Archive of Our Own ^beta

Draco Malfoy is a writer, but he’s been having a bit of a shit go of it just lately. This may come as some surprise. Last time you saw that snivelling scoundrel, he was being rather pitiful after a battle. He was, quite reasonably, in shock and grieving, so let’s cut the poor boy some slack. Thank you.

Anyhow, Draco is now a writer. But he cannot write.

His quills keep snapping. His eyes get tired. He stares listlessly at the wall and sighs affectedly. He droops in the chair at his desk and wilts across the chaise in the second drawing room.

A few days ago, dressed to the nines, he braved Diagon Alley to fetch some new parchment and inks. It always lifts the spirits wonderfully to have some new supplies. Imagine his disappointment when he returned home only to find that Inspiration Had Not Struck.

He put on a black bathrobe and drifted like a wraith haunting the second floor of the manor. His fingers dragged along the dusty frames of portraits he passed. “A disgrace to your ancestors!” “Is it ennui again?”

“Good god, man, stop wandering; you can't afford to lose the meager body fat!” Their commentary became difficult to bear, but he was much too filled with Gloom to defend his honor.

So, of course, you understand why, after Theodore Nott had come over for the express purposes of cheering this poor fellow, it was decided that he ought to take a Writer’s Retreat.

And so, our hero (well, protagonist, at any rate), found himself like many lost things: washed up on the shore.

✒️

The sea breeze played in his hair at Land’s End, dark and brooding like him. A chough’s piercing whistle shrieked somewhere above. Draco watched the black bird glide into the wind and hover in place against the biting air.

His ears and nose stung with cold.

“Go to Cornwall,” Theo had said. “It’s very literary, you know?” He pressed. “Merlin was deeply affected by it, perhaps you will be too. Besides,”—here Theo gave him a wry look—“it’s easier not to think about things you ought not to on a rugged coast. Anyway, you’ll love the drive.”

Learning to drive had been a lovely bit of rebellion with the added advantage of allaying the Wizengamot’s lingering doubts about him. A picture of him sitting in a Vauxhall, clutching the wheel like a lifeline, had been splashed across the Daily Prophet—first time his face had appeared in the paper, actually.

Reformed Rogue Makes Muggle Sophistication Look Effortless, the headline read.

By now, he had a Wooden Morgan, which held the unique ability to handle spells well. Magic simply flowed through the wood chassis, leaving the machinery blissfully unbothered.

Theo smacked a kiss on his cheek for luck, shoved Draco’s luggage in the boot, and said, “Farewell, farewell! May the road be smooth, and may inspiration be found somewhere in that godforsaken peninsula.”

“It’s just St. Ives.”

“It isn’t ‘just’ anything, Draco.” Theo clicked his tongue. “They wreck ships there you know?”

“I think that’s gone out now.” It was really too bad Theo hadn’t been required to go through the rehabilitation program as well. The crash course in Muggle history of the last three hundred years had helped Draco a great deal. “We’re past the age of sail.”

“Nonsense. I saw a sailboat last time I was at the seaside.”

“Right.”

He’d driven off after a few more delayed farewells, Auf wiedersehens, and parting-is-such-sweet-sorrows.

The roads had been alright. The further south he went, the narrower the lanes became until they practically seemed like Holloways. Draco found himself pulling off into lay-bys half the time, so others could pass. The car could probably squeeze between them and the hedges, but he didn’t like to chance it.

This was no help whatsoever for his problem. No one could be inspired by such insipid occurrences as traffic issues.

Shortly before he reached St. Ives, he stopped at a field to admire three massive stones that had been balanced in the shape of a table by some long-ago bored people. He wondered how much magic had been in play and what the purpose could have possibly been. The ghost of a story tugged at his sleeve, but then his stomach growled, and the idea slipped away down the lane before he could catch hold of it.

“There’s only one other guest right now,” the Muggle fellow who showed him to his room said. It was a small hotel in a wiggly old building that seemed averse to right angles. “Not many come this time of year, but it’s lovely to have you. Are you an artist, by chance? Studying the light?”

“Why do you get many of those?” Draco asked.

“Oh, a few,” he said with a warm nod.

“Well, I’m afraid I’m not an artist. I’m a writer.”

The fellow sized him up. This was a distressing moment, really, because the man seemed to come from the same healthy, big boned stock that was able to accomplish enterprising things like balance very large rocks atop each other in a way that would leave them standing for several thousand years. Whereas, Draco looked like a Victorian who had fled to the seaside in order to gently die of consumption.

“Are you, really? Marvelous, marvelous,” the fellow said with a broad smile. “Name’s Martin, by the by.”

Martin gripped Draco’s narrow hand in a firm, friendly paw, shaking it with warmth. Draco felt a little better about himself.

That evening, Draco wandered along the harbor watching a search and rescue team practice. They sped out and did some miserably, floppy-looking things in the frigid water before speeding back. He only had any inkling of what was going on because an old woman, standing nearby, decided to give him a full verbal accounting and then asked if he was married.

He sighed deeply and admitted that no, he was not. There had been an attempt before, but perhaps that was why he was now in this Miserable Situation in St. Ives.

At a wobbly table, while drinking cider and listening to waves crash below the window, he pulled out his notebook and a brass pen he’d procured from a Muggle stationery shop (rather a lovely thing, all told) and began jotting notes. The restaurant he described in middling detail. His fellow patrons, he noted down perfunctorily rather than with real flavor. No adjectives. Notes and coins scattered on the table from his pocket, and he wandered back to the hotel.

In the between hours, when the world was asleep, and time held still for artists and poets, Draco sat at a little desk in his room and scratched away at his parchment by flickering candlelight. The flame glowed against the warped glass. His mind turned over absent people, unspoken conversations, and places unseen. In those brief hours, the imagined world was more real to him than the one he wandered in by day.

Rain battered the little hotel. It tinked against the old glass and iron casements. It drummed on the slate roof. Draco lay in bed for a long time, listening and ruminating on a rather quippy title he had jotted down a few weeks before. It was upsetting when, after two hours of this meditative venture, he hadn’t come up with a Plot.

He didn’t leave the hotel that day, instead drifting between the lounge and his room. Gradually, more and more empty teacups accumulated on various surfaces. Balls of rejected parchment grew to an obscene number. He spent an hour charming them into little characters that duelled all around the room, which he directed from the floor where he lay.

An owl tapped at the window. He allowed it entry if only to keep from upsetting the Muggles, and promptly ignored the little note with familiar handwriting.

Over dinner, he caved and read the note. Hope was a wild, rising thing that built in his chest as he read. It was snuffed by the sweet but simple sign-off.

He did not write back—that would show her.

After two days of this sort of listless behavior, Martin must have had enough. Over breakfast—well, it might’ve been nearer to lunch, but writers were allowed to keep odd hours, it was part of the allure of the profession—Martin waxed on about the owner of the shop next door.

“If I were a younger one, like yourself, I’d be after Julia. She’s the sort to set a man to rights,” he said, ending a sales campaign that Draco was sure even without knowing her, Julia would have hated.

“Is she?”

“I’d wager she could get your writing back on track.”

“Mmm, experience would say the effect could be the opposite,” Draco murmured.

“Oh, come now, you never know. She’s creative, like you. And she’s self-assured—very self-possessed.”

Draco sipped his tea and put thoughts of self-possessed women out of his head. Maybe what he needed was someone a little less self-possessed and a little more willing to be… No. On second thought, he needed a good slap, so he’d Get a Grip.

Martin gave him a once-over. “You’ve got plenty to offer.”

Draco scoffed.

“You’re obviously doing well for yourself—spiffy little car, time to be here writing—and you seem to be a philosophical, thinking type. Brilliant women love that sort.”

Draco drummed his fingers. “I’m not so sure. Maybe they’re easily fooled by us.”

Martin wasn’t entirely wrong, even if he wasn’t right either. Draco did have a spiffy little car; he was doing fine for himself as an author, with three books under his belt already. One had done well enough to be translated into German, French, and Spanish. While he wouldn’t exactly call his swanning about ‘philosophical,’ the word certainly added a level of seriousness to the whole endeavor that Draco imagined would be good to take on.

But he couldn’t pursue anyone now. No, even if he were available for that sort of adventure, at best she might become infatuated with his complexion and hair and decide to jump his bones for a romp or two before realizing he was a bit of a wanker and asking him politely but firmly to get the fuck out.

And that sort of thing was very hard on the creative mind.

Besides, his creative mind was still invested elsewhere…

After a period of silence and some exasperated looks in Draco's direction, Martin offered, “Could toddle over to Tintagel and get a nice cream tea for the trouble.”

“See Merlin’s cave, etcetera.”

“You’ll love it. Perfect agenda for a writer.”

Tintagel was beset by gale-force winds that day. Draco cast discreet sticking charms to his shoes on the promontory where Uther Pendragon had, according to legend—or some drunk historian—maybe, possibly, but almost certainly not, disguised himself to seduce a woman.

Windswept curly brown hair caught the corner of his eye. His heart leapt — then dropped to his stomach. A stranger.

God, what a terrible place to run into someone, come to think of it. The sight of a famous assault? Rubbish spot for another proposal. She’d have refused him doubly this time.

He started to walk down to a particularly picturesque little patch of ruins when the wind smacked him sideways and overcame his sticking charms. The ground rushed up to meet him with a thwap. Draco lay in the grass for a long while listening to the wind roar in his ears, giving the damp a chance to really soak into his trousers.

Wrenching himself up, finally, he dragged his worthless carcass back to the cafe, bought a little book detailing the Muggle archaeology of Tintagel, and had a cream tea. He’d need the strength for the drive back, anyhow.

“Any inspiration at Tintagel?” Martin asked the following morning.

Draco shook his head and took another bite of toast. A character from his first book was haunting him. The idiot was currently standing in the corner, shaking his head at Draco’s inability to get more than a few lumbering paragraphs out.

“Why not try a tour of a tin mine? Caves can be interesting—tunnels even more so, maybe?”

“I bank in a cave.”

Martin chuckled, “Don’t we all?”

He strolled around St. Ives, stopping in shops and galleries. A lovely charcoal drawing of the coast, looking particularly rugged, gave him pause. He bought it for Theo to be delivered directly, along with the note: The shape and texture of Draco’s melancholy.

“Had a call while you were out,” Martin informed him when he ambled back in. “I took a note down from her.” 

Draco held the little piece of yellow paper that contained her confusion, concern, demands for him to call, send an owl, anything. The three most important words had been left off, but he supposed he wouldn’t have wanted to give those over to a stranger either. He closed the note in his fist.

“Thanks, Martin. If she calls again, tell her: Just come, will you?”

Martin chuckled, shaking his head. “Hard to get isn’t the way to go.”

“I’m not hard to get at all,” Draco muttered, already partway up the stairs.

He was restless at the week’s end. The weather was too fine for being stuffed indoors. He was pulled; he had to get away. Hungover from too many ciders, and with no potion to hand, he borrowed a bike and set off south from town on a path Martin suggested.

A tire puncture he fixed easily with magic—his stiff legs, less so. Well, alright then, he’d done the Muggle thing for a little over a mile; that seemed good enough. A quick charm set the pedals pumping for him.

Along the journey back, a wild mane of hair caught his eye. His heart leapt into his throat. She was facing him—he’d know that face anywhere.

Typical. The universe always waited until he looked his absolute worst.

Windswept and a little sweaty, he sped toward her. She was so near and so far. Why couldn’t distance have contracted around him and brought them side by side immediately? If there were fairness to the laws of magic, they’d have pulled her to him in an instant.

“Since when do you ride a bicycle?”

And, god, if her voice didn’t do something horrible and wonderful to him that set his nerves alight. He grinned like an idiot.

“Since those rehabilitation courses,” he said, riding in a little circle around her and projecting not-at-all-sore-right-now demeanor. “It’s all thanks to you, Granger.”

Hermione hummed, her lips twisted to the side in a held-back grin.

“Where are you off to?” he asked.

“Oh, I heard a consumptive-looking man had been spotted out here and needed rescuing.”

“Rescue me then.”

“You seem fine enough.”

He slowed and drew closer to her. The breeze tangled her loose curls about her. She raised a hand and pushed them back. Her golden eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

“Why did you come?” he asked softly.

She glanced at his lips, then back to his eyes. “Why do you think?”

“Oh, no, I won’t be baited into that one. You’ve been asked thrice now.” First hopeful, second pathetic and hopeful, third—well, fine, bit of a disaster, but still hopeful.

She bit her lip and glanced down, pink staining her cheeks. “I didn’t come for more of that.”

Fine, leave the knife in my heart, Granger. He let his blood swirl around that exquisite pain.

“What for then?”

She came closer, blocking the breeze from him. Even the elements had to stop for her. He was utterly undone. The press of her lips against his was soft. A gentle touch. A request for more. He answered, then nipped her jaw.

“For that,” she whispered.

“Mm, is that all?”

A kiss was pressed into her neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair. He dared the wind to rise against them now.

“Ride on the handlebars back to town?”

“What on earth?” She squawked, pulling back.

“I saw some children doing it. Go on then, Granger. Don’t tell me you’re scared.”

She scoffed. “Hardly.” Her wand flicked toward the handlebars, which shimmered faintly.

“Mm, did you make that invisible cushion large enough?” He reached out and swatted her bum.

“Hey!” She scrunched her nose at him. “Shut up. My charms are perfect.”

She hopped on and scooched back into him. He resisted pinching her perfect bum, but only just.

“Alright, Draco: go!”

He leaned into her, his chin at her shoulder, her hair in his face. She was warmth in his arms. The ground jolted, jostling the bicycle. She bounced and laughed in front of him. He squeezed his arms tighter.

Hermione, light itself. Hermione, the witch. “‘Rose-lipped Hermione, a girl like the pale-gold goddess Aphrodite,’” Draco murmured in her ear.

“What? You’re ridiculous,” she laughed, turning and catching his cheek with that perfect mouth.

“You are. You’re the one who’s chased me down at the end of the world.”

“It’s only St. Ives.”

“Nearly the end of the land, then.”

“Alright, fine.”

They rode, they flew, they laughed. He adored her on his broom; he cherished her even more like this. She laughed while telling him about something ridiculous Pucey had done at work. And all the weight he carried fluttered off behind him in the breeze.

“Has it helped?” She asked, sprawled across his duvet.

He leaned down and lightly bit her naked thigh.

“Oi! None of that, young man. I’m reading.” She turned a page dramatically.

“You’re the one who asked me a question.”

“Answer it then.”

“Has what helped?”

She sighed, tossing the book aside. “This running away.”

“I didn’t run away: I’m on a retreat.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Yes, it’s a respectable activity for a writer.”

She rolled onto her back, a small blanket pulled over her, covering her incompletely. The curve of her exposed hip caught the warm light, as did the swoop of her left breast. Her curls were fanned out above her. He wanted to rake his hands through them and never speak again. She lifted a finger and traced idle shapes on his calf beside her.

“What are you retreating from, Draco?” she asked gently.

“Why do you keep saying ‘no’?” he murmured in reply.

Late in the evening, the stars glimmered high above. Draco angled the little desk beneath the window to face the bed. She was sprawled there on her stomach, glorious. An arm was thrown over the edge of the mattress. The sheet pulled at her hips as though it were the only thing keeping her in place. Her brows scrunched and relaxed over and over in her sleep.

The darkness of the room enveloped them. On the desk, in a glass he’d brought from downstairs, a little blue flame she’d charmed into existence hovered, illuminating his parchment. He filled his Muggle pen with ink and wrote.

In the morning, Hermione Apparated back to the Ministry before he woke. She’d left a note with the three words that mattered most. He cast a charm for permanence over them, then folded it up into a tiny scroll. Another wand tap made it miniature.

A flick of his thumb, opened a hidden compartment in his signet ring. Once designed for poison, the ring now served better purposes. From inside the golden hollow, he drew out three curled strands of brown hair. Twirling his wand, he sent the hairs winding around the little scroll, tying a neat bow. He slipped them all into the ring and closed it tight around them.

“God, this is drivel.”

“What is, love?” the waiter asked, setting a glass of cider before him.

“Nothing…” he groused, “only the mortification of reading what I wrote the other day.”

“Ah, a writer then,” they said in a terribly well-meaning and excited way. His neck heated, flustered and annoyed all at once. It wasn’t their fault—only, couldn’t they stop sounding so interested when he’d just said he wrote drivel? Tedious.

He nodded politely and took a sip.

Why was he a writer? Why had he done this to himself? He should figure something else out. He should’ve gone pro with Quidditch or become an Auror or wrangled dragons in some mountainous clime. How had he gotten here? How had this happened? And when had he finished off this glass of cider?

Salt water foamed and frothed about the jagged black rocks. He stood in the back of the cave beneath Tintagel—Merlin’s cave—where he woke the slumbering dragon and called on its breath to transform Uther.

Reckless and wild, the sea crashed and broke. Draco was a wave, raised, and thrown down, scattered on the rocks.

He was getting the tips of his shoes a little wet, so he took a step back.

He leaned against the cool stone wall, shoving his hands in his pockets, and stared listlessly back toward the cave’s entrance. It was like being in a tunnel with the sea and wind bellowing behind him. At the end of the tunnel, waves battered the cove where he would walk back and climb the stairs.

The stories that hung about this place lingered on the edges of his mind. If he turned his head just so, he could hear the faint whispers of old romance. The clash of a sword on a shield. The shout of a spell into the cold air. A glint of light on the edge of a hauberk caught the sun in the corner of his vision and vanished.

The old stories, like the one that guided wizards to a wand, a stone, and a cloak, and laid maps in their minds for them to follow.

There were old family stories that he had tread in the shadows of his ancestral home. Those old stories had needed to be rewritten in his mind. New maps made—new ways created and discovered. And so he’d poured all of his longing and desire onto page after page after page until the ink had stained his fingers and the stack of parchment beside him, weighed down by a brass apple, had climbed several inches high.

What were the old stories Hermione followed?

The wind whistled through the cave, and he tilted his head just right to catch maybe an inkling of something. The ghost of an idea was pulling at his sleeve again. In a flash, he grabbed it by the tail before it could get away.

Hunger be damned!

He dashed across the beach, up the stairs, and bolted for the car park. Paper, he needed paper!

There is a timeless vortex that exists when an idea is caught.

Teacups and glasses accumulated in alarming numbers. Plates grew in a little pile until Draco shoved them out the door and yelled, “Sorry, Martin!”

He left once at some hour—mid-morning? Needed more parchment, and what the bloody hell was wrong with him not having more of it? Nearest wizarding shop was Penzance (bugger all). The bookshop didn't have what he wanted. After a bit of breath to steel himself, he braved the shop next door to the hotel.

Please, for the love of Merlin, let this Julia person know nothing about him from Martin.

One mortifying conversation later, Draco was back in his room surrounded by A4 paper. He opened a cider and cracked on.

The first draft flew out of him. Rough, rough, rough. Terribly rough. But it was out. The story was caught. He’d wrestled it onto the paper.

He panted there for a moment, wondering if a flight on his broom would help get out the electric energy, then cursed himself at the thought that the broom had been left at home. What a bother.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took his unwashed husk and unshaven face out for something to eat. Afterwards, a shower was in order. But not a shave. He was still In The Thick Of It with this story: let his stubble reflect his internal strife.

An owl tapped at the window. Theo sent his regards. Draco sent him back a brief story about The Terrible Fate of the Irritating Wankstain (Formerly Called Nott).

The window was locked. The papers spread across the floor. Revisions began.

The less said about this tumultuous time, the better. Like many writers before him, Draco nearly died of horror at his own words and at having to write the same ideas over again, but in a different way.

His survival can be attributed to a steady supply of pasties, ciders, and tea provided by Martin, who had grown a little concerned but understood how “you creative lot are.”

A soft blur settled on everything for him when he finally gathered it all into a tidy, finished stack. He placed it on the desk and stood over it for a moment, staring.

Was it worth it?

Could it be something?

Would she see?

Would it be enough?

Was he?

He rubbed his tired eyes, pulled off all his clothes, and slipped naked and raw between the bedsheets.

She returned to him in the dark of night. Days had passed since he’d last seen her—who knows how many (but probably four). The brush of fingers on his back was soft and warm. At first, he thought he was merely haunted by a memory creeping out of his dreams, but then he heard…

“What’s all this?”

A flutter of paper.

“It’s not been read by anyone.” His voice was muffled in the pillow.

“Is that a problem?”

He shook his head. “It’s for you.”

“For me?”

Hermione crawled over the blankets in the darkness. The bed dipped and pitched. He was at sea, riding a wave and here came the siren to drag him under.

“God, you’ve no pity for my sleep,” he muttered as she jostled him and tugged the blankets.

“Shut up, you like me.”

She sat beside him, legs crossed, back against the headboard. Draco rolled over and slipped his arm across her hips. She’d undressed partly and was only in her knickers and a shirt. He ran his thumb back and forth along the lace trim on her leg. Her soft breaths wound about the room, punctuated by the turn of pages.

He was lulled by her warmth and her subtle noises until sleep stole over him again.

Once, he woke to find her leaning against the far wall, gazing out the window. Moonlight glowed from her pale cheeks. She blinked a long, heavy blink, her lashes grazing that soft plane he loved to kiss. He watched her for a long time like that, then somewhere between a thought of sheets tangling about them and crashing waves rocking them, he drifted off again.

He woke again near dawn.

Silence hung in the room. A drab, cold grey was brought in by the clouds outside. His heart folded on itself and slithered down into his belly.

He ran his hand over his chest, feeling the scars of his past raised there against his hollow ribs.

Then he noticed it: his manuscript was gone.

He turned to the door: her bag was slumped against the wall.

In a flash, he was up. Charms dragged his clothes to and over him and laced his boots for him as he dashed down the stairs and out.

His feet pounded the cobblestones in time with his pounding heart.

Where? Where? Where?

He ran along the lane, around a corner, down another lane, and on and on and on.

Dawn hadn’t yet broken. A blueish tinge hugged the clouds. Seagulls cried and careened above him. He slipped, nearly colliding with a building in the narrow lane. All at once, he was at the harbor. The pier jutted out into the water where low tide left boats lying on their sides temporarily beached. On a bench, her legs pulled up in front of her like she would sit sometimes as a girl—oh yes, he could remember: there she was in the courtyard, again in class, again in the halls, again and again and again—there was Hermione.

And there she was in Diagon Alley. And again in Foyle’s. And again walking in London, telling him, Write it down, Malfoy. And again in the school lawns at another anniversary, leading him by the hand in their black and tear-stained sea of grief. And again in her flat. And again swaying with the music of the band. And again, letting him kiss her senseless in the Trossachs. And again in his bed, crying his name and gripping him tight.

And again and again and again. Always she was there.

Morning was silver, and she was golden.

Flames drew all the heat from an area, and so, of course, he was pulled to her.

“Hello,” he said, catching his breath beside her.

“Hello.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “Was it only for me?”

“Only you.”

“It’s bloody brilliant. You’ve done it. You broke yourself out of it.”

“It was you. You broke me out of it.”

She barked a laugh and shook her head. “You’re giving me too much credit. I went back to work, Draco.” She swiped her eyes with her sleeve.

How could he explain? The words, which had been so firmly caught for days, seemed to dash away from him.

He stared at one of the beached boats, looking ridiculous, tumped over on the strand.

“No, I’m not. I’m giving you the right amount of credit. God, Hermione, even when you’re not with me, you are with me. Don’t you know that?”

“You have to listen to your own voice, Draco.”

“Give me a little credit, darling. I listen to myself plenty.”

She laughed softly and lowered her feet to the ground. Staring back out over the water, she murmured, “And what if, after all of it, I still say no?”

He dropped to his knees. “Alright then. Say no. It’s yours to answer however you want.”

She looked at him then, her face fierce and soft at once, and he knew this—this—was the only face he would ever see.

“I only asked you to marry me because I wanted to tell you just once in front of witnesses that I love you and I’m yours already.”

“I don’t want—”

“No, I know,” he shook his head, “it’s not about possession. Merlin, how can I say this without sounding like a bloody poet? I’m yours because my whole self isn’t only mine anymore. What I mean is, you know that strange feeling? You said it yourself, remember, in Florence? That strange feeling that we don’t quite fit in on earth, not quite complete here, like we don’t quite belong the way other animals do? That there’s something missing?”

She nodded, her brave chin quivering, but only just.

“I think—I think we can never be fully known. Not like how we know ourselves. So we’ll always have ourselves—of course we will. But I will spend my whole life seeing you as fully as I can because you are the missing part my soul keeps calling for.”

The morning breeze swept her curls in front of her face. Strands stuck in the tear tracks on her cheeks. He brushed them aside, caressing her.

“I don’t want to take you from yourself, Hermione. You’re always Granger. You know that. I just want to share this life with you as completely as these stupid, ridiculous bodies allow.”

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out his manuscript, rolled into a very disrespectful scroll, but he’d ignore that. Her long fingers curved around it possessively and squeezed. “She’s completely her own, isn't she?”

“She is,” he agreed.

“Sometimes she leaves him for a while because she has things to do.”

“Did you like how he followed her?”

She nodded. “I liked it even more when he went his own way sometimes, too.”

“But they were always each other’s, weren't they?”

She leaned toward him, their foreheads resting together. “Always.” 

“I’m always yours, Hermione. Not at my expense. I’m not lost, or something. That’s the paradox, isn’t it? I gave myself away and yet I’m more whole than ever.”

Her nose brushed his. “God, Draco. Me too.”

✒️

“I think I married you already, Draco.”

“What? When? How the fuck did I miss that?”

“Well, you were hungry.”

“I’m not that stupid when I’m hungry.”

“But a little stupid.”

“When did you marry me, then?”

“When I made you all those promises on the pier, you idiot.”

“You can’t just declare it. There have to be witnesses.”

“Says who?”

“Says everyone.”

“People are wrong a lot.”

The wind blew around them.

“Are we married then, Hermione?”

“We are.”

…

“Stop, stop. Wait. If you keep that up, I’ll Apparate you straight back to the bed.”

“Promise?”

“Draco!”

“Fine. Come on, Granger, the view’s the best over here.”

Draco is a writer, which can often be difficult.

When he needed stories to guide him, he wrote them. They became his maps. And always his compass was with him. She pulled him along beside her at Land’s End as the sun broke through the clouds, spreading a thousand rays over the endless sea. High above, a chough’s piercing whistle shrieked as it hovered on the restless wind.