Draco Malfoy was not afraid of her. He was afraid of facing her.
There was a difference—one that he told himself mattered. Fear implied something irrational, something base, something that crept up the spine and gnawed at the edges of reason. He had faced fear before, true fear, and it had nearly swallowed him whole.
This was different. This was a slow, sinking weight in his stomach, the kind that had settled there the moment he saw the memo land on his desk. The kind that made his fingers tighten around the parchment, his breath catch just slightly before he forced himself to smooth out the reaction. It was ridiculous. A name shouldn’t make his pulse stutter. A single, inked line shouldn’t feel like the ground shifting beneath him.
But it did.
Hermione Granger.
The name was stark against the official letterhead, a declaration, a sentence, a curse. Assigned research liaison for the next phase of interdepartmental cooperation. Effective immediately.
Draco let out a slow breath and forced his shoulders to relax, but the damage was done.
Years had passed. He had built something out of the wreckage of his life, carved out a place for himself within the Ministry where whispers had dulled to background noise. He had learned to navigate it all—the wary glances, the unspoken doubts, the way people hesitated before saying his name. He had worked twice as hard, spoken half as much, and it had been enough.
But this—this was something else.
He had spent years not thinking about her, or at least pretending not to. He had buried memories beneath logic, beneath necessity, beneath the simple, practical march of moving forward. But she had never truly left the corners of his mind.
Spring afternoons filled with tense silence. The weight of her gaze, sharp as a blade. The way she had stood her ground when he had expected her to walk away.
He had not spoken to her since leaving Hogwarts. Had not sought her out, had not allowed himself to wonder what he might say if he did. Their uneasy truce had been left in the past, unfinished, unresolved.
And now, she would be here. In this building. In his space.
Draco exhaled sharply and dropped the memo onto his desk as though it had burned him. It was ridiculous. It was fine.
He would handle it.
He had to.
Draco stared at the memo for a long time, long after the words had lost their meaning. His office was quiet, the usual low murmur of the Department of International Magical Cooperation dulled by the thick walls, but the silence felt heavier now. Stifling.
He ran a hand over his face, pressing his fingers against his temples as if he could knead away the ache forming there. It was foolish to let something so trivial—just a name, just a job—unsettle him like this. He had worked too hard, spent too many years carefully crafting the version of himself that fit into this world, to let the past rattle him.
And yet.
It was impossible to look at her name and not remember.
He had not allowed himself to think of those final months at Hogwarts in any meaningful way. Not beyond what was necessary. He had packed those memories away with clinical precision, stored them somewhere unreachable, where they could not claw at him in the middle of the night. But now, they leaked through the cracks he had not noticed forming.
The hush of the library, dust-speckled light catching in the curls she had never quite managed to tame. The tense press of silence between them as they worked, as if sound might shatter whatever fragile thing had formed between them. The way she would pause sometimes, quill hovering over parchment, as if she were weighing whether to say something. As if she had almost wanted to.
Draco curled his fingers into a fist, nails pressing into his palm. It was ridiculous to dwell on these things. Whatever had existed then—if anything had existed at all—had been left behind. She had left him behind.
And why wouldn’t she?
He had not given her a reason to stay. He had not reached out, had not asked, had not done anything but walk away the moment Hogwarts had released them back into the world. It had been easier that way. He had told himself it was for the best.
He had almost convinced himself of it.
But now, she was back. Not in his memories, not in half-formed thoughts that surfaced in quiet moments—no, she would be here. Real. Tangible.
Draco breathed in, slow and measured, as if he could steady himself with the simple rhythm of it. It didn’t matter. This was work. Nothing more.
And yet, he could not shake the feeling that something inevitable had been set into motion, something that had been waiting just beneath the surface all these years.
Waiting for this.
The knock on his office door was sharp. Precise. No hesitation.
Draco had known it was coming—had spent the entire morning waiting for it, stomach knotted with something he refused to name—but still, when the sound broke through the quiet, his breath caught.
For a fraction of a second, he considered not answering.
But that was absurd. Juvenile. He was not a coward.
So he schooled his expression into something neutral, something unreadable, and forced his voice to be steady when he said, “Come in.”
The door opened, and there she was.
Hermione Granger.
She looked… the same. And yet not.
Her hair was pulled back, but strands had slipped free, framing a face that had sharpened with time. She looked older—not in the way some people did, worn down by the weight of life, but in a way that made her presence feel heavier. More certain. The kind of certainty he had always envied in her.
She stepped inside, closing the door behind her with the same careful precision she had knocked with, and for a long moment, they just stood there.
Looking.
The weight of it was unbearable.
Draco forced himself to move first, a small thing—just reaching for the folder on his desk as if it required his attention—but it was enough to make the silence shift.
“Granger,” he said, his voice too flat.
She inclined her head. “Malfoy.”
The name hit him like a blade, slicing through years of silence, through whatever uneasy thing had once existed between them.
She had not said his name in years.
He had not realized how much he had missed the sound of it in her voice.
She cleared her throat, and that was when he noticed—her hands, curled at her sides, fingers twitching slightly before she caught herself and folded them behind her back.
She was nervous.
The thought unsettled him. He did not know why.
“We should discuss the project,” she said, her voice even, composed.
Of course.
Draco gave a single nod, gesturing toward the chair across from him. He did not look at her as she moved, did not watch the way she hesitated just a fraction before sitting.
He could do this.
It was fine.
It had to be.
Draco sat back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin, forcing himself to focus. On the folder in front of him. On the project. On anything but the fact that Hermione Granger was sitting across from him for the first time in years.
She sat stiffly, her hands folded neatly in her lap, as though willing herself to stillness. As though this was something to be endured.
It shouldn’t have stung.
He exhaled slowly, flipping open the folder with deliberate care. “The interdepartmental initiative,” he said, tone clipped. Detached. “I assume you’ve been briefed.”
She nodded. “Yes. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement needs a comprehensive analysis of case precedents regarding wizard-Muggle legal disputes. They want a strategy for policy reform.”
Draco hummed in acknowledgment, his eyes scanning the document though he barely registered the words. He already knew the details. He had prepared. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the way her voice filled the space around them. The problem was the years between them, thick and unspoken.
He could still hear her voice from before—cool, edged with something reluctant but understanding. The way she had spoken to him in the library that spring, their discussions careful, uneasy, but real. He had never realized how much he had held onto that. Until now.
His grip on the folder tightened. “It’s a mess,” he said, just to have something to say. “The legislation is outdated and full of contradictions. The Wizengamot won’t approve anything without a fight.”
“They never do,” she said simply.
He glanced up at her then. A mistake.
Because she was watching him.
Not just looking. Watching.
Draco forced himself not to react. Not to shift, not to avert his gaze like a schoolboy caught out of place.
Her eyes were the same. But there was something else there now—something guarded, something he could not name.
“So,” she continued after a beat, turning her attention to the folder in front of her, as if she hadn’t been studying him a moment before. “We’ll need to go through all existing case law, compare rulings, identify inconsistencies. I assume you’ve already compiled initial research.”
“Of course,” he said, too sharply.
She gave a small nod, her expression unreadable. “Good.”
And that was it. No tension, no lingering silence, no acknowledgment of the years that had stretched between them.
As if they were nothing more than colleagues. As if the past did not exist.
Draco swallowed against the ache in his throat and forced himself to match her indifference.
“Let’s get started, then.”
The hours dragged on in a haze of papers and sterile conversations, neither of them straying far from the cold professionalism that had settled between them like a wall neither was willing to scale. Draco found himself watching the way her hands moved—deliberate, precise, like she was hiding herself in the same way she hid behind the words on the page.
They barely exchanged more than necessary—discussions about dates, timelines, deadlines—an endless cycle of details, all aimed at keeping the space between them wide. The past felt like something neither of them dared to revisit.
But the air in the room was thick.
There were moments when their eyes met, when the briefest flicker of recognition passed between them. A ghost of something unspoken. And yet, it was always gone before either could confront it.
Draco didn’t know how much longer he could pretend this was fine. But he had to. For now.
The meeting finally came to a close, and he watched her gather her things with the same careful deliberation she had brought to everything. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, strands slipping loose at the edges. It was so like her—neat, orderly, as though she could impose control on everything around her.
“Same time tomorrow,” he said before she could turn away, his voice tight, too tight.
She glanced back at him, her eyes meeting his briefly before she nodded. “Tomorrow.”
And that was it. No more.
She was gone in an instant, leaving the faint scent of her perfume lingering in the air, the silence pressing down on him like a weight.
Draco stared at the door for a long moment before he finally allowed himself to exhale, the breath he hadn’t known he was holding rushing out of him.
It was going to be harder than he’d thought.
The days stretched on, each one blending into the next like the pages of a book he couldn’t bring himself to finish. Work, meetings, reports—all of it blurred together until the only thing that remained was the strange, persistent awareness that she was there.
In every room.
On every document.
Hermione Granger.
She was meticulous, no surprise there, and yet there was something about her focus that unsettled him. Her every word was measured, every thought considered. There was no room for mistakes, for hesitations. She was perfect, as always. And that perfection only reminded him of how much he had failed.
How much he had tried—and failed—to forget.
Draco spent the following week holed up in his office, the constant sound of quills scratching against parchment barely registering in his mind. He barely saw the passing of time until it was another afternoon and she was standing there in the doorway, her figure framed by the light spilling from the hall behind her.
She wasn’t looking at him directly. Her eyes were on the papers in her hand.
“You’re late,” he said, though the words came out harsher than intended. He immediately regretted them, but it was too late to take them back.
Hermione’s gaze flicked up, her brow furrowing just slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said evenly. “I was caught up with the Ministry’s review process. They want a report by the end of the week.”
“Of course,” Draco muttered, pushing his chair back slightly and standing. He tried to shake off the tightness in his chest, the frustration, the way his mind refused to let go of everything that had happened.
She stepped into the room, her presence filling it in a way that made the air heavier. And for a moment, they were just two people, standing in the same space, not colleagues, not enemies—but something more complicated.
Something unfinished.
She set the papers down on his desk, the motion slow and deliberate. And then, she did something unexpected.
Her voice, quiet and cautious, cut through the silence.
“We never talked about it, did we?”
Draco’s heart skipped a beat. He swallowed, the words lodged in his throat.
No. They hadn’t.
He didn’t want to.
But maybe… maybe he would have to.
Her gaze was steady, patient. As though she was waiting for him to say something. Anything.
And for the first time in years, Draco found himself wondering what would happen if he did.
Draco couldn’t remember when it had started—this restless tug in his chest every time she was near. It wasn’t just the fact that she was Hermione Granger, the girl he had spent years despising, the one who had fought back when he thought he’d buried everything worth fighting for.
No, it was something else. Something softer and far more dangerous.
It was the way her presence filled the room with a tension that made everything else feel insignificant. The way her eyes, sharp and calculating, seemed to look right through him. And yet, it wasn’t accusation that lay in them. No, it was something else—something more like understanding.
Something he wasn’t sure he was ready for.
The days had become a blur of meetings, reports, and brief, clipped exchanges that left Draco exhausted. But it wasn’t the work that weighed on him; it was the endless undercurrent of silence that existed between him and Hermione.
They hadn’t discussed it—the thing they both knew hovered between them. Neither had dared to bring it up. And yet, the longer they worked together, the more it seemed to gnaw at him, like a puzzle whose pieces never quite fit.
And then came that Friday afternoon, when the room was bathed in the soft glow of the dying sunlight, and Draco found himself unable to escape the words that had been lingering in his mind for far too long.
“Why are you doing this?”
The question was out before he could stop it, and the silence that followed it felt like the air being sucked out of the room. Hermione’s gaze flicked toward him, and for a heartbeat, they simply stared at each other.
She didn’t answer immediately. She didn’t even seem to have a response prepared. Instead, she studied him for a long moment, as though searching for something—maybe the same thing he was searching for in her.
“I’m doing my job, Draco,” she said, her voice steady, yet there was something unspoken in the way she said his name.
His heart clenched at the sound of it, and for the first time, he felt the full weight of their history.
It wasn’t just a question of work. It never had been.
He had never asked her why. Why she’d stayed after the war, why she’d put herself through the unrelenting judgment of others, why she never just disappeared into the background like so many others.
“I’m not asking about your job,” he muttered, his hands gripping the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles turned white.
There was a brief pause, and then she sighed.
“I think you know the answer to that,” she said quietly.
Her words hung between them like smoke, impossible to ignore, impossible to dispel.
Draco wanted to argue. To push back. But the truth was, he didn’t know what he was fighting for anymore. Was it pride? His fear of vulnerability? Or was it something far more complicated—something far more terrifying than any of them could put into words?
“I never asked you to come back,” he said, his voice low, each word weighted with the years they had spent apart.
“I know,” she replied, and this time there was something softer in her eyes, something that almost seemed like an apology, though it wasn’t.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
And then, as if in response to the quiet tension, Draco found himself moving, his feet carrying him toward her before he could think better of it.
“You don’t have to be here,” he said, his voice quieter now, more unsure. “There are other departments, other teams…”
“I want to be here,” she interrupted, her gaze steady. “I wouldn’t have taken this position if I didn’t.”
The admission felt like a blow to Draco’s chest. It wasn’t the words themselves, but the implications behind them. It was the quiet acceptance that this was something they both had to endure.
They were tied together now, and there was no escaping it.
He opened his mouth to say something—anything—but the words wouldn’t come. And for a long time, it felt like nothing would.
Instead, they stood there in silence, the space between them thick with everything they hadn’t said, everything they still couldn’t bring themselves to say.
And in that silence, Draco realized something.
There was no easy way out of this. No neat little resolution. No quick fix.
Whatever this was—whatever this strange, fragile connection between them was—it wasn’t something that could be solved with simple words or actions.
It was something that would unravel slowly, painfully, until there was nothing left but the raw truth of what they had once been.
And maybe that was the hardest part of all.
Because Draco wasn’t sure he was ready to face it.
The days were starting to blend together for Draco, each one fading into the next, marked only by the constant hum of his thoughts. Every morning, he entered the Ministry with her name still etched into his mind. It was like a dull, persistent ache he couldn't shake off. He saw her in the halls, in the way her presence filled the space. Hermione Granger—sharp, confident, still carrying that air of unapproachable intellect. But there was something else now. Something different in the way she moved, spoke—something quieter. She was no longer the girl he had known.
He sat at his desk one afternoon, papers scattered in front of him, his mind a thousand miles away. The door creaked open.
He didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
“Granger,” he said, his voice quiet but not unwelcoming.
She stepped into the office, her movements controlled, as though she were carefully measuring each step.
“I’ve left the reports on your desk,” she said, her voice steady, her gaze flicking to the pile of parchment in front of him. “I need your feedback before we move forward.”
Draco exhaled slowly and turned in his chair, looking at her now. His mind hadn’t been ready for this—this encounter, this conversation. He’d been expecting everything to stay the same, for the tension between them to remain as it always had. But seeing her again, standing here in his office, it was as though everything had shifted.
Hermione’s eyes met his, searching for something he couldn’t place. There was a flicker of something behind her gaze, but it was gone before he could decipher it.
“Why do you do this?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. The question slipped out before he could stop it.
Her brows furrowed slightly, and she tilted her head, her expression guarded. “Do what, exactly?”
“Come here, to the Ministry. Work with people like me,” he clarified, his eyes not leaving hers.
A brief pause. Then, she sighed, as though the answer were painfully obvious.
“Because I have to,” she said quietly, her eyes not meeting his anymore. “Because this is where I’m needed. And because…” She hesitated, her hand brushing the edge of the desk. “Because there are things I still need to fix.”
Draco’s chest tightened at her words, something unspoken hanging heavily between them. He wanted to ask her what she meant, wanted to push, to make her confront the past, but he knew better than to dig into her thoughts.
“I’m not sure what you’re trying to fix,” he said, the words edged with something unfamiliar. He could hear the tension in his own voice, but it was too late to reel it back in.
Hermione’s gaze snapped back to him, her jaw tightening. “And I’m not sure you’d understand even if I told you,” she said sharply.
He flinched, though he tried not to show it. “I never claimed I did,” he muttered, a small bite in his words.
A long silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that felt too loud, too heavy.
And then, almost reluctantly, Hermione stepped toward the desk, sliding the reports closer to him. “You don’t have to understand. Just look at the numbers.”
Her voice had softened again, and though Draco wanted to say something, anything, to break the tension, he found himself stuck in the quiet.
She was so different now—so distant, so measured. It wasn’t the same fiery Hermione Granger he had once known. But he couldn’t help feeling that the ghosts of their past were still lingering between them, waiting to be acknowledged.
“Right,” Draco muttered, his voice flat, as he picked up the reports.
Hermione didn’t wait for him to speak again. She turned to leave, her footsteps light but purposeful, as though she were already halfway gone.
But just before she reached the door, Draco’s voice stopped her.
“Granger.”
She paused, glancing over her shoulder, but she didn’t meet his eyes.
“Do you ever regret it?” he asked, his words hesitant.
She didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she stared at the door for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
“Regret what?” she asked quietly, but the question didn’t sound like it was meant for him. It sounded like she was asking herself.
Draco didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t know what answer he was looking for. All he knew was that he had to ask.
Before he could say anything more, Hermione’s voice rang out softly, but firmly:
“I don’t regret doing what I had to do. But I do regret how things ended… between us.”
And with that, she was gone.
The words lingered in the air, hanging in the space between them like an unanswered question.
The days seemed to drag on longer as Draco’s life continued to orbit around Hermione’s presence, however subtle. Each encounter was like a ripple in an otherwise still pond, a reminder that things between them had never truly been resolved. He had grown accustomed to the cold professionalism they shared at work, but there were moments—fleeting, yet significant—when he could feel the weight of their past pressing down on him.
It was nearing the end of another long week when he found himself standing by the window in his office, watching the rain fall in thin, steady sheets. The kind of rain that seemed to match his mood—grey, sombre, endless. He hadn’t seen Hermione all day, not since their terse exchange in his office. But even in her absence, it felt like she was everywhere. The way her voice had caught when she spoke about regret. The way she hadn’t met his eyes when she left. He couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The door creaked open again, pulling him from his thoughts. His heart skipped a beat, but he didn’t let himself show it. He didn’t turn to face her immediately. He knew it was her, knew from the way the air shifted.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Hermione said, her voice just above a whisper.
Draco slowly turned around, his gaze meeting hers. She looked tired, her eyes darkened slightly by the weight of the work they had been buried in. But there was something else—something soft and uncertain in the way she stood there, lingering in the doorway.
“No. You’re not disturbing me,” he replied, his tone more clipped than he intended. But the words were out before he could smooth them over.
Hermione hesitated, then took a step further into the room, closing the door gently behind her. There was a long silence as she studied him, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. It was the same silence that had existed between them in the past, only now, it felt even heavier.
“I didn’t mean to make things awkward the other day,” she finally said, her voice low, almost apologetic. “I just… I didn’t know how to explain.”
Draco’s jaw tightened. It was the same excuse she had given him before, that she didn’t know how to explain, that she didn’t know how to make it right. But the more she said it, the less it made sense.
“You don’t have to explain,” he said softly, his words betraying the frustration that had been building within him. “I understand perfectly, Granger. I just… I don’t know why I expected anything different.”
She frowned, her lips pressed together in a line of quiet thought. “What do you mean by that?”
Draco sighed, walking over to the desk and leaning against it, arms crossed as he regarded her. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have expected anything from you. We’ve both moved on, haven’t we?” His voice was laced with an edge of bitterness, though he didn’t know why.
Hermione stared at him, a flicker of hurt crossing her features before she masked it with a carefully neutral expression. “Have we?” Her question hung in the air like a fragile thing.
Draco clenched his jaw. “What do you want from me, Granger? Is this just some kind of closure you need?” The words came out sharper than he intended.
Hermione took a slow breath, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “No,” she replied quietly. “I don’t need closure. I just need to know if there’s any part of you that still…” She trailed off, her voice shaking slightly, though she quickly steadied herself.
Draco’s heart thudded in his chest. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of things that could have been, things that never were. But the question hung in the space between them, and he couldn’t ignore it.
“Still what?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, betraying his own vulnerability. He hadn’t expected to sound so desperate.
Hermione didn’t answer immediately. She just looked at him, her eyes searching his face, as though she were trying to read something that had been hidden for too long. Finally, she spoke, her voice quieter than before.
“Do you still care? Even a little?”
The question hit him like a punch to the gut. His thoughts stuttered, his mind scrambling for a way to answer. It wasn’t that he didn’t care—it was that he couldn’t allow himself to care. Not after everything. Not after all that had happened between them.
“I… don’t know what you want me to say,” Draco muttered, his words thick with confusion. “I can’t—”
But Hermione interrupted him, her voice more forceful this time. “I just need you to be honest. With me, with yourself. You don’t have to do this alone anymore. We don’t have to pretend.”
There it was. The thing they had both been avoiding. The thing that had always been just out of reach—the truth.
Draco’s chest tightened, the weight of the past crashing down on him. It wasn’t about pretending anymore. It wasn’t about the walls they had built to keep each other at arm’s length. It was about what they had left unsaid. About what they had never been able to finish.
He didn’t know how to answer her. He didn’t know if he ever would.
The silence stretched between them once more, suffocating and all-encompassing. Neither of them moved.
Finally, Hermione stepped back toward the door, her expression unreadable. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said quietly, though there was no anger in her words. Just sadness.
Draco didn’t stop her. Didn’t even speak.
And as the door closed behind her, the silence in his office felt like a living thing, a thing that he could no longer escape.
The next day passed with the same dull rhythm that had become too familiar. Draco found himself drifting through meetings and paperwork, his thoughts more often than not lost in the shadow of the conversation he had with Hermione. Her words haunted him in a way that he hadn’t anticipated. They lingered, whispered in the back of his mind like a fragile thread that he couldn’t quite pull free.
The day felt like it was dragging on longer than it should, the hours stretching endlessly, making it difficult to focus. He had spent far too much time thinking about what he hadn’t said, about the questions he had avoided, and the ones that he wished he could have answered.
When the clock finally hit five, Draco was more than ready to leave the office. He needed to escape the suffocating walls, to clear his mind, even if only for a little while. He quickly gathered his things and made his way out of the building, his footsteps echoing in the quiet hallway.
As he stepped outside into the cool evening air, the city felt strangely distant, as though the weight of the past few weeks had made everything else seem smaller, less important. The streets were quieter now, a stark contrast to the bustling chaos of the day. Draco found himself walking with no particular destination in mind, his thoughts still tangled in the remnants of his conversation with Hermione.
He didn’t know why he hadn’t been able to let it go. He told himself it was nothing, that it didn’t matter. He had his life. He had his career. He had learned to bury the parts of himself that had once been so wrapped up in her, in them. But even now, walking down the street in the fading light, it was clear that something had changed.
A feeling gnawed at him, an ache deep in his chest that he couldn’t ignore. It was the same kind of ache he had felt all those years ago, when things had fallen apart between them, when he had turned away from her in favor of whatever self-preservation he had clung to. That decision had seemed so clear at the time. But now? Now, it felt like a mistake.
Draco shook his head, trying to dismiss the thoughts, but they only grew louder. He needed to stop. To breathe. To focus on something, anything else. He could still hear Hermione’s voice in his head, soft but insistent. Do you still care?
Did he? Did he still care, after all this time?
The question felt like a weight in his chest, sinking deeper with every step he took. He had spent so long pretending that he didn’t, that he had outgrown whatever feelings he had once harbored for her. But now, as the silence stretched between them, as the distance grew more palpable, he wasn’t sure anymore.
His footsteps slowed as he approached a small café on the corner of the street. Without thinking, he stepped inside, the bell above the door chiming as he entered. The warm, comforting scent of coffee and baked goods filled the air. He hadn’t planned on stopping, but something about the place—quiet and familiar—seemed to call to him.
He ordered a black coffee, then found an empty table by the window, sitting down to watch the evening unfold outside. He needed to clear his head, to give himself space to think.
But the more he tried to focus on the world outside, the more his thoughts circled back to Hermione. To her expression as she had left his office. To the way she had looked at him when she asked if he still cared.
And the answer, though he wasn’t ready to admit it, was clear. Yes. He still cared.
The thought settled heavily in his chest, like a broken piece of something that had never fully healed. It was a truth he didn’t want to face, one that he had spent so many years pushing away. But now, standing on the edge of something he couldn’t ignore, it felt like the only thing that mattered.
As he sat there, sipping his coffee, Draco’s mind wandered again. This time, though, his thoughts were different. He wasn’t focusing on the past or the pain of what had happened. He wasn’t thinking about the walls he had built around himself.
For the first time in a long while, he allowed himself to think about the possibility of moving forward. What would it look like, this time? What would it mean, if he tried?
The café was starting to empty out as the night grew deeper. Draco drained the last of his coffee and stood up, a sense of resolve forming in his chest. He didn’t know what he was going to do, or how he would face Hermione when he saw her again. But he couldn’t keep pretending that nothing had changed. He couldn’t keep pretending that he didn’t still care.
And maybe, just maybe, it was time to stop running from it.
As he stepped back out into the cool evening air, the weight on his chest felt just a little bit lighter.
The silence between them stretched like an unbreakable chain, taut and heavy. Draco had lived with this silence for years, this cold void that seemed to swallow every memory he tried to hold on to, leaving nothing but echoes. But now, standing before her again, it felt more suffocating than ever. Each breath he took seemed to struggle its way past the weight pressing on his chest.
Another week passed, and another memo from her appeared on his desk. Hermione Granger, her name printed neatly on official Ministry correspondence, a reminder of everything he had buried in the past. This time, however, the feeling was different. It wasn’t the sharp sting of irritation or the old bitterness that had once filled him when her name crossed his path. No, this time, it was the familiar twist of something deeper—something painful—that made his fingers linger over the parchment before he could bring himself to open it.
Hermione Granger. A name that haunted him. A name that had both calmed and tormented him for so many years.
Draco found her in the research wing, the place he knew she would be, the place that seemed to hold more memories of her than he could bear. She was sitting there, engrossed in a pile of papers, the familiar frown etched on her brow, the same look she always wore when she lost herself in her work.
He hesitated, watching her for a moment. But this time, he couldn’t stay hidden in the shadows of his own doubts. He stepped forward, his heart pounding harder than he’d like to admit. He wasn’t sure what he hoped for, but he had to face her. He had to finally face this.
“Granger,” he said softly, his voice betraying the tightness he felt in his chest.
She looked up slowly, her expression unreadable. Her eyes flickered briefly with something—maybe recognition, maybe resentment—but she said nothing. The coldness in her gaze was sharper than he remembered, and it hit him like a cold slap.
“Malfoy,” she said, the name coming out like a warning, a shield.
He wanted to say something—anything—but the words seemed to get caught in his throat. Instead, he simply stood there, watching her, letting the years of silence stretch between them.
“I didn’t expect to see you again,” she continued, her voice even, but there was a tightness to it now. “Not like this.”
“I know,” Draco murmured. He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. He wanted to say he didn’t want it like this either, but the truth was, it felt like this was the only way it could have happened. He had spent years pretending that he was fine, pretending that their unresolved tension didn’t still gnaw at him. But now, in the presence of her quiet stare, all of it came rushing back.
“I didn’t want things to end like this,” Draco admitted, his voice faltering. “Not… like this. Not nothing.”
Hermione’s lips pressed together in a thin line. She stared at him for a long moment, her gaze unreadable, before she spoke again, her voice a bit softer this time. “Draco, you don’t get to decide that. We don’t get to choose how things end after everything we’ve been through.”
A pang of regret shot through him. He couldn’t escape the truth of her words. “But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I didn’t mean for it to be like this. I just—”
He stopped himself, fighting to gather his thoughts. But nothing came out. How could he explain something that had been buried under layers of time, something that had festered in the back of his mind since they were teenagers?
“I never wanted to be like this with you,” he said, his voice breaking slightly. He felt a tremor in his hands, and he clenched them into fists to steady himself. “I—I spent so many hours with you, Granger. So many hours in that library, sitting beside you when we didn’t say a word, when it was enough to just… be there. You made me feel like I wasn’t just a Malfoy. Like I could just be me.”
His breath caught, and he looked away for a moment, unable to meet her eyes. “But I ruined it. I ruined everything, and now I have to live with the way things ended. The way you ended up leaving. And I can’t undo it. I can’t change it, but… God, Hermione, I never wanted it to be like this.”
Hermione was silent for a long moment, her gaze softening, but there was no forgiveness in her eyes—only sadness. It hurt more than he thought it would.
“You never had to ruin it, Draco,” Hermione whispered, her voice gentle but firm. “We were never supposed to be this fractured. I tried—I tried to make it work. I tried to believe there was more than what we were forced to be. But in the end, I couldn’t keep holding on to something that was already slipping through my fingers. I needed to move on.”
The weight of her words crushed him. He could see the way she was fighting back tears, but she wasn’t going to let them fall. She had already made her decision, and he was the last person she wanted to stay for.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he said hoarsely, his throat tightening as the ache in his chest deepened. “I don’t want to lose you like this.”
But she shook her head slowly, almost as if she had already said this to herself a hundred times over. “You never lost me, Draco. You let me go.”
The sting of her words left him breathless. He wanted to say more. He wanted to beg her to stay, to beg her to remember the hours they spent together, the times when it felt like they could have been something more—something real.
But instead, Hermione closed the distance between them in a slow, deliberate motion. She reached up and placed a hand gently on his chest, her fingers warm against his skin. Draco froze, his heart racing in his chest, unsure of what was happening, unsure if he was even breathing.
“Hermione…” he started, but she cut him off, her thumb lightly brushing against the fabric of his shirt.
“I didn’t leave, Draco,” she murmured, her voice barely audible. “I just needed to find my own way forward. And maybe, just maybe, you were the one I needed to find.”
Before he could respond, she leaned forward, her lips meeting his. The kiss was soft, hesitant, as if they were both testing the waters, unsure of what they were doing but needing it anyway. The flood of emotions that had built up between them for years—regret, longing, sorrow, and an aching tenderness—crashed into him all at once.
When they finally pulled apart, the world seemed to stop, the weight of their tangled past hanging heavy in the air. Her forehead rested gently against his, and for a moment, they both stood there, suspended in the silence that was no longer oppressive but somehow comforting.
“Don’t let go again,” she whispered, her breath warm against his skin. “Not this time.”
Draco closed his eyes, a tremor running through him, and nodded. For the first time in years, it felt like he was holding onto something real. Something worth fighting for.
The silence that had enveloped them after the kiss hung heavily in the air. Draco's heart pounded in his chest, unsure whether it was from the kiss itself or the weight of the years that had led them to this point. He watched Hermione carefully, afraid to speak, afraid to break whatever fragile thing had just begun to form between them.
Hermione's breath was still uneven, but her eyes, those eyes that had always seemed to see through him, softened as they met his. There was no judgment, no walls. Just... something new, something tentative, like they were both walking on the edge of something fragile and profound.
"I don't know what to say," Draco muttered, his voice low, raw. His hands hung awkwardly by his sides, unsure whether to reach for her or keep his distance. "I've never... I've never been good at this."
She smiled softly, a wistful, sad smile. "Neither have I," she admitted. "But we’re here, aren't we? After everything, we’re still standing in this moment together. I think that means something."
It felt like the ground beneath his feet had shifted, the weight of years of silence, regret, and missed chances finally falling away. But it was still so much to take in, so much to process. They weren’t the same people they had been in Hogwarts. Time had changed them, scarred them, but in a way, it also brought them back together.
Draco took a slow step closer, his eyes searching hers, looking for some sort of confirmation that this wasn’t some fleeting moment that would disappear as quickly as it had arrived. "You’re... you’re not leaving?"
Hermione shook her head, her expression softening, as if she were already reading his thoughts. "No, Draco. I’m not leaving." She reached for his hand, her fingers brushing against his, tentative at first. "But that doesn't mean everything’s fixed. It doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the past. It doesn't mean things will be easy. But I’m here, and I want to see where this goes. I want to see where we go."
The words hit him like a surge of warmth, the kind of warmth he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in so long. He had thought, for so many years, that this was impossible—that they were too broken, too fractured to ever be whole again. But standing here now, with Hermione in front of him, the possibility felt real—daring to exist in the midst of everything.
"I don’t know what I’m doing," Draco admitted, his voice rough. "But I don’t want to be without you again. I don't want to regret this... whatever this is between us."
Hermione squeezed his hand, the touch grounding him in the moment, giving him a reassurance he hadn’t realized he’d been needing. "We don’t have to figure everything out today," she said gently. "But we can start here. With what we have now."
Her words, simple yet profound, settled into Draco's chest. He had been carrying the weight of their past, their brokenness, for so long that he had almost forgotten how to let go of it. Almost.
Hermione stepped closer, her other hand reaching up to gently touch his cheek, her fingers tracing the familiar lines of his face. Her touch was gentle, but there was an intensity to it, like she was telling him, without words, that she had chosen this—chosen him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing the sensation of her touch, the softness, the heat. It felt like the world was slipping away, leaving only the two of them, suspended in a fragile moment that could break at any second.
But neither of them stepped away.
"Don’t leave," Draco whispered, the words coming out broken and raw. "Not again. Please."
Hermione didn’t answer at first. She only leaned forward, brushing her lips against his once more, soft and lingering. This time, the kiss was different—it wasn’t rushed or hurried. It was slow, measured, like they were both trying to convey everything they hadn’t been able to say over the years.
When they finally pulled away, Hermione’s eyes held something he hadn’t seen in so long: tenderness, trust, hope. It was small, fragile, but it was there.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said softly. “Not this time.”
And for the first time in years, Draco believed her.