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Chapter Text

It is pure chance—nothing more and nothing less—that leads Draco Malfoy here. 

The little muggle town of Babel is hardly big enough to put on a map, but it's at a convenient midway point in Draco's cross-country apparition. He didn't get much sleep the night before—he never really gets much sleep, these days—and so he decides to stop by the coffee shop for a cuppa before trying to apparate again. 

It feels like something more complicated than chance, though, that has organized the universe such that Hermione Granger is reading at a table in the back corner.

Draco feels so few emotions these days that he can register each one as clearly and sharply as a sudden sound in a silent room. 

The first thing he feels is surprise. 

It has been years since he last saw her in person. It’s weird, seeing her with her nose buried in a book. Like they’re back in school again, back before everything happened. Before the war, before the trials. 

The next thing he feels is confusion.

Because Granger has been missing for almost three months. Everyone has been looking for her. The Ministry has been trying to keep it somewhat quiet but people are starting to whisper about it anyway. Even Draco—a disgraced Death Eater, friendless and fresh out of Azkaban, has heard rumors about the Golden Girl’s mysterious disappearance. 

And here she is. 

She appears to be in hiding, maybe? She’s dressed in plain muggle clothing, though she did not even make an effort to transfigure her appearance, which strikes Draco as odd. Perhaps she is so confident that nobody will look for her in this little muggle town that she did not feel she had to. 

For a few minutes Draco just watches her. She’s deep in focus, a pen tipped to her lips. 

Suddenly, she looks up from her book. 

Draco doesn’t have time to turn away or hide his face, and he is briefly stricken with panic at the thought of how she will react when she sees him. But, to his surprise, her brown eyes slide right past him to look at the clock on the wall. Then, she slips the book into her bag and stands, taking a moment to stretch her arms above her head before heading out. 

Draco waits uncertainly for a moment before getting up to follow her.

He’s not sure why he does it. She's halfway down the street by the time he sees her, but his strides are longer than hers and he makes up the brief distance quickly, though he makes sure to stay a few meters behind her. She rounds a corner into a little alleyway and at that exact moment—by chance—her bag splits open at the seam. 

Her things spill to the ground with a clatter. Books, pens, loose sheets of paper. 

No quills. No parchment. No wand.

Granger swears softly, then drops to her knees to pick them up. She is irritatedly examining her broken bag when Draco gets close enough for his shadow to touch her.

Being that she’s crouched on the ground, she sees his shoes first. Polished dragonhide—he wonders if that will be enough to clue her in to the fact that he is not a muggle man, that she has been discovered hiding out here in this town. But when she tilts her head back to look curiously up at him, there’s not a trace of concern or recognition on her face.

Hermione Granger smiles at him.

Draco’s heart stutters.

“Hello,” she says, and it is strange to hear her voice sound friendly. Her smile is warm and unguarded.

There is a little question mark implicit at the end of her “hello”—she is waiting for him to say something. To explain why he has stopped next to her. But Draco can’t find the words.

Granger’s smile falters for a moment, presumably because he is very much not smiling, instead looking down at her with a mixture of shock and confusion.

“Are you alright?” she asks, sounding concerned.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

It comes out more sharply than he means it to—he’s never been good at talking to people—and Granger flinches, though not in fear. More like surprise.

“I’m—I’m just picking up my things,” she says defensively. “My bag broke. I’ll be out of your way in a second.”

The alleyway is narrow. She thinks he is upset because she’s blocking the path.

Before he even knows what to do with this information, Granger is standing. She gives him an annoyed look then walks past, her arms full of the contents of her now-broken bag.

Draco just stares, wordless, watching Granger as she makes her way to a nondescript brown building across the street. She uses her hip to push open the door and slips inside.

The sign in front of the building reads: Babel Public Library.

—

Granger works at the library.

Draco adds this to an ongoing tally of things that appear to be the case but that he still does not understand.

When he walks in, having followed her once more, he sees her seated behind the counter talking to one of the other librarians—an older muggle woman. Draco can’t hear what Granger is saying but he sees her lift a corner of her broken bag in exasperation. The other woman shakes her head sympathetically.

Draco approaches the counter without a plan. Granger gives him a funny look. The rude stranger from outside, he can almost hear her thinking.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

He opens his mouth but no words come out. He closes it again.

Granger’s eyebrows rise and the other librarian titters. 

“I’m—looking for a book,” he says finally. 

“Alright,” she says. She spins her chair to face the glowing muggle device in front of her—a screen of some kind. “What book?”

What book, indeed.

“Can you recommend something?”

The other librarian titters again and Draco considers casting a surreptitious voice removal spell on her.

There is a look of exasperation on Granger’s face. That’s it though—no dislike, no fear, not even judgment. She’s just annoyed. 

“What do you like?” she asks, none too patiently. “Fiction? Nonfiction?”

“Fiction.”

She looks at him for a moment, assessing, then turns to the trolley behind her. There are a few books on the top shelf, and she casts a quick glance at all of them before picking up a yellowish paperback. She slides it across the counter to him.

Pride and Prejudice.

“This is a good one,” she says.

“Okay. I’ll take it.”

Granger nods, then extends her hand. Draco freezes. After a moment, he reaches out tentatively and brushes his fingers against hers.

The look she gives him is disbelieving.

“Your library card. Can I have it, please?”

Oh.

“I—I don’t have one.”

Draco turns red, and maybe this is what makes Granger take pity on him. 

“Let’s get you signed up, then,” she says, her tone a little kinder. 

Draco leaves the library with a new library card and the yellowed copy of Pride and Prejudice. He apparates back to his flat in London, doesn’t tell anybody that he found Granger, doesn’t tell anyone that the missing Golden Girl is alive and well and appears to have no memory of her past life.

He stays up all night to finish the book, so that he has a reason to go back to Babel and return it tomorrow. 

—

He returns to Babel at the same time the next day, hoping Granger will be there again but bracing himself for her to be gone. 

But there she is. She’s seated behind the counter, in her swivel chair, same as the last time Draco saw her. Her hair is up today.

He slides the book across the counter to her, and Granger’s eyes flick to it first before sliding up to him. 

For someone who has not felt very many emotions in the last year, Draco is certainly being put through his paces. Currently, anxiety grips him. 

“Done already?” she asks, sounding a little amused. 

He nods, mouth dry.

She takes the book, slides it under a strange red light, then places it on a small shelf beside her. To-be-shelved, he assumes.

Draco realizes almost too late that this interaction will be over soon, and if he wants to talk to her he is going to need to come up with something to say.

“What’s your name?” he blurts out.

He wonders if she remembers what her name is. Or if—for whatever reason—that part of her is gone too, along with her memories of him. 

“Hermione,” she says, looking at him oddly. “What about you?”

She knows her name.

“I’m Draco.”

“What an unusual name,” she says. Her tone is curious, not mocking.

She extends her hand, and Draco quickly pats at his pockets, looking for his library card. He looks up only when he hears her giggle.

Did he make her giggle?

“Not the card this time,” she says, still giving him that funny look. Confused—charmed? She wiggles her fingers when he still doesn’t do anything.

Draco swallows, then reaches out to take her hand. 

“Nice to meet you, Draco," she says.

Chapter Text

It is lucky that Draco is used to not getting enough rest, because the scene from the library plays out in his mind so vividly and so repeatedly all night that he’s amazed he falls asleep at all. 

Nice to meet you, Draco.

Draco has sometimes thought about what it might be like to be forgiven. To be absolved, wiped clean of his wrongdoings, allowed to walk in the light again. He knows he doesn’t deserve it. It’s not that he’s evil—Draco has seen true evil, and he’s not that. Almost everything bad he’s ever done has been out of indoctrination or fear or both. He’d become a Death Eater as a stupid boy trying to make his parents proud, and he’d stayed a Death Eater to keep them alive.

But some things are so bad that it doesn’t matter why you did them. 

His Azkaban sentence had been testament to that. His nightmares—ongoing, frequent—are another. The ones where he watches his younger self let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts over and over again. The ones where he watches the Muggles Studies professor die above where he and his family used to eat dinner. 

No, Draco doesn’t deserve forgiveness. 

And so he is definitely not deserving of whatever this is, this fantasy he’s stumbled into of a world in which he’s never hurt anyone at all, in which he can come across Hermione Granger and she can think it’s nice to meet him.

It doesn’t take a Mind Healer to know why Draco wants to keep living in this reality. 

He wants it so badly it hurts, so badly that he can overlook, at least for now, the part of his brain screaming at him to tell the Ministry, to tell Potter and Weasel, to tell anybody that he’s found Hermione.

Because if two years of trauma serving the Dark Lord and another two years of trauma in Azkaban have taught Draco anything, it’s how to avoid thinking about certain things in order to stay alive. And this little spark in his chest—the one that burns when he thinks about trying to see Hermione again—feels a lot more like being alive than anything else has in a long time.

—

Draco goes into the next day with a plan. He doesn’t want much, just two things: to be near her for a bit, and maybe to have a short, friendly conversation with her.

To this end, after much strategizing, Draco surmises that the best course of action is to ask her for another book recommendation and then sit in the library to read it for a few hours. Preferably in a spot where he can look up every once in a while and see her. 

He doesn’t want to do anything to disrupt her life, harbors no fantasies about becoming her friend. She seems happy. It would be enough just to be near, to indulge in the sorts of polite, well-meaning conversation that strangers or distant acquaintances share with each other. The sorts of conversation Draco never has in the wizarding world, where everyone knows who he is for the wrong reasons.

Hermione is wearing a soft-looking brown jumper today.

“Good morning,” Draco says, stepping forward to the counter. 

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He rests them briefly on the counter but then Hermione’s eyes flick down to them so he slips them into his pockets, self-conscious.

“Hi,” she says, looking up at him with a little smile. “Draco.”

His stomach flips.

“Yes. You remembered.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“And do you remember my name?”

“Of course I do. Hermione.”

This earns him a smile.

“How can I help you?”

Draco has a little script ready.

“I enjoyed Pride & Prejudice,” he says. Then adds: “That was the book you recommended to me a few days ago.”

“I remember.”

“Right. Well, I was hoping I could get another recommendation. If you have time.”

“What did you like about the last one? So I can tailor my recommendation accordingly.”

Draco pauses to think. If he’s being honest, he liked but did not love Pride & Prejudice. But he tries to remember what he did enjoy about it so that he can share something honest with Hermione.

“I liked that it was light-hearted.”

“Interesting. What did you think of the social stuff? Like around marriage and gossip and so on.”

“Funny,” Draco says honestly. “But not my favorite part.”

Hermione nods and turns to peer at her screen. Draco leans over a little so he can see what’s on it. It appears to be a catalog of some kind. The little plastic thing Hermione is sliding around with her hand on the counter lets her navigate the contents of the catalog.

“It’s pretty neat, right?” she asks, seeing him looking at the plastic thing in her hand. “This mouse is a lot more ergonomic than most others. I brought it from home since the ones they give us to use are ancient.”

“Mouse?”

“Yes,” Hermione says, picking up the plastic thing. Draco looks carefully. Is this what the muggles think mice are? “I know it looks a little different. It works pretty much the same, just keeps my hand in a better position.”

Draco nods, logging this information carefully. He wants to be able to talk to Hermione with as little friction, as little lost in translation, as possible. He will remember the muggle names for as many things as he can.

She’s returned to looking at the screen and Draco waits patiently. 

“I think I have a good one for you,” she says after a bit, getting to her feet. “Follow me.”

Draco has never thought of Hermione as being much shorter than him. She’s always had an outsized presence to him, after all—first as one of Potter’s best friends, then as the only student in their year with higher marks than Draco, then as the Golden Girl. But, as she sweeps past him, Draco realizes she comes up only to his shoulder. 

“It’s just over here,” she says, leading him to some nearby shelves. “There’s two by the same author I think you might like.”

He follows her through the aisle. They are the only two there—the library is mostly empty at the moment.

“This one is fantasy,” she says, pulling a paperback off the shelf and handing it to him. “And this other one here is sort of more science fiction. Both are pretty cheerful.”

Draco looks between the two, tries to focus on their titles and covers but Hermione is standing very close to him. She smells good.

“Um,” he says. “I’m—having a hard time deciding. I’ll try reading the first chapter of both before I pick one to check out.”

Hermione seems to approve of this very much.

“How methodical! I can’t wait to hear which you go with. Just find me when you’re ready.”

She shows him to some tables (Draco is happy to see that they’re within eyesight of the front counter) before heading back to her post.

Draco watches her go before taking a seat and cracking open the first book.

—

Three hours later, Draco decides to check out both titles. He knew within a few minutes that he'd get both—the author has a dry, clever sense of humor he likes that manages not to be bleak—but has lingered in the library due to the peaceful, occasionally stomach-flipping enjoyment of sharing space with Hermione. He steals glances. She even catches him looking once, and he has to turn quickly back to his book, cheeks heating, hoping she thinks nothing of it.

When Draco brings up both books to the front counter, Hermione makes a happy little noise of approval. 

“A bookworm like me,” she says, smiling.

She helps him scan the two paperbacks under the red light but then pauses before handing them back. Draco meets her eyes curiously.

“I was wondering,” she says. “Are you new in town?” 

He freezes.

“Why?”

Even he can hear the fearful suspicion in his own voice, and Hermione looks taken aback by his odd reaction.

“I just haven’t seen you around before. That’s all. I thought maybe… um…”

Every atom in Draco’s body is telling him to flee the interaction. But Hermione looks nervous—maybe even embarrassed—so he stays. He has just enough social sense to know that there is a chance he will hurt her feelings if he departs abruptly now. And that he cannot do. 

“I thought maybe we could get a cup of tea sometime,” she says finally, blushing. “I’m new to town and I just thought, if you were too—”

If she says more words they are lost to him. 

Draco’s heartbeat thunders in his ears. A moment ago he felt chilled to the bone and now suddenly it is far too warm in here, his shirt feels suffocating and his collar too tight. Hermione wants to get a cup of tea with him. Hermione Granger is asking him—looking hopeful and nervous—if he will spend time with her in a friendly capacity, a more friendly capacity than just in the library, and he will need so much time to process this later, alone in his flat, and—

“Yes. Yes let’s—yes let’s do that. Yes.”

Hermione’s smile lights up the whole room.

“Great,” she says, and he can tell that she is truly relieved. He wonders, dazed, if she was possibly worried that he would say no. “I think it would be nice.”

“Yes,” he says for the fifth time, because he is an idiot. “Thank you for asking. I also think it would be—amazing.”

This makes her laugh and Draco wills his cheeks to not turn pink.

“So,” she says, still smiling. “Maybe we should, um, exchange numbers? And you can just text me when you’re free?”

Chapter Text

Exchange numbers?  

Hermione is rummaging in her bag now, and when she surfaces it’s with another small plastic or maybe metal-looking thing in hand. It’s about the size of her mouse, but flatter and shinier. She looks at him expectantly and Draco panics. 

This is a muggle thing. This is a muggle thing that he does not understand, has no way of faking his way through. He tries as fast as he can to put together the data points he has available, but no meaning makes itself clear to him and all the while Hermione is still waiting.

“What do you—want from me right now?” he finally asks.

He hopes it is a reasonable question. For a moment he thinks it might have been, but then her face falls.

“Sorry,” she stammers, looking down. “You’re right, that’s um—we don’t have to—“

She shoves the object back into her bag, looking mortified.

“No!” Draco blurts out. “I want—I want whatever it is that you want.”

Hermione’s confused look confirms that this is not a normal thing to say in this situation. He needs time to figure out what numbers are, is sure he can respond appropriately as soon as he learns.

“I just need to leave right now, urgently, but I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?” he promises. “And then we can do—this.” 

They stare at each other for a moment and then Draco turns abruptly to leave, feeling like an idiot and hoping that she will still talk to him tomorrow.

—

He figures out the numbers thing.

Draco has to break his rule of not doing anything that might get him in trouble, but he figures it out. A series of subtle cooperation charms and a few conversations with unsuspecting muggles later, he learns about all about numbers and texts and it all comes down to something called a phone. A mobile phone.

Draco goes to buy a mobile phone. 

The pimply sales associate is very helpful in teaching Draco how to use it. He seems to think the whole thing is an elaborate training exercise from corporate. Even with his cheery patience though, Draco’s comprehension is slow-going. 

There are many things Draco feels uncertain about—his choices, his goodness, his future—but his intelligence isn’t one of them. Complex Arithmancy proofs come easily to him, he used to solve puzzles in Ancient Runes over his morning porridge. But the workings of this muggle phone push Draco to his limit. 

All he needs to make certain he can do, he emphasizes to the sales associate, is exchange numbers and send a textual message. They practice extensively before Draco feels comfortable and confident in his abilities to replicate the process with Hermione.

He makes it to Babel just before the library closes, rounding the corner in time to see Hermione walking out of the building. Draco runs the last few steps.

“Hi,” he calls out, his breathing a little short. “I’m so sorry about yesterday.”

“Is this some sort of strategy?” Hermione asks, putting a hand on her hip. “Like an Art of Seduction type of thing?”

“What does—that mean?”

“Making me wait to get your number, coming at the last second before closing. Dressing like that.”

Draco looks down at his clothes. He is dressed as he normally is, in a white shirt and grey trousers. Black dragonhide shoes—is that what she’s referring to? He will wear muggle leather shoes next time.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking back up at her. He means it. “I got here as soon as I could. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

She looks at him for a moment, not saying anything.

"Could we—exchange numbers?" he continues. "I'm ready now."

He must look as pathetic as he feels because she softens.

“Alright, then."

Draco painstakingly types his information into her phone, then stores her contact when she sends him a quick text. 

“Great,” he says, relieved. “Thank you.”

“You’re sort of strange.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not good at making friends.”

Hermione hums thoughtfully. She has little freckles on her nose.

“So what is your plan now that we’ve exchanged numbers?” she asks. “Are you going to rush off again?”

“I was—going to text you when I’m free. Like you said.”

“Are you free now?”

Draco’s heart speeds up. He had not counted on actually spending time with her today, had wanted to practice conversational skills and give himself time to prepare—

“Yes,” he says. “I’m free now.”

—

Hermione takes him to a pub called The Light Horse. 

The drinks are generously portioned and Draco tries not to think about the last time he drank—a week or so ago, lonely and miserable in his flat. Now he is sitting across from Hermione. 

“This pub is the oldest one in town,” Hermione says, the slight high pitch of her voice suggesting to Draco that she might be a little nervous too. He wonders why, and hopes it is not because she feels unsafe. “Or at least that’s what the owner says.”

“You didn’t look it up to confirm?” Draco asks.

The joke is—in hindsight—risky. After all, while Draco might know that fastidious research is one Hermione’s favorite things, she doesn’t know he knows that. Luckily, she laughs. The sound is warm and surprised and goes straight to Draco’s chest.

“I did, actually,” she admits. “In the town property records in the library. It’s not actually the oldest pub in town. That would be the Rose and Crown.”

She’s smiling at him and Draco finds himself smiling back. 

“So why didn’t we go there?” 

“It’s all the way on the other side of the hill,” she giggles. “And I like the drinks here better. It’s nice to be here with someone, for a change. I don’t really know anyone in town yet—other than Mrs. Hodge. The other librarian.”

“When—when did you move here?”

“Just a couple months ago.”

Draco has to stop himself from asking more questions. He wants to know more about her timeline, her memories—he feels some responsibility, in all honesty, to find out more about her disappearance. But he doesn’t want to be interrogative and he certainly doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable. And besides—what he wants most of all is just to spend time with her.

“Are you liking it here?” he asks, fingers nervously tapping his glass. Hermione looks at his hands and he stops fidgeting.

“Mm, I am,” she says, meeting his eyes again. “My only complaint is that it’s been hard to make friends. I don’t think I ordinarily would have been brave enough to ask you for tea, but it’s a little lonely.”

Draco’s heart twists. He is painfully lonely. The thought that Hermione might be too does something to his heart. 

“I suppose we’ll have to spend more time together then,” he says finally. 

Hermione smiles—wide, grateful. Beautiful. She leans forward, closer to Draco, and she has never done that before.

“When did you move to town? I haven’t seen you around.”

He clears his throat.

“I live in London, actually. But I’ve been making trips here.”

“Oh,” she says, sounding surprised. “Have you been driving there and back? It’s a good few hours, isn’t it?”

“Um—something like that. I’ve been traveling back and forth, yes.”

“This explains your cosmopolitan attire,” she teases. 

Draco likes it when Hermione comments on his clothes. It feels so mundane and yet is more intimate than anything she’s ever said to him, back in their Hogwarts days. 

“I can’t tell if you like or don’t like the way I dress.”

“I like it,” comes her instant reply. “It suits you. Very—classy and mysterious.”

Draco can’t help but laugh.

“Why is that funny?” Hermione asks, but she’s laughing too.

“I just—like that that’s what you think of me.”

“What is this little surprised act?” she says, laughing harder. “You have done everything in your power to cultivate an air of mystery so far.”

“I have not!” he protests. “I’m just bad at talking to people. If you read that as mysterious it’s on you.”

“I’m not convinced you’re actually bad at talking to people.”

“Oh, I am. I really am.”

“Well, I find you very charming. You must be doing something right.”

Draco takes a sip of beer to cover up his awkwardness. He has no idea how to respond, but Hermione smiles.

“And what do you think of me?”

Her tone is teasing. Draco’s stomach flips and he sips again at his drink, is too aware of trying to make sure he doesn’t ruin this lovely, perfect conversation.

“I think you’re—really nice,” he says to the table, wishing he’d spent his later teen years practicing how to talk to girls instead of assisting evil wizards. “And I like talking to you. And—”

Hermione giggles and Draco looks up at her.

“—you have a pretty laugh,” he finishes softly.

Chapter Text

For the first time in a long time, Draco does not have any nightmares that night.

He wakes up feeling light as air. The memory of the previous night—Hermione laughing, the way she leaned over the table, close to him—feels like a dream that's too good to be true. They’d said their goodbyes after two hours in the pub together, and though he’d only had one drink he’d gone home with a surreal feeling of happiness sitting warm in his chest.

It's a bit pathetic, he knows. Surely most grown adults don't get this excited over a simple social interaction. But even if Hermione was only being polite, even if they never, ever have a drink together again—just having this memory is enough for him. More than enough.

But it seems whoever runs the universe is feeling generous. Half an hour later, as Draco is brushing his teeth, his phone goes off. 

Hermione: good morning :) I had a really good time with you

Draco’s eyes widen with surprise and—unfortunately—so does his mouth. His toothbrush falls to the floor with a clatter. 

He swears and bends down to pick it up, casting a quick cleaning charm before sitting down on the nearest surface—the side of his bathtub—the better to stare at Hermione’s message.

She said good morning.

She's texting him?

But they’d already gone out for drinks—and texting is for when one is free, to schedule a drink.

Does she want to schedule another drink?

Draco’s palms sweat; he's not sure how to handle this, or what sort of behavior is expected in this situation. But somewhere in Babel, right at this moment, Hermione is holding her phone too, open to this very conversation. And he will not keep her waiting. 

Draco: Good morning, Hermione. I am glad to hear you had a good time yesterday; I did as well. 

He hits send and stares at his phone, waiting for her to say something back. A moment later she does.

Hermione: i hope it’s ok that i’m texting?

He frowns and his eyes dart back to his earlier message. Had he said something to imply that it was not okay that she was texting? He certainly does not want to imply that.

Draco: Yes. I am very happy that you’re texting me.

Hermione: oh good! sorry if that was a silly question then. thank you for being so nice :)

Draco smiles, wide and automatic. The expression flickers a little as his nerves rear up again—he runs a hand through his hair, then down his face. 

She's complimenting him. She was excited to talk to him.

He’s doing fine. He’s doing fine? 

Draco: You are extremely nice.

Then, as he rereads her message:

Draco: What is :)? 

He sees a little gray bubble appear and then disappear, appear and then disappear. Draco surmises that this means she is typing and then pausing, typing and then pausing. For a second he’s worried he’s asked a very dumb question, something that will give him away as a non-muggle, but then she responds.

Hermione: it’s a smiley face. if you turn your head sideways you can see it! two eyes and a mouth :) 

Draco: Thank you.

Draco waits a bit but no new messages come through, so he slips the phone into his pocket and starts his day. He wears a smiley face himself, all morning.

Surely it is a good sign that Hermione felt comfortable enough to message him? It means, perhaps, that she is interested in maintaining a sort of distant friendship with him. Messages exchanged once or twice a month, friendly greetings and the occasional book recommendation in Babel Library…

Draco can’t wait.

He spends the day peacefully and productively. Ever since his time in Azkaban, Draco has been restless, anxious—full of nervous energy. But today he sits by the window, reads through some of his borrowed books and in the afternoon even looks through the Manor’s estate paperwork. It’s the first time he’s been able to bring himself to do it—his father had always been the one to handle such things, before. Draco is staring at an old document, at Lucius Malfoy’s signature faded and smeared at the bottom of the page, when his phone chimes again.

Draco fumbles at it in his haste to open the message, paperwork forgotten.

Hermione: hello :) i just got off work. how’s your evening?

Draco: It is going well. How is yours?

Hermione: very good, excited to relax at home!

Draco: I am wrapping up work too. Relaxing at home sounds lovely.

Draco needs to put the phone down then, to get ahold of himself.

She is messaging him rather a lot, isn’t she?

He cannot drop the ball on this.

Does he have time to do some research on messaging etiquette? He paces around his office, thinking, but then his phone goes off again. This time, the noise is different. Draco lunges for it, remembers in real time what the phone sales associate had said about “calls” (Draco had not thought he needed to pay attention to those, Hermione had only said she wanted to text) and by following context clues shown to him on the phone’s screen he manages to swipe the right spots and pick up Hermione’s call.

He holds the phone to his ear, like he saw the associate do.

“Hi,” comes Hermione’s voice.

Draco is not expecting her voice to sound so close, like she’s talking right into his ear. Her voice is a little shy.

His heart thuds and his mouth goes dry.

“Draco?” she asks after a pause, when he doesn’t say anything.

The shock of hearing her say his name is enough to jolt him into responding.

“Yes,” he says quickly. “It’s me, hello. Sorry."

“Hi,” she says again, and she sounds a little nervous this time. "I hope it’s okay that I called. I know that’s…”

She trails off a little self-consciously and Draco rushes to correct her.

“No, it’s perfect,” he says. “I'm glad that you called.”

“Yeah?” she is smiling. He can tell.

“Yes,” he says, gripping the side of his desk. It feels like his heart is going a million times a minute. “Yes, of course.”

She laughs, sounding relieved.

“How are you?”

“Great,” he says honestly. "Really great."

She laughs again and Draco smiles automatically at the sound.

"Why is that funny?" 

"You're just funny," she says, still giggling. "What are you up to?"

“I’m back in London,” Draco answers. He’s not sure how much detail he’s supposed to give, is both generally bad at talking to people and also woefully underinformed on muggle telephone etiquette. “I’m home right now. It looks like it might rain.”

“Sounds very peaceful,” she hums, and he thinks he hears her settle into a sofa or armchair. “It looks like it might rain here, too. I’m gearing up for a cozy night.”

“That sounds pretty,” Draco says, imagining Hermione pink-cheeked by a fire. He clears his throat. "Pretty nice. That sounds pretty nice. What do you do on cozy nights?”

“I have a whole little set up,” she laughs. “Hang on, I’ll show you…”

There’s a muffled sort of sound and then Draco’s phone dings. He pauses, then taps carefully to navigate to the message he’s just received from Hermione.

It’s a photo. He sits up straighter, brings it closer to his face.

A coffee table, with a mug of tea and a book on it, along with a candle burning. There’s also some blanket visible in the front, and what looks like a fuzzy-socked foot poking out from underneath it.

Hermione took the photograph. The blanket is on her lap, and that is her fuzzy sock. 

Draco takes in the whole scene for a moment, unexpectedly enamored with being able to see exactly what she’s doing at this moment.

“Hello?” comes her voice from the earpiece, tinny and uncertain.

“Sorry,” Draco says, clearing his throat. He brings the phone back to his ear, though he wants to keep looking at the picture. “I’m sorry. I was just—looking. You do look very cozy.”

“Can you send me a photo too?” she asks hopefully. 

Draco looks around his flat. There is nothing remotely cozy in sight, a realization that is both depressing in general but also, more relevantly, somewhat anxiety-provoking since Hermione has just shared a lovely, perfect little slice of her life with him and he wants to reciprocate.

“It’s not as cozy-looking over here,” he admits after a moment. He stands, trying to find something to take a photo of. “Give me a second to—um—arrange something.”

Hermione giggles.

“Why are you laughing?” he asks, and he’s laughing too, just at the sound of her giggle. "I feel like you laugh at me a lot."

“I don’t know. You’re just—odd,” she says fondly. “I’ve ever met anyone like you before.”

Draco stills. 

Because she has met him, actually. And if she could remember him she would be horrified by what he’s doing.

It suddenly feels excruciatingly obvious that he is taking advantage of Hermione’s memory loss.

“I have to go,” he says quickly. “S-sorry.”

He ends the call then covers his eyes, feeling sick.

The phone dings a few minutes later with a text. Then another. Then another.

Hermione: i’m so sorry, are you ok?

Hermione: i hope i didn't hurt your feelings 

Hermione: i meant it in a good way

Draco stares at the little message bubbles. Hermione is so sweet and earnest, and he wants so, so badly to keep talking to her. 

But he doesn’t let himself type anything back. Tomorrow he will get rid of the phone, he tells himself. Tomorrow he will tell someone he’s found her.

But when the phone dings again a few hours later, just before midnight, Draco all but lunges for it.

It’s another photo, and this time it's of Hermione’s face.

She’s in bed with a blanket pulled up to her nose. Her cheek is turned slightly into the pillow, her eyes half-lidded and sleepy.

Draco stares at the photo. He can see—in beautiful, perfect detail—the dusting of freckles on her nose, the dark swoop of every one of her eyelashes. 

A message comes through and he pulls his eyes away from her face to read it.

Hermione: goodnight zzz

And he knows he is lost.

—

The next morning he sends her a photo of the sunrise, taken through his bedroom window.

Draco: Good morning.

He tells himself this is okay. Draco isn’t hurting her, isn’t hurting anyone, right? He’s not even in Babel inflicting his presence on her. Hermione can choose not to respond to him if she wants.

She responds within seconds.

Hermione: good morning!

Hermione: i’m sorry if i upset you yesterday

Hermione: thank you for the lovely photo. I like getting photos from you

Draco swallows.

He takes a photo of his morning tea, and then a photo of his morning toast, and a photo of the books from Babel Library piled on his desk.

He sends them all to her.

Draco: I’ll send you lots of photos then.

Hermione responds with a photo of a bird feeder through a screened window, and then a photo of her feet in fuzzy socks, tucked into even fuzzier slippers, and then a photo of her face—she’s scrunching her nose playfully, her hair is down and falling in soft curls around her cheeks.

Draco stares at the picture.

He goes back up into their conversation and looks at the other photos she sent, the one last night with her cheek on the pillow and the one earlier of her cozy time.

He goes back to this most recent picture and looks some more. She is so, so pretty. His mouth is dry.

Another notification from her pings, startling him.

Hermione: can you send me a selfie too?

Draco closes the photo so he can return to the text conversation. He frowns, trying to parse her meaning.

Draco: Yes. Can you tell me how? I don’t know what that is.

There is a long pause, though not as long as when he asked about the smiling face. Hermione’s gray dot dot dot bubbles appear again, and then disappear again.

Hermione: it’s a photo of your face, like the one i just sent you :)

Draco rubs his jaw, nervous. He stands and heads to the bathroom, where he examines himself in the mirror.

He looks back down at his phone, pulling up Hermione’s most recent photo.

She’s making a cute face. She is cute, is a beautiful girl with warm eyes and curly hair and Draco is a pale, probably haunted-looking man who will definitely not look as adorable as she does.

He clears his throat, runs a hand through his hair again.

Hermione seems to be able to read his mind.

Hermione: please? 

Draco takes the photo.

It’s not like hers—his expression is neutral and probably a little awkward-looking. But he’s looking at the camera (she was looking at the camera, so it looked like her eyes were meeting his when he opened the photo, and he wants to do that for her too) and he tried to tidy his hair before taking it.

He sends the photo, feeling like an idiot. 

Hermione: i really like your face

Hermione: <3

Chapter Text

They exchange messages for the rest of the day.

Hermione is extraordinarily friendly, Draco thinks. He loves talking to her, loves how chatty and warm she is, though he still feels awkward and wrong-footed at times.

He keeps thinking about how she said she liked his face.

Really liked his face, actually, and Draco remembers that very clearly because he scrolls up to read that part of the conversation over and over.

It must be a muggle pleasantry, complimenting your conversational partner's appearance. In the wizarding world it would be considered flirtatious, and Draco marvels at how different the social dynamics are.

The next time Hermione sends him a photo (later in the evening, while he’s eating dinner), Draco musters up the courage to compliment her too. 

It is easy. The photo she sends is lovely. She’s holding up a bit of burnt biscuit, a playful pout on her face.

Hermione: tried baking :( 

Draco: You look very pretty.

She doesn't send anything back for a moment, then another.

Draco starts to panic when, after a minute, the dot dot dots still don't appear.

He must have misunderstood muggle social norms.

Perhaps if he comments on another part of the photo it will save the situation?

Draco: That bread is really burnt.

Draco: You probably shouldn't eat it.

Draco: Sorry, biscuit. Not bread. I can see it's not bread.

Draco: But I meant to say that bread is burnt, and you might hurt your teeth if you eat it.

Draco: Biscuit

Draco throws the phone as far from him as he can.

Hermione calls him then and he leaps forward, picking up the phone like it's a lifeline.

Her tinkling laughter is on the other side.

Draco covers his eyes, face burning, but Hermione doesn't sound put off and so the panic in his chest settles into nervous butterflies. 

"I went to get a glass of water," she giggles. "I came back to your essay on biscuits."

“I'm so sorry,” he says. “I have no idea what just happened.”

“I take back what I said the other night. Maybe you actually are bad at talking to people.”

He groans and she giggles again, which makes him laugh too.

“God," he says softly. "I don’t—I don't know what I’m doing."

“Well, right now you’re on the phone with me," Hermione says. He can hear the smile in her voice. "Does that help?”

“Yeah," he says, smiling. "It helps."

She hums, pleased. There's a comfortable silence.

"I was thinking," Hermione says after a moment. She sounds a little nervous. "Would you, um, ever want to—”

She is interrupted by the sound of a knocking on the door, over on her end of the line.

“Oh hold on,” she says, and there’s the sound of her getting to her feet. “Someone’s at the door. Ugh, and I'm in my pajamas...”

Draco smiles at the thought of her fluffy slippers.

The smile fades a little, though, when he hears a male voice.

Draco can’t really make out the words, though he strains to hear. He can tell the man is speaking in a friendly tone, and he does hear Hermione’s responses.

“Oh hi!” she says, with enthusiasm. Then, a moment later: “Yes, I’ve seen you around the mailroom. I’m Hermione.”

The male voice responds, and Draco thinks he imagines a sort of flirtatious lilt to the words.

“Oh, thank you!" Hermione says. "Yes, I'd love to. That’s very kind of you."

A few parting words and then Draco hears the door close.

He waits, hoping she will tell him who that was.

“That was my neighbor!” Hermione says. She sounds excited. “I hadn’t met him yet. He’s having a party this weekend and invited me.”

“Oh,” Draco says. He clears his throat. “That’s—that’s nice.”

"You... you wouldn’t want to come with me would you?’

—

He says yes, of course, even though the thought of social gatherings makes him nervous these days.

He wants very badly to be Hermione’s friend, wants to be someone she can count on. Someone who will go with her to a party even though he’s worried that he might have to watch her flirt with her handsome, charming neighbor.

Draco doesn’t know that the neighbor is handsome or charming, actually. But he’s preparing for the worst.

Hermione: can’t wait to see you tonight :) 

Draco: Me too. 

Hermione: are you on the way?

Draco: Yes. Almost there. 

He's changed his clothes three times, shaved twice and is now fiddling hopelessly with his hair in the mirror. It's been so long since he's thought at all about his appearance. But in recent days the concept of looking reasonably attractive has felt more... relevant. Even though that's silly.

A bottle of red wine is a nice thing to bring for a party, isn't it? In the worst case he'll be able to drink it alone if Hermione becomes engrossed in conversation with her handsome neighbor. With this grim though in mind, Draco Apparates to a spot a few streets away from the address Hermione had texted him and walks the remaining distance to the party.

He hears the music first.

It’s loud and a bit thumpy, and that’s his first sign that this might not be the kind of party that calls for a fifteen year old bottle of Chianti. 

Hermione is waiting for him on the street, and she’s wearing a little blue dress. Heels. Draco's mouth goes completely dry. She waves eagerly at the sight of him, and her bracelets make a pretty jingling noise.

“There you are!” she says, running up.

Once she's close he can see there’s this delicate shimmery makeup all around her eyes, it looks amazing, and then suddenly she’s hugging him.

Draco freezes for a moment, panicking.

This is a bad time for him to realize that nobody's hugged him in years. But he puts his arms around her before he has time to overthink it, and it shouldn't feel this good to hold her. She’s warm, and soft, and smells like vanilla. Too soon she’s bouncing back, all excitement.

“Come on, let’s go!”

“Yes, alright—”

She grabs his hand and pulls him up some stairs, towards an open door to a flat from which the loud music is blaring.

As soon as Draco steps in, he knows he is in above his head.

This is a party party, the kind Draco’s never even been to. By the time he was sixteen he had been a Death Eater, after all, and his twentieth birthday was spent in Azkaban. He doesn't know how to act here, among all these cheerful, tipsy, normal people. Everyone is dressed very differently than him, and some are dancing, and though there are drinks aplenty there’s not a bottle of wine in sight.

Draco surreptitiously drops the bottle of Chianti in a potted plant as Hermione pulls him through the room.

“We should probably say hi to Adam,” she says.

Draco notices that she seems a little nervous, too. Her voice is high and she keeps biting her lip. Maybe Hermione isn't comfortable at parties, either?

Or maybe she's nervous to see Adam..? 

“Is Adam your neighbor?” Draco asks. 

“Yes. Oh! There he is!”

Adam is tall, about the same height as Draco, with a white smile and dark brown hair. He looks delighted to see Hermione. 

“Hermione!” he says, giving her a long hug. “You made it!”

“Thank you so much for the invite. I don’t go to many parties,” she says happily, bouncing on her toes. “Adam, this is Draco.”

Adam looks up and notices Draco for the first time. He doesn’t look pleased, and Draco can relate.

“Hey,” Adam says shortly, then turns back to Hermione. The tender, fond smile returns to his face. "You look nice..."

"Thanks!" Hermione beams. "I just wanted to say hello, won't keep you from your hosting duties. Draco, let's go find a drink, I'm parched..."

Adam looks disappointed but Hermione doesn't seem to notice. She waves a happy goodbye and then she and Draco are headed together to the folding table stacked high with bottles of liquor. She must be nervous in crowds, Draco thinks—she keeps taking hold of his hand and seems to like staying close by him.

Maybe parties aren't so bad.

"Ooh, are those maraschino cherries?" she cries. "I love those..."

He makes them both a simple cocktail (extra cherries in her red plastic cup, extra vodka in his). Afterwards there's nothing to do with his hands. It’s just the two of them face to face and she’s looking up at him with a nervous smile. 

“Thanks for coming,” she says after an awkward silence. The music thumps on in the background and he has to lean in close to better hear her. “I’ve been—I’ve been really excited to see you.”

“I've been excited to see you, too. I've been—um, thinking about it."

She smiles, wide and genuine, her eyes sparkling like stars.

“I think about you too.”

She looks down at her bracelets, fidding with them nervously, and Draco can’t help but stare at her while her eyes are downcast. 

Her lashes are long, her freckles adorable.

She’s so beautiful.

He takes a long drink, trying to force himself to look down into the cup instead of at her.

A good friend would not stare at her, he reminds himself sternly. A friend would not be so aware of that one stray sparkle from her eyeshadow that’s somehow fallen and gotten stuck to her cheek, or the way her lips look soft and pink in this dim light…

He’s back to looking at her.

When she glances up Draco flushes with embarrassment at being caught staring. He hopes it's dark enough for her to not notice him blush.

“My drink's empty,” he mutters. "I'll just make another one..."

“Another for me too, please!"

He refills both their cups with vodka and cranberry juice.

“So,” Draco says, clearing his throat. “Your neighbor. He seems to like you.”

“Oh?” Hermione says, giving him an amused look. “Do you think so?”

“Yes. I, er, don’t think he’s very happy that you brought me.”

She smiles. 

“Hm..." she asks musingly. "Do you think he’s... jealous?” 

“Yes," Draco says with a frown, taking another sip from his drink.

To his surprise, she giggles. He looks up to find her looking at him.

“Well,” she says. “I’m not interested in him.”

Relief floods him like a tide.

Amazing news. Perfect news! Suddenly he feels much more warmly towards the host of the party.

“Great,” Draco says, smiling widely. “That's great. Um, that you know how you feel, I mean.”

He doesn’t realize that Hermione’s moving closer to him until she’s right there, the soft, sweet smell of her perfume filling his awareness.

Her big brown eyes are looking into his. 

He should step back to give her room, he thinks distantly. It must be the crowded party that's forcing her closer to him. But it's hard to think with the drink in his system and her face so close to his.

A good friend wouldn't be this attracted to her...

“It's a bit noisy in here," Hermione says. "Do you, um, want to go somewhere quieter?"

Chapter Text

“Yes,” Draco says. “Of course. Whatever you like.”

Quieter sounds perfectly good to him, especially if Hermione’s ears are hurting.

He is surprised when she suggests they go back to her flat. It worries him, a little—he wonders if she has a headache from the loud party and he makes sure to keep a steadying palm on the small of her back as they leave.

Her flat is just down the hall. 

It’s quieter even just a few meters down from the party, which Malfoy is grateful for. He’s still worried about Hermione’s ears, though she doesn’t seem to be in pain. Though after she opens her front door, her heel catches on the threshold and she stumbles getting into her flat. Draco catches her waist, concerned.

“Are you alright?” he asks. 

Did he make her last drink too strong?

But she just gives him an embarrassed smile.

“Yeah, thanks,” Hermione says. “These shoes are new. Kind of hard to walk in…”

Still holding his arm for balance, she lifts a foot to show him.

Draco obediently examines the shoe. It looks lovely, though he doesn’t know much about women’s footwear. A lot of little pink straps.

“Very pretty,” he says, smiling at her, since she seems to be waiting for his assessment. “Hurt your feet?”

She giggles and, hanging onto his arm for balance, reaches her free hand down to undo the straps, nodding. 

“Yeah, a bit,” she admits. “But I wanted to… um. Well, I thought you might like them.”

“I do.”

Hermione lets go of him, still fiddling with her shoe, so he takes a seat in the chair by the door to remove his own shoes. 

Her flat is warmer than outside, and it smells like her. Malfoy can see in the dim light of the entry lamp that there are soft rugs everywhere, that her slippers by the door are white and fuzzy. She likes things soft and clean. 

He’s just finished unlacing the second shoe when Hermione stands up and steps in front of him.

“Can you help?” she asks. “It’s hard to do it by myself.”

He leans back, not sure what she means, but then Hermione lifts her little heeled foot and perches it on his knee.

His heart stops and he looks up at her face at once, needing to see her expression.

Her cheeks are a little pinker than normal but otherwise she looks the same as usual—a slight, embarrassed smile curving her lips.

He is usually much taller than her—but he’s seated now and she’s standing, so she’s slightly above him. Her little dress is looking very little indeed, from this angle. Her leg is sweetly curved, her skin golden in the low light. The pale pink of her shoe is starkly, intensely feminine against the crisp, heavy fabric of his dark trousers, and the sight of it is quite a lot for Draco.

“Just—the buckle,” Hermione says, when he doesn’t move for a moment. “That one.”

Draco looks down at her shoe, hoping she can’t see the flush on his cheeks.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, clearing his throat. “Right.”

He can be useful. He can be good.

Malfoy feels for the buckle—his fingers shake a bit. It’s tiny— barely more than a tiny loop of metal—how is this practical for footwear? His fingers feel over-large as he fumbles with it, but he finally gets it undone. He is reminded viscerally of his first time attempting to undo a bra.

“Done,” he says. “Let me get the other…”

He leads Hermione’s foot to the ground, placing her shoe carefully to the side, and she brings her other heeled foot to his knee once more. 

This one is easier, now that he has a general idea of where the straps are.

With her heels off now, Hermione looks smaller. She's terribly cute. She gives him a glowing smile then bends to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks for helping,” she says, padding away to the kitchen. “Shall I get us drinks?”

Malfoy touches the part of his cheek that she kissed.

“Yes,” he manages to say, feeling his skin burn. He stands up. “Um—yes. Sure—can I help?”

It is taking everything in him to play it cool. He doesn't want her to think he's a freak, to think that he's so unused to casual shows of friendly affection that he'll fall apart at a peck on the cheek. Is this what it’s like to be friends with Hermione Granger? Draco feels a fresh surge of jealousy for Potter and Weasley, who presumably were the recipients of many such little displays of affection. Quick kisses on the cheek, her heeled foot on their knees, perhaps after the Yule Ball…

“Draco? Did you hear me?”

“S-sorry,” he stammers, blinking these thoughts away. He rests his hands on the counter, ready to be useful. “What did you say?”

Hermione giggles.

“I have red wine or white. Or—maybe a cocktail? I think I have some vodka and juice…”

“Whatever you’re having,” Draco says. "Should I help make them?"

"No, no, please. Go sit down. Enjoy my new couch, I just got it secondhand from one of the other librarians..."

Draco takes the few steps to the living room, looking around at her flat as he does. It’s so precious. Soft and warm and more home-like than his flat back in London, even though there are many signs she’s only recently moved in.

Some boxes by the back wall, partially unpacked. A distinct lack of cookware near the stove, only a single pan, the shelves above it nearly empty but for a few little tins of spices that look new.

He closes his eyes for a moment. He doesn’t want to bring it up, doesn’t want to let reality intrude on what is already—sadly—one of the best nights of his life, but he can’t ignore his concern.

“You said you moved here recently,” he forces himself to say. “Has that been—tough?”

He scans the room again, this time searching for signs that Hermione might be unhappy. Signs that he should leave right now and go tell the Ministry to come and fetch her.

“I moved in two or three months ago,” she says. She’s bustling with cups; Draco sees her pour some lemonade into two glasses. “But it’s not been bad, no. Time is so weird this year, isn’t it? I feel like everything just passes by so quickly…”

“Yeah,” he says, staring at her. She looks up and he clears his throat, smiles. “You said earlier you were lonely. I was just worried you might be… sad.”

She gives him a surprised, gentle look.

“That’s really sweet,” she says finally. "You're—such a sweet man."

"I don't think so."

She laughs, even though he didn't really mean it as a joke. 

"Can I be honest with you?" Hermione asks.

“Yeah, of course,” he says, sitting on the couch. “Please.”

Hermione’s eyes meet his over the tops of the cocktails she's still making. Her nose is scrunched a little, something between thoughtful and playful.

“I’m not sad,” she says. "I'm actually—loving it?"

She’s whispering—with a huge smile on her face—like she’s sharing a giddy secret with him. 

“What do you mean?” Draco asks. He is surprised.

“I know this sounds crazy,” Hermione says. “But… do you ever have a sense that—maybe the world works in ways you don’t understand?”

“Sometimes. Yes."

She steps out from behind the counter, two cocktails in hand, and hands him one. Their fingers brush and then she drops down to sit on the couch near him. There are two other free cushions but she has opted to sit right next to him, and their legs are touching. When she turns to look up at him they feel far closer than normal. Draco takes a long drink, trying to recalibrate to this new circumstance.

“Well, that’s how I feel a lot, recently," Hermione says. "Like the world works in ways I don't understand. But also that... I don't mind. And that I'm enjoying going along for the ride."

She looks beautiful. Her hair is curly and soft-looking, and a strand of it has come to rest against his arm. He wants to touch it, wants to coil it lightly around his finger. He fights the urge.

“That’s great,” he says quietly. “I’m glad.”

“What about you?” she asks. They are both speaking very softly now, are so close together. “Are you happy?”

“Yes,” Draco says without thinking.

Her eyes look like stars. Her freckles are a constellation he would sail an ocean to follow. The question is easy to answer, in this moment.

His answer must come out sort of dazed-sounding, because Hermione laughs. He blinks and gives her an embarrassed smile. 

“I mean—you know," he says. "As happy as one can be? In my position.”

“What position is that?” she asks curiously

Draco realizes that he can’t exactly explain the Ministry, or the trials, or the black cloud that is the Malfoy name.

“Um. Just that... I don’t have many friends. And I'm figuring things out as I go, too."

“I’ll be your friend, Draco."

His heart threatens to burst.

Her small hand lifts to rest on his jaw then, and before Draco knows what is happening Hermione Granger is kissing him.

His shocked, stammering little exhale is lost between their lips. 

Hermione Granger is kissing him. Sweet, lovely Hermione—he doesn't know what to do; this is more than he bargained for—

“Oh my god,” he breathes against her mouth, and now her other hand is on his chest, the hand on his cheek slipping behind his head to tangle in his hair. 

"You taste good," she whispers.

That is the last straw. Before Draco can stop himself he is leaning forward to kiss her back in earnest. He suddenly needs her, needs to touch her, needs her to touch him, needs to be so close with her.

She is like toffee in his hands, warm and sweet and melting against him. 

"You're so beautiful," he whispers. "You're perfect. I want to make you feel good—"

She kisses him harder by way of answer, pulling lightly on his hair, biting on his bottom lip. Draco is going to pass out.

It has been a very long time since he's been physically intimate with anybody. This brief bit of snogging is already threatening to send Draco's brain into overdrive, he is breathing heavily and making involuntary little noises as Hermione touches his neck. But he clings to sanity, tries to gather the brain cells to make this good for her, because he very badly needs to make her happy. He needs to show her with his touch and his lips and his breaths that he thinks she is perfect, that he wants to do only good things for her, that he’s sorry—

This final thought snaps him flying back to reality.

He yanks himself away, breathing hard, and Hermione makes a sound of disappointment and tries to close the distance again. But Draco stands, runs his hands through his hair in a panic.

“I’m so sorry,” he says quickly. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I—I should go—”

“What’s wrong?” Hermione asks, standing too. She looks concerned. “Draco? Did I do something?”

“No,” Draco says at once. “No, you’re perfect. I have to go. I have to—”

He takes a step away from her and she catches his hand, and somehow his phone drops from his coat pocket onto the floor between them. 

Hermione goes to pick it up before he can.

He sees the moment her eyes go to the glowing, unlocked screen, sees the moment her expression goes from dazed confusion to something different.

She freezes, staring at the screen.

“Draco,” she says quietly. “Why am I the only contact in your phone?”

Chapter Text

The jig is up, Draco thinks.

His new phone is in Hermione’s hand, and there is a combination of hurt and confusion all over her pretty face.

She knows now that he is not normal. That he’s not a good person, that he’s been pretending. Hermione will ask about the wizarding world, and he will have to tell her who he is—who he really is.

And she will hate him. 

It seems that part is already starting. Hermione shoves the phone into his chest, her lower lip wobbling.

“You’re married?” she asks, sounding on the verge of furious tears.

It takes him an actual, full second to comprehend what she said.

“What?” Draco asks, appalled. “No! No, I’m not married—”

“Then why do you have a second phone?” Hermione asks, wiping her face angrily. “A girlfriend, then? Hiding my contact somewhere she won’t see my name pop up when I text you— God, I’m so stupid!”

“Stop,” he says, catching her hands—which she’s flailing miserably, caught between wiping her eyes and throwing her fists down in anger. “I’m not married. I don’t have a girlfriend. I would never—Jesus—I would never hide you.”

She laughs without humor, her eyes teary.

“Then what’s with the empty phone?” she asks miserably. She swats him on the chest, furious, turns from him with her hand over her mouth. 

“Hermione,” Draco says, his voice soft and sad. “Look at me.”

She does. 

Even crying, her eyes red and her cheeks blotchy, she is beautiful. Draco is a monster—how much pain has he inflicted in her life already? And now this too?

“I’m not married," he says. "And I don’t have a girlfriend. But—“

“Promise,” Hermione interrupts. “Swear that you’re not married. Swear to me you’re single.”

“I—“ 

Draco has no idea how to say that’s really not the part you should be worrying about, so he just says: 

“I promise. I swear. I’m single.”

Hermione takes a heaving breath and wipes her cheeks. Already she seems less distraught, and when she looks at him again her eyes are apologetic.

“Okay,” she says. “I’m sorry. You probably think I’m insane…”

“No. What? No—you’re not insane,” Draco says. He really hopes for her sake that she never meets a man who is actually married, because she is far too trusting. “I’m single, but—but I still haven’t been totally honest with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not who you think I am,” Draco forces himself to say. He looks down at the floor because he can’t stand to see the softness leave her eyes. “I'm not a good person. My—my family—“

“Stop,” Hermione says.

Her voice is firm—almost angry—and he stops talking. He will do whatever she asks.

“I don’t want you to tell me anything that you’re not ready to,” Hermione says.

“I… don’t think that you would feel that way if you knew what I was about to tell you.”

“Listen,” Hermione says. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, I don’t want to know anything you’re not ready to share.”

He can’t stop a disbelieving laugh from escaping him. 

“You don’t want me to feel uncomfortable,” Draco repeats to himself. He drops to a seat on the couch, runs his hands through his hair, then puts his face in his hands. “I have to tell you.” 

“I don’t want you to.”

This is not going at all how it needs to. Draco is just going to have to come out and say it.

You know me already, that’s what he’ll open with. 

You know me, and you hate me. Like, really hate me. You’re missing your memory! We should go to the authorities. They will explain it better than I can. And if you don’t mind, it would be very nice if the last thing I saw before a life sentence in Azkaban was your face.

“You know m—“ he says, at the exact same time that Hermione says:

“I don’t care what it is.”

“Erm…”

“I don’t!” she repeats stubbornly. “So if you think you’re doing it for my sake, well—don’t think that. I’m being selfish, okay? I like you a lot and—and if there’s something that’s going to put an end to that—I’d rather know later. Not now. I just... I want more time with you first.”

What is he supposed to do? 

Her eyes are pleading.

“Okay,” he says. He is not capable of saying no to her, not when she looks at him like that. “Alright.”

“Whatever it is can wait," she says softly. "Maybe tomorrow, alright? Or the day after... Or next week. Not right now. Because right now, I want to do cute shit with you.”

“I—what? Yes. I’ll do whatever you like.”

“Good,” Hermione says.

She plops on the couch next to him.

“Now you’re going to come over here and kiss me," she says firmly.

Well, he’s going to hell, and that’s fine.

Draco leans in and kisses her—she doesn’t need to tell him twice, her eyes are still red from crying and what he wants more than anything else in the world is to kiss her better. His hand is on her cheek and she rests her own, much smaller, palm over it.

“Now,” she whispers, her breath fluttering across his lips. “Now say: ‘I like you very much, Hermione. Enough to not break your heart right now.’”

Draco leans his forehead against hers, squeezes his eyes shut

“I like you very much, Hermione,” he says, and behind every word he hopes some part of her hears: I’m sorry. “So much. Enough to not break your heart right now.”

~

They cuddle on the sofa and watch a movie, which is some kind of muggle miracle captured in a box or something.

Hermione is holding his hand, her fingers intertwined sweetly with his, and every once in a while Draco sneaks a look out of the corner of his eye to see their hands together, on her lap.

He can’t believe it.

The guilt roiling in his stomach is terrible, but it’s impossible to feel bad for too long, what with Hermione gently resting her head on his shoulder. What with her whispered comments about the movie, and the soft, tingling kisses she gives him on his ear and neck—then how she giggles when he can’t hold back a shiver.

He worries that it is sort of painfully obvious, the fact that he hasn’t had sex in years. 

Not that sex is important to him in this situation. Whatever is going on with Hermione feels almost holy—and he supposes there is some religious undertone with the fact that he’s certainly going to be eternally damned for this—and though she is beautiful and she teases him like crazy and her lips are soft… he doesn’t need more from her. 

But it would be nice if she didn’t realize he was pathetically craving her every touch. Or that when she kisses him right there on his neck he…

Draco shifts away from her a little, his cheeks hot, and tries to readjust his trousers.

They finish the first movie, then start another.

Hermione's blinks grow slower and her yawns more frequent.

“Stay here with me?” she mumbles, when the second movie finishes too.

The sun is starting to peek out over the trees. Draco can see the silhouette of the sunrise out there, in the distance—framed by the white curtains in Hermione’s kitchen.

He kisses her temple.

“I should go back," he says quietly.

“Don’t.”

“Alright.”

She smiles up at him—wide, shining, even as her eyes droop sleepily. 

“You’re very nice to me.”

He kisses her forehead.

“In the bed with me, okay?” she sighs, standing up and stretching. “Even though I know you’re going to ask to sleep on the couch.”

“Whatever you want.”

He follows her into the bedroom and they get under her covers, even though both are still in their clothes from the party. He assumes this is because she doesn't want to undress in front of him, and he's happy to make her more comfortable. Maybe he will learn how muggles clean fabric tomorrow, so he can help clean her bedding.

Her blanket is white and marshmallow-y, the pillows smell like her. All of this is paradise. Hermione clings to Draco and buries her face in his chest.

She falls asleep in his arms.

Let me keep this, he thinks, sending up the entreaty to whichever deity is in charge of his life. I will be good for the rest of my life. Anything. Just let me keep her. 

 ~

Hermione wakes him up the next morning with kisses on his lower stomach.

Draco jerks away, alarmed and aroused, still half-asleep.

“Good morning,” she says with a sly smile, resting her cheek on his abdomen. “You have great muscles.”

He is hard, he realizes in a panic.

Oh god, he is so hard.

Does she know he is hard?

He doesn’t want her to feel his erection—it’s only centimeters from her face—this is so fucking embarrassing—

Hermione smiles wider and then, as though reading his mind, drops her head and plants a sweet little kiss right over his trouser zipper, her doe eyes innocent and fixed on his. 

He exhales sharply, seeing spots, and his hips jerk up in response. 

“Ungh,” he grunts. “Holy fuck—”

“You sound so sexy when you’re horny…” she giggles, nosing at his trousers. 

This is insane. He is literally going to come in his pants if she doesn’t stop. And he is pretty sure that she will not find that sexy.

“Hermione,” he gasps, trying to keep his eyes from rolling back as she kisses him over his trousers once more. “Come back up here. You’re going to make me—” 

“You're big..."

His cock jerks in response and he groans—he should have masturbated before coming to see her last night, but he never would have anticipated this happening—

She looks up to see his reaction then laughs, resting her head on his stomach with a smile.

“Look at you,” she whispers, her face adoring. “You’re so sweet. I think you’re the only man in the world who wouldn’t be ripping my clothes off right now.”

Draco rubs his face, tries desperately to regain some control.

“Come back up here,” he repeats, then laughs when she pouts. “Come on. Come here, let me kiss you.”

She finally relents, crawls up the length of his body and tucks herself into his side, offering her mouth to him for a kiss.

“So what is it?” she asks, after they’ve kissed and she’s nuzzled him and he’s smiling like an idiot. “How come you’re not jumping my bones?”

“I just—it’s just been a while. And I want to make it good—and special. For you.”

She smiles at him, wide and beautiful. 

“It will be,” she giggles, kissing him on the jaw. “But we can go slow. I think it’s romantic.”

She rests her head on his shoulder and kisses his collarbone, then turns her eyes up to look at him again.

Her irises are honey-brown. She’s looking up at him like he hung the moon. Draco touches her cheek, then her mouth, then her chin. 

“You’re perfect,” he says quietly. “Everything should be perfect for you.”

"Sweet talker," she says, but her eyes sparkle with joy. "How about you and I go scrounge up some perfect breakfast then? I'll make you my cheddar scrambled eggs."

Chapter Text

Draco is having the best morning of his life.

Is this what the books mean when they talk about domestic bliss ?

Hermione demands to wear his button-down shirt. He goes shirtless instead, and she seems to really like that. She keeps leaving lingering touches on his back, his arm, the muscles on his stomach—and she’s barefoot in only his white shirt sweeping the middle of her thighs and they’re making breakfast together.

Maybe everything that happened, everything in the world and everything Draco did, even, was worth it to plop him here in this moment.

Draco tries to help, though he rarely cooks. He makes toast, carefully watching it in the pan as it browns, focused on making sure it’s neither too soft nor too burnt.

Hermione loops her arms around his waist from behind, and rests her cheek on his back.

He brings his hand to his stomach, where her fingers are splayed. He rubs his thumb gently over her knuckles.

“This is amazing,” he says, and Hermione laughs.

“You sound so serious.”

“I am serious.”

She just laughs again and kisses his back—right in the center, her lips soft and warm over his spine, and then goes back to finish making the eggs.

They eat the toast with strawberry spread. Draco did a good job and the crispy pieces came out perfectly, exactly how he wanted them to.

And Hermione’s cheddar eggs are so good.

“Oh my god.” The eggs are creamy and salty and why has he never had cheese in eggs before?! “These are unbelievable.”

“Thank you! Aren’t they?”

Draco takes another huge bite, and if the delicious, savory, fucking God are those chives chopped in and mixed throughout? eggs themselves aren’t enough motivation to eat a whole plate, then Hermione’s beaming face certainly is.

“Wow, you love them!” she says, her smile wide and joyful. 

“Yes! Yes I do. Oh, man—are there more..?”

Hermione beams and goes to get him seconds.

“Thanks for staying with me last night,” she says, scooting her chair closer to his. She leans her head on his shoulder and Malfoy turns to look her in the eyes. 

She’s smiling at him. It takes him a moment to realize he’s smiling back—absently, not even noticing he’s doing it—just basking in the joy of her presence.

“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”

“Do you have to leave after breakfast?”

There is something a little nervous in her voice. She’s searching his eyes, trying to be surreptitious. She’s hoping he won’t go.

“I don’t have anything to do today,” Draco says. “I can spend more time with you. Though I might need to shower and get a change of clothes…”

Hermione is giddy with excitement and Draco can’t help but laugh. 

“I don’t have any men’s clothes here,” she says. “But I can throw yours in the wash? You’ll have to be naked…”

She giggles and Malfoy’s face heats. She is so—sweetly, un-self consciously flirtatious. He wishes he could return some of that energy, and he’s trying. But being naked in Hermione’s flat? The first time he’s here?

He’s too nervous and eager for her affection for something like that.

“I can just pop back to my flat and grab something really quick,” Draco says.

“Really quick?” Hermione repeats, laughing. “Just a quick nip up to London, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says. She’s distracting him, with the way she looks at him. 

“It’s hours of driving, Draco. It’ll take you all day to go and come back. Let’s hang out here instead.”

“Oh. Right—I forgot it was that long of a journey.”

“Silly,” she says, giving him an odd look. 

“I don’t really want to be naked while we wait for my clothes to wash and dry,” Draco says awkwardly. “Um—maybe you can come with me to buy some new clothes?”

Hermione decides they ought to go to a little street in a neighboring town that has a nice menswear shop. There’s also a place that sells Italian sodas, she explains. And she wants to have one with him.

Draco is, frankly, not that used to wandering around in public, spending a lazy weekend day strolling past shops and looking into window displays.

He stays inside a lot these days, both because he has his own demons and ghosts to reflect on and also because being outside means being subject to the looks.

A lifted eyebrow, an angry glower. Sometimes, in the months immediately after the war ended, people would throw things at him. These days it’s simmered down to a quiet judgment. Nobody wastes their energy on hating him; he’s just… quietly unwelcome.

Not so in the muggle world.

Hermione walks with him through a sunny, tree-lined avenue. The cobblestone streets are shoddier and more broken-apart than Draco is used to. But it’s quaint—so quaint. There are some people wandering about: a mother and her young son, two old men, some laughing teenage girls. Nobody glances at Draco unkindly. 

He and Hermione blend right in.

It’s amazing.

She's given him his shirt back—it's wrinkled but Draco doesn't care, it smells like her—and she's wearing an oversized blue t-shirt and some casual black shorts made out of a stretchy material. Malfoy tries to imagine what they look like to muggle bystanders. Just a man and a beautiful girl. Happy.

The trees lining the street are alder, it looks like. Slim, dark trunks exploding into branches covered in round leaves. Malfoy hasn’t walked down an old cobblestone street—crowded and lined with alder trees—in years. Maybe ever. 

“What do you think of children?” Hermione says, watching the small boy grab a handful of leaves and toss them a short distance away.

Draco considers the question.

“Cute,” he says, after thinking for a moment. “Small.”

Hermione bursts into laughter.

"What?"

“I bet you were a cute kid,” she says, by way of answer. She takes hold of his hand. “All that blond hair.”

Draco smiles at her.

“I’m told I was ill-behaved and scrawny, actually.”

“I refuse to believe it. Did your parents say that? What're they like?"

It takes Draco a moment to answer. Luckily they’re entering the gelato shop—the one with the Italian sodas—so he has an excuse to be silent as they examine the menu.

“Strict,” he finally says. “Um, these look great. What flavor do you think you’ll get?”

Hermione gives him a look but doesn’t remark on his caginess. 

“Hm…” She examines the chalkboard. “Cherry sounds good. Oh, wait, they have pecan? That sounds so interesting…”

“The blueberry looks really good too.”

Five minutes later they’re sitting outside under a red-striped umbrella and slurping on half-clear, half-syrup sodas. 

“This is great,” Draco says, surprised and looking down into the fizzing glass. "I've never had one of these before. I always figured it would be watery."

“They're so underrated! Try mine; the pecan is bizarre but not in a bad way—”

By the time Hermione and Draco enter the menswear shop, it is already the best day of Draco’s life. It always seems to be that way, with her. Each day better than the last, each day more shining and beautiful and full of joy.

Hermione’s phone rings while Draco is examining some shirts. Is that a bowling shirt? Do they have anything normal in here—

“Hello!” Hermione calls, sing-song. She’s examining some leather jackets. “Mhm, yes. I’m actually on a date right now.”

She meets his eyes and sticks her tongue out at him. He smiles.

Draco supposes it makes sense that she has some muggle friends. He wonders if it's that other librarian—Miss Hodge?—on the line. Maybe her friends know more about Hermione's history; it could be useful to talk to them, and piece together when she “moved to town”, or where she lived before. 

Not that he wants this fantasy to be over. He’d happily live like this forever, if he could. They could move here, to this tiny muggle village—maybe he could buy that little gelato shop and they'd move into the flat above it.

He lets himself daydream.

They would have cheddar scrambled eggs every morning.

He would buy her flowers every day. Twice a day.

“Yes, he’s very handsome,” Hermione says with a laugh. “Yes, very tall. Mm… we haven’t slept together yet, but if I had to guess, I would say he’s very big …”

Draco chokes and turns red; Hermione laughs.

“Listen, I have to go,” she says. “I’ll tell you about him later. Alright. Bye, Gin.”

Chapter Text

Draco freezes.

He’s holding a shirt by its hanger but it drops from his fingers, landing onto the wood floor of the shop with a mighty clatter.

Bye, Gin.

Bye, Gin.

Certainly not—Ginny Weasley? 

He bends and picks the shirt and hanger off the ground. His heart is banging thunderously in his chest. 

It can’t possibly be Ginny Weasley.

Of course it can’t—because if Ginny knew where Hermione was, the whole wizarding world would know. People have been looking for Hermione.

A really weird coincidence though, no?!

Draco tries to remain calm.

“It’s so easy to fluster you,” Hermione teases, her phone call over. She joins him by the shirt section, oblivious to the apocalyptic storm raging in Draco’s head. “Your cheeks are all red.”

For a moment, Draco considers asking about it. That would be the safest strategy for him, in terms of minimizing risk. He could learn more about the situation.

Who was that on the phone?

Your friend’s name is Gin—what’s that short for?

But he can think of no way of phrasing the question that doesn’t make him feel underhanded and slimy.

He will not be weird and slither-y and pry for information. He will not try to dodge fate. Draco has decided he wants to spend time with Hermione, and that means he has to be alright with whatever consequences come. 

So he doesn’t ask about the phone call at all.

“What do you think about this one?” he asks, holding up a silk shirt in a particularly unappealing shade of yellow. There are polka dots on it, for unfathomable reasons.

Hermione laughs with delight and Draco grins.

“No, no,” she says, pulling a faux fur vest off the rack. She holds it against his torso. “It simply has to be this one…”

They leave the shop after twenty minutes, Draco with a paper bag full of clothes in tow and Hermione with a new tweed beret on her head. She'd thrown it on as a joke but ended up liking it, and Draco bought it for her with one of the muggle money bills he has on him. She looks adorable, and he's sure he will remember the sight of her like this forever. Eyes bright, cheeks pink in the brisk fall air, a wide smile on her face that she's directing at him. At him.

"Thanks for suggesting the shops," Draco says when they get back to her flat. "That was—really fun. I'll take a shower and change into some of these new things."

"Ooh, shall I come in with you?"

Draco can't even a stammer an answer because Hermione giggles and kisses him, pulling him forward by the collar of his shirt so that he presses her against the wall. 

Her little hand slides down the front of his shirt, pressing against his chest and then his stomach. She playfully runs a finger under the band of his trousers and he gasps.

Hermione giggles and lets him go. She loves flustering him, though he can't fathom why. He's sure that the sight of him blushing and pathetically aroused can't possibly be attractive.

"I know you don't want me to see you naked yet," she says, as Draco tries to collect himself. "Don't worry. I'll be good."

He is painfully hard, his trousers tight and constricting.

Luckily she just kisses his cheek and walks away, leaving Draco free to hide out in the bathroom where she won't see the evidence of how horny she's made him. Not that she seemed to mind his erection, back when they were in bed this morning. God, that memory of her crawling down his body, pressing her lips to his zipper—

This is something like the fourth time in two days that Draco has been painfully turned on and not been able to do anything about it. If he was anywhere but here he would be coming in his hand by now, no doubt gasping from relief at the release of some of this pent-up pressure.

But jerking off in Hermione's shower, to thoughts of her, no less, is far too creepy. He tries to ignores his twitching erection. The cold water helps, at least.

Hermione is lying on the sofa when he steps out of the bathroom. He stills when he realizes she's on the phone with Gin again.

"Yes, he's still here," Hermione hums happily. "He's showering."

Draco takes a seat next to her, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at the rug. His knee bounces nervously.

“I do really like him,” Hermione says softly into the phone, giving Draco a little smile. “He’s kind, and funny."

Draco hears the tinny, muffled sound of Gin speaking on the other end. He can't make out the words, but he can tell the voice is happy. Gin is clearly thrilled that Hermione has found someone to spend time with. Draco wonders what she'll do when she learns that the someone is not a nice muggle man, but instead her least favorite person from Hogwarts.

Unfortunately, that moment is much closer than he'd expected.

"Why do you want to know his name?" Hermione asks with a laugh. Draco's mouth goes dry. "So you can look him up on the internet?"

She darts another smile his way but he can't meet her eyes. His knee bounces faster.

“Okay, okay," Hermione says. "Draco. That's his name."

The tinny chatter on the other end stops abruptly. Even without the phone pressed to his ear Draco can tell how heavy the silence is.

~

Gin loves chicken curry, evidently, so that’s what Hermione is cooking for dinner tonight. 

“She’ll be here in twenty minutes,” Hermione says cheerfully, pouring Draco a glass of red wine. “She’s so excited to meet you.”

He'd considered making up an excuse and leaving. Shortly after Gin learned his name she insisted on coming over. He knows this won't end well—Aurors will probably be arriving on Ginny's heels. But he will not allow the last thing he does with Hermione to be fleeing from her, like a coward. He's been cowardly enough for one lifetime.

"That's nice," he says, leaning down when she puckers her lips for a kiss. "I'm—excited to meet her, too."

Hermione smiles and stirs the simmering saucepan with a wooden spatula.

"Can you try this?" she asks. "Is it too spicy?"

She offers Draco the spatula to lick and he does so, humming in appreciation even though he has no appetite.

“It's perfect. You made it perfectly."

She beams at him.

Hermione is a very good cook—not just in terms of flavor, but also in timing. He supposes that the methodical intelligence she's known for carries over to kitchen logistics too.

The whole house is fragrant with the smell of spices and chicken by the time the curry is done, and the timer for the rice goes off not a minute later.

Hermione puts two pot coasters on the table and brings over the food, big red oven mitts on her hands. Will this be the last time he gets to see her in this kitchen?

"Gin is running late," Hermione says, glancing at the clock. "Do you think she forgot?"

"I—doubt it."

As if on cue, there is a knock at the door. Hermione smiles broadly and runs to go get it.

"Ginny!" she says, engulfing her in a hug.

Draco allows himself a millisecond of pathetic, futile hope that maybe this is an entirely different Ginny. But of course, it's not.

Ginny Weasley's freckled arms are wrapped around Hermione in a hug. Her voice is cheery and bright to match Hermione's, but Draco sees her eyes dart around the house, looking for him.

They land on Draco.

Her eyes narrow. The vengeful fury of one thousand suns burns in them.

Yes. Ginny Weasley.

I know, Draco wants to say. I'm sorry. It's me.

Ginny looks like she might be capable of casting an Unforgivable on him right here and now, but then Hermione steps back from the hug and the redhead forces a smile.

“It’s so good to see you!” Ginny says. "Thanks for having me on such short notice."

"You're welcome whenever, you know that. Draco—come meet my friend Ginny. Gin—this is Draco."

“Hello,” Draco says. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Ginny bares her teeth at Draco in a rough imitation of a smile. 

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

“I think you guys are really going to get along,” Hermione says happily, returning to the kitchen to stir her curry. “Gin—glass of wine?”

“That would be lovely,” Gin calls, dawdling by the doorway to take off her shoes.

As soon as Hermione is out of earshot, Ginny wheels on Draco.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing, Malfoy?” Ginny hisses.

“I don’t know," he mutters. "I don't—I don't know.”

“Here’s that wine, Gin!” comes Hermione’s voice.  

“Coming!” Ginny calls cheerfully. 

She glares at Draco, seems to be debating to herself whether or not to strangle him immediately or later, then finally walks away. She throws him a filthy look as she does, which Draco accepts as his due. He stands by the shoe bench for a moment longer before joining them both in the kitchen. He's not sure what Ginny is planning on doing, but until she makes it known he's just going to have to soldier through this dinner. 

It becomes evident that Hermione is extremely excited for Ginny and Draco to get along. Presumably this is because she doesn't have that many people in her life, which tugs at Draco's heart. For her sake, he tries his best to make forced, false smalltalk with Ginny. 

"I hear you like curry," he tries valiantly. 

"Everyone likes curry," snaps Ginny, and Draco winces.

It gets no more comfortable as the evening stretches on.

For some reason, Draco had anticipated that Ginny would pull the rug out from under him before dinner started. He'd been ready to be detained by Aurors, shackled and sent off to the Ministry for trials. He had not anticipated the possibility that he might have to have a whole meal's worth of conversation first.

Ginny stares daggers at him whenever Hermione isn't looking.

"So," she says, viciously stabbing a bit of chicken that she no doubt wishes was him. "How long have you known Hermione?" 

“Just a week or so,” he says, shame heating his cheeks.

“Goodness, not long at all. You work quickly."

Draco flinches at the implication that he's been some kind of mastermind, that he's pursued Hermione with lascivious and premeditated intent.

“It just happened,” he breathes, looking down at his plate. “By chance.”

"Lucky chance," Hermione says with a smile, pouring everyone more wine. She gives Draco a kiss on the cheek. Ginny looks like she might throw up.

“Ginny works with a professional football team,” Hermione says to Draco, blissfully unaware of the cold war happening at her table. “Though she refuses to tell me which one. Non-disclosure and all that.”

"I have some guesses," Draco can't help but mutter under his breath. He knows full well from the Daily Prophet sports pages that Ginny works for the Chudley Cannons.

“And what about you, Draco?” Ginny grits out. “What do you do for a living?”

“Business," he answers shortly.

"How nice," Ginny says icily. "Good at taking advantage of deals, are you?"

Consternation flickers over Hermione's face, and she looks between them.

"Gin?" she asks quietly. "Are you alright?"

Ginny looks regretful at once—clearly she, like Draco, was hoping to keep the memory-lossed Hermione out of the mess of this conflict. 

"Sorry," Ginny says with a smile. "I'm sorry. I just had a long day. Draco—could you pass me that yogurt sauce?"

"Sure," he says, handing her the bowl.

Hermione looks tentatively hopeful. 

Between the twists of shame and nerves in his stomach, there is a burning bit of curiosity as well. Why hasn't Ginny gone to the authorities already? Everyone has been looking for Hermione, why hasn't Ginny told them where she is?

Not that he is one to talk.

Dinner crawls by. There is a perceptible chill in the air, though Draco and Ginny do their best to mask it. Hermione tries to spark conversation between them.

“Draco and I went clothes shopping today,” she says to Ginny. “We had so much fun. We got sodas and he bought me a funny little tweed beret."

“Oh!” Ginny says. “How nice.”

"It was my first time having Italian soda," Draco tries, not wanting to disappoint Hermione by being too taciturn.

Ginny looks like she couldn't care less if Draco ever drank anything again, but she manages to give him a tight smile.

Finally, finally, dinner ends.

Hermione insists they don't help clean up (it seems she is hoping that Ginny and Draco will get along when it's just them at the table, while Hermione bustles about with dishes), but neither are interested in remaining at the table. They all stand at once, grateful for something to keep their hands busy.

Draco is just wondering how Ginny is planning to get him alone for a conversation when she clears her throat.

“Oh, Hermione," she says. "I forgot to mention—I brought you a gift!"

"Oh! You shouldn't have, that's so kind of you." 

"I—hid it in the bushes at the bottom of the stairs," Ginny says haltingly, in an abominable attempt at lying that only a Gryffindor would believe. "You should go get it.”

Draco gives Ginny a dry, disbelieving look that she ignores.

“In the bushes?” Hermione asks with a laugh. "Why?"

“Yes, Ginny, why?” Draco can't resist muttering.

“Oh, you’ll see!” Ginny says to Hermione with forced cheer, her smile fixed and painful-looking. “It’s all part of the surprise!”

Hermione can’t resist a surprise. She leaves the dishes alone and within moments her shoes are toed on, and she's out the door.

There is a moment of silence as the door clicks shut. Then:

“You motherfucker!" Ginny hisses furiously, turning to him. “I’m going to make sure you spend the rest of your life in Azkaban, you—you predator—”

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Draco says. He is surprised how easily the indignation comes—how angry he is at the implication that his intentions are dirty. “I know this isn’t right. I’m sorry, I don’t—I don’t know how this happened. I'm not trying to hurt her."

“You expect me to believe that? You probably came hunting for her just as soon as you could.“

“I don’t even know what she’s doing here! And—and speaking of that, what are you doing here? Why haven’t you told the Ministry where she is?”

“Oh, that's rich, coming from you—"

The doorknob rattles and Draco instantly steps back from the whisper-fight. Ginny does the same, plastering a smile on her face.

“There was nothing in the bushes,” Hermione says, poking her head in. 

“Oh! Silly of me, I meant to say I left it in the flower beds! The ones just across from the stairwell.”

Hermione leaves.

"Nice," Draco mutters. "She's going to be so disappointed when there's no present."

Ginny looks like her head might explode.

"You need to leave her alone," she says through clenched teeth. "You're taking advantage of her."

“I know that," Draco says at once. His cheeks are hot with shame. "I didn't mean to let it get this far. I've tried to stop seeing her twice, and both times she wouldn't let me go—”

"Oh, you tried twice?” Ginny shrieks quietly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Why didn't you say so? Let's get you a medal!" 

"I already said I'd leave her alone!" Draco says, his voice cracking. He hates himself, can't she see that? "Let's just take her to the Ministry. She'll want nothing to do with me when her memory is back."

"The Ministry can't help her," Ginny says furiously. "And she made me promise I wouldn't tell anyone she's here."

Chapter Text

“What does that mean?” Draco asks. “You promised her you wouldn’t tell? Does she know what’s going on?”

“Don’t be thick,” Ginny snaps. “She made me promise before she lost her memory. Only, I don’t think things are going according to plan, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Who else knows?” Draco asks.

“Only me.” Ginny says. She makes a regretful face, then adds: “And now, you.”

“I want to help,” he says, then tries not to feel too stung when Ginny snorts. 

Hermione returns just then, frowning, in a gust of cool outside air and the sound of shoes being nudged off. 

“Gin,” comes her plaintive reproach, now a little irritated. 

“Silly me,” Ginny says at once. “I had it here all along! Sorry, love. Here you go…”

She gives Hermione a box of chocolates that Draco has a feeling are fresh off a Conjuring Charm. Hermione, sweet girl that she is, forgets her annoyance instantly.

“Thank you!” she says giddily, undoing the ribbon. “Oh God, nougat. My favorite…”

“It’s from a great sweets shop in London,” Ginny says. “We should take you some time, Hermione.”

Hermione shrugs and smiles, popping a chocolate into her mouth.

“I’ve never really had the urge to go to London. You can just keep bringing me candies, can’t you?”

Draco doesn’t miss the strange, seemingly subconscious aversion to going somewhere that might trigger her memory. Ginny gives Draco a pointed look. Like—see what I’m saying?

“Well, since you’re working tomorrow I can show Draco the shop,” Ginny says. “That way he can bring you nougat when I’m not able to.”

Hermione is all excitement at this idea, presumably also because of her hope that Ginny and Draco are getting along.

She is disappointed when Draco says he ought to get back to his flat for the night. 

“I’ll come see you again this week,” he promises.

He waves to Hermione as he and Ginny walk down the street to find a secluded spot to Apparate away from. Hermione lingers in the doorway, sweet as the yellow glow of light from inside her flat, until Draco waves at her to go back inside. She blows him a kiss and he smiles like an idiot until he spots Ginny’s unamused look.

“So, where’s this sweet shop anyway?” he asks, clearing his throat. “Diagon Alley?”

Ginny gives him a disbelieving look.

“There’s no sweet shop, you idiot.”

Oh.

—

It’s just after eleven at night, and seeing as there’s little open other than pubs at this hour, Ginny wants to go to the Hog’s Head to talk about what they intend to do about Hermione. Draco is forced to admit that he doesn’t ever go to restaurants or public houses because he doesn’t like being out in the world, and people always seem to wish he wasn’t there anyway.

If he’d been foolish enough to hope that this display of vulnerability might soften Ginny’s stance on him, he’d have been disappointed. Luckily he harbors no such illusions

“Makes sense,” Ginny says crisply. “Alright. Let’s talk at yours then.”

“Can’t we go to your flat?” Draco asks, thinking about how Ginny’s impression of him as a lonely creep will certainly not be helped by the sight of his empty, cold and monochrome flat.

“No,” Ginny says. “Harry will be back soon.”

“He doesn’t know? And what about Weasel—“

He catches himself, and Ginny’s stony glare is unamused.

“Weasel-y,” Draco says, clearing his throat. “Weasley. Ronald.”

“No. They don’t know.”

So Draco’s flat it is. And although he feels self-conscious about how empty and morose it appears, his desire to learn more about Hermione’s situation takes precedence.

“Hermione’s been working with experimental memory magic,” Ginny says, taking a seat at the marble kitchen counter. “She’s been trying to restore her parents’ memories.”

Draco’s stomach tightens.

“I didn’t know her parents lost their memory,” he says softly.

“Yes,” Ginny says, looking away. Her face is drawn. “She had to wipe their memories herself. To keep them safe, you know, during the war. The thing is, there’s no existing memory charm that would restore their memories. And there’s very stringent laws around memory magic. The type she’s working with is illegal. The Ministry’s already given Hermione a warning—they said if she gets another strike, they’ll be forced to restrict her from seeing her parents at all.”

“That can’t be right,” Draco says. A jolt of anger catches him off-guard. The Ministry? Stop Hermione from seeing her parents? “She’s a war hero.”

“I know,” Ginny says, making a face. “But… I suppose the magic turned out to be quite dangerous in the end, didn’t it? She did go and accidentally wipe her memory like they were worried about.”

Ginny shakes her head and slumps back in the sofa, looking weary. 

“Anyway,” she sighs. “That’s the mess. And now you’re in on it too. Can’t say I’m not a little relieved that it’s no longer just me responsible for restoring the greatest mind of our generation.”

Draco is silent for a moment, ruminating on all of this. Does he know enough about memory magic to be useful? At what point would it make sense to involve the Ministry, risking Hermione’s ability to connect with her parents in the future?

“Poor Hermione,” he finally says. 

Ginny gives him a long, hard to read look. 

“Yeah,” she says softly. “I agree.”

Draco’s phone buzzes in his jacket pocket then. They both look at the source of the noise.

“So, you got a muggle phone,” Ginny says. “The better to woo her?”

Draco winces.

“Something like that,” he says. “I honestly don’t even know how this happened. I saw her and I dunno—I just wanted to talk to her. Before I know it she’s asking me to drinks and as a date to a party and—”

He rubs his face.

“I guess it’s nice to know that if things were different, she might’ve liked me,” he mutters. “She’s a lot more forward than I might’ve guessed.”

This makes Ginny bite back a smile, and Draco narrows his eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just—funny.”

“I guess it’s all over now anyway. I’ll have to find some way of telling her I can’t see her anymore.”

The thought makes him want to die.

Ginny casts a shrewd look at him. She taps her finger on the counter, thinking. 

“Have you slept with her yet?” she asks.

Draco’s cheek flame. He thinks, unbidden, of Hermione kissing his trouser zipper.

“No,” he stammers. “No, it’s not like that.”

“Good,” Ginny says. “You can’t, alright? It would be extremely immoral.”

Draco holds his breath. Is Ginny about to, against all odds, say he can keep seeing Hermione?

Ginny laces her fingers, and he has a feeling he’s about to play some role in a larger plan.

“It’s obvious Hermione clearly really likes you,” Ginny says. “And being as you are aristocratically unemployed—“

“I manage the family estate—“

Ginny speaks louder, talking over him.

“—you have the ability to spend time with her more flexibly than I do. Which means you can help me gather insights on the nature of her memory loss.”

Draco, personally, finds this prospect more than acceptable. More time spent with Hermione? Not having to say goodbye to her just yet? Sign him up.

“But she’s not going to like that you did this when her memory’s back, you know,” Ginny says. “I’m not even sure she’ll forgive me for allowing it. But I’m in over my head and could use the help.”

He tries to mask his elation.

“I understand.”

From the sofa, in his jacket pocket, his phone buzzes anew. Draco tries to ignore it.

“And needless to say that’s my best friend you’re dealing with,” Ginny says sharply. “So I expect you to be a perfect gentleman and not take advantage of her.”

Draco nods quickly, his cheeks burning. 

Certainly Ginny has no idea how persistent or forward Hermione’s advances have been. But there’s a bit of an evil twinkle in Ginny’s eye and, upon second thought, maybe she does know the torture she’s signing him up for.

“Good,” Ginny says crisply, standing. “Well, I’m off. I expect regular reports on Hermione. And we can catch up sometime in the next week or two to compare notes on her memory loss.”

“Sure,” Draco says, trying to hide his relief.

He wants terribly to check Hermione’s messages. Maybe she’s sent another sleepy-eyed selfie.

Ginny says a curt goodbye, then she steps into the Floo and is gone.

Draco’s phone starts buzzing again and he leaps for it, no longer under scrutiny of Ginny’s judgment. 

Hermione: this weekend was really fun. Miss you already

Hermione: by the way, you left your clothes here :) 

Hermione: I’m wearing your shirt. it smells so good

Draco scrubs a hand through his hair, already fighting a crooked smile. He is trying to figure out how to best gently guide their relationship back to something more platonic (something that will let him help Hermione and Ginny without being a predator).

Draco: Sorry for forgetting my things. I’m glad you’re getting pajama use out of them, at least.

Draco: Next time I’ll avoid showering or changing over there.

Her message comes back quickly.

Hermione: oh don’t say that. I hope we’ll have lots more sleepovers 

She calls him then and Draco picks up after half a ring.

“Hey,” he says hoarsely, sleepovers on the brain.

“Hi,” Hermione’s soft voice is playful. He hears clothing and skin and bedding shifting on the other side of the line and he listens harder, feeling pathetic. “I like wearing your clothes. I might keep these, you know.”

“They’re yours” he manages to say, sinking into a seat on the sofa.

“What’re you doing?” Hermione hums. 

“Just sitting. Talking to you. What about you?”

“I’m in bed. Smelling your shirt and missing you. I wish you were here… I’d be giving you little kisses everywhere.”

Draco nearly bites through his tongue.

He closes his eyes and leans forward, putting his head in his hands, the phone still held tightly to his head.

“Ah,” he says. His cock is hardening in his lap. “Maybe we should talk about something else—“

“Are you making that cute face you do when I tease you?” Hermione giggles. “All—serious and embarrassed and horny?”

He can’t help but laugh. 

“Yeah. Serious and embarrassed and horny… that’s me.”

“Mm. Maybe I can take care of the last piece next time.”

This sends a little pulse of blood downwards so quickly that Draco has to blink spots out of his eyes. 

“God,” he breathes, squeezing his eyes shut. “I can hardly think when you talk to me like that.”

Hermione giggles, and says: 

“I like the sound of that. Good boy.”

Chapter Text

Draco can’t wait to see Hermione again.

Their phone call ends when Hermione—her words going slow and soft with drowsiness—finally sounds like she’s on the verge of truly passing out. Draco insists she goes to sleep, but for at least two hours after he finds himself unable to go to bed.

On top of—the whole mess of the situation. Draco is starting to worry in a more serious way about whether or not he’ll ever be able to recover once she gets her memory back.

He feels like an ecosystem that has been permanently changed by the introduction of a new type of creature. A biome that may not be able to support itself if that new and lovely thing moves on.

He won’t be okay, when it’s all over—Draco is sure of that much.

But it’s hard to worry about that right now. With the memory of her soft voice coming through the phone to him from a long way away. Of that little giggle, and of how crazy she seems to be for him. 

How is it possible? How can she like him this much?

And the way she talks to him…

Good boy.

Draco is humiliated at his own reaction to those words. Hermione had been teasing—just throwing a little flirtatious cherry onto the sundae of their conversation. He should not have felt so impacted. 

It’s just—he wants to be good. He, who’d spent his entire childhood trying to bluster and boast his way into feeling like he had value. He, who’d spent his older teenage years making all the wrong choices to try to find power and approval. 

Yes, Draco wants to be good.

He finally falls into a fitful sleep after reading and rereading the latest library book he’d gotten from Babel. It’s comforting, to see and touch the yellowed pages. To think of a beautiful girl working at the library, organizing books like this every day.

He dreams of Hermione in sweet pink high heels, and a very little dress. He dreams of her asking him to unbuckle her shoes, and then asking him to buckle them back up right after. He does it all. He does anything she asks. And she looks so pleased with him, and she says: good boy.

~

The next morning, Draco wakes up with unusually insistent morning wood. He masturbates while still clumsy with sleep, thinking of her.

Draco showers after and reflects with some chagrin on the long, hard (ha) stretch of time ahead of him wherein he’ll presumably need to be doing a fair bit of wanking, considering he’s expected to somehow be in close quarters with Hermione while not giving in to her teasing, insistent pursuit of him.

But after his shower—over his cup of coffee—Draco sees a Ministry owl at the window, and that does the trick in cooling him off. Better than a cold shower, is the sight of that red Ministry seal on an envelope.

Draco feels sick to his stomach every time he gets one of these. He stares at it on his marble countertop, jaw nervously working, for a full minute before opening it. He hopes it is just the routine check and not anything to do with Hermione…

He exhales when he unfolds the letter and finds that it is, indeed, just his normal monthly Ministry check-in.

The typical salad of words— return to society… probation period… behavior under additional scrutiny.

At the bottom, as always, Draco is asked to rank his well-being on a scale from 1-10. He assumes it is some low-effort, bureaucratic way of keeping a rough log of how mentally stable former Azkaban inmates are. Probably for the purpose of sending probationary officers and Mind Healers if the number dips too low too quickly. 

Not wanting to invite anything like that, Draco always circles 10. He does so now.

He realizes, in a moment of quiet shock, that he actually means it this time.

Hermione texts him just then. Like the sound of a bell chiming in the ether, after the strike of his pen on 10 .

Hermione: so, i was thinking

Draco smiles immediately, watching her little bouncing “...” idle across the bottom of the screen as she types further.

Hermione: how much can a guy really even like a girl if he hasn’t asked her out to dinner?

Draco pauses.

Does she think he doesn’t like her?

Draco: I’d love to take you to dinner

Hermione: no, no! you have to ask! like, romantically 

Draco laughs quietly down at his phone. If this were a cartoon he’d have hearts floating in his irises.

Draco: Oh, okay.

Draco: Hermione—will you please let me take you to dinner?

A red heart icon appears on his message, and Draco blinks down at it. That’s new. Wow, he likes that feature. How does he do that too…?

Hermione: swoon! 

Hermione: yes, draco. I’d be delighted to go to dinner with you :)

Hermione: I miss you. when shall you take me out? And where?

Draco: I miss you too.

Draco: Anytime. Whenever and wherever you want.

(Okay, maybe Ginny was right about him being aristocratically unemployed.)

Hermione: tonight?

Draco: Done.

Draco: Restaurant in mind?

Hermione: it’s a bit posh

Draco: Good.

Hermione has a very sweet idea of posh, and it’s a candlelit Italian restaurant two streets away from her flat. It really is quite nice. Sweet and rustic. Though Draco’s late father’s voice echoes in his head: the right woman is like a garden. Feed and water her to make her happiest. (The food and the water that Lucius had been referring to was money).

Draco makes a mental note to take her somewhere very posh soon, or at least bring her some expensive gifts. For all of his father's faults, he had been successful in wooing the woman he loved. 

“Thanks for taking me out,” Hermione says, smiling at him. “I wanted to get dressed up.”

“You look so beautiful. I like your hair like that.”

“Up?” she laughs.

Draco can’t fight a lopsided smile, the way he always smiles when he can tell she’s making fun of him.

“Up, down,” he says. “Sideways. You’d look good no matter what.”

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” Hermione giggles. She laces her fingers with his. “Your clothes are extra fancy tonight, I see.”

“Just stuff for dinner. Dinner shirt,” Draco says, leaning back so she can see. “Formal jacket. Dinner watch.”

“How very classy. Let me see the shirt. What’s different about it?”

“Well—“ Draco shifts his jacket a bit to the side. “It has a stiffer collar. And the fabric is usually smoother than casual shirts.”

“Ask me about my clothes now!” she giggles, sipping her glass of white wine with a bright smile.

“Alright. Tell me about that lovely dress, please.”

“I bought it this week,” she says. “Because I wanted to look pretty for you. I got new shoes.”

Everything about this statement makes Draco flush. She wanted to look pretty—for him? And also, of course. He remembers the dream with her shoes. 

“The shoes are purple,” Hermione says, unaware of his heating cheeks. She pokes a foot out to show him. “Matching.”

“They’re beautiful,” Draco says. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you,” she says, pleased. “I hope you like my underwear too. It’s also matching.”

Draco had been reaching for his wine glass but his fingers slip and he has to fumble rapidly to keep the wine from spilling.

~

After dinner, Hermione asks Draco to come over.

Ginny’s disapproving voice clangs around in Draco’s head. 

Needless to say, that’s my best friend you’re dealing with. So I expect you to be a perfect gentleman.

Perfect gentleman.

PERFECT GENTLEMAN.

But Hermione’s fingers are laced sweetly with his. She’s walking close. Her head just up to his shoulder, the smell of her vanilla perfume filling his head as they walk slowly back to her place.

He tells himself— just back to her front door. Then say you’ll see her next time. That you have to head back to London…

But at the front door, Hermione takes his hand and puts it on her own waist.

“I like when you hold me,” she whispered. Her eyes turned up all the way to look at him. So much smaller and gentler than he is. “I like you.”

“I like you too,” Malfoy says. His hand on her waist is warm from her skin, which seems to be glowing with heat through the thin fabric of her purple dress.

He glances down involuntarily to see her shoes.

Glossy and purple. Four rounded straps, under which her painted little toes are visible.

He exhales quietly, trying not to think about purple underwear.

“I think I should head back,” he says softly. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Oh, no. Come inside, Draco. Please?”

So he does.

She tugs him close by his tie. She stumbles a little in her heels, and he catches her with two hands on her hips. The little flare of her. So soft, so rounded—God, he wants so badly to… 

Hermione presses her hands to his chest and slides her fingers down to his stomach. Then she slides them a bit lower. To the silver buckle of his belt.

“Hermione,” he breathes quietly. “You—ah—I shouldn’t—”

But he barely knows what he’s saying. It’s a habit. A distant muscle memory, that he ought to try to keep things strictly above the belt.

“Were you raised religious or something?” she whispers with a curling smile. “You seem so… repressed.”

He laughs, shivering when she draws a single finger down the front of his trousers.

“Do you feel… guilty?” she breathes.

“Yeah,” he says, voice hoarse and unsteady. “Yeah, I do— Hermione— your hand feels good…”

“Let’s try something,” she whispers. “How about you just do exactly as I say? No need to think. You can turn that head off…”

“Oh God. Ok. Yes, okay—yes, yes—“

“Sit down, handsome.”

They’ve walked backwards into the kitchen, and now Hermione pushes Draco lightly back onto a chair. He tips his face up to watch her.

Her brown eyes are alight with warm mischief, and her lips—the shimmery pink lipstick smeared now, no doubt on the corner of his own mouth—are curled upwards in the most beautiful smile he’s ever seen.

“What are you going to do to me?” he asks. Pleads.

Hermione lifts a single finger and presses it to his lips. He parts his mouth involuntarily and she giggles at that. She drags her fingertip down until the soft pad of it catches on his bottom lip. Draco just stares up at her, loving her with every cell he has.

“Shh,” she says, teasing. 

“Okay.”

“You are so cute,” she says softly. “Really. Draco. I—”

She trails off, gazing at him with the sort of wonderment that Draco was pretty sure he’d never see in another human’s eyes. 

“Do you like doing as you’re told?” she asks.

He nods, mouth dry.

“I can—I can like that,” he says.

Hermione laughs.

“Good boy.”

The little groan that escapes Draco is entirely involuntary. The deep, thrumming pleasure that is quieting his mind is edged with embarrassment.

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

“You like me?” she asks softly.

“Yes. Yes— yes.”

“But you feel nervous to have sex? Guilty.”

“Yes.”

“I can make the decision easy, if you’re alright with it. If you’re not, just tell me. We can just cuddle.”

Draco wishes he knew what he looks like right now. He feels wild-eyed. He feels his hair messed, his collar askew. His eyes must be half-lidded with all the unbearable desire for her he feels.

“I'm,” he swallows. “I’m alright with it.”

Hermione smiles, all excitement. She moves forward even closer to Draco, gently cupping his face in her hands. He stares up at her, feeling saved. 

“Undo your belt,” she says quietly.

Chapter Text

Draco undoes his belt, and it’s not easy, with his fingers shaking so much.

Thoughts start to pierce through the fog of blissfully empty desire, and guilt and concern and panic rear their heads—

Hermione shushes him softly. He hadn’t realized he’d been breathing faster.

The belt is half undone. The tongue of it is unlooped, but the silver tine is still pierced through. Hermione drops carefully to her knees in front of Draco, who stares at her.

She uses her own fingers to undo the belt fully. It lays open. 

Hermione lays her hands flat on the tops of his thighs, then dips her head down to kiss the spot over his zipper once more.

Draco’s head tips back. 

“Good,” Hermione whispers. “Just relax, okay? You don’t need to think about anything. Skittish, handsome guy…”

He laughs hoarsely, never tiring of learning new angles she sees him from. Different portraits of his character. He’s skittish and handsome to her, apparently.

But then Hermione is undoing his top trouser button, and then tugging down at his zipper, and Draco can’t do anything except try to remember to breathe.

“Look at me, Draco.”

He does, immediately. She’s between his legs, her manicured fingers splayed on his black trousers. His button is undone, his zipper open, his belt wide and loose. Topping it all off is the unignorably debauched sight of his hard— very hard— erection. Tenting his pants. Under all the undone zippers and buttons and buckles. The many layers of armor he dons to go in and out of the world. Peeled off.

Hermione laughs a little, a sound that makes his toes curl. The thought that she’s having fun with him—that this is a pleasurable experience for her, teasing him, playing with him—is unbelievably lovely.

“Draco,” she says. 

“Yes. Yeah, yes.”

Another giggle. He laughs too, breathless and dizzy.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he manages to plead, though he can’t stop smiling at the look on her face.

“You’re so sexy.”

“You’re the sexy one. I don’t feel sexy at all. I’m a puddle for you.”

“I like puddles. Can I see you…? You’re hard.”

Draco’s hand twitches. He tenses his fingers, and—as though she can tell that his nervous thoughts are making a resurgence—Hermione kisses his thigh. Soothing.

“No thinking,” she says. “Remember?”

“Okay.”

“Go on then. Show me.”

Draco reaches under the band of his pants, then lowers the elastic. He grips himself and slides his cock out from under the fabric, into Hermione’s view. The air is cool on his overheated skin. He licks his lips, watching her face.

Hermione’s eyes go round. Malfoy laughs hoarsely, in relief and anxiety both.

“You like it?” he asks.

“You’re so big,” she whispers, smiling up at him. “What a perfect cock…”

She reaches forward, and the sight of her hands—purple nails, a little glittery—entering the same frame of view as his erection makes him moan quietly.

Her fingers wrap around his shaft.

One slide up and down. 

“Oh, God—”

The nerve endings sing. Draco’s head drops back—he’s lost control of his body. He feels his knees shift wider apart, feels his stomach tense up and his cock ache and ache as Hermione slowly runs her fingertips down the front of it.

“I think I might come fast,” he forces himself to say. “Unless you maybe, go slower. I’m sorry. It’s just—um—I haven’t—with anyone, in a pretty long time—”

Not a sexy thing to admit. But he doesn’t want it to be a disappointing surprise when he comes all over her hand.

But Hermione seems delighted by the prospect of him coming too soon.

“Yeah?” she giggles. “That’s hot. You know, I’ve been daydreaming about what you look like when you come.”

He chokes back a breath as her fingers tighten and move a little faster.

“You’re so handsome,” she whispers. “And so serious. Those grey eyes? And look at your jaw work… So, so sexy.”

Her hand stops its rhythmic movement and Draco groans, his hips thrusting up a little in search of her hand.

“No thinking still, yes?” she asks.

“No thinking,” he promises, urgent and needy.

“Good boy.”

Whimper.

Up, down. Up, down. Her soft fingers, her warm little palm. 

“Will your eyes stay open?” she whispers, teasing. “I wonder if your head will drop back. What kind of noises will you make?”

This should be all intensity and maybe guilt and angst seared with sexual pleasure but Hermione is having fun and that makes all of it feel soft and sweet in a way Draco hadn’t dared hope for. 

She squeezes him a little harder, making a delighted cooing sound when his groan breaks. 

“Feels good?” she asks.

“So—good. Ah—fuck—”

He feels the orgasm start to shiver its way out of him. Her hand is moving slowly, perhaps deliberately unevenly. The cadence just shy of steady, robbing him of the quick beats of sensation that would send him tipping over in seconds.

“I think—” he gasps. “Hermione. I think I might come. Please—”

“Do you want me to stroke fast or slow?” she asks softly.

“Fast,” he begs. “Please—fast—”

She doesn’t go any faster. In fact, she stops.

“Hermione—”

“I want to go slow,” she says, teasing.

“Okay,” he stammers at once. “Okay.”

Her hand squeezes, then drags upwards, impossibly slow.

The pulse of his orgasm needs to be jerked out of him, he needs a fast rhythm so badly that his hips shiver with the urge to snap into something.

Instead, Hermione doesn’t even finish a single stroke before he comes. Draco spurts out onto her cheek, onto her beautiful face. She makes eye contact with him as her palm twists lightly at the tip of his cock, and he spurts again. 

He’s saying things, he’s pretty sure, but he can’t hear himself think let alone speak. His pleasure is rocking and agonizing and Hermione is looking right up at him, her lovely brown eyes full of glazed delight at the sight of him falling apart in the palm of her hand. 

By the time her hand works its way down to the base of his cock again, Draco has spurted four times and is shuddering uncontrollably. She drags her hand back up to his tip and the soft, wet twist of her fist at the head of his cock makes him convulse. 

The fog of ecstasy subsides and he can finally hear what he’s been saying.

“Thank you,” he’s breathing. “Thank you, thank you…”

Hermione giggles, and it’s astonishing how even after the most intense orgasm of his life, it’s the sound of her laughter that sends the dopamine rushing in his brain. He loves, loves, loves the sound of her happiness. 

He can hardly stand, but Hermione pulls him up by his hand and so Draco follows, staggering to his feet, a lovesick puppy.

“Fuck me,” she whispers. “On the bed or on the couch?”

He sways at the very concept of it. Already his cock twitches, despite having just spurted over Hermione’s face and neck and the front of her beautiful purple dress.

“Wait,” he says. “Let me…”

He brings her close. She is small and precious. With his hand, he wipes his come off her face. It feels so wrong that he gets to do this with her.

“I ruined your dress,” he says hoarsely. “You made me come so hard—I’m sorry—”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” she scolds gently. “You’re amazing. You’re perfect. I’m having so much fun.”

He nods wordlessly. 

Amazing.

Perfect.

“You’re the perfect one,” he says, sliding his hands around her hips. “You’re so beautiful. You make me so happy. Thank you.”

“You’re a very grateful sort of guy, aren’t you?” she giggles. “I didn’t know such an attractive man could be so grateful.”

He laughs. 

His fingers slide down to the edge of her dress. Draco can tell Hermione loves it, can tell she’s been hoping he will be a bit handsier, return some of the forward, desirous energy she always has plenty of for him.

“Are you going to fuck me?” she whispers, helping him lift her dress higher. “Look, Draco. My underwear… I told you it matched the dress.”

The truth: Draco hasn’t let the guilt come crashing around him yet. His promise to be a perfect gentleman is pretty much as ruined as Hermione’s beautiful purple dress. 

He thinks, maybe, that if he actually lays her down and enters her though, he will have a harder time keeping at bay the feeling that he is a bad person. A very bad person.

He shouldn’t be allowed to touch her, definitely shouldn’t be allowed to fuck her. It was never something that should have happened, had Hermione not accidentally lost her memory.

Hermione seems to detect the flicker in his resolve.

“Please,” she whispers. “Make me feel good.”

“Don’t worry.”

He picks her up with an all-too-easy little lift—she’s so much smaller than him, like something fine and detailed and delicate in his arms—and Hermione’s legs wrap around him. He thinks maybe she likes how much bigger he is than her. Draco sets her on the kitchen counter. She scoots forward, so her legs hang off the edge, open.

“Strong,” she purrs. “Mm. Gonna fuck me up here?”

He parts her thighs wider.

Hermione pulls her dress high, freeing her hips from the clingy purple fabric. Her underwear is lacy.

Draco lets himself press a finger to the dark center of it, where she is sticky wet.

For him.

He’s going to treat her well—he’ll make sure she feels so good. He wants that, more than anything—

The lace of her underwear is like fairy dust in his hands. Soft, barely anything. He slides it down the curve of her hips and down over her slim ankles and nail polished feet.

“Lay back, Hermione.”

She does. Her hair is a cacophony of curls, wild and beautiful, splayed on the pink tiles of her kitchen.

“Can I put my mouth on you?”

“You better.”

This, he thinks, is surely less damnable than entering her?

Draco leans down and presses his lips to her clit. His fingertips dig into the soft curve of her hip at the taste. So amazing. 

Her cunt is pink and wet and when he tongues it Hermione makes a quivering, golden sound. He laps it lightly, focusing every bit of his attention on reading her signals. On following the sound of her pleasure—

She likes it when his tongue is firm. She doesn’t like a sloppier, looser consumption of her body. Draco presses his face down deeper against her, uses his lips to lightly clamp her clit, groans in exhilarated bliss when she screams. 

“Fuck,” he gasps. 

“Draco—oh, God—you’re so good at this—”

His cock is hard. Bobbing against the wooden side of the counter. She needs more, so Draco holds her cunt spread with his thumb and forefinger to give him uninhibited access to her now-swollen clit. He goes faster with his tongue on it, and she shudders—a little gush of wetness leaves her. 

That’s when her hips start bucking.

Hermione reaches down, frantic and clumsy, to twine her fingers into his hair, to push his head more firmly against her. His tongue isn’t fast or firm or steady enough. Hermione resorts to grinding up against his mouth.

“I’m close,” she whimpers. “I’m close, I’m close, I’m close—”

Draco lifts his head. His mouth is soaking wet, his jaw and chin dripping with her. He presses his hand to her cunt instead, rubbing faster and firmer. 

He needs to see her come.

He’s been imagining it too. When his cock is in his hand, early in the mornings, when he wakes up from dreams of her, he fantasizes about what Hermione Granger’s face looks like when she orgasms. And though he’s not nearly so bold as to tell her, the way she did to him (will your eyes stay open? Will your head drop back?) , Draco wants it just as much. Maybe more. 

He’s starving for it.

As Hermione’s whining moans start to sharpen into a keen, Draco straightens up tall enough to look down at all of her.

Her dress is rucked to her ribcage. The shoulder straps are slipping down, the upper curve of both breasts rounded and shaking. His come is still stained on the bodice—even though he’d tried to wipe it off—

He stares at her face.

She is beautiful as the pleasure hits fever pitch. Her eyebrows—delicate arches, like a doll’s—lift and draw together in an expression of painful, agonized pleasure. Her lashes flutter like a pinned butterfly until, at last, they squeeze shut too tightly to move.

Her mouth drops open, wide as it can go.

“Oh, God—”

She screams.

Draco stares and stares. His hand doesn’t stop moving between her thighs. He will give her anything she wants. And right now she wants, and wants, and wants—

Her hips shake uncontrollably, and Hermione’s hands reach down between her own thighs to press—firm and relieving—to her clit. Rocking herself through the very end of it. And when she looks at him there are glimmering tears on her cheeks.

“What’s wrong?” Draco whispers, horrified. “Hermione—what’s the matter…”

But they’re not sad tears, it seems. She’s gasping in an overwhelmed, pleasure-drunk way.

“I’m ok,” she says with a shudder, her thighs pressing to each other, closing. “Feels so good… Hold me?”

Draco picks her up off the counter. She wraps her legs around him again, clumsy and loose this time. He carries her to the couch and zips up his trousers, buttons them up, tightens his belt, nervously making himself whole again so he can be ready to take care of Hermione however she needs him to.

“Do you want tea?” he asks softly. He smooths hair out of her face. “You’re so beautiful. Are you alright? Did I do something—?”

Hermione laughs. She tugs her closer to him, and they settle together on the couch, tangled together. Hermione rests her nose in the hollow of his throat. 

“I’m not crying in a sad way,” she giggles. “It was just—really intense. I came really hard.”

He holds her tight. Relieved.

“Draco?” 

“Yes?”

“Was it good for you?”

He laughs so hard that she has to move back, lest he accidentally bonk her nose with the shaking of his shoulders. 

“Sorry, come back here,” he says, still smiling. “Yes. It was so good for me. You have no idea—I don’t think I’m ever going to stop thinking about you. Every day until I’m dead, I’ll be thinking about you.”

Hermione giggles, clearly pleased, and kisses his shoulder.

“You’re really my type,” she confesses in his ear. “I can hardly control myself around you.”

“What about me is your type?” he nuzzles her temple.

“Blond. Tall. Great shoulders… nice abs…”

He laughs. 

“And,” Hermione giggles. “I like your tattoo. Very sexy.”

Draco freezes.

“I don’t have a tattoo,” he says quietly, kissing her head. Trying not to let his voice shake. 

His Dark Mark is gone. The skin on his forearm is unblemished, thanks to the Healers at St. Mungo’s he’d gone to as soon as he was out of Azkaban.

He should know—he checks his left arm every time he wakes up in cold sweat, to confirm he’s not still in a nightmare.

Hermione laughs.

“What do you mean? This one. With the snake.”

Chapter Text

“She could see the Dark Mark,” Draco reports to Ginny over the phone the next day.

“What? What do you mean?”

“Yesterday. She saw my forearm and—said she liked my tattoo. ‘This one, with the snake,’ she said. I nearly had a panic attack. My Dark Mark’s been gone for over a year.”

There’s a silence. 

Draco is pretty sure that Ginny is wondering just when exactly Hermione might have seen his bare forearm, considering how he’s always so tightly buttoned up in long sleeves.

“And,” he says, before she can ask. “I needed to tell you that something happened. She—really wanted to get physical. But it’s my fault for not stopping it. I’m really sorry.”

“You’re a bad person,” she delivers drily.

He exhales, brief and sharp. A physical pain in his chest at her words.

“Sorry,” she says after a moment, sounding surprisingly apologetic. He hadn’t realized she could hear him breathe. “I was mostly giving you a hard time. Merlin, you certainly reacted intensely to that.”

“I wonder why,” he snaps.

Draco drops onto the sofa, tired and more than a little stressed—and covers his face with his hand. The phone against his ear feels like a wall he’s up against.

“So,” he says, eyes closed. “I’m wondering now if she’s been able to see it the whole time. Or if—maybe she started being able to see it recently.”

“Yeah,” Ginny agrees. “I was thinking the same. It would be a bad sign if it’s the latter. Her memory could be destabilizing.”

“Right.”

Draco fears Hermione regaining her memory without warning, fears waking up one day and seeing her stare at him with horror. 

But he also fears the unknown memory loss magic damaging her brain. And that fear is much worse.

“I think, maybe, we have to tell St. Mungo’s,” he finally says.

“We can’t. Her parents.” Ginny sounds miserable. “I don’t know how I could live with myself if I’m the reason the Ministry finds out about Hermione’s memory magic. They won’t let her see her mum and dad anymore.”

“How sure are you? There’s got to be some leniency for her; she’s like a celebrity. Doesn’t Harry work at the Ministry? Wouldn’t he be able to help?”

“She seemed pretty sure they were serious about it when I talked to her, that last time I saw her before she wiped her memory. She made me swear up and down I wouldn’t let anyone know what she was doing.”

“I’d rather have her hate us than let something permanent happen to her brain.”

“Easy for you to say. She already hated you before.”

Ouch.

“She thought you were fit,” Ginny adds a few moments later. Sounding loathe to admit it. “So don’t be too hard on yourself. She sort of—had a bit of a thing for you. For a little bit. From a distance. In a totally hypothetical sort of way.”

“A lot of qualifiers.”

But his soul buoys happily at this new, treasured information.

Hermione liked him—or how he looked, rather—even before?

“It’s one of the reasons I’m a little more okay with you being involved. She’s obviously really into you now. And I know some of that was pre-existing. The physical stuff, at least.”

He’s silent. Absorbing this with elation. 

“Regardless,” Ginny says, clearing her throat. “I think you’re right that we need to tell someone about her if there’s any more indication that her memory is flickering in and out. That’s not a good sign. So—just let me know, will you?”

“Yes. Of course.”

~

Hermione: sleepy at work today.

Hermione: miss you

Draco: I really miss you too. 

Draco: Maybe you can take a nap after you get home?

Hermione: i thought i might try making jam today 

Draco smiles at his phone. She’s so sweet.

Draco: That sounds so lovely. What kind? Have you made jam before?

Hermione: mmm i think I’ll try blackberry. got some from the shop a few days ago and they’re going soft anyway

Hermione: want to come over? I’d love to see you :)

Draco: Are you sure? You just saw me yesterday. 

Hermione: please?

Draco: Of course. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

It’s not possible to love someone after such a short period of time, or so he’s been led to believe by the world.

And yet.

~

The flat smells like sugar and melty berries when he arrives. Hermione gives him a long kiss when he arrives, like she hasn’t seen him in weeks.

“I’m always so happy when you walk in the door,” she says, leaning against him for a moment. “Come on, sit. Doesn’t it smell great? It’s almost done.”

She leads them into the kitchen and Draco follows; he’s pretty sure he’d follow her for the rest of his life, if he could.

But that thought brings to mind the unwelcome reminder that the future will certainly not be as rosy as this moment.

He’s wearing long sleeves, buttoned tightly at the wrist.

Probably he ought to show her his arm again, try to coax more information out of her about what she sees. Selfishly though he doesn’t want to know.

“Want a taste?” she asks, holding up a sticky purple spatula.

“Yeah, definitely.”

She blows lightly on the jam first so it doesn’t burn him.

This sweet little gesture nearly breaks his heart. Hermione cares about him. Enough to not even want him to go through the pain of a burned tongue.

He licks the jam off the wooden side of the spatula—then, as Hermione returns to the stove, he forces himself to unbutton and roll up his sleeve.

“So,” he says hoarsely. “I never knew you liked tattoos.”

“Oh, definitely. It looks so good on you too. Such an unexpected edge.”

She smiles and glances at his forearm appreciatively, even though to Draco’s eyes there is nothing there.

“Does it mean something?” she asked. “Skull and snake?”

It means he might throw up, Draco thinks privately.

Out loud, he says:

“Nothing. Just—a tattoo. Did you notice it when we first met?”

“Mm… I don’t think so? But you’ve always worn long sleeves. Until I finally got you out of your clothes.”

He blushes and she gives him an affectionate peck on the cheek.

“I think this is about done,” she says, giving the pot a final stir and peering down at an open cookbook.

She looks so perfect. Her apron is white and trimmed with blue. She is like a storybook princess; he would give anything to live in this fairytale forever.

Hermione absently picks up another spatula then. She waves it at the pot. Exactly as though she’s waving a wand.

Nothing happens.

She waves it again, a furrow of frustration between her eyebrows.

Draco sits up, his eyes wide.

Hermione suddenly seems to realize what she’s doing. She blinks quickly, looking disturbed. She drops the spatula. 

“Sorry,” she says, rubbing her forehead. A nervous laugh. “That was so weird. Why did I do that...?”

Draco stands. He crosses the kitchen to kiss her cheek. He holds her tightly. Trying to memorize the shape of her.

“I’m just going to be right back, alright?” he says into her hair. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”

Outside her door, feeling sick, Draco dials Ginny.

“I think we’ve got to take her to hospital,” Draco says. “I’m with her now. Can you come over?”

~

Hermione is happily surprised when Ginny appears at her door twenty minutes later. 

“Gin! Oh my gosh, what are you doing here? Come in, I’m making jam—“

“Oh, yum!” Ginny says falsely. Her eyes are nervous, darting to Draco and then back to Hermione. “Hey Draco!”

“Hey, Ginny.”

“Listen,” Ginny says. “I actually came by to um, ask you to come with me. Oh, sure I’ll have a taste…”

Hermione spoons some jam into Ginny’s mouth, looking pleased when Ginny makes an appreciative sound.

“Where do you need to go?” Hermione asks. “I just need to jar this all up first.”

“Actually—it’s sort of an emergency.”

“What? What’s going on, are you alright?”

“I have to go to hospital,” Ginny says. “Not feeling good.”

“Oh my god. Yes, of course. Let’s go—“

Hermione undoes her apron at lightning speed, shooting a distressed look Draco’s way.

“Could you drive us, Draco?”

Draco realizes with a pang of panic just how intensive—how irreversible—this effort is going to be. They’re going to have to Apparate with her. 

She will be confused.

She will be scared.

Ginny shoots Draco a pleading look.

“Yeah, I can drive us,” he says. “Of course.”

“I think I saw your car parked out back,” Ginny says to him, putting her shoes back on.

By the stove, Hermione hastily waves a spatula at the pot and says, just barely loud enough for them to hear, Scourgify.

Then, like last time, she presses her hand to her head. Like she’s got a headache.

“Um,” she says, blinking. She drops the spatula and doesn’t seem to notice that it clatters to the floor. Dark jam sprays like flecks of blood across the wood. “Maybe it’s good that we’re going to a doctor. I feel a little funny too…”

“I bet we both have the flu. C’mon, Hermione. Let’s go.”

Ginny looks like she’s going to be sick. They lead Hermione downstairs to the small, crooked street behind her flat. She still looks dizzy.

The sun is low in the sky. The clouds are streaked with pink and red, and it would be a beautiful evening if absolutely everything was different.

Hermione turns to say something to Draco.

“Thank you for coming with—“

“Stupefy,” Ginny says in a shaking voice, her wand pointed at Hermione’s back.

Hermione is looking right into Draco’s eyes when the spell hits. Her face is trusting. And when she slumps forward, Draco catches her.

In all his life, he’s never been in so much pain.

Chapter Text

Draco is focused entirely on Hermione as they Apparate from Babel to London. He pays attention only to the clammy cast of her skin, the way her eyelids flicker restlessly, the delicate veins in them looking too noticeable with her skin this pale.

He doesn’t notice the reactions of the St. Mungo’s workers until someone barks something at him, then shoves him away from Hermione.

“Hey!” Ginny snaps. “He’s with me, he’s helping.”

Draco blinks and looks up.

They are in the lobby of the hospital.

There are two Healers and two aides staring at them. One of them is frantically Floo-ing someone who sounds like a Ministry worker. 

And one of the patients waiting in the lobby has produced a magical camera, and is currently snapping photos of Draco next to the missing Hermione Granger’s motionless form.

“Did you do this to her?” another furious Healer yells at Draco, striding forward. “I know you—you’re the Malfoy boy! Death Eater scum. Someone call the Aurors. This woman has been missing—”

“You think we don’t know she’s been missing?” Ginny interrupts, jabbing a finger into the Healer’s white coat. “I already told you. He’s helping me. Now can you get Hermione into a room or not?”

Draco’s head spins.

He is usually so careful about avoiding places where he might be accosted by reminders of his loathsome reputation. He doesn’t frequent Diagon Alley, he doesn’t go to wizarding pubs—even when he’d had to come to St. Mungo’s to get his Dark Mark removed, he’d arrived very early in the morning, right at opening time. When the crowds were thinner.

He doesn’t care about the shame this time. Hermione is in danger, and that is a priority that supercedes his concern for himself by a magnitude of a hundred. He needs to know if his and Ginny’s recklessness has led to permanent damage.

The angry Healer is dragged away by a more even-tempered aide, making room for a different Healer to step forward. She looks no less happy about Draco’s presence, but at least she seems to tolerate him.

“You know we have to alert the Ministry,” the Healer tells Ginny crisply. “This is going to be part of a criminal investigation.”

“Of course. Just—c’mon, can we get her into an examining room?”

But the Healer—Abarra is her name, according to the little brass nametag pinned to her white coat—is clearly a professional. She is already levitating Hermione onto a floating gurney and barking orders for people to clear the way.

Ginny and Draco follow, trying to ignore the increasingly loud murmurs. 

~

The Healers hook Hermione up to some sort of apparatus. Draco stands at her bedside, feeling too out-of-place to even take one of the visitors’ chairs until Ginny tells him to just take a seat, you’re making me nervous.

“Is she going to be okay?” he asks Healer Abarra. 

“She’s stable. We have some questions for you, though.”

“Of course,” Ginny says. “What do you need to know?”

“Actually, we only need answers from him. He’s on the Ministry’s watch list, obviously. Protocol.”

“Right,” Draco says. His voice sounds hollow. “Go on, then. I can answer anything.”

“Were you with Miss Granger when she lost consciousness?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing there?”

His mouth is dry.

“I’ve been seeing her,” he says quietly.

“Watching her? Following her?”

“Jesus,” Ginny mutters, looking furious. “What happened to presumption of innocence—”

“It’s fine,” Draco says. “No, I wasn’t watching or following her. But we’ve been in contact. She thinks we’re dating.”

The stunned silence from Healer Abarra is only easier to tolerate because Draco—in the cold, harsh light of reality, surrounded by good people who are protective and alarmed by Hermione’s arrival—feels no small measure of disgust for himself either.

It all seems so stupid now. So—evil of him.

Well, he always knew this day was coming, he supposes. 

It was worth it, to be with her for a little while, comes the unexpectedly forceful thought.

“What do you mean she thinks you’re dating?” Healer Abarra asks stiffly.

“She’s lost her memory. She didn’t know who I was when I encountered her. She was living in a muggle village and she—she asked me to take her out for a drink.”

“Did you drug her?”

For the first time, a spike of self-righteous fury.

“Of course I fucking didn’t,” Draco says coldly. 

Healer Abarra nods with her lips pursed, jotting the note down on her clipboard.

“You,” she says, pointing her quill at Ginny. “I need you to help me alert Miss Granger’s friends or family. And as for you, Mr. Malfoy.”

She glances over her shoulder out into the hall, where the sounds of low conversation are now coming.

“The Aurors are here to speak to you.”

“I have to leave her?” he asks dully. “Like this?”

“Yes,” Healer Abarra says.

Then she snaps her notes shut, tucks her quill into her pocket and leaves the room. 

Draco stands. He walks slowly into the hall, and two grim-faced Aurors put cuffs on his wrists.

~

There are only a few questions for him, really. They just repeat them over and over, not believing Draco’s answers.

So, you found her entirely by chance? 

Yes.

Just a total coincidence then, eh?

Yes.

And you say she wanted to keep seeing you?

Yes.

Right. Okay. And you say you found her by chance?

After about twenty minutes, Draco and the Aurors just sit in silence. They are filling out paperwork, and neither seemed inclined to make any other conversation outside of the formal questions, laced with contempt. At least the cuffs are off. Draco rubs his wrists.

“Can one of you go and see if she’s doing better?” he finally asks.

“Oh, a worried boyfriend, are you?” the bigger Auror says with disgust. “Maybe you’re hoping she’s still out of it, so you can take her away again without a fuss.”

Draco accepts these remarks without reaction.

“I’d just like to know she’s okay,” he says.

The Auror snorts, but his colleague sighs and stands.

“I’ll go,” he mutters to the other Auror. “Might as well check—I’m worried too.”

When it’s just Draco and the angrier Auror ( Finley, reads the name tag), they stare at each other in silence until news returns.

“She’s up.”

Draco’s eyes widen. He gets to his feet.

“Sit the fuck back down,” Finley says.

Draco doesn’t.

“Is she alright?” he asks the other Auror. “Is there brain damage? Where’s Ginny Weasley—she’ll tell me what’s going on—”

Finley gets to his feet too, and before Draco has time to prepare himself the wind is knocked out of him. Pain bursts from his torso into his lungs and makes his vision dot with black—Finley has punched him in the stomach. 

For a moment, Draco just staggers.

The rage comes without warning.

Draco has become numb to the anger and disgust of the wizarding world. He no longer feels the need to defend himself, or advocate for his innocence. But this time, it’s not himself that he’s worried about.

He straightens up and meets Finley’s eyes.

A moment later and the other Auror and two aides are seizing Draco around the arms, snapping the cuffs back on him. Finley is on the floor.

“This isn’t about me,” Draco shouts at Finley, who is staggering to his feet, blood on his mouth. “I don’t give a fuck if you hate me, so long as you don’t get in my way when I’m trying to make sure she—”

“Mr. Malfoy!” comes the cold, sharp voice of Healer Abarra. “Miss Weasley needs a word with you in the hall. Now.”

Draco shakes off the arms holding him back and throws a last furious look at Finley before storming out into the hall.

“Is she alright?” Draco asks immediately. Ginny looks shaken. “What’s going on? Is she awake?”

“They revived her just now. She’s freaking out. Still no memory, and she keeps asking for you.”

~

“Hey,” Draco says softly, stepping into Hermione’s room. Healer Abarra and one of the Aurors (not Finley) follow him closely. “Are you alright?”

Hermione looks terrified—and furious. But when Draco steps close enough, she seizes his hand. She squeezes his fingers, looking for comfort. 

“What’s happening?” she asks. “Why did you bring me here? This isn’t even a real hospital, Draco—there’s no machines—”

“It’s gonna be okay.” Draco sits by her bed. “I’m here. Nobody is going to hurt you here, everyone is worried about you.”

“Is this a psychiatric ward?”

“No. You’re not crazy or anything.”

“Crazy’s an unkind word,” Hermione says automatically, looking around Draco at the Healer and Auror. “It’s an unfair stigmatization. You shouldn’t say crazy—”

“Sorry,” Draco says, who remembers her stance on this from previous conversations. She is filled with so much empathy for others, he remembers that—remembers falling deeper in love with her that moment— “I just mean, you’re not in a mental institute. But you lost some memories.”

“Amnesia?”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Healer Abarra says, but not unkindly. “Mr. Malfoy—my patient asked for you, but now that you’ve spoken I’m going to need you to leave so we can treat her.”

“And the Minister just contacted us,” the Auror grunts. “We need to process him and take him away anyway—”

“Do not take him away!” Hermione screams.

Louder than he’s ever heard her scream. Soft Hermione, gentle Hermione—he has never seen this side of her, the justice-minded protectiveness that he’s heard so much about. The one that leads her to circulate petitions for house elf treatment, to storm into the Minister’s office and demand documentation on illegal detainment.

“Hey,” he says, leaning in. A little closer, trying to give them privacy. “It’s alright. What’s wrong? Don’t be worried about me.”

“I’m worried about me,” she sobs. “I need you here, Draco. Please. No one else will tell me what’s going on.”

I need you here, Draco.

He scoots his chair closer and kisses her hand. 

"I'm right here."

If they want him to leave her side, they’re just going to need to kill him first.

~

Hermione calms down—with Draco’s slow, coaxing reassurances—over the next hour. This gives Healer Abarra an opportunity to run more magical tests while Hermione isn’t panicking.

Draco watches the way Hermione’s brown eyes follow the movement of Abarra’s wand. The confused, slightly frustrated way she seems to register but not recognize the many signs and tools of the wizarding world.

“What did you mean when you said I've lost memories?” Hermione asks him later.

Her voice is softer—she is tired. Exhausted from the many hours of being here, not knowing what’s happening.

Draco squeezes her hand, looking down at his feet.

“Um. Well, you’ve sort of been missing. People have been looking for you. Because everyone cares about you, Hermione—you’re important to a lot of people—”

“You’ve been looking for me?”

“No. I found you only by accident.”

“And you told everyone you found me?”

He is silent.

“I didn’t. I didn’t tell anyone."

“Mr. Malfoy,” Healer Abarra warns. “It’s important that we keep Miss Granger calm. She’s going to need to undergo a memory recovery procedure, and that will be the appropriate time for her to re-learn everything.”

Draco nods mutely. His mouth is dry.

“Hermione,” he says hoarsely. “Listen. Just know—just know that I didn’t mean to hurt you, okay? I didn’t mean for bad things to happen. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“And that is the exact kind of thing you oughtn’t say to her until after the procedure,” Abarra says, looking greatly irritated. “Maybe you ought to wait outside.”

She turns to Hermione, her expression softer.

“Miss Granger—we’re ready to begin your procedure. It should only be St. Mungo's staff in here when we begin the operation. Is it alright if I ask your friend to wait in the hall?”

“He’s not my friend,” Hermione says angrily. Draco’s heart breaks. But then she continues: “He’s my boyfriend.”

Somehow, that one breaks his heart even more.

“I’ll be just outside, Hermione,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right here, alright? Your procedure’s going to go great. You’re so brave.”

Hermione looks close to tears again. She reaches up for him, asking for a kiss.

Under Healer Abarra’s judgmental gaze, Draco leans down to press his lips to Hermione’s. She will not ask him for one ever again. This last kiss may even eventually be used in the Wizengamot case against him, Draco thinks. Physical assault, it might be called.

But for now, Hermione clings to him with nothing but trust. 

“Promise you’ll be right outside?” she asks. “So you can take me home after, okay?”

Draco can’t meet her eyes.

“I promise I’ll be right outside,” he finally says.

Chapter Text

Draco waits in the hallway with Ginny. He’s seated with his face in his hands, trying to remind himself that the likelihood of brain damage must be very low now—or else surely the Healers would have said something to them?

He doesn’t hear Harry Potter enter, but he definitely feels it when the chair is abruptly dragged out from under him and he falls to the tile.

Draco jumps to his feet at once, ready for a fight. Ron is right behind Harry and one of them—Draco doesn’t even know who, adrenaline and emotion makes it all blur together—rushes forward and punches him.

He hears Ginny scream.

“You piece of shit,” Ron roars in his ear. “What did you do, you fucking—“

“Get off him, Ron—this is a hospital, you’re being—“

“And you!” Ron says, whirling suddenly on Ginny. “They’re saying you knew where she was? This entire time, I can’t believe you!”

Draco is focused on preparing to fight Potter—but inexplicably, Harry seems mostly furious with Ginny.

“How could you keep this from me?” Harry demands. “We live together—is this where you’ve been disappearing off to?”

“I’m gonna go talk to Hermione,” Ron says furiously. 

He pushes past Ginny and towards Hermione’s treatment room. Alarm bells go off in Draco’s head—the Healers had said only St. Mungo’s staff should be there—

Draco seizes a fistful of Ron’s robes.

“They’re in the middle of the procedure,” he snarls, dragging Ron back. “The Healers won’t do their best work if people are barging in—“

For the second time in as many minutes, Draco is punched in the face.

Luckily Ron is too distracted by fury or perhaps just insufficiently trained in combat to really do damage. But still, Draco has to spit blood out. 

“That’s enough!” Ginny screams. “My best friend is in there. And you idiots—fighting out here—“

She has to stop to take heaving, sobbing breaths. She covers her face, but the tears leak from under her palms.

Harry steps towards her, his brows furrowed with concern.

“Listen to me,” she says, wiping her face furiously. She shoots glares at all three of them. “This is a whole mess. There’s more than enough blame to go around, alright? My fault for not telling you lot when maybe I should have. But you two were always too busy to listen to Hermione when she told you she needed help. She didn’t think she could turn to you, and there’s only yourselves to blame for that!”

Harry looks ashen. And both he and Ron wear twin looks of guilty grief.

“And maybe Draco was wrong for going along with her wanting to date him, but—“

“He what?!”

Yet another punch, followed by a rapid and angry scuffle—after which Ginny manages to wrangle the group once more.

They wait in miserable silence in the hall (Draco with a swollen lip, Ron and Harry with a black eye and a bloody nose respectively, and Ginny sitting disgustedly between to separate them) for the procedure to finish.

At just after ten, the Healers come out.

They stand at once. And after the Healer says she’s fine, she’s recovering, everyone lines up to go into the room and talk to Hermione. Everyone but Draco.

He suddenly feels like he should leave.

Hermione is safe now. There’s people here who really care about her— good people. He’s intruding.

But he promised he’d wait, didn’t he?

He remains out in the hall when the other three go into the room to see Hermione, his promise to her the only thing that keeps him here. He sits again, antsy and ill at ease, not sure what he’s waiting for.

No, that’s not right. He knows what he’s waiting for.

He’s hoping she’ll ask for him.

The deepest and most shameful part of him even hopes she hasn’t gotten her memory back. That the procedure didn’t work, that she’s still his Hermione, that maybe it will all just be chalked up to a mistake and somehow he and Hermione will be allowed to return to Babel. He’ll open a gelato shop with her and give her flowers twice a day.

He sits with a pit in his stomach, staring down at his leather shoes against the stark white tile. He watches the way his own knee bounces in agitation. He watches his knuckles work, nervously twitching every time he checks his watch.

He remembers suddenly that Hermione had once told him she loved this watch. The thought makes him feel broken.

Ginny comes out of the room at 11:11 pm.

Draco gets to his feet immediately. 

“Is she alright?”

“Yes, she’s good,” Ginny says. “The, um—the procedure went perfectly, she’s just resting.”

He just looks at her.

Waiting.

He wants to ask the question, but he doesn’t need to. Ginny answers it for him.

“I think maybe you’d better go,” Ginny says, giving him a sad look. “Hermione isn’t—um. She’s upset. I don’t think she wants to see you right now.”

Draco thinks he probably does a good job masking his reaction. After all, he is used to putting on a veneer of silent indifference. It is the only way anyone can survive, in the face of daily and aggressive reminders of how damnable their choices have been.

He nods. The pain he feels is so visceral he could swear it is a physical stab wound in his chest. Just here, just over the sternum—a bleeding ache. No more than he deserves, of course. No more than the betrayal and horror Hermione probably feels.

“It’s alright,” he says in an even voice. “I understand—of course I understand.”

He pats at his pockets to make sure he has everything, and also to give his hands something to do. He avoids Ginny’s eyes.

“I’ll just go with the Aurors now,” he says, rubbing his jaw. “They’ll probably want to process me tonight. Can you, um…”

His voice catches. 

“Can you tell her I’m sorry?”

“You can tell her yourself, later,” Ginny says firmly. “I’m sure she’ll want to see you at some point…”

He laughs, hollow.

“Right. Maybe at the trial, yeah?”

He turns to leave. It seemed like maybe Ginny was feeling pitying and sympathetic enough to try to give him a hug. And he can’t do that right now.

No one has given him a hug after he came out of Azkaban—no one but the girl in the examining room, who has just remembered how much she loathes him.

~

The Aurors hold Draco for one night in a detention cell. Not at Azkaban, just a local facility in London. While the Ministry figures out what to do with him.

Mostly, he’s numb. 

It’s actually nice. 

He doesn’t care what happens to him. He plays Solitaire with a pack of cards some former inmate left on the small desk in the cell. He lies on the cot and counts the cracks in the plaster ceilings.

Maybe one day, he will forget all about this. About how it felt to have and then lose Hermione Granger.

That will be a good day, he thinks. It will be a relief.

But this quiet, hollow period of time comes to an abrupt end the following morning. Healer Abarra has come to see him.

“Good morning,” she says crisply. “I just spoke with the Aurors Department. Miss Granger has decided not to press charges, and so you are free to leave.”

“What do you mean? Is she alright?”

“She is extremely upset with you,” Abarra says coolly. “Understandably.”

“Of course. I just meant that you might need to make sure she’s alright." He's worried sick. "I don’t think she would drop the charges if she were in her right mind—are you sure the procedure went as planned—”

“The procedure went well,” Abarra interrupts. "It's her treatment post-procedure we need to talk about. Your help is required, Mr. Malfoy. That is why Hermione has decided not to press charges, or so I assume.”

“Anything. What do you need? Money? I can go to Gringotts—”

“We are facing an interesting challenge,” she says, speaking over him. “Miss Granger has regained her memories but not her physiological stability. Her heart rate and blood pressure are unhealthily high. She has panic attacks. As though her mind knows she is at St. Mungo’s among friends—but her body still believes itself to be surrounded by unfamiliar strangers.”

Draco is starting to piece together what is needed of him. He feels a hollow pit of dread.

“What about Ginny?” he asks. “Hermione was friends with Ginny, even back in the muggle village. Surely Ginny can keep her calm—”

“Miss Weasley’s presence is not enough. In fact, the only time Miss Granger’s heart rate was anywhere near a healthy level was when you were in her room, last night. Before the procedure.”

“I shouldn’t be allowed to be around her. I’ve already done enough harm.”

“It’s not a matter of right or wrong, Mr. Malfoy. It’s a medical matter. Hermione needs you for her recovery.”

~

St. Mungo’s had felt like a place of desperate hope, last time Draco was here. When he’d been willing to sacrifice anything he needed to, to guarantee the Healers would be able to save Hermione’s brain.

This time, it feels foreboding. Like a court of judgment. He doesn’t care what the Healers or the aides or the other patients think. Every ounce of his dread is for looking at Hermione’s face—the face that so easily broke into adoring smiles for him, her playful nose scrunch—and seeing a look of flat hatred there instead. 

He walks down the wide, tile-floored halls, his mouth dry. Abarra is at his side. Right before they enter Hermione’s treatment room, she stops him.

“Your role is to just be here,” she says. “You don’t need to—nor probably should you—say anything to her. Understand?”

“Yes.”

They enter.

Hermione is in bed. She has various magical apparatuses around her, and there is a carefully folded charmed bandage around her head. It is wonderful and terrible to see her. Hermione is as beautiful as ever, and her eyelids are heavy with exhaustion. She looks sleepy, and it's a visual cue for Draco to cuddle next to her on the couch. To send goodnight messages on the phone, to gaze unblinking at the drowsy selfies she always sends.

But her expression is all wrong. Awkward misery radiates off her.

She doesn’t seem to want to look at him, opting instead to stare resolutely at the wall. 

There is a small brass device on the table next to her, which flashes red rapidly. But when Draco comes near, it settles to a peaceful blue pulse.

The aide standing by Hermione’s bed glances at Abarra.

“It’s working,” he says. “Heart rate lowering.”

Hermione closes her eyes, looking humiliated.

“Sit down, Mr. Malfoy,” Abarra says.

He quickly steps to the side, not wanting to be in the way. He finds a chair far from Hermione, by the door, where she won’t be forced to look at him. He wishes he has it in him to not look at her. 

The brass device blips yellow.

“You need to sit closer,” the aide says. 

Draco moves to the chair closest to the bed.

The device returns once more to a healthy pale blue. Hermione still looks unhappy, but the pinch between her brows softens. She exhales quietly.

Draco doesn’t know what to do with himself—where to look, how to sit, what to do with his hands.

He doesn’t notice he’s nervously clenching his fists until Hermione’s eyes dart to his hand.

“Just relax,” she says. 

Her voice is not like it was before with him. Not warm, not teasing, not affectionate.

It’s quiet—a little dull. Embarrassed. 

“Sorry,” he says, forcing his hands open. “I’m sorry, Hermione.”

She shrugs and looks away.

The Healers begin their work. With Hermione’s stress levels low and stable, their charms are more effective. They show her a chart with numbers, which she intelligently examines and remarks quietly on. Draco tries to figure out, from context clues, exactly how much she remembers of her time in Babel.

The question is answered for him when the Healers talk amongst themselves, leaving him and Hermione in an awkward bubble of privacy.

“So,” she says. “I suppose no one thought to go back and put my jam in the fridge.”

“I can go today and jar it,” he says at once. 

“I was kidding. I don’t care about the jam.”

The pain in his heart is just endless. 

You did care about the jam, he wants to say. You worked hard on it all Thursday evening. You cared about me, too. 

Is that all gone, forever? Down the drain, into the trash?

But these are selfish and stupid thoughts. So he just nods.

“Right,” he says. “Sorry.”

“You should be.”

“I—“ his voice breaks. He looks down at the ground. The brass device is still calmly blue, he reminds himself—he needs to be here, he can’t just run. “I am sorry. This was probably the worst thing I’ve ever done. You can rest assured I’ll never forgive myself.”

The Healers turn their attention back to Hermione.

“We’re going to administer this potion via syringe,” one says. “Since you seem more comfortable with muggle needles than with wizarding tinctures at the moment. Is that alright?”

Hermione just nods.

They carefully fill the needle with clear fluid. They bring it to her arm.

The brass device jumps to erratic red.

The Healers freeze. They look at each other with concern, and Hermione looks like she might cry.

“I don’t know how to stop it,” she snaps at Abarra, who seems about to say something. “It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault—“

Draco feels tears in his own eyes. Seeing Hermione in distress is just as bad as it ever was.

“Can I hold your hand?” he asks hoarsely. “I think it might help.”

For a moment, everyone seems to be shocked into silence by his audacity.

But Hermione finally nods. 

Draco takes her hand, gives her fingers a reassuring squeeze.

Blue.

Chapter Text

Draco remains holding Hermione’s hand for the rest of the treatment.

She stays calm, the brass monitor remaining a healthy cerulean color. 

“That’s it for today,” Abarra finally says to Hermione, putting away the syringe. “You should rest. Tomorrow we’ll administer the last of the potions, and you should get any missing gaps in memory back. Looks like you’re going to make a full recovery. You’re lucky—memory repair depends on quick action. If you’d waited even a week longer, we might not have been able to restore everything.”

Draco feels a bit sick at the thought that Hermione’s memory may have been permanently damaged if he and Ginny had dawdled. They hadn’t known. 

But he tries to keep himself calm and collected, knowing that Hermione’s stress levels probably depend on it. He adjusts his grip on Hermione’s hand to hold it more securely.

Her device has gone from blue to flickering yellow, for some reason. Draco squints a little, focusing on the color, wondering if it’s a trick of the light. He looks up and realizes Hermione is examining him. Her lips are pressed together, and she seems to be trying to figure out what to say.

They lock eyes for a long moment. If Draco pretends, he can fool himself into thinking they’re still like they used to be.

“Are you alright?” he asks. “Can I get you anything? Um—tea, biscuits…?”

“I think we should talk about what happened.”

Draco’s words die in his throat. His mouth is dry.

“The Healers say you’re supposed to stay calm,” he says. “Are you sure you want to—”

“Yes.”

“Alright,” he says. “Of course. Whatever you want.”

Hermione’s face looks a little pinched, and he realizes she might be trying not to cry.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice is hoarse. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know,” she says, with a wet, tearful laugh. “I remember how you were.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to this, so he just squeezes her hand.

“You know things about me that you have no right knowing," she says. "You know what I like. You know what I look like. And how I sound when I—“

The memory of their physical intimacy is like a third being in the room with them.

“There’s nothing I can say to justify myself,” Draco manages to say. “But I’ll do whatever you want me to do, whatever you need from me that’ll make you more comfortable with it."

Hermione's mouth is twisted, and she can't look at him.

"But you were very sweet to me," she says quietly. She's silent a moment. "The Healers say there are still gaps in my memory."

“The treatment tomorrow should take care of those.”

“It’s still upsetting. Right now, I mean.”

Her stress monitor blips more erratically between blue and yellow.

“Hey,” he says, moving his chair closer. “It’s alright. Take some deep breaths.”

She does.

“I remember most of the stuff in Babel, I think,” she says, wiping her eyes. “I don’t remember getting there, though. I remember talking to you for the first time at the library…”

There’s a pause, then—unexpectedly—Hermione looks frightened.

“That was the first time, right?” she asks, a little frantically. And he realizes she has no way of being sure.

“We talked at the library a few times,” he says quickly. Trying to offer her as much information as he can, to soothe her. “The first time was—when I didn’t have a library card. Do you remember that?”

“Yes,” she says after a moment. “That was funny. You were so awkward.”

This feels like a sort of ludicrous time to be embarrassed about that, but Draco’s cheeks heat anyway.

“You weren’t following me before that, right?” Hermione asks. “That was the first time you knew I was there?”

“It was, yeah. I didn’t know you were there. I just happened to be passing through.”

He thinks for a moment.

“I did see you right before the library, though,” he says, wanting to be fastidiously honest. “Just a few minutes before, when you were in a coffee shop. So I suppose I did sort of—follow you out of it when you left?”

“I don’t remember that. Did you talk to me?”

“Sort of. Your bag broke and I came up to you.”

“To help me with it?”

“Ah… no. I just stood there like an idiot.”

She laughs a little. The noise of it is so unexpected, so perfect and welcome, that he actually gets dizzy from the blood rushing to his head.

Draco can’t hide his smile. He plays with her hand, looking down at their entwined fingers.

There’s a little knock on the door just then. Healer Abarra pokes her head in.

“Mr. Malfoy. The Minister is here to speak with you.”

Hermione blanches, and her stress meter goes instantly to red. 

“He's here for me,” Hermione says to Draco, frantic. “He told me—they all told me—that this would be my last chance. That they’re going to restrict me from seeing my mum and dad—“

Draco fields a little surge of fury.

“Hey, don’t worry,” he says. He squeezes her hand. “He’s probably just here because I broke probation. Everything will be fine, alright?"

“Yes,” she says, but he can tell she’s just trying to be strong. She wipes her eyes. “Yes, right.”

“Mr. Malfoy? Now please.”

“I’ll be right back," he says to Hermione.

Out in the hall, Minister Shacklebolt presents an intimidating picture. His robes are entirely black, all but the Ministry insignia stitched over his chest in gold thread. The same insignia pressed into every red wax seal on the letters that Malfoy receives from the Ministry each month.

But he has no room for his own feelings on this. He can hardly keep his voice level, so angry as he is on behalf of Hermione.

“I need to talk to you,” Draco says. 

Shacklebolt looks astounded at Draco’s gall.

“Funny,” he says. “I was going to say the same thing.”

“You can’t restrict Hermione from seeing her parents. You’ve got no right.”

“Let’s do this one thing at a time, shall we?” Shacklebolt says. “How about with my item: you’ve violated your parole and will be returning to Azkaban as soon as her treatment is over.”

“I was told Hermione dropped the charges.”

“A symptom of her brain damage, no doubt,” Shacklebolt says drily. “Fortunately, it doesn’t matter. Hermione may have dropped her charges, but the Ministry is still fully authorized to prosecute a Death Eater for any violation while under parole.”

“Former Death Eater,” Draco says stonily.

Shacklebolt smiles without humor.

“I don’t believe there’s any such thing,” he says.

They look at each other with simmering hatred. 

“Are you done?” Draco asks. “I still have my piece to say.”

“Go on.”

“Hermione is a war hero. You can’t restrict access to her parents. How could you even enforce it? You can’t throw her in prison, people will riot—”

“The use of experimental memory magic is entirely illegal. Hermione was made very aware of the consequences. We intend to relocate her parents without informing her of their location, as is permitted under the Muggle Protection Act.”

“Hasn’t she gone through enough? Why do this to her—”

“This is her third strike, Mr. Malfoy,” Shacklebolt interrupts loudly. “Can you imagine the loss to the wizarding world, if our most brilliant witch destroyed her mind? Can you imagine the way the public would respond—”

Draco’s anger is turning to disgust. He realizes the Minister’s concern has, perhaps, more to do with his upcoming election than it does Hermione’s wellbeing. 

This thought is so deplorable that for a moment Draco can’t even speak.

“You are a charged criminal,” Shacklebolt says coldly. “You should, perhaps, be focused on your upcoming incarceration, rather than on the details of Hermione’s misuse of magic.”

Draco lets this fact sink in.

And then—slowly, but with piercing clarity—he starts to realize the obvious path forward.

He’s going to jail anyway, isn’t he?

What difference will it make if he takes the fall for one other thing?

“I was the one who wiped Hermione’s memory,” Draco lies. “I did so without her knowledge, so I could be with her. She had nothing to do with it.”

This is met with ringing silence.

Shacklebolt looks flatly disbelieving.

“How convenient for her,” he finally says.

“Convenient is the last word I would use,” Draco says. “She’s a victim.”

The Minister’s eyes flick between Malfoy’s own. He looks assessing, perhaps even confused.

“What is the point of this?” he asks. “Do you think she’ll accept you? Just because you took the fall for her?”

Draco says nothing, and Shacklebolt’s jaw sets.

“Fine,” the Minister says. “If you want to do it this way, then I can’t stop you. But I expect the matter will be closed very quickly. Let’s put you through a Veritaserum interrogation, shall we? Then we can see how honest your claim is.”

Draco had not expected this. 

But there is nothing to do but nod. 

-

The interrogation will be scheduled for late night, after Hermione has fallen asleep. Draco is needed at her bedside until then, in order to keep her recovery stable.

The evening passes slowly. Draco is at Hermione’s bedside, doing his best to not let his nerves show. Shacklebolt is, presumably, prowling around the hospital and waiting impatiently for the opportunity to invalidate Draco’s confession.

But in here, it is just him and Hermione. And Draco is grateful for that. Because next to her is his favorite place to be.

Hermione is still tentative with him, still on guard. But flickers of warmth continue to show themselves. 

“I can’t believe you got a cell phone,” she says. “Do you still have it?”

“It was really difficult to figure out how to use it,” he says, and Hermione laughs a little. He adjusts his grip on her hand, unable to believe she just laughed at something he said. He tries not to smile. “And no—I think I left it at your flat.”

“I’m really going to miss that flat,” she says. “There was something so cozy about it, wasn’t there?”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.”

Hermione yawns. It’s half past eleven.

“You should sleep,” Draco says quietly. “The Healers said it’s important. It will give your memory an opportunity to stabilize.”

“You have to stay here until I do?”

“Yes.”

She nods, yawning again.

The bedside lamplight casts her face in a soft glow. Her skin is a little dewy from a day spent in bed. Her eyelashes are soft sweeps, fluttering slowly as her blinks get heavier.

“Hey,” she says slowly, her words drowsy. “Do you think I should be mad at Ginny?”

Draco laughs. He strokes the back of her hand.

“I dunno. Maybe not. She worked so hard to be there for you—she got a phone too, you know. I think she was just trying to do the right thing.”

“Mm. I can’t believe she let you keep seeing me.”

“Yeah,” he concedes after a moment. “Me neither. So maybe there is that, actually, to be angry about.”

Hermione doesn’t look too sure.

“Yeah,” she says, closing her eyes. “Maybe.”

A few moments later, her breath is steady and slow. She’s asleep.

Draco watches her with a lump in his throat. 

She’s so beautiful.

He remains at her bedside for a good twenty minutes after, making sure that she won’t wake again—making sure that the monitor on the table remains consistently blue.

Finally, he lets go of her hand and lays it carefully next to her. He stands and exits quietly, closing the door with a soft click.

Outside, the Healers are waiting. Draco notices with chagrin that Minister Shacklebolt is here too, with two Aurors in tow.

“You think I’m going to make a run for it?” Draco asks Shacklebolt.

“The Aurors Department considers it a very realistic possibility,” Shacklebolt says. “But, personally, no. I don’t think you’ll run. I believe you’re too delusionally infatuated with her to go.”

“Fair enough.”

They take the lift downstairs, to the room where the Veritaserum will be administered. It’s an interrogation chamber, and so is on a different floor than the patient examination rooms. 

All Ministry interrogations that use truth serum happen here, so that Healers can be nearby to examine the suspects ahead of time. They want to confirm Draco has taken no potions or cast any spells on himself, that might get in the way of Veritaserum.

“Have a seat,” Abarra says, gesturing to a chair in the center of the room.

There’s a cuff and chain on the chair. Draco casts a dry look at Shacklebolt, who ignores him.

The aide clips his wrist to the chair.

“Patient protection law stipulates that you have a right to know what we’re doing at every step. We’ll start with your abdomen and chest, to check for ingested or inhaled magical substances.”

“Fine,” Draco says.

He sits patiently, letting the aides do their work.

The charms they cast appear to transmit information to a chart on the wall, where numbers and charts appear in pale blue light. A peaceful humming sound emanates from it.

“All clear,” the aide says, assessing the chart. 

“You surprise me,” Shacklebolt says loudly to Draco. “You intend to take the truth serum without preparation?”

Draco doesn’t answer. Mostly because he’s presently wracking his brain about the same question.

The truth serum, in its glinting clear vial, is already set up on the table behind Shacklebolt. Ready to be administered once these rote examinations are over.

Draco darts his eyes to it, his mouth dry.

He was trained in Occlumency, back in the war. Could he possibly use that to circumvent the Veritaserum?

“Muscular and blood assessment next,” Abarra tells the room.

She waves her wand in careful patterns up and down his arms, then down his legs. 

The chart hums evenly. 

“All clear,” the aide calls again. 

“Brain assessment,” Abarra says.

She moves her wand in a careful circle around Draco’s head. An aide repeats the motion, slightly lower around his face. 

Suddenly, so loudly that everyone jumps, the glowing blue chart on the wall lets out a harsh screeching beep.

They all stop. Abarra lowers her wand briefly. She looks at the chart, which is showing red splotches where there had previously only been blue lines. Its humming is now loud and staticky, no longer soothing.

“What is it?” demands Shacklebolt.

Abarra ignores him and speaks quickly to the aide who is staring at the chart in shock.

“I’m going to run the scan again,” Abarra says.

It is with greater concentration that she lifts her wand to Draco’s head this time, as though making very sure the chart is not mistaken.

“What’s happening?” Draco asks. “Is something wrong?”

Just as the wand passes his temple, the chart emits another horrible screeching sound. The red splotches on it glare blindingly bright. 

“Mr. Malfoy,” Abarra says. “Can you tell me what you were doing when you found Miss Granger?”

“He’s not even under truth serum yet!” Shacklebolt protests.

Abarra ignores the Minister, which feels, to Draco, like a worrying sign.

Is he dying? Have they found some illness?

“I was passing through Babel,” he says. He’s explained this so many times that it feels like a memorized fact from a textbook by now. “By chance. Going cross-country.”

“Can you tell us where you were traveling from? Or where you were traveling to?”

Draco is impatient with this—what’s going on?

“Of course I can,” he says. “I was in—”

He pauses, frowning.

“I was in—” he says again, but the answer still doesn’t come to him,

What had he been doing before Babel? 

“I—“ he says, shaking his head. “Um—“

There is a sudden pain in the center of his head, like a blinding migraine. 

“He has memory damage,” he hears Abarra call loudly. “Acute. Prep room six, we need to get him into treatment—”

But it’s too hard to focus on the words, because the pain in his head is agony. His head tips forward, his eyes squeezed shut.

Where had he been? Before Babel? 

Draco loses consciousness.

Chapter Text

There are soft lights dancing behind Draco’s eyelids.

He feels like he’s floating in a pool. Pieces of information—voices, images—pass by like birds outside a window. Like lights in a lake.

He is in that coffee shop again, looking at Hermione. Her hair is a fall of autumn-colored curls, she’s looking down at a book.

She has been missing for three months—yes, he remembers all of this. How surprising it is, to see her here. 

Another memory now—they are together in the clothing shop he remembers, and she’s laughing with a tweed beret on her head—and he is so in love with her.

He remembers all these things. 

A void passes by; and that one he does not know what’s inside of.

Just sounds, no pictures. And if Draco strains, he can just make out the words.

“You promised you wouldn’t hide this from me!”

That’s his voice.

When did he say that? He does not remember ever sounding like that, like each word is wrenched from the bleeding center of his soul. He is in pain, he is worried sick.

“I can’t give up!” This is Hermione’s voice now. She is crying. “No one understands—I don’t expect you to—“

“I told you I’d help you! Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to work on it alone—?”

When did this conversation happen?

It is exhausting. He drifts away from it, letting himself sink again into quiet. 

–

When Draco regains consciousness, he can somehow tell that a long time has passed.

His mouth is extremely dry, and he feels feverish and worn out. 

“He’s awake.”

That’s Abarra’s voice.

Draco forces his eyes open—they are swollen and tender with disuse. The room seems over-bright. He can’t see well, and he closes his eyes again to let them acclimate more slowly.

“Where’s Hermione?” he asks.

He expects to hear a sharp click of a tongue—a disapproval. Who is he to ask after Hermione? He’s a criminal.

But Abarra’s tone is different now. Kinder. Sympathetic.

“She’s just in the room next door,” she says. “She’ll want to know you’re awake. Someone is getting her now.”

“What happened?”

A pause.

“Your memory retrieval was unsuccessful, Mr. Malfoy.”

This news is not as distressing to Draco as maybe it ought to be. He doesn’t feel like he’s missing memories, after all.

“How long have I been out?” he asks. “How is Hermione?”

There is the sound of a door opening then. Draco opens his eyes this time, keeping them open even though the light hurts. Hermione is here, and she is rushing to his bedside. 

Rushing. 

“Hey,” he says. He’s confused but pleased when Hermione grips his hand. “What’s going on? Are you alright?”

“Did they tell you?” she asks. 

“About my memories? It’s fine—but are you okay? What’s wrong?”

She summons a chair without looking and sits at his bedside. Both of her hands are on his, and she’s squeezing his fingers.

“Draco,” she says. “My memory retrieval is done. It was successful.”

“That’s great,” Draco says, slightly confused by the commotion. “You look a lot healthier, too. Up and out of bed. Your magic is all back…”

She brushes this away.

“Draco,” Hermione whispers. Her brown eyes dart between his. Searching. “You don’t understand. I remember us.”

He thinks of her cozy flat in Babel—of kissing her on her white couch, of Italian sodas, and of the musical sound of her laugh.

“I do too,” he says. “Of course I do, too.”

But Hermione shakes her head quickly, impatiently.

“No, no—I remember us before.”

–

Minister Shacklebolt has left the hospital, given the extended and possibly unknown duration of time required for Draco’s memory retrieval operations. Abarra has not yet informed the Ministry that Draco’s procedure has failed, citing the possibility that they may try some other treatments.

Draco suspects that she is buying time, keeping the Minister at bay on purpose.

“This is an unusual case,” the Healer tells Draco, not quite meeting his eyes. He has the feeling she’s breaking rules, to allow him and Hermione time to get on the same page. “I’d argue there’s a—halfway plausible medical argument for keeping the Minister out of the loop for now. Best use the time wisely.”

Hermione signs the forms authorizing her memories to be viewed by Draco via Pensieve.

“It won’t be the same as having your own memories,” Abarra tells him. “But you’ll at least get to see Miss Granger’s.”

“Just tell me,” Draco asks Hermione. His mouth is dry. “Is it bad? Did I do something wrong?”

“You didn’t,” she said. And she squeezes his hand, and he feels all-encompassing relief.

Hermione writes down a list of the most critical memories and gives it to Abarra. They need to go in chronological order. After some discussion, Hermione selects the very first one to share. The first chapter, in the story of them.

“Draco,” she says, before it begins. Her face is white. “Please don’t be angry.”

The memory is liquid-silver and white, twisting and spinning like a caught fairy on the tip of Hermione’s wand. Sparkling.

She lowers it to the Pensieve. And then Draco leans in.

–

It is the day of the Ministry trials.

Draco sees himself down there in the chair, pale and hard-eyed as the Wizengamot reads out the list of charges.

“Aiding and abetting the Dark Lord,” comes the first charge. “Obstruction of justice. Traitorous intent. Attempted murder.”

The memory fuzzes in a few places, and Draco realizes that is because Hermione is too focused on what she’s doing to pay full attention to the Wizengamot. He finds her in the stands. She is carefully reviewing her note cards, on which are the logical points she will soon make in Draco’s defense.

He is trying not to pay attention to the Wizengamot either, and also trying not to look at himself in that hard-backed chair. This was a bad day for him.

He tunes back in only when Hermione takes the stand.

“Victims take many shapes and forms,” Hermione says into the microphone. “And a war like this one leaves few unmarred.”

He remembers her speech. It had been—like all endeavors Hermione undertakes—excellent.

“What would any of you do?” she asks, turning to the Wizengamot. “To save your parents? Your families?”

She directs a clear-eyed gaze to Draco, who can only look up at her, his jaw tight.

In his own grey eyes Draco can see the beginnings of love, a seed already planted. He is staring up at Hermione with hard, miserable eyes. She is the epitome of virtue and he is in shackles.

“I would wager,” she says clearly. “That many of us on the winning side of the war cannot honestly say we would risk our families in service of some idealistic concept of doing the right thing.”

“You did, Miss Granger,” someone protests from the Wizengamot. 

There is a murmur of agreement.

“Did you?” Hermione shoots back. Her eyes are cold, passing over the stands. “Or you? Or you? Or were you silent? Trying to blend in, and keep your Ministry jobs?”

They say nothing. 

“Draco Malfoy did what none of you could. When he had no reason to change course—when he had only consequences to fear for it—he chose to risk himself to do the right thing. He kept the secret of Harry Potter’s identity. And in doing so, he saved us all.”

She sits down. 

And, minutes later, Draco Malfoy receives his sentence. The Wizengamot had come into the trials that day prepared to sentence him to life without parole. Instead, Draco receives two years. The most lenient of all the sentences they’ve delivered.

The memory doesn’t stop after the trial ends. 

It follows Hermione as she is leaving the Ministry with Ron and Harry; she is furious with the Wizengamot’s decision. Draco gets to see each expression on her face in great detail; the emotions are raw and firsthand, coming directly from her memories.

“A total farce,” she says, shoving her notecards back into her bag. “A complete mockery of a trial. The Ministry is just desperate to take action against anyone affiliated with the Dark Lord, after how they bollocksed everything up the last few years.”

“It’s alright, ‘Mione,” Ron says. “Two years—that’s way better than he was going to get. You did your part.”

“Right,” she says. But she seems agitated, unhappy. “I suppose.”

–

The next memory comes seamlessly. Abarra and Hermione must have poured it in just as this one ended.

It takes place in Azkaban, which is odd. Because—aren’t these Hermione’s memories? How does she know what his cell looked like?

The question is answered almost immediately.

Draco sees himself through the bars of his cell, sees himself get to his feet. He stares at Hermione, who is entering and taking a seat in the chair outside his cell.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hi.”

Draco looks awestruck, and—in his present-day form, watching all of this unfold—he is somewhat embarrassed at his inability to play it cool.

Distantly, he is baffled that he doesn’t have this memory. How was it removed from him? All he remembers of Azkaban are hundreds of cold, lonely nights. No one came to visit him, as far as he’d known.

Or was that just what his brain had assumed for him, without any real memories to fill the time?

“I just wanted to see how you were doing, I guess,” she says. There’s a visitor’s badge pinned neatly to her robes and she fiddles with it. “I’m sorry about the sentence. I thought it was unfair.”

“Oh—no, don’t be sorry. I was sure I was going to get life, so. Two years is really quite good.”

“I suppose.”

“Your speech was great. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

They fall into awkward silence.

Draco can easily see from his own expression that he desperately wants Hermione to stay, to keep talking. This is the most they’ve ever spoken. 

Hermione appears nervous in her own right, keeps smoothing out the pleats of her long skirt.

“I started reading muggle books,” Malfoy says, at the exact same time that Hermione says: “So, what do you do all day here?”

“Oh,” she says, smiling.

Draco smiles too. The expression looks foreign on his face, like it’s his first smile in a long time.

“What, um,” Hermione laughs awkwardly. “What are you reading now?”

“Pride and Prejudice.”

“Ah,” she says with another smile. “Sort of fitting.”

“Right,” he says, with a laugh. He clears his throat. “Well. I’m hoping—that I’ll learn some things.”

–

Hermione visited him lots of times, and Draco remembers none of them.

She visited sporadically at first—once every two months or so. But, by the end of his sentence, Draco saw her every week.

Sundays. She always came on Sundays. 

Watching these memories now, he thinks he can see the moment Hermione started to fall in love with him.

A slow, steady thing. A growing affection that burst into something more substantial, after a conversation about her parents.

“I’m allowed to see them once a month,” Hermione says to him. She’s fresh from a visit to them now, and her voice is still a little shaky. “The Ministry says that, any more than that, and I’m risking revealing our world to them.”

“That’s bollocks.”

She looks surprised by the vehemence in his voice.

“I agree,” she says.

“The Ministry should be helping you,” Draco says. His face is visibly angry, even in the dim light of the cell. “They should be funding research. You’re a hero—and your parents, you had to do that to protect them.”

“Their argument is that my parents are safe,” Hermione says. “And alive. That ought to be the priority.”

“There are other important things besides being alive,” Draco says. “Your mum and dad—they can’t remember you. They lost a daughter, and you lost your parents. All that love—just gone. It should be considered torture.”

She looks at him with something new in her face. Her eyes are bright. 

“It is like torture,” she says. “No one else seems to get that.”

–

When he is released from Azkaban, Hermione owls him and asks if he’d ever, maybe, like to get a cup of tea.

He sees her write out the letter, crossing things out and writing them again. Crumpling the parchment and getting a new one. Nervous.

He sees her hurriedly stow the stack of drafts when Ginny appears out of nowhere, here for a surprise visit.

–

They decide to go to a muggle town for their first date, since neither wants anyone to know they are seeing each other.

He sees Hermione in her bedroom one night, pulling up a map and dropping her quill at random onto it. The point leaves a dark blot of ink on a town called Babel. She suggests the location in her next letter—Draco gets to watch how quickly his own owl returns. His eagerness would be embarrassing, were it not for the fact that he gets to see how joyful it makes Hermione. 

She clutches his letter to her chest. Does a little spin in front of the mirror.

When the day comes, she changes outfits three times before Apparating to Babel.

And she’s waiting at the table in a coffee shop, picking at her cuticles, when Draco appears. He is five minutes late and looks like he wishes he could die.

Draco has no memory of why he was late, but he guesses it’s because he’s never navigated a muggle town. He looks panicked. But he’s brought a bouquet of flowers for her, and when he steps into the shop Hermione gets to her feet with a surprised laugh. 

He smiles, relieved.

Neither of them are afraid of attracting attention, protected by the anonymity of this little muggle town.

“For me?” Hermione asks.

“Yes. Of course.”

She stands on her toes and kisses him—their first date, and she kisses him.

Draco freezes before putting his arm around her waist, holding her close. Their first kiss—surrounded by cups of tea and little plates with scones on them. 

An old lady knitting in the corner puts her scarf down and claps.

-

There are a string of golden-bright memories after this one. Draco is not sure how long he’s been in the Pensieve. But he doesn’t want to leave yet. And the memories keep coming, so he stays, wondering only distantly if Hermione and Abarra are able to see what he’s seeing too.

Some things he hopes are blurred to them, just for the sake of awkwardness. Like the night after their fourth date, when Hermione and Draco get a room at an inn in Babel. It is a long, sweaty memory, and he wishes that he could either watch it in private to fully enjoy it or fast forward through it.

This memory is followed by one of another date, a week or so later, also in Babel. And that night he begs her to let him put his mouth between her legs, and she agrees, though she is visibly self-conscious. That goes away quickly.

There is nothing self-conscious about the way Hermione screams when he brings her to orgasm, his mouth wet and tight, pressed between her legs.

“You’re beautiful,” he gasps, kissing the inside of her thigh. “You’re so beautiful.”

They receive a noise complaint from the innkeeper. Unseemly screaming.

“Oh my god,” Hermione says, covering her face. Her cheeks are bright red. “I can’t believe it—this is so embarrassing.”

Draco is naked and in bed next to her. He is trying to move closer to her, always trying to move closer to her. Kissing her neck, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing each fingertip.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he says. “These people must have no taste. You sounded wonderful to me...”

She laughs and swats him in the chest, and he catches her hand and drags her close again.

“Hey,” he whispers. Their foreheads are touching. The edges of the room are blurred in the memory, because Hermione is looking into Draco’s eyes and isn’t paying attention to the world around. “What if we lived here one day?”

“In this inn? Are you mad—I can never show my face here again—”

“No,” Draco laughs. “No, not in this inn. But—in this town.”

“Oh, that’s a lovely thought,” she hums. She nestles against his chest, her brown hair a curly spill of gold across his pale skin. “What would we do for a living?”

“Nothing. I’ll convert my inheritance to muggle money. We’ll buy a house, and tend to a garden. We’ll get cats.”

Hermione giggles.

“Will we have flowers in the garden?” she asks.

“Of course.”

“Mm. And will you take me to get gelato at that place we like?”

“Yes. I’ll spend all of our money on gelato. I’ll go penniless, providing you with gelato.”

“Oh, excellent,” she giggles.

“Do you know why?”

“No. Tell me.”

He presses his mouth to her temple. Draco can see the nerves flicker in his own grey eyes. He can see the little steadying breath his past self takes.

“Because I’m in love with you,” he says into her hair. “I’d do anything for you.”

Hermione smiles. Her eyes are bright, playful. She twists in his grip and rests her chin on his chest.

“Well, I have bad news for you.”

Draco sees the uncertainty appear like a shadow over his eyes. It’s captured in the memory, even though Hermione doesn’t seem to have registered it.

He is so afraid of losing her.

“What’s the bad news?” he asks, clearly trying to not let his panic show.

“I can’t love a man who is so reckless with money,” she says primly. “As to spend everything on gelato.”

Relief washes over Draco’s expression. He laughs hard.

“I can be savvy with money,” he says at once. “No reckless amounts of gelato. Moderate amounts only. Sensible amounts only.”

Hermione kisses him.

She presses the tip of her nose to his.

“Good,” she whispers. “Because I love you, too. And I’m not sure reckless gelato could have stopped me.”

This is not Draco’s memory, so he has no way of being sure of exactly what he was feeling in this moment. 

And yet, it is easy to guess that this was probably the happiest moment of his life.

–

They stay at a different inn when they visit, after that. Everything is lovely. They laugh all the time, and they have sex, and Hermione seems—thankfully—unaware of Draco’s desperation to keep her. His concern that she will change her mind, at any moment.

Their first fight is horrible for him. 

Hermione is fiery and opinionated and is confident in arguing with him—it’s about her memory charms, and how she keeps trying them out on herself. 

Draco has never been in a relationship before. He thinks they are breaking up. 

He begs her not to be angry, he holds her face in his hands and puts his forehead to hers and says I love you, I’m just worried—don’t be angry with me—I’m sorry I got upset—

And he panics so much that Hermione finally realizes that he thinks she’s leaving him.

She stops arguing. 

She kisses him, hard, and whispers: you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

Chapter Text

She was working on memory restoration charms for a long time.

Draco is worried about it—very worried. He asks her to please be careful, to please let him help her, and then they rowed because Hermione says he doesn’t understand. How could she test memory charms on him? After what happened to her parents?

She starts keeping it a secret from him. She works on it in her flat in London only when he’s not there—and on the rare occasions he comes over instead of meeting her in Babel, she tidies it all up. He catches her at it once, and there’s another row. He begs her to either let him help, or to stop. 

“I can’t lose you—please. You need to be more careful with yourself—”

And then, finally, Hermione sits him down and promises to stop.

The relief in Draco’s face when she tells him that is total. He hugs her and kisses her and says he can’t live without her. He kisses her nose and her mouth and her eyelids.

But Hermione is scared.

Draco sees it in her memory—sees the way she gets after she visits her parents. She can’t tell them she’s their daughter. She has to make up a plausible reason to visit them—she’s gone with community wellness officer. 

And every time she gets back she cries. And she thinks about how memory restoration depends on speedy action, and so every day that passes their chances get worse.

Draco watches her go to Babel early one day. Not for a date. But to let a flat. She tells Ginny about the memory magic—just in case something happens. She makes Ginny promise not to tell. And Ginny still doesn’t know about Draco.

Present-day Draco watches this all happen with the twisting feeling in his stomach of watching a train approach a cliff. He can see all the little things fall into place, he can see all the safety checks that were accidentally left off. 

Hermione conducts her research at the flat in Babel, and on some days it is convenient because she can easily meet him for dates there afterwards. She is always careful to dust the magic ingredients off herself before she goes to meet him.

Draco can see how much she loves him, still. She doesn’t want to worry him, she does a good job hiding her tracks—she smiles extra big when he holds her close and he can almost hear her thinking: everything will be okay—I just need more time. I’ll tell him after.

By this time, she has realized normal memory restoration charms won’t do the trick. She’s searched every book, she’s tried every permutation of every memory-adjacent charm.

And she’s decided it will need to be a potion. 

—

When he catches her for the last time, the fight between them is massive.

Hermione is working on the potion in the middle of the kitchen—the cast iron cauldron rocking over a conjured flame, bubbling with clear, shimmering potion—when there’s an angry pounding at the door.

“Hermione! Hermione, let me in—I saw you go in, I know you’re in there—“

When Draco storms in, his face is frantic. He looks around wildly, at the ingredients, at the cauldron, at Hermione—and he wheels on her.

His love for her taught him softness and now, watching this in the Pensieve, Draco can see that it has also taught him strength. Draco has never seen himself so angry.

“What are you doing?” he demands. “You promised you wouldn’t hide this from me!”

Hermione is crying.

“I can’t give up!” she sobs. “No one understands, I don’t expect you to understand—“

He grabs her. She cries against his chest but Draco holds her face so she looks up at him.

“I told you I’d help you,” he says, and his voice is agonized. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to work on this alone? Hermione—I can’t lose you—let me help you at least—“

“It’s illegal! You’re on probation—I can’t bring you into this!” 

He lets go of her and runs his hands through his hair. He is panicked, his eyes wild.

Present-day Draco is watching all of this, his heart racing. Was this really what happened? He can’t believe it—it feels impossible—surely he would remember this?

“Hermione, this isn’t the way,” he says, gesturing furiously around at the empty flat, the rocking cauldron. “Nobody would have been here if something happened to you! You would have just never come home!”

His voice cracks on the last word. 

“I don’t want you to worry—”

“Worry?” he shouts, his voice raised in desperation. “Worry? Hermione—you are my life!”

Hermione is crying harder. She pushes him away and goes to the other side of the kitchen, holding her face and sobbing. Between them, like a knife dividing them, is the cauldron. Bubbling faster and faster, spitting up boiling tendrils of clear potion. 

Only present-day Draco notices. The past versions of him and Hermione are too occupied with each other, with the feeling that the world is ending. 

“You’re done with this,” Draco finally says, shaking. “You’re done, do you understand me? We’re going back to London, and we’ll figure out something else. Anything else.”

He throws a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace. The flames roar green.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Hermione says. “I’m almost done, Draco. I can tell—“

That’s when the cauldron explodes.

The flat is filled with blinding light. It happens so suddenly and with such massive force that for a moment Draco thinks the memory ended.

Draco watches himself get thrown back by the force of the blast. He watches himself stagger, coughing on the fumes of the potion, which has turned gaseous. He watches himself fall backwards through the green fire of the Floo and disappear.

Hermione continues to cough. She inhales much more of the potion gas than Draco did.

Things get fuzzy. 

Things fade to white.

Then—slowly, blurrily—Hermione comes to. The memory blinks foggily into view. Hermione is on the floor of the flat in Babel, surrounded by bits of broken cauldron and the mess of a destroyed potions cabinet. 

She rubs her head, moaning, and sits up. She looks around her.

Her eyes dart to the kitchen, then to the broken pieces of cast iron everywhere.  

Draco can almost see the way her brain starts to supply the rationale. Like a survival mechanism, like it’s protecting her sanity and doing gymnastics to make the world make sense.

“What—?” she mutters. 

Finally, she gets to her feet, swaying. Draco watches with a lump in his throat.

After a confused moment, Hermione finds a broom in the closet and starts cleaning up the mess. 

She sweeps the broken cast iron into the bin. She wets a cloth and wipes all the surfaces. By the end of the evening, it is clear she believes she must have just moved here. There are boxes of vials of ingredients but they would look like nothing more than colored dust to a muggle, and Hermione seems to believe they belonged to a previous owner.

She sets them on the curb to be picked up by the rubbish men. She finds an odd sort of wooden stick that she tosses out too.

And before Hermione goes to bed, she looks around at her empty flat. She frowns. 

“It’s probably about time I get a sofa,” she says to herself. 

And she starts her life in Babel.

And she has no money, so she gets a job. 

And she remembers that she has no parents, and that is quite sad. But it’s extra important then, isn’t it, that she stay cheerful and stand on her own two feet?

Hermione is a strong person. She works hard and builds a little home for herself.

And every Sunday without fail, she sits in the coffee shop where she and Draco had their first kiss.

—

The memories are done now—the Pensieve is dark—but Draco can’t bring himself to emerge. He stays there, reeling.

He doesn’t need the Pensieve to remember the rest. He knows the rest. 

He remembers the day he woke up with what he assumed was a killer hangover. The way his robes were torn and dirty and the awful, skull-deep headache he had. He remembers how he staggered to his feet, coughing—then looked at a bottle of vodka on the nearby table and thought:

It’s probably time I start drinking less.

Draco remembers all the times he Apparated across the country. He did it again and again for months. He kept doing it and he never really knew why. 

He told himself: I do this because I like to spend time alone. I like to wander, to look at muggle towns, where no one knows what I did in the war. 

Draco clutches his head, breathing hard.

His body knew the truth. It knew something was gone. The lump in his throat, the hollow spot where his heart was—they knew—they made him search, they said: keep going. Please, keep going. You lost something.

The little muggle town of Babel was hardly big enough to put on a map. 

It was in the middle of nowhere, made no sense for anyone to arrive at, unless they’d been wandering rudderless and anchorless, searching and searching and searching. Not remembering where they left off. Not remembering why they felt lost.

On a grey Sunday, Draco ended up at Babel. He saw a coffee shop and there was a dull feeling of yearning and aching in his chest and he made his way to it because he thought: I am so tired. I want to rest.

And he knows now that chance had nothing to do with it.

It was pure love—nothing more and nothing less—that led him home to her.