Green Apples and Unfinished Things

DRACO

Draco was not, by nature, a man inclined to patience. He considered it a virtue best practiced by monks, widows, and people in queues for government services. Certainly not by former Death Eaters nursing feelings.

And yet, patience had been the only thing available to him when he'd first returned to Britain.

Two years.

TWO YEARS WITHOUT HER!!!

Not by choice, of course. Kingsley had made it explicitly clear—no contact, no correspondence, no clandestine firecalls to the witch he hadn't been able to stop thinking about since the war. The phrase "national security" had been tossed around so many times it began to sound like a polite excuse for heartbreak. Draco had agreed to the assignment because it was the right thing to do. Because it would clear his name. Because it would prove, to the world and to her, that he could be more than a cautionary tale with good hair and a criminal record.

And fine, yes, Kingsley had dangled the words "complete exoneration" like a carrot in front of a very stubborn, very emotionally repressed rabbit. But more than that, it was about her. About Granger. Former almost-lover, semi-ex-girlfriend, full-time moral compass, and walking, wand-wielding heartache.

Because Draco Malfoy didn’t feel worthy of her. Not then. Not after the war. Not after the graveyard of choices he’d made.

He told himself, repeatedly and with increasing dramatic flair, that if he returned a hero—or something close enough to pass for one under poor lighting—then maybe, just maybe, he'd be a little less undeserving. That perhaps she'd look at him the way she used to: like he was something sharp and brilliant, instead of just sharp.

Of course, halfway through year one, he realised no man was truly worthy of Hermione Granger. She was not a reward to be won, not a prize for penance paid. She was brilliance and fury and compassion all spun into one impossible soul, and he had once been lucky enough to be loved by her.

So yes. He had spent two years working through his issues, both foreign and domestic. He had seen his fair share of mind healers, survived lethal hexes, buried too many secrets, and even—Merlin help him—developed a fondness for herbal tea.

And then, finally, the very moment Shacklebolt reassigned him from the American branch of the Auror Department back to Britain, Draco had done what any emotionally constipated, possibly deranged ex-boyfriend might do: he went straight to Hermione Granger's flat. No owl, no warning, no regard for dignity. Just Draco Malfoy, armed with his trunk, a bouquet of flowers, and a perfectly irrational sense of hope.

The flowers weren’t random. He’d handpicked each one himself—none of that ridiculous pre-arranged rubbish from Diagon Alley. They were periwinkles, delicate wild poppies, and soft pale asters, all bundled into a charmingly lopsided bouquet wrapped in old Daily Prophet pages because he couldn’t find ribbon and refused to ask for help. 

He knew she liked them. Fourth year, Herbology. She’d crouched over a stubborn patch of periwinkles for nearly an hour, coaxing them to bloom while the rest of the class gave up and wandered off. When they'd finally flowered, she’d smiled like the sun had arrived early. He hadn’t known it then, but that smile had lodged itself somewhere between his lungs and never left.

He remembered it all, absurdly, vividly. The way her hair had frizzed under the greenhouse humidity, the smudge of soil on her cheek, the way she’d tucked the smallest blossom behind her ear like it was nothing. It had, naturally, driven him to insult her shoes.

So it was perhaps a cruel play by Merlin himself that she wasn't home when he had arrived at her doorstep.

Which is how he had found himself at St. Mungo's three hours later, sitting stiffly in the waiting area with a charm-wilted bouquet and hands that refused to stop shaking. He looked utterly mad. The kind of mad that whispered 'unwell' from twenty paces. The kind of mad that made Healers look twice and small children reconsider their career paths.

He was also, unfortunately, not alone. An elderly wizard beside him kept asking if he was there to donate his kidneys. Draco declined. Repeatedly. At one point he pretended to be deaf. At another, he asked if the wizard wanted both kidneys or just one, and whether they'd be removed magically or with a spade. The man laughed. Draco did not.

He'd waited the entire shift. From the minute hand clicking past his arrival to the slow, agonising crawl toward the end of Granger’s scheduled rotation, he sat there like a very well-dressed statue of Poor Life Choices. Every time a Healer passed through the ward doors, he straightened slightly. Every time it wasn't her, he deflated with the grace of a punctured dirigible. By hour two, he'd tried—unsuccessfully—to re-fluff the now sagging bouquet with a mild Herbivicus charm and had begun internally composing an ode to her in iambic pentameter. By hour three, he had stopped pretending he wasn't counting the tiles on the ceiling.

He stayed, like an idiot. Because some part of him—possibly the same catastrophically miswired corner of his soul that once thought getting branded by a genocidal snake cult was a savvy career move—still believed that she’d see him, really see him, and forgive him for everything.

When Granger finally emerged from the ward in her Healer robes, radiant and laughing, Draco had felt a great swell of anticipation in his chest—the kind that made lesser men take up poetry or scream into handkerchiefs. It was the sort of hope that clawed up his throat and set up camp behind his ribs, singing ballads in falsetto. He felt ridiculous, breathless, like a schoolboy who’d mistaken a passing glance for a vow of eternal affection. Merlin, he hadn’t even seen her properly in two years and still he stood there like some tragic Victorian heroine waiting for a ship that was never coming.

He had wanted to say something—anything. A clever remark, a scathing quip, a casually delivered ‘fancy seeing you here’ that didn’t sound like he’d rehearsed it in twelve different accents on the way home. Instead, he stood stock still, hands sweating against the crumpled bouquet, heart thudding with all the finesse of a bludger in a glass shop, watching her laugh at something her co-worker said and wanting, quite desperately, to be the cause of it.

And then she'd stepped directly into the arms of a tall (but not taller than Draco), smiling brunette who kissed her on the cheek and handed her a takeaway coffee like some sort of domestic demigod.

Draco had, in the span of thirty seconds, contemplated walking into oncoming traffic, staging a duel in the foyer, and abandoning his name entirely to live in exile under the alias "Derek."

Instead, he followed them.

Yes, he knew it was mad. Yes, Theo had since called him several unsavoury names involving the words "pining" and "pitiable," and possibly invented two more in ancient Greek just to keep things interesting. Theo had also complained, loudly and at length, that Draco hadn't even bothered to say hello to his own parents yet, let alone Theo, Blaise, or Pansy, who were apparently all deeply offended by the snub. "Imagine returning from the dead and not even stopping for tea," Theo had said. "You absolute menace."

But Draco was nothing if not committed to his downward spiral.

So he trailed them back to her flat, stole one of her green apples (the very same ones she always left out in that ridiculous ceramic bowl), and waited in her bedroom. On principle. Not because he was jealous. Certainly not because he feared they might get up to any funny business. No, it was a purely altruistic act—he simply could not, in good conscience, let Granger sully her pristine sheets with a man who wore suede shoes and said "gnarly."

He'd lounged against her bookshelf like a curse come to life, chewing her apple with the slow menace of a man prepared to sabotage an entire relationship in the name of taste and vengeance.

Granger had found him there, of course. And to her credit, she hadn't hexed him on sight.

Which was a complete win in his book.

Thus, Draco Malfoy had not arrived at this particular establishment by chance. No, this descent into the realm of sticky tabletops and glowing cocktails had begun, rather inevitably, in Granger's bedroom. Not recently, he would clarify, if pressed under Veritaserum or public inquiry. But recently enough. (Yesterday).

He had, entirely by accident (and not at all because he had been standing too long beside her desk and caught sight of a disturbingly neat personal calendar), noticed that today—circled, underlined, and decorated with a doodled star—was marked: Drinks with Ginny.

Now, on the topic of Granger's love life: of course, as a precaution (just as he had with all the men Granger had ended up dating over the last two years) he'd stalked them. Not in the sinister, cloak-flapping-through-the-night sense (though there had been a cloak involved once, purely for dramatic effect), but in the practical, data-gathering, heart-protecting sort of way. He had even kept a small ledger of their names, occupations, and how long each fling had lasted. Just for reference. Purely academic.

Naturally, he already knew that Granger had broken up with Adam last night. He had made a brief detour past Adam's flat this morning—only because it was on his way to the apothecary, of course—and glimpsed the poor sod through the window, curled up on the sofa with a tub of ice cream and a soppy film. Draco knew that look. It was the same one he'd worn after his own spectacular, if private, heartbreak two years ago (and every fortnight in between, but Draco would never tell you that himself).

Which is how he now found himself at a pub that smelled vaguely of citrus and despair, loitering at a wobbling table beside Theo, sipping something that looked and tasted like the distilled essence of poor decisions, all because Hermione Granger had disappeared into the loo ten entire minutes ago.

"How long do they usually take?" Draco asked, stirring the drink with his straw like he wanted to duel it.

Theo didn’t look up. "As long as it takes to plot your demise, presumably."

Draco scowled. "They should at least have the decency to assassinate me efficiently."

"Oh, they will. Weasley’s got excellent wandwork. Granger’s just making sure the eulogy reads like a scholarly article."

Draco drummed his fingers against the table. It was a terrible habit, and he blamed his upbringing. Malfoys were not taught to sit with discomfort—they were taught to eliminate it or marry it off advantageously.

He was just about to suggest that he was, in fact, the picture of restraint and should be rewarded for not setting the pub on fire, when the door to the loo opened.

Granger emerged first.

Draco straightened in his seat with all the subtlety of a stage magician preparing a reveal.

She looked glorious. Not in the insipid, poetic way people waxed on about in love letters, but in the sort of way that made you immediately regret every poor decision that had led you to this precise moment, including but not limited to existing.

Her spine was a rod of righteous fury, her chin held aloft with imperial disdain, and her gaze bore the look of a woman who would not hesitate to hex someone into decorative wall art if provoked.

Of course, that was precisely when Cormac McLaggen chose to saunter forth like the ghost of Bad Decisions Past.

Draco’s eye twitched.

"He’s not—"

"He is," Theo confirmed, still flipping through the cocktail menu like it was a funeral program.

"He wouldn't dare—"

"He already is."

McLaggen leaned in, wearing the smirk of a man who mistook confidence for appeal, and said something that made Granger raise one brow in the manner of an executioner measuring the arc of a swing.

Draco tightened his grip on his glass. If diplomacy failed, he could always weaponise the lemon wedge.

He was not jealous. Certainly not. Jealousy was for insecure Gryffindors, struggling poets, and the sort of men who wept into their pillowcases over unrequited love letters. Malfoys did not do jealousy.

He was simply... possessively annoyed. And watchful. Astutely aware. Hyper-attuned, if one wanted to get technical. Of her, of course. Of him. Of the way McLaggen leaned in like a dog who’d never heard the word boundary.

It wasn't as though he hadn’t seen McLaggen attempt this circus act before.

There was that business in sixth year, yes—the Slughorn Christmas party and the dress that had been equal parts political statement and hex hazard. But long before that, McLaggen had been a repeat offender in Draco’s mental file of Unacceptable Behaviour.

Take for instance, the incident in the Gryffindor common room corridor. Draco had turned the corner just in time to overhear McLaggen making a bet with some hapless Hufflepuff that he could get Granger to snog him behind the greenhouse by the end of the week. It wasn’t even the wager that had set Draco off—it was the tone. Casual. Proprietary. Like Granger—his Granger, the very one he had spent most of sixth year helplessly, dangerously falling in love with—was a chocolate frog card waiting to be collected.

The next day, McLaggen’s robes had mysteriously shrunk three sizes mid-class, rendering him high-pitched and humiliated. No one ever traced it back to Draco, though he’d worn the smug satisfaction of a man who’d merely thought about justice and been rewarded by the universe.

And then there was the matter of the enchanted mistletoe.

A week after the robe incident, Draco had subtly bewitched the mistletoe in the entrance corridor to follow McLaggen for the entire day. It hovered ominously overhead through lunch, Charms, and even the Prefects’ meeting, causing three unfortunate fifth years to get caught in awkward near-kisses and Filch to threaten suspension for public lewdness. McLaggen had gone redder by the hour, dodging doorframes and ducking under staircases, all while the mistletoe whistled a haunting rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."

Because, and Draco stood by this with great conviction, if anyone was going to speak about Hermione Granger in such tones—whether adoring or indecent—it ought to be him. And preferably while she was hexing him for it.

Theo, sensing the inevitable detonation of Draco’s composure, sighed.

"You could just let her handle it. She’s clearly got this."

Draco glanced up, his expression grave. "That's not the point," he said, rising from his chair like a storm cloud in bespoke tailoring. "It's the principle."

"Of what?"

"Of not letting a walking midlife crisis proposition her with wine and light interrogation."

In truth, he hadn’t meant to stand. His body had simply rebelled against the idea of inaction, rising with the slow inevitability of a tide with something to prove. Some deeply irrational, thoroughly aristocratic part of Draco—the part that still believed in duels at dawn and handwritten grievances on embossed stationery—had taken over entirely. Because remaining seated while Cormac McLaggen oozed smugness in Hermione Granger’s general direction was about as tenable as letting a Blast-Ended Skrewt babysit a unicorn. And honestly, he’d hexed people for less.

"Oh dear," Theo muttered, folding the cocktail menu with the slow, practiced air of someone preparing for social warfare. "Here comes the opera."

Draco strode across the pub in long, polished steps, the sort that looked impressive to the casual observer and profoundly irritating to anyone who knew him well enough to suspect it was intentional.

He reached her just as she was preparing to deploy the Granger Glare, Category Five. It was the kind of look one imagined was last seen on the battlefield of the Founding of Hogwarts, typically followed by the words "You insolent troll."

And he knew that glare. Oh, he knew it well.

Third year, Charms class. He had made a comment about the elasticity of her hair and had been met with a stare so potent, he had temporarily forgotten the incantation for Lumos. It was a look that scorched through his pretensions and straight to his bone marrow. He had thought about it for weeks. Still did, apparently.

"McLaggen," he said, with the precise amount of scorn required to curdle dairy.

Cormac turned with the expression of a man who had just discovered something unwholesome on the sole of his boot. "Malfoy."

Draco smiled the kind of smile that had once convinced an entire Russian diplomat to sign a trade agreement he hadn't read. "Still confusing volume with charm, I see."

Granger’s lips twitched. Just slightly. To the untrained eye, it could have been mistaken for irritation. Draco knew better. He logged it as a win.

"Didn’t realise you were back," Cormac said, folding his arms. "I'll admit, Britain was rather peaceful without you."

Draco’s mouth opened, but before he could utter a single syllable, Granger cut in.

"Peaceful? You mean dull, surely," she said, voice crisp as broken glass. “But let’s not pretend your absence from any meaningful Department work since Hogwarts has been out of principle, Cormac. Malfoy's done more for this country’s security while you were busy getting banned from three wizarding bars for being a walking liability.”

Cormac blinked. Draco fought the urge to applaud.

"Didn’t realise you two were on speaking terms," Cormac said.

"We’re not," she said flatly.

Draco nodded. "We are."

Cormac’s eyes narrowed. "I was having a conversation with her, Malfoy.”

"No," Draco replied coolly. "You were delivering a monologue to a hostage. And from the look on her face, not a particularly compelling one."

Granger looked like she might intervene—with words or possibly a well-aimed elbow—but before she could, Draco leaned in. His voice dropped to a purr. A very smug, highly weaponised purr.

"Sweetheart," he said, placing a hand at the small of her back with the casual confidence of a man who knew exactly how far he was pushing his luck. "Are we finishing our drinks or shall I take you home now?"

Her eyes widened. If looks could kill, he’d be halfway to the morgue.

"You forgot your wine," he added, nodding toward the table. "And your tolerance for idiots, apparently."

"Thank you," she said, her tone more icicle than appreciation. "Darling."

"Anytime," Draco said, with the sort of grin that had once started an argument, ended a truce, and—on one very memorable occasion—been the sole reason Granger had kissed him in an abandoned potions storeroom at Hogwarts and then promptly called him a menace. It was the grin of a man who knew exactly what he was doing and had decided, quite firmly, to do it anyway.

Cormac looked between them like he’d just walked in on a duel he had no wand for. He made a noise, muttered something about Perkins, and slunk away.

Draco exhaled like a man who had just successfully defused a bomb, despite being the one who built it. "I regret nothing."

"You should regret that arm placement," she snapped.

He made no move to remove it. In fact, he adjusted it slightly—a minor recalibration, really—to ensure maximum infuriation.

"I was defending your honour."

"You were marking your territory."

"Same principle."

"And same arrogance.”

"Semantics," he murmured, dipping his voice to a level known to disrupt breathing, "you still tolerate me."

She looked at him. Not through him. At him. Which, frankly, was much worse.

"No," she said slowly, each syllable a well-placed dagger. "I endured you. Past tense."

Draco’s smile twitched, slightly crooked. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried to come up with something witty and fell short for perhaps the first time in a decade.

"Still," he managed, "it’s good to be this close to you and not have pillows hurled at my face."

"Is it? Because I feel like I’m developing a rash."

"I could take a look," he offered, eyes gleaming, because apparently his self-preservation instincts had long since drowned themselves in firewhisky.

"Absolutely not."

"You used to be more fun."

"A lot can change in two years," she hissed, and Draco’s stomach dropped through the floor.

Because she was right. Because she wasn’t wrong. Because he had left—disappeared, really—and even though he had his reasons, good reasons, necessary reasons, none of them made the hurt in her voice any easier to hear.

He wanted to tell her that he didn’t have a choice. That the Ministry had wrapped him in secrecy and shoved him into the dark for two long, hollow years. That he'd thought about her every bleeding day. That he’d missed her more violently than he missed home, and that somewhere within that time, he’d realized that she was his home.

But how did you say that to someone who had already built the wall, hung curtains, and moved in? Who had shuttered not just her eyes but her heart and every avenue back to her that he'd once memorised blindfolded? You didn't. You stood there and felt the consequences bloom like bruises. You shut your bloody mouth and took it.

So he just stood there, feeling like the worst kind of villain—not the dramatic kind with a monologue, but the sad sort that let the best thing in his life slip through his fingers while convincing himself it was noble.

From the corner, Weasley raised her eyebrows and gave Granger the look women exchanged when one of them was about to set someone on fire and the other had just finished sharpening the matchstick.

Granger turned fully toward him now, spine iron-straight, jaw set in that very specific configuration Draco had long ago dubbed 'Imminent Lecture, Potential Combustion.' It was Look #7 in his mental catalogue of Granger Expressions, falling somewhere between 'Academic Disdain' and 'I’m Going to Write a Letter.'

"I came here for drinks with my friend. Not to be baited, charmed, or casually manhandled by the man who vanished for two years and didn’t have the decency to send a single owl. Two years, Malfoy. Two years of silence, while I had to piece myself back together without a word from the one person I stupidly thought would at least try. You don’t get to show up now, all cheekbones and apologies wrapped in charm, and pretend like it didn’t happen. You left. You disappeared. And I had to learn how to stop checking the door, stop waiting for an owl, stop dreaming about someone who clearly didn’t care enough to say goodbye. So no, you don’t get the satisfaction of pretending this is anything other than what it is: a mess you made, and one I’m not going to clean up for you."

He opened his mouth. He wanted to speak. He just couldn’t find the version of himself that deserved to.

She raised a hand. "No. Whatever clever thing you’re about to say—don’t."

He shut it. The silence between them was thick as treacle and twice as bitter.

"Come on, Ginny," she said, reaching for her coat. “I think I’m done for the night.”

Weasley nodded, ever the unwelcome, redheaded accomplice. Together, they swept out like a curse in motion, trailed by the scent of vanilla and fury.

Draco remained very still. Still enough that even the pub's usual clamour seemed to hush around him, like the universe itself had pressed pause. His pulse throbbed beneath his collar. He could still feel the shape of her spine against his hand. The weight of her voice in his chest. The echo of her eyes.

Theo appeared beside him, handed him a drink, and said with the sort of delivery that belonged in a dry comedy of errors, "That went well, mate. All things considered. No one was hexed, no one was incapacitated. A win, really, whenever it concerns you and Granger."

Draco downed the rest of his glass in one practiced swallow. Left a few coins on the table that more than covered all of the drinks and emotional damages.

"She didn't slap me this time," he muttered, as if trying to convince himself the moment hadn't already slipped through his fingers.

Theo nodded. "That’s practically a proposal.”

Draco exhaled. Long. Painful. The kind of breath that carried too many memories. Of library corners and firelit flats. Of quiet laughter and things he never said—because he’d always thought he’d have time to say them later. Of her feet tucked under his thigh as she read, of arguments about which teacup was his, of the moment she fell asleep mid-sentence and he hadn’t had the heart to wake her. Of everything soft and dangerous and completely unspeakable.

"She’s going to be the death of me."

"Not if you ruin yourself first."

"Good," Draco said. "Saves her the effort."