to celebrate his return,” Narcissa says as she slips a thick piece of parchment-an invitation, as it turns out-onto Hermione’s desk.
Hermione glances at it for all of three seconds, but she doesn’t reach for it. “I will, unfortunately, not be in town this weekend.”
“Yes-I admit, I overheard you talking about your impending holiday. Surely you could postpone it a few days.”
Hermione isn’t fooled. She knows she’s the last thing Narcissa would want at any of her social gatherings.
“I’m afraid I can’t. Though I’ll be sure to tell my friends to pay my respects for me, if they attend.” Hermione would bet her left arm that Narcissa was more concerned with a certain bespeckled war hero attending.
Soon, Narcissa leaves, although Hermione can see troves of questions in her eyes. Questions that even Hermione doesn’t know the answers to, that is if she wants them.
* * *
Draco Malfoy is the last person she’d expected to see at her favourite coffee shop in Camden Town. But there he is. The cowl of his jumper is pulled high over his head, but it’s not difficult to identify that hair. Or those angles. He’s always been a summation of hard lines.
He doesn’t notice her for a long time, but it allows her to observe him. She’d always thought it interesting to see how people act and look when they think nobody’s watching. He looks deep in thought, his lips resting against a steaming cup of what she can only assume is tea. Black, probably, with orange peel and honey. It’s times like these that she curses her memory. It keeps in stock things, like his favourite way to take tea, in lieu of more important things-like anything, really.
She hadn’t meant to stare, but soon his ears redden and his gaze snaps to her. The thoughtful, perhaps sad, look on his face disappears as his expression hardens.
“What are you doing here?”
She can hear the derision in his voice, and it nearly makes her flinch. A fight with Draco is the last thing she needs. She just wants to get through her morning and then her afternoon without incident and then sleep. With how sleepless her nights have been recently, Hermione’ll probably have to dig into her potions cache. The only good news, she thinks, is her impending holiday. A week of escape starting tomorrow, and all she can think about is the sleep she’ll hopefully get.
Motioning towards the counter with her coffee tumbler, she says defensively, “I come here every day on my way to work.”
He nods slowly, his eyes focused several inches to her left, and he takes a long sip of his drink.
“This is a bit far from, erm…” She pauses and glances around the room whilst trying to think of the least conspicuous word she could think of to signify Wizarding London, “… The Leaky and all that, isn’t it?”
Draco leans back in his chair with a sigh. “I’m trying to avoid my re-entrance to society for as long as possible.”
“Oh,” Hermione says a little too enthusiastically. More quietly, she continues, “So you’re staying.”
He nods.
She bites her lip, unsure of what to say. So many things have been said already. She loathes the feeling of awkwardness that always seeps into her bones in his presence. “Well,” she says, clearing her throat with a glance at the clock. “I’ll be late if I don’t head out now. It was good seeing you.” She hadn’t known it possible, but those last words leave her feeling even more awkward as she walks to the counter and orders her tea.
She has to force herself not to look over her shoulder and smile when she hears his low “You, too.”
* * *
Three days later, Hermione is 5,000 miles and eight time zones away. She now stands, leaning against the railing of a San Francisco pier, the night sea air caressing her face and further tangling her hair. Never having spent much time near water-her parents had always been much more interested in skiing and Paris than a beach for holidays-the calm that the water brings her is surprising. Cathartic even.
Her leather notebook is balanced on the top railing, waiting.
She’d arrived several hours ago, dropping her things off at the hotel and pausing to quickly Floo Ginny, who surprisingly hadn’t barraged Hermione with question after question. Instead, she’d calmly asked when Hermione would be back and then-just as Hermione was preparing to disconnect the call-Ginny mentioned, “He’s been looking for you, you know-at least, that’s what Harry says.”
Not surprising, Hermione had thought. He probably just wants to continue their argument. Anything to have the last word.
Hermione had returned to San Francisco for the water-it offers a calm unlike anything she’s ever known. She wanted to be as far away from England as possible, if only for a few days. Besides, the likelihood that he would return to this city in the midst of his family’s celebrations is miniscule at best. She tries not to think about how strong her memories of this place are stained by Draco, but there’s something about this pier that’s calming despite it all. No other place feels right.
She rubs her eyes as if to clear her mind of all thoughts of Draco. He isn’t the reason she’s here-well, not entirely, at least-and she needs to start now or she never will. Already, she’s walked around this part of the city three times today, before determining that yes, she wants to do this today. And yes, she needs to do this.
Balancing the notebook on the lowest rung on the railing, Hermione sighs and opens it. Her throat constricts at the sight of the quick note written on the first page.
G -
I was not put on this earth to listen to you whinge about everything in your life just because you couldn’t confront a Pygmy Puff.
The old dedication has never failed to bring a smile to her face-however small. There are so many memories wrapped into the one sentence. Through the war, as they’d spent more and more time together, he’d been privy to a growing number of Hermione’s rants about various things. Sometimes it was something as small as a leaking faucet or Seamus nearly starting a fire in the garden. She’d smiled and thanked him when he gave her the notebook, but her rants with him-at least that’s what he called them-didn’t stop. Rather, she’d grown to talk with him about heavier things-death, the war, the unfairness of it all-and if his own ramblings were any clue, he wasn’t too hurt that she’d tucked the notebook away. As far as she’d been concerned, she didn’t need it. Outside of the four walls of her room at Grimmauld Place, she’d had to be the brave girl everyone had come to know. That Hermione couldn’t break down or fail or stop and just scream, no matter how much she’d wanted to. Those things could only happen in the safety of her room, where Draco would talk her down from her whispered rage and panic, and she would later rock him through his nightmares.
That notebook stayed in her trunk, unnecessary and unused.
Until the Battle, that is-when everything changed. When they both had to tend to their respective families in the aftermath of the war, and hours together at night discussing the various wrongs and rights they’d experienced became a thing of the past. And when Draco disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving only a short note behind him- I’m alive. Don’t come looking. -she didn’t have much of a choice.
That notebook became her sanity and lifeline. And what she hadn’t realised until her recent ordeal in returning Draco was how much she needs closure, not just where he’s concerned but with every detail written on the pages of that notebook.
As she flips to the middle of the book, Hermione clenches her fist in an attempt to push through her hesitation. She’s determined to follow through with her plan: finally let go of the war. Pressing her lips together to curb any further reluctance, she breathes out her nose and promptly rips out the page she’s on.
* * *
Hermione’s grip tightens around the letter in her hand. She would swear she’d just heard the pier creak under the weight of someone’s walk, but it’s still the middle of the night (three in the morning, the last time she’d checked) and she sees no good reason for anyone else to be there. Perhaps it’s a homeless person, hoping to scavenge some loose change off her. If only they knew exactly how far the coins in her pocket would get them.
She turns, preparing to shoo whomever it is away. She certainly isn’t above a well-placed glare.
“Can I help y-” Hermione’s mouth falls open as her eyes take in her unexpected visitor, and the notebook falls from her hand to the pier with a loud thunk. With a heavy breath, she greets him.
“Draco.”
The huskiness of her voice surprises her, and she clears her throat and tries to wipe away any remnants of the many tears she’s shed over the past few hours. She’d known that making her way through that notebook would be no walk in the park, but she hadn’t been expecting Draco’s presence.
She watches him nod at her in greeting as if in slow motion and bend. Her heartbeat speeds with the beginnings of a panic attack when she watches him pick up the book. Before she quite realises what she’s doing, she steps forward and snatches it from his hand, pulling it into her chest almost protectively.
“What are you doing here?” she demands, her voice more acceptable now that she’s had the chance to swallow as much of that damned lump as possible.
He pauses, and she takes the moment to take in his appearance. He’s dressed rather formally. In fact, he looks like a picture of his pre-San Francisco self, with the difference of a very slightly aged face. He’d always worn fine clothes like a second skin, a habit that apparently had not been lost. His hair is the only piece of him even remotely out of place, and even then it’s barely windswept. For all she knows, it could have been purposefully coiffed-she’d heard of some men doing that to look ‘carefree’ or some bollocks like that. It seems like something Draco would do.
“Isn’t it a bit dangerous for you to be hanging out on a pier in the middle of the night?” he asks, completely ignoring her question.
She rolls her eyes, about to fire back when her brain connects his formal dress with her recent memory. “Wait,” she says, glancing at her watch before levelling him with a sharp glare. “Aren’t you missing your own party? That’s rather rude, isn’t it?”
His expression hardens almost immediately, and she can see his posture straighten. “Like it’s any of your business.”
She raises an eyebrow at his pathetic attempt to evade the question. “Ah, well, it’s not that surprising anyway.”
He narrows his eyes in suspicion, but he bites anyway. “What isn’t?”
“You running away. Has it become an automatic reaction now?”
Draco lifts his head, just enough that he has to look down his nose at here. “Much like the illusion that you’re actually better than everyone, you mean?” When she simply glares at him, he continues, “I see you still are incapable of actual confrontation, Granger.” With a smirk, he waves around what she can only assume is the letter she’d owled him days ago.
Hermione barely contains a snarl. “Don’t pretend you know anything about me.”
“Who said anything about pretending? It’s been how many years? And you still can’t stomach face-to-face conflict. Some Gryffindor you are.”
“Come to remedy that yourself, have you?” she asks, wincing when she hears how much her voice betrays her fatigue. It’s late, and she’s exhausted-emotionally, mentally, physically. Fighting with him had not been in her plan for the night.
“Look,” he says, scratching behind his neck. “I didn’t come to fight, Hermione.”
“So why are you here?” she asks softly. The question is so delicate in her mind that she’s afraid to speak it too loudly, lest it should break.
She follows his gaze down to the letter in his hands, noting how worn the creases look and the unreadable expression on his face. “What, you want to talk?” She feels like laughing, but she can’t tell if it’s the fatigue or not.
Draco slowly crosses his arms and shrugs, and she can’t help but roll her eyes. Ever with the non-answers.
“I don’t want to talk about any of that,” she says firmly. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“And what might that be?”
“It’s private.” She sniffs.
He sneers. “Well, you certainly picked a private place, didn’t you?”
Hermione sighs, fingering the spine of her notebook. “I’m trying to move on, Draco.”
At this, his expression softens-just slightly, but it’s enough. “Move on from what?”
A laugh escapes her before she even has the chance to realise it. It’s breathy and bitter and sums up the mess of emotions she’s feeling now. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone so she could just do this and get on with her life?
“Everything. You. The war,” she says, her voice breaking on the last syllable.
She presses her lips together in an attempt to retain her composure. Maybe if she says as little as possible, moves as little as possible, the giant lump in her throat won’t explode into sobs.
“And what if I don’t want you to?”
“Then leave!” she shouts, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. She sets her jaw and lifts her chin in defiance. She’ll be damned if she starts to cry in front of him.
Hermione can’t contain her gasp when she feels Draco take her face between his hands, forcing her to look straight into his eyes. There’s that familiar feeling that she’s always had a hard time putting to words. It’s safety and warmth, everything soothing and yet terrifying at once. The panic in her stomach starts to melt away, as if it’s just falling out of her pores and away into the water to accompany her letters.
“I-” he starts, swallowing heavily. “I don’t want closure, because I don’t want this to end, whatever this is.”
She exhales a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding and raises her hands to lightly grip his wrists. She hadn’t been prepared for this, hadn’t imagined in a million years that her night at the pier would turn this way. As much as her entire being wants to just curl up in his embrace, there’s a mountain of doubt piled up in her stomach, and it’s something she can’t ignore.
She shakes her head and gently pulls his hands away from her, pushing them against his chest. “You left,” she says softly. “You don’t get to just run back in like this.”
His jaw clenches, and he steps to stand next to her at the railing, his front and her back facing the dark water. “I know,” he says. “It was a selfish decision.”
Surprised, Hermione whips her head to the side to look at him. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him refer to himself as selfish. Never mind the fact that this sounds like the beginning of an explanation, something she’d have had to pull teeth to get out of him in the past.
“I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Pansy was eating away at me. I don’t care what anyone says; she should not have died, not like that. Not at the hands of her best friend, no matter how accidental it was.” He sighs, running his palm over his hair. “It consumed me, thinking about it-knowing that I’d failed her, and knowing that I’d fail again, with my track record. So I found a way to escape everything.”
She looks down at her hands, shaking her head lightly. “And that certainly turned out well for you.”
“It did and it didn’t.” Curious, Hermione turns her head just slightly towards him. “Not having Pansy occupy my every thought? That was brilliant. But there was a huge hole in my life all those years. I always felt out of place, that something was missing. And it was you.”
Hermione turns to face him, leaning her elbow on the railing.
“You’re home, Hermione. My life doesn’t make sense without you.”
It’s those last words that destroy her resolve to not break down. And it isn’t so much how heartfelt they are coming from him-because she knows he’d never lie to say he needs someone-but the knowledge that his words fit her just as well. And this is why she’s never been able to get over him, to move on and accept that he’d left.
“I need you, too,” she chokes out.
Blinded by her tears, she somehow manages to push herself into his embrace. She can’t tell who’s holding the other more tightly, but she finds it easier to breathe somehow around the discomfort. Hermione breathes in heavily, her nose pressed into the skin of Draco’s neck. His scent and the pull of his arms around her, so familiar, are home. And when he bends to kiss her, the notebook falls out of her grasp and onto the pier with a loud thud.
This is exactly the closure she wanted, but never thought to ask for.
Rating: T
Word Count: 20,000(ish)
Disclaimer: In its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to JK Rowling and 20th Century Fox, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work.
Summary: In which Hermione has to find Malfoy and return him to his rightful place in Wiltshire.
Warnings: Language (sorry, guys - I just can’t control Malfoy’s mouth!), memory!fic
Author's Note: Written for the second round of dramione-remix, with the prompt being Dimitri and Anastasia from Anastasia.
Betas: eilonwy1, dormiensa, and callarose
Part One
Part Two
PART THREE
“Why didn’t you tell me you were back?”
Hermione looks up from her seemingly endless mounds of paperwork at her now-open door to see Ginny. Her friend looks less than pleased. “Sorry, Gin.” She sighs. Honestly, she’d been in a steady cycle of working and trying to sleep since … well, since she’d finished that job.
“So,” Ginny begins, and Hermione mentally braces herself. “How are you?” The question is pointed, and many parts of Hermione wish she could avoid any and all questions related to Draco Malfoy.
“I’m fine.” Hermione leans back in her chair, resting her hands in her lap in an attempt to dissuade any of her nervous habits from showing. When Ginny just looks at her-as if Hermione had actually called her an idiot-she continues, “Really. Just tired and trying to catch up.”
“Tell me you haven’t been in the office all weekend.”
“I haven’t.”
Ginny looks unconvinced. “Now tell me you haven’t been working all weekend.” When Hermione simply looks down at her desk, Ginny sighs. “You can’t work yourself like this. Aren’t you exhausted?”
Hermione shrugs. “It’s got to be done, Ginny.” She doesn’t know how many times she’s told Ginny that, as a consultant, she can’t just give tasks to anyone else. It’s her job, all of it.
“I suppose you haven’t even realised it’s lunchtime, have you?” This time, a smile graces Ginny’s face. She lifts up a small paper sack from the contents of her bag.
Hermione smiles as she recognises the logo. “My favourite. Sly move.”
“You look like you haven’t eaten in a week,” Ginny says as she sets the bag on Hermione’s desk. “My guess is that I don’t have to make you promise to eat it.”
“Yes, Mum,” Hermione teases. The aroma wafting from the bag is enough to make her drool. She’s always been incapable of resisting a good Pad See Ew.
“You’re working through lunch, aren’t you?” Ginny says with a short laugh.
Hermione resists rolling her eyes. It’s been a long while since she’s been self-conscious about her work habits. Instead, she nods. “But I think I’m going to go home a bit early. Do you want to come over for dinner?”
“Oh!” Ginny sounds surprised. Hermione supposes it has been a long time since she’s left work a second before five. “Yeah, of course. I’ll just let Harry know he’s on his own tonight.”
“I’m sure he’d be happy to have a boys’ night or something.” Hermione laughs. “Tell him I’ll owl him for lunch this week sometime, will you?”
Ginny nods. “Shall do! What time tonight, then?”
Hermione pauses, trying to remember if there are any groceries left in her kitchen. “I still need to pick up some things from Tesco, so how’s seven?”
Ginny lifts the strap of her bag higher on shoulder and smiles. “See you then!”
* * *
She walks in the door to her flat at just after five-thirty. As she probably should have expected, she hadn’t left the office at four as planned. But four-thirty is better than nothing, right?
With a loud grunt from the exertion, she drops three bags full of groceries onto her counter. Going to the market hungry is never a good idea-it always radically lowers her impulse control-but this is where last-minute planning gets you. Hermione quickly puts away the items she won’t need for dinner, puts the kettle on, and pads to her bedroom to change into something more comfortable. It had felt weird that morning to put on business clothes, after so long wearing denims. She’s looking forward to a quiet evening of lounging about in her favourite flannel shirt, complete with a bit of curry and tea. The only hiccup is sure to be whatever third degree Ginny will inflict on her.
At six-thirty, she’s sitting on her sofa with Dorian asleep in her lap, George R. R. Martin’s latest novel in one hand and her third cuppa in the other. Three sharp raps on her door startle her; little Dorian issues his complaint by repositioning himself on the other end of the sofa.
She frowns-Ginny’s early. They’d agreed on seven, Hermione had thought. Ah well, it’s not as if the girl’s never been early.
“Coming!” she hollers, moving the bookmark-this one the receipt she’d received upon purchasing the tome-to mark her page and setting both the book and her cup on the coffee table. En route to the door, she passes by the cooker to check on the curry chicken she’s making.
As she pulls the door open, she announces, “It’ll be ready in ten minutes, I-” Her mouth falls open when she realises that the person gracing her doorstop is, in fact, not Ginny Weasley.
Not even close.
“We need to talk,” Draco says-or perhaps ‘growls’ is a better term. “Do you mind?” He gestures towards the inside of her flat, and her body automatically flattens itself against the door to allow him in.
Eyes wide, Hermione turns her body towards the door as she shuts it-her back towards Draco-and takes the few seconds to calm her nerves. Her heart is beating a mile a minute, and it’s not the good kind. It’s much more of a fear-induced beating, much to her chagrin, but she’s just let the equivalent of a ticking time-bomb into her flat.
She slowly turns around, pressing her back against the door and crossing her arms across her chest. Draco is standing in her living room, gaze fixed on the various photographs that decorate her mantel. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, and she can see the outlines of his clenched fists.
“What can I help you with, Draco?” Hermione wraps her flannel tighter around her body, cradling her elbows. Nobody is quite as able to make her feel vulnerable as Draco.
He lets out a bitter chuckle whilst he turns to face her, ending with a single raised eyebrow and incredulous smile. “Well.” He hums. “I suppose an explanation would be a good place to start.”
She scoffs. “What makes you think I owe you anything?”
She’d always found it interesting to watch his moods swing. The speed with which he can go from interested to bored out of his skull, or-as presently-teasing to angry, is fascinating. And also scary. The small smile, incredulous though it was, seems to literally drop off his face and what’s left is nothing but a blank expression, perhaps a little tight around the mouth.
“Let’s see. You literally kidn-”
“Let me stop you there, your majesty." Hermione takes two steps towards him, her hand raised to interrupt him. “It was a job, not a personal vendetta against you.”
“The larger question, of course”-Hermione can just hear the bitterness in his voice as he continues, each word slow and careful-“is how dare you?”
She offers him a bitter smile of her own. “Your mother is my client, and I delivered what was promised. End of story.”
“I see you’ve completely abandoned ethics in your old age.”
“I’m not the one who’s already got wrinkles. Must’ve been that sea air. Didn’t you know it’s not good for skin, Draco? Any longer in California, and you’d look like an old fisherman.” She smiles when his frown deepens. “Not that you’d know anything about ethics anyway.”
“Well, I’ve never lured someone across the world under the guise of a better life, only to-”
“To what? Return your memories?”
“Yes, just that.”
“Officially, that wasn’t me. It was your mother, and you can take that particular bone up with her.”
“That’s a non-issue. I don’t understand how-”
He halts mid-sentence, his gaze riveted on the kitten currently stretching on the couch, clearly unable to continue his nap with all this ruckus. She can see Draco working his jaw, and she closes her eyes once she realises-
“Dorian?” His words are soft as he recalls the name of her cat from his brief time in her flat as a Muggle, but Merlin, are they loaded. With a twinge of amusement, as if he’s just guessed the answer to a particularly difficult riddle. Not much, but it’s enough to make her immediately try to erect what remained of her walls. “That’s rather a loaded name, isn’t it?” he says, looking at her for the first time in five minutes.
Her eyes narrow. Of course he would see through that name, one shared by the lead character in her favourite book. And his favourite. It was one of the first things that she and Draco had found they had in common. She’d felt it only fitting when she first got the kitten, who’s grey from head to toe.
“And Crooks?”
Hermione’s eyes narrow even more. “What do you think? I didn’t trade him in for a younger version, if that’s what you asking.”
His eyes move to the book and cup on the table near the couch. “What has happened to your manners, Granger? You’ve not even offered me tea.”
“I don’t generally offer hospitality to men who barge their way into my flat.”
He shrugs. “Your tea was inadequate anyway.”
She rolls her eyes. “Who knew, even after all these years, you’d still be such a bastard?”
“We both know my parentage is no longer in question, Granger.”
After a long pause, during which she’d refused to dignify that with an answer, he continues. “So,” he says, his arms rising to cross his chest.
“So, what?”
“I’m still waiting for that explanation.”
She sneers. “You are in no position to demand an explanation from me. I told you: I owe you nothing.”
“Oh, and I suppose you think I owe you something?”
Hermione raises her eyebrows and tilts her head, incredulous.
“You,” he continues, “are the one who displaced me, forced my memories back on me, and then left.”
“I told you I didn’t have anything to do with the mem-”
“What makes you think I even wanted them back?” he yells.
Hermione rolls back her shoulders, straightening her posture to regain some of her height. “Do you even realise how miserable you were?”
“What makes you think my memories don’t make me that much more miserable? Oh, I apologise. It slipped my mind that you know everything.”
She ignores the insult. “Was your life so much more terrible than every other person who survived?” Her mind goes immediately to the likes of Fred’s family and friends, to Lavender and her new life, to little Dennis Creevey. “The war affected all of us.”
“Not everyone killed their best friend, now, did they?”
Hermione’s jaw slackens as she remembers.
Just before the last battle, he’d been tasked with one thing and failed-something he’d fixated on for weeks after. Arthur had mentioned once that his fixation had made him all the more ruthless-and so, useful-in the final battle at Hogwarts. Pansy Parkinson had been sent to deliver a small cache of medicine to one of the safe houses from St. Mungo’s, and Draco had accompanied her. They never sent anyone alone. Draco came back alone, and changed. Arthur and Remus had been tight-lipped about what had happened, but Hermione had pieced it together-with the few things they and Draco did say, and what he muttered in his sleep on nights he hadn’t taken a Dreamless Sleep potion. The details of the event reside only in his memory; what was important to her was Draco’s immense guilt. She could see, especially when it was just the two of them, just how the weight of Pansy’s death affected him, as if an ounce more would make his very bones disintegrate.
Her fingers twitch as she resists her desire to palm his neck, to caress his cheek, but barely. “You know it wasn’t your fault. I don’t know how many times I tried to show you-”
He scoffs. “Right. Accidents happen. The dangers of friendly fire. If I had a Galleon for every time someone’s said that-”
“Draco,” Hermione starts, but he recoils. It’s then that she realises that she’d reached out as if to touch him, and she immediately pulls her arm back to hug herself.
“If I couldn’t keep her safe, how could I protect anyone else? Who’s to say an accident wouldn’t happen again?”
She shakes her head. “Accidents happen. Life is unpredictable, and you can’t live like that. In fear of the hypotheticals.” There was a time when he’d railed at her for every ‘what if’ that passed her lips.
“I did what was necessary.”
Hermione stares at him, more than a little confused by what’s hidden in his words. She can only assume he means her when he says ‘anyone else’, but that’s an assumption she is too hesitant to make.
“What, to protect people? Yes, I can see how removing your memory and moving across the world was the best way to keep the ones you love safe.” She looks down at her fingers, digging out the day’s dirt from under her nails. “Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?”
“I was thinking of y-”
“No, fuck you. Don’t you dare try to say you were thinking of me when you left.” Hermione forces herself to exhale, trying to calm her boiling blood. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she can see why he’d run. But her own pain from his abandonment bubbles to the surface of her being, and she can’t see past it. She continues, her voice uneven, “Besides. We weren’t anything, remember?”
He crosses the few paces left between us and clutches her shoulders tightly, enough to make her wince. “Don’t. Don’t pretend I didn’t mean anything to you.”
“I never said that,” she says, attempting in vain to free herself from his iron grip. It’s too much to hope that he’d not made the connection-that when she’d spoken in San Francisco about the one who left, it’d been him. “But don’t pretend I meant anything to you. Not in the end.”
His mouth drops open, and Hermione can honestly say this is the first time she’s seen him speechless.
“I couldn’t-” He pauses, swallowing hard. “-couldn’t deal with it, Hermione. Any of it.”
She frowns, looking down at her shoulder, where his grip is more firm than vice-like now. “Draco-”
A loud knock interrupts her, and she turns to face the door. Draco’s hands immediately loosen and slip from her arms, as he steps further back. She can see him retreating in every sense of the word.
Hermione sighs when she looks through the peephole to see Ginny’s face, but she can’t tell if that’s a sigh of relief or disappointment. She swings the door open with a small smile, one that causes Ginny to halt her cheerful greeting.
“What’s wrong?” she asks suspiciously.
In answer, Hermione simply swings the door all the way open, and Ginny’s eyes widen at the sight of the blond standing in her living room.
“Ah,” Ginny breathes out. She looks back and forth between Hermione and Draco, who each grow more and more awkward. “Should I come back later?”
“No,” both Hermione and Draco say at the same time, their voices creating a cacophonous sound that Hermione thinks is what their relationship would sound like.
Draco looks at Hermione, startled, before continuing, alone this time, “I was just leaving.”
Ginny raises her eyebrows, clearly seeing through his fib, and then shrugs, making her way into Hermione’s flat. Dropping her bag on the dining table, Ginny offers a curt nod of both greeting and adieu to Draco as he sweeps out of the apartment.
Hermione turns away from the door before she can see him leave and pads to the small bathroom connected to her bedroom. Soon, the faucet is running ice-cold water, and she’s throwing palms full of it to her face. She coughs and hacks, trying to rid the lump from her throat so she can just breathe.
She feels so exhausted. Mentally, emotionally. Even physically, which is probably the most surprising of all. But Hermione’s never been the best at managing her feelings, always one to rationalise and rid herself of feelings through logic.
Over the sound of the running tap, she hears her kitchen timer go off, and she spins on her heel. Mild panic sets in, although she knows there’s more to this than the thought of an overcooked curry. To her surprise, when she opens the door, Ginny is leaned against the doorframe to her bedroom, arms crossed. In her hands is a pencil drawing, the folds well worn. Hermione thinks it must have been lying on her floor.
“I need to go check-”
Ginny interrupts her with a wave of her wrist. “The curry’s fine. I’ve Charmed it to stay warm.” She looks down at the drawing, her features softening at the sight of their old friends. “So what was that all about?” She sounds deceivingly calm.
“He’s upset,” Hermione says, pulling the bathroom door shut. “I’d expected as much.”
“Do you think he doesn’t have the right to be?”
Hermione looks up at her friend, unsure what she’s implying. “I suppose.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t feel betrayed?”
“I’m saying he’s not the only one to feel betrayed.” Hermione sighs. “Can we talk about something else?”
Ginny shrugs, and then lifts us the drawing. “How come I’ve never seen this? It’s beautiful.”
Hermione smiles, nostalgia setting in. “He drew that for me.”
“Who, Draco?” Ginny asks, surprised. “I had no idea he could draw. This is magnificent.”
She nods. “He went into art as a Muggle. He was always doodling at Hogwarts, so it’s no wonder.”
Hermione looks up in surprise when she feels a hand around hers, and Ginny pulls her in for a tight hug, the drawing falling forgotten to the floor.
“Are you all right, Hermione?”
She nods slowly, and once she finds her voice, says, “I will be.”
Ginny grips her face between her two hands, as if checking for any possibility of a breakdown. With an almost sad smile, she lets go of Hermione’s face. “Let’s have that curry, then. And wine. You definitely need some wine.”
Hermione humours her with a soft chuckle. The wine will put her straight to sleep, as Ginny well knows. But perhaps that’s what she needs: a night of uninterrupted sleep, of escape from the clusterfuck that her life has become of late.
* * *
“So the rumours are true,” Harry notes bemusedly. Hermione follows his gaze to find Draco seated on a bench near her building, his nose buried in a copy of The Guardian. Harry scrunches his nose. “Is that a Muggle newspaper? I never thought I’d see the day.”
Hermione nods. “Strange,” she mutters, trailing off. She makes a mental note to thank Ginny profusely for not talking to the boys about why Hermione hadn’t been around recently. She’s not ashamed, but Harry’s need to protect her at every turn has the tendency to complicate everything.
It’s impressive how quickly rumours about his return have spread, but then again it’s not beyond the realm of possibility for the head of the Auror Office to know these things. She’s more concerned with how close he is to her workplace. Call it paranoia, but another argument with him is the last thing she wants. She doesn’t have the energy for it.
She sends silent praises to the gods when Harry doesn’t even notice that she’s led them the long way to her office in an attempt to avoid that bench.
“I’m glad we finally got the chance to grab lunch,” she says when they reach her office. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
Harry nods bashfully. Hermione has to resist cupping his cheek. It amazes her how boyish he remains, even now. “I never knew it’d be so difficult to balance everything. Work, family, a social life.”
“I guess that’s what growing up’s all about, isn’t it?” she quips, dropping her bag on her desk and moving toward her fireplace.
Harry chuckles. “And what a joy it’s been.” He pulls her in for a hug, and she presses her face into his shoulder, inhaling the comforting scent that can only be described as Harry. Sometimes, she wishes she could bottle it up-there are few things that make her feel as safe as he does.
“I’ll see you next week, yeah?” he asks as he opens the grate, a handful of Floo powder already in his hand. When she nods, leaning against the end of her desk that faces the fireplace, he offers a quick wave and a bright smile and then disappears in a flash of green flames.
Even after ten minutes have passed, she’s still perched on the end of her desk, eyes riveted on the still-open grate. She hates unexpected things, hates surprises. And so, seeing Draco at the end of her lunch had put her on edge, something that she’s sure won’t be remedied until she has the chance to take a long, hot bath. And frankly, that’s not likely to happen even tonight.
She sighs, stretching to try and relieve some of the aches running up her spine. Her anxiety about having a run-in with Draco earlier is already taking its toll on her body. Hermione Granger has never been one to deal well with emotional stress. Give her a hectic exam period over this any day. Her sigh turns to one of relief when she hears the tell-tale sound of her spine cracking.
Hermione glances with some hesitance down at her bag. With a grunt, she slides onto her feet, turning to face the large bag. She reaches inside, pulling her hand out with a small leather notebook. She smiles at the sight and runs her fingers down the spine. This notebook has been a good friend to her for the majority of her post-war life. She’s never been good at confrontation, usually too flustered to say what she actually means except on rare occasion when the words that escape her lips strike true.
This little notebook is full of letters, to many of the people who have come and gone in her life. Some are letters to the deceased. She feels guilty, but there’s more than one letter raging at Remus and Tonks for leaving them, for leaving Teddy to repeat those parts of Harry’s life. Some are her juvenile attempts at avoiding fights with her friends. And others are her way of working through her feelings.
There are some that she still can’t look at, hasn’t since she first wrote them days and weeks and years ago.
Today is the first day she actually sends one of her notebook letters. She gently tears out the last page she’s written on, the words barely three days old. This one she’d written the night of her argument with Draco, after Ginny finally went home. In it, she offers and cries for explanations. These words that she’s ripped from some of the deeper caverns of her heart, where that pain has been festering for years.
Hermione’s fairly sure there are tearstains on the pages, but there’s no point in clearing them now. After sending this, she will have nothing to hide from him. The freedom is tantalising.
She takes a deep breath, her eyes caught on the end of the letter.
I needed the closure. And I think it’s safe to say that any remaining questions I had about where we stand are more than answered.
Welcome back to Wizarding society.
This isn’t exactly the closure she’s needed, but she’s long since accepted that she may never get it fully. The closure she does get from this note will have to suffice, she decides, folding the pieces of parchment and sliding them into a small envelope. Her hand shakes as his name follows the point of her pen, but she’s too tired in too many ways to care if her script is more messy than normal. Like he’d remember her handwriting anyway. They’d never been the note-passing type-perhaps they would have been, had they not been in the midst of a war.
Hermione clears her throat and rises, the envelope in her hand as she marches through her door and to her secretary’s desk. The young girl smiles up at her.
“Afternoon, Madeleine,” she says with a small smile. The stretch on her face is uncomfortable-she’s never been a fan of insincere smiles. “Can you please send this out as soon as possible?” She places the envelope face-down on the girl’s desk.
“Of course. I was just about to head to the owlery.”
“Also, I will be taking holiday time next week.”
“Oh!” Madeleine looks almost perturbed in her surprise but recovers with a wide smile. “That’s great! I’ll be sure to clear that time with your contracts.”
Hermione nods. All of her contracts are required, by law, to include a certain amount of holiday time, so she’s not concerned about the time not being cleared.
“I’m glad you’re finally taking some time off, Miss Granger.” Madeleine rises, Hermione’s letter to Draco in her hand. “I’ll be back just as soon as I owl these.”
Hermione nods, turning back to her office once Madeleine is out of sight. She nearly jumps when she realises that Narcissa Malfoy is standing next to her office door. There’s no telling how long the woman had been standing there, and Hermione hopes against hope that she hadn’t taken notice of the addressee of that letter. It isn’t so much shame as it is a strong need for privacy.
“Mrs Malfoy,” Hermione greets. “How can I help you?”
“I thought we might discuss that particular matter in the privacy of your office, Miss Granger.”
Hermione nods and follows the matriarch into her office, shutting the door behind her with her foot. She waits until Narcissa has made herself comfortable-or at least as comfortable as she will get-in one of the chairs before taking her own seat behind her desk.
“I’m sorry I cannot offer refreshments, ma’am. We don’t usually meet with clients in my office, as you know.” Every other time the two women had met, it’d been at a slightly upscale restaurant.
Narcissa offers nothing but a curt nod. “Right down to it, then.” She reaches into her small purse and removes a change purse.
Hermione frowns at the sight of it. Almost immediately, her hands come up to pause the older woman. “Mrs Malfoy, please. I can’t accept your money.”
Narcissa looks at her shrewdly, incredulous. “This is the agreed-upon sum, Miss Granger. You were tasked with delivering my son back to me, and as far as I can tell, you’ve done so without irrevocable damage to his person.”
Hermione sighs, leaning forward onto her elbows. “Please, keep your money.”
Narcissa leans back in her chair, letting the change-purse rest on her lap. Her head tilts to one side just slightly, as if that will help her better understand the woman sitting before her. “Why did you take the job, Miss Granger?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Considering they concern my son, I would appreciate you casting some light on the subject.” Narcissa laces her fingers together, settling her linked hands over the bags in her lap. “Even the kindest people do not just do such a thing and refuse the money.”
Hermione sighs, trying desperately not to roll her eyes. “Consider it my charitable work for the year, then.” She can see Narcissa’s mouth transform into a barely concealed sneer. “Please, keep your money. I’m sure there are much better places you could be investing it.” Her mind quickly goes to the various charities created to help war orphans and widows, not to mention one for Hogwarts.
Narcissa gives her another curt nod and stands gracefully, placing the change-purse back into the confines of her smaller bag. Hermione wishes she could better tell what the woman is thinking. This must be where Draco inherited his uncanny ability to hide every emotion. She’s always been rather jealous of that.
“We are hosting an event this Saturday to celebrate his return,” Narcissa says as she slips a thick piece of parchment-an invitation, as it turns out-onto Hermione’s desk.
Hermione glances at it for all of three seconds, but she doesn’t reach for it. “I will, unfortunately, not be in town this weekend.”
“Yes-I admit, I overheard you talking about your impending holiday. Surely you could postpone it a few days.”
Hermione isn’t fooled. She knows she’s the last thing Narcissa would want at any of her social gatherings.
“I’m afraid I can’t. Though I’ll be sure to tell my friends to pay my respects for me, if they attend.” Hermione would bet her left arm that Narcissa was more concerned with a certain bespeckled war hero attending.
Soon, Narcissa leaves, although Hermione can see troves of questions in her eyes. Questions that even Hermione doesn’t know the answers to, that is if she wants them.
* * *
Draco Malfoy is the last person she’d expected to see at her favourite coffee shop in Camden Town. But there he is. The cowl of his jumper is pulled high over his head, but it’s not difficult to identify that hair. Or those angles. He’s always been a summation of hard lines.
He doesn’t notice her for a long time, but it allows her to observe him. She’d always thought it interesting to see how people act and look when they think nobody’s watching. He looks deep in thought, his lips resting against a steaming cup of what she can only assume is tea. Black, probably, with orange peel and honey. It’s times like these that she curses her memory. It keeps in stock things, like his favourite way to take tea, in lieu of more important things-like anything, really.
She hadn’t meant to stare, but soon his ears redden and his gaze snaps to her. The thoughtful, perhaps sad, look on his face disappears as his expression hardens.
“What are you doing here?”
She can hear the derision in his voice, and it nearly makes her flinch. A fight with Draco is the last thing she needs. She just wants to get through her morning and then her afternoon without incident and then sleep. With how sleepless her nights have been recently, Hermione’ll probably have to dig into her potions cache. The only good news, she thinks, is her impending holiday. A week of escape starting tomorrow, and all she can think about is the sleep she’ll hopefully get.
Motioning towards the counter with her coffee tumbler, she says defensively, “I come here every day on my way to work.”
He nods slowly, his eyes focused several inches to her left, and he takes a long sip of his drink.
“This is a bit far from, erm…” She pauses and glances around the room whilst trying to think of the least conspicuous word she could think of to signify Wizarding London, “… The Leaky and all that, isn’t it?”
Draco leans back in his chair with a sigh. “I’m trying to avoid my re-entrance to society for as long as possible.”
“Oh,” Hermione says a little too enthusiastically. More quietly, she continues, “So you’re staying.”
He nods.
She bites her lip, unsure of what to say. So many things have been said already. She loathes the feeling of awkwardness that always seeps into her bones in his presence. “Well,” she says, clearing her throat with a glance at the clock. “I’ll be late if I don’t head out now. It was good seeing you.” She hadn’t known it possible, but those last words leave her feeling even more awkward as she walks to the counter and orders her tea.
She has to force herself not to look over her shoulder and smile when she hears his low “You, too.”
* * *
Three days later, Hermione is 5,000 miles and eight time zones away. She now stands, leaning against the railing of a San Francisco pier, the night sea air caressing her face and further tangling her hair. Never having spent much time near water-her parents had always been much more interested in skiing and Paris than a beach for holidays-the calm that the water brings her is surprising. Cathartic even.
Her leather notebook is balanced on the top railing, waiting.
She’d arrived several hours ago, dropping her things off at the hotel and pausing to quickly Floo Ginny, who surprisingly hadn’t barraged Hermione with question after question. Instead, she’d calmly asked when Hermione would be back and then-just as Hermione was preparing to disconnect the call-Ginny mentioned, “He’s been looking for you, you know-at least, that’s what Harry says.”
Not surprising, Hermione had thought. He probably just wants to continue their argument. Anything to have the last word.
Hermione had returned to San Francisco for the water-it offers a calm unlike anything she’s ever known. She wanted to be as far away from England as possible, if only for a few days. Besides, the likelihood that he would return to this city in the midst of his family’s celebrations is miniscule at best. She tries not to think about how strong her memories of this place are stained by Draco, but there’s something about this pier that’s calming despite it all. No other place feels right.
She rubs her eyes as if to clear her mind of all thoughts of Draco. He isn’t the reason she’s here-well, not entirely, at least-and she needs to start now or she never will. Already, she’s walked around this part of the city three times today, before determining that yes, she wants to do this today. And yes, she needs to do this.
Balancing the notebook on the lowest rung on the railing, Hermione sighs and opens it. Her throat constricts at the sight of the quick note written on the first page.
G -
I was not put on this earth to listen to you whinge about everything in your life just because you couldn’t confront a Pygmy Puff.
The old dedication has never failed to bring a smile to her face-however small. There are so many memories wrapped into the one sentence. Through the war, as they’d spent more and more time together, he’d been privy to a growing number of Hermione’s rants about various things. Sometimes it was something as small as a leaking faucet or Seamus nearly starting a fire in the garden. She’d smiled and thanked him when he gave her the notebook, but her rants with him-at least that’s what he called them-didn’t stop. Rather, she’d grown to talk with him about heavier things-death, the war, the unfairness of it all-and if his own ramblings were any clue, he wasn’t too hurt that she’d tucked the notebook away. As far as she’d been concerned, she didn’t need it. Outside of the four walls of her room at Grimmauld Place, she’d had to be the brave girl everyone had come to know. That Hermione couldn’t break down or fail or stop and just scream, no matter how much she’d wanted to. Those things could only happen in the safety of her room, where Draco would talk her down from her whispered rage and panic, and she would later rock him through his nightmares.
That notebook stayed in her trunk, unnecessary and unused.
Until the Battle, that is-when everything changed. When they both had to tend to their respective families in the aftermath of the war, and hours together at night discussing the various wrongs and rights they’d experienced became a thing of the past. And when Draco disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving only a short note behind him- I’m alive. Don’t come looking. -she didn’t have much of a choice.
That notebook became her sanity and lifeline. And what she hadn’t realised until her recent ordeal in returning Draco was how much she needs closure, not just where he’s concerned but with every detail written on the pages of that notebook.
As she flips to the middle of the book, Hermione clenches her fist in an attempt to push through her hesitation. She’s determined to follow through with her plan: finally let go of the war. Pressing her lips together to curb any further reluctance, she breathes out her nose and promptly rips out the page she’s on.
* * *
Hermione’s grip tightens around the letter in her hand. She would swear she’d just heard the pier creak under the weight of someone’s walk, but it’s still the middle of the night (three in the morning, the last time she’d checked) and she sees no good reason for anyone else to be there. Perhaps it’s a homeless person, hoping to scavenge some loose change off her. If only they knew exactly how far the coins in her pocket would get them.
She turns, preparing to shoo whomever it is away. She certainly isn’t above a well-placed glare.
“Can I help y-” Hermione’s mouth falls open as her eyes take in her unexpected visitor, and the notebook falls from her hand to the pier with a loud thunk. With a heavy breath, she greets him.
“Draco.”
The huskiness of her voice surprises her, and she clears her throat and tries to wipe away any remnants of the many tears she’s shed over the past few hours. She’d known that making her way through that notebook would be no walk in the park, but she hadn’t been expecting Draco’s presence.
She watches him nod at her in greeting as if in slow motion and bend. Her heartbeat speeds with the beginnings of a panic attack when she watches him pick up the book. Before she quite realises what she’s doing, she steps forward and snatches it from his hand, pulling it into her chest almost protectively.
“What are you doing here?” she demands, her voice more acceptable now that she’s had the chance to swallow as much of that damned lump as possible.
He pauses, and she takes the moment to take in his appearance. He’s dressed rather formally. In fact, he looks like a picture of his pre-San Francisco self, with the difference of a very slightly aged face. He’d always worn fine clothes like a second skin, a habit that apparently had not been lost. His hair is the only piece of him even remotely out of place, and even then it’s barely windswept. For all she knows, it could have been purposefully coiffed-she’d heard of some men doing that to look ‘carefree’ or some bollocks like that. It seems like something Draco would do.
“Isn’t it a bit dangerous for you to be hanging out on a pier in the middle of the night?” he asks, completely ignoring her question.
She rolls her eyes, about to fire back when her brain connects his formal dress with her recent memory. “Wait,” she says, glancing at her watch before levelling him with a sharp glare. “Aren’t you missing your own party? That’s rather rude, isn’t it?”
His expression hardens almost immediately, and she can see his posture straighten. “Like it’s any of your business.”
She raises an eyebrow at his pathetic attempt to evade the question. “Ah, well, it’s not that surprising anyway.”
He narrows his eyes in suspicion, but he bites anyway. “What isn’t?”
“You running away. Has it become an automatic reaction now?”
Draco lifts his head, just enough that he has to look down his nose at here. “Much like the illusion that you’re actually better than everyone, you mean?” When she simply glares at him, he continues, “I see you still are incapable of actual confrontation, Granger.” With a smirk, he waves around what she can only assume is the letter she’d owled him days ago.
Hermione barely contains a snarl. “Don’t pretend you know anything about me.”
“Who said anything about pretending? It’s been how many years? And you still can’t stomach face-to-face conflict. Some Gryffindor you are.”
“Come to remedy that yourself, have you?” she asks, wincing when she hears how much her voice betrays her fatigue. It’s late, and she’s exhausted-emotionally, mentally, physically. Fighting with him had not been in her plan for the night.
“Look,” he says, scratching behind his neck. “I didn’t come to fight, Hermione.”
“So why are you here?” she asks softly. The question is so delicate in her mind that she’s afraid to speak it too loudly, lest it should break.
She follows his gaze down to the letter in his hands, noting how worn the creases look and the unreadable expression on his face. “What, you want to talk?” She feels like laughing, but she can’t tell if it’s the fatigue or not.
Draco slowly crosses his arms and shrugs, and she can’t help but roll her eyes. Ever with the non-answers.
“I don’t want to talk about any of that,” she says firmly. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“And what might that be?”
“It’s private.” She sniffs.
He sneers. “Well, you certainly picked a private place, didn’t you?”
Hermione sighs, fingering the spine of her notebook. “I’m trying to move on, Draco.”
At this, his expression softens-just slightly, but it’s enough. “Move on from what?”
A laugh escapes her before she even has the chance to realise it. It’s breathy and bitter and sums up the mess of emotions she’s feeling now. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone so she could just do this and get on with her life?
“Everything. You. The war,” she says, her voice breaking on the last syllable.
She presses her lips together in an attempt to retain her composure. Maybe if she says as little as possible, moves as little as possible, the giant lump in her throat won’t explode into sobs.
“And what if I don’t want you to?”
“Then leave!” she shouts, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. She sets her jaw and lifts her chin in defiance. She’ll be damned if she starts to cry in front of him.
Hermione can’t contain her gasp when she feels Draco take her face between his hands, forcing her to look straight into his eyes. There’s that familiar feeling that she’s always had a hard time putting to words. It’s safety and warmth, everything soothing and yet terrifying at once. The panic in her stomach starts to melt away, as if it’s just falling out of her pores and away into the water to accompany her letters.
“I-” he starts, swallowing heavily. “I don’t want closure, because I don’t want this to end, whatever this is.”
She exhales a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding and raises her hands to lightly grip his wrists. She hadn’t been prepared for this, hadn’t imagined in a million years that her night at the pier would turn this way. As much as her entire being wants to just curl up in his embrace, there’s a mountain of doubt piled up in her stomach, and it’s something she can’t ignore.
She shakes her head and gently pulls his hands away from her, pushing them against his chest. “You left,” she says softly. “You don’t get to just run back in like this.”
His jaw clenches, and he steps to stand next to her at the railing, his front and her back facing the dark water. “I know,” he says. “It was a selfish decision.”
Surprised, Hermione whips her head to the side to look at him. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard him refer to himself as selfish. Never mind the fact that this sounds like the beginning of an explanation, something she’d have had to pull teeth to get out of him in the past.
“I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Pansy was eating away at me. I don’t care what anyone says; she should not have died, not like that. Not at the hands of her best friend, no matter how accidental it was.” He sighs, running his palm over his hair. “It consumed me, thinking about it-knowing that I’d failed her, and knowing that I’d fail again, with my track record. So I found a way to escape everything.”
She looks down at her hands, shaking her head lightly. “And that certainly turned out well for you.”
“It did and it didn’t.” Curious, Hermione turns her head just slightly towards him. “Not having Pansy occupy my every thought? That was brilliant. But there was a huge hole in my life all those years. I always felt out of place, that something was missing. And it was you.”
Hermione turns to face him, leaning her elbow on the railing.
“You’re home, Hermione. My life doesn’t make sense without you.”
It’s those last words that destroy her resolve to not break down. And it isn’t so much how heartfelt they are coming from him-because she knows he’d never lie to say he needs someone-but the knowledge that his words fit her just as well. And this is why she’s never been able to get over him, to move on and accept that he’d left.
“I need you, too,” she chokes out.
Blinded by her tears, she somehow manages to push herself into his embrace. She can’t tell who’s holding the other more tightly, but she finds it easier to breathe somehow around the discomfort. Hermione breathes in heavily, her nose pressed into the skin of Draco’s neck. His scent and the pull of his arms around her, so familiar, are home. And when he bends to kiss her, the notebook falls out of her grasp and onto the pier with a loud thud.
This is exactly the closure she wanted, but never thought to ask for.