“Will that be all, Mr. Birch?” Hermione wrapped the last book on the counter in iridescent parchment and laced a velvet ribbon around the assortment of now wrapped books.
She tried to hide her smile as she got the bow perfectly that time on top. She’d insisted they get this specific ribbon for the holidays but hadn’t taken account of how positively stubborn velvet can be.
Especially when it comes to stains. A thought that whisked to the forefront of Hermione’s brain but was quickly smashed to the back with aggravated force.
“I think my wife might have a conniption if I bring any more books and require a new case for them.” Mr. Birch eyes crinkles as he gave Hermione a half grin. “Might just have to have the Second-Hand Bookshop myself and call it my very own library.”
Hermione gave a courtesy laugh. “As long as you promise, I can still keep my job.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it any other way.” He winked. “Stay warm for the holidays, Ms. Granger.”
Hermione followed Mr. Birch to the door, hoping she could lock up for the night and squeeze in a bit of reading before Ginny came over, or really before her heavy eyes betrayed her. He was often the last customer on Fridays, and he always came twenty before the shop closed.
Before she practically shoved the pepper-haired wizard out the door, he swiveled around to face her and caused her to almost slam right into his chest. “You know, I always thought you’d be farther along than a bookshop, Ms. Granger. I haven’t wanted to overstep-“
Hermione arched her eyebrow and adjusted her posture as if to say he already had.
“But I sincerely hope you’ve chosen this path because of your insatiable desire to handle books, and not because you have decided your place in this world is to keep your head down.” He slightly tilted his head down to her with a furrowed brow and knowing look.
Hermione's eyes widened as she stepped back and tried to keep her jaw from coming entirely unhooked. “I-uh don’t.” She cleared her throat of shame and crossed her arms. “I love it here, Mr. Birch. I rather prefer to be here more than I would want to be around much else.”
He held his eye contact for a few beats longer than Hermione was comfortable with before he reluctantly nodded. “Right. Very good, then. Merry Christmas, Ms Granger.”
“Merry Christmas.” Hermione’s grin didn’t meet her eyes as she kept the door open for him and watched him cross the street.
She couldn’t for the life of her understand where he was coming from. Had she once aspired to do more than suggest books and wrap ribbons around cherished stories? Fine. Yes, fifteen-year-old Hermione was wildly ambitious and filled to the brim with ideas to fix a world she didn’t have the luxury of being born in to.
But after prying her way through a society with her desperate claws of purpose, she was rather-well- exhausted with it all.
War does that. Hermione reminded herself as the wind of that brisk December swayed some of her curls in front of her face. She pulled the door shut, having to use a bit of strength to lock it.
But it wasn’t the war. The deepest part of her knew that. Knew that the permanent slur on her forearm would never sting quite like the scars that haunted her thoughts at night. That the hidden kiss at the corner of her lips would always be looking for the perpetrator who left it.
Hermione let a sigh out as she shook her head back to reality and flipped the open sign to closed. As she went to blow out the Amortentia candle she lit earlier in the day, she sensed a figure standing on the other side of the store’s frosted window.
All black robes.
Hair that was colored in ice.
Sharp jaw.
Eyes that swirled with a burden that was never theirs to carry.
Hermione gasped as she flinched from the candle nearly burning the ends of her hair. She quickly went to open the door to see if her eyes were deceiving her.
Again.
She huffed and leaned against the door as she saw nothing but a crumpled piece of parchment paper rolling down the sidewalk.
I’ve gone absolutely mad now. Hermione placed her palm to her forehead as she shut the door and quickly went to the back room to collect her things.
It’s one thing to unsuccessfully suppress memories, but another entirely to see a phantom of Draco Malfoy at the window.
Of all the things her brain could conjure up at a time like this.
Ludicrous and embarrassing. Hermione cursed at herself, feeling embarrassed that her heart still harbored enough feelings to start imagining things.
It had been two years.
Two years. And… two and half hours. (But who was counting?)
“This will never get better, Draco. Don’t you understand?”
“Hermione, are you well? Where is all this coming from?”
Perhaps her imagining him wasn’t as outlandish as one would think because the expression that washed over his face as she spoke those gut-wrenching words that foggy night was her own personal hell.
An intimate purgatory with walls fabricated by hers truly.
“You love me, I know you do. We can sort out whatever you have made up in that busy head of yours.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t what, Hermione?”
“I can’t-don’t—want to love you anymore.”
______
“Where have you been, mate?” Theo glanced at Draco’s disheveled demeanor and slightly damp clothes.
“Mother missed a few things on her list for our Christmas Eve dinner.” Draco handed his robes and leather gloves to their new house elf, Lottie.
Theo arched his left brow up to Draco and then down to his hands. “Couldn’t find them, then?”
“Already tossed them off to the kitchen elves.” Draco went over to sit in the emerald green and velvet wingback chair as he took his cover almost being blown in stride.
Narcissa was never one to forget something-especially for her dinner. Anyone with two brain cells would know this about her, but Draco had to get out.
Needed to clear his head of the noise that comes with this day. The pit in his gut that makes him nauseous—unraveled and all out of sorts.
He hated that he had no control of it—that the day made him his bitch with all his thoughts and bleeding heart.
“You seriously think I can be an heir to your bloodline?”
The memory of him holding the sides of her face as if to will her brain from combusting with all of her frivolous and maddening thoughts.
She was overthinking it. Again. She did that. Hermione overthought constantly. Especially when they started out in their 8th year after the war.
It always took Draco holding her face while brushing her hair behind her ears and reminding her that he— Draco Malfoy—didn’t say he loved anyone, except her. He loved Hermione Granger, and that meant something. It held weight.
But that time.
Two years and some chump change ago— nothing worked.
She dug her heels into her choice. A choice that knocked the wind out of him, and he hadn’t breathed with any sort of normality since.
There had only been twice in his life where he felt the oxygen being ripped from his lungs: the day she said she loved him and the night she took it back.
No war. Not a cult symbolism forever maimed on his forearm. Not even his first fatal attempt at murder shook him like the words that came from her lips. Draco felt positively mad with all the pent-up feelings that only she had a knack for liberating.
In ever sense, Draco Malfoy was a plant only Hermione could nourish. An old, stiff tether only she could tug at. It was like he had been living in stale spaces the entirety of his life, and she was an open window.
The window is shut. Draco found the strength to Occlude as he filed his thoughts of them in the jewelry box he kept all the ones of her.
“Window shopping, again?” Theo cut the silence between them as he stuck a cigarette between his lips and whispered Incendio.
Draco flicked the invisible dust off his knee as he relaxed back in his chair and rested his foot a top of his knee. “You spend too much time with Pansy. Do you even know what the phrase means?”
“I know it has to do with looking at a window.” Theo smirks as he lets out smoke and leans his head back in his chair.
“Groundbreaking.” Draco deadpanned. He couldn’t let Theo know he was onto him. How he was, baffled him. He had only looked through the window of the Second-Hand Bookshop twice.
Maybe thrice.
But he only ever allotted himself a few seconds to glance. To take in that she still plaited her hair and she was still wearing those grotesque muggle jeans. She was still Hermione, and that was all he needed to know.
Want, however, want was a different field entirely. He wanted to know if Hermione was still skipping breakfast or if she enjoyed the new thriller series she went on about incessantly and couldn’t wait for in the new year. If she still took her coffee with a splash of cream and honey. Or if she still used that shampoo that smelled of vanilla and honeysuckles.
He wanted to know if she had the nightmares too. If they kept her up at night. If they played the same day over and over again in her head, or if that torture was saved just for him. He wanted Hermione to tell him if the sleep she had lost measured even with the bottomless vessel that held his.
But Draco lost that right. That right was plucked from him like a thief in the unforgiving night. A thief with a knife engraved with her initials. His heart was carved out of his chest and splattered between the two of them. It was left to soak up the memories they would never have, and he didn’t bother to pick it back up.
“I don’t want to love you.”
“But you do.”
“Please don’t push this further, I’m begging.”
It was then he saw it in her honey-dripped eyes, such finality. What he thought was a debate was really an order of law. And if there was one thing Draco Malfoy didn’t do, it was begged.
He felt the titanium walls slide up from the foundation of his brain as he nodded. “As you wish.” Occluding every pathetic thought and finding a box for them like muscle memory.
He could ice this burn. He could play her up to be the villain. A venomous witch he was better off without. But he still loved her.
He loved her.
He loved her
He loved her, and he didn’t love anyone.
And he had to live with that.
“I won’t tell anyone you still stalk hour ex.” Theo’s voice shattered Draco’s train of thought into jagged pieces he wasn’t going to get back.
Draco scoffed and snatched the cigarette from Theo’s mouth and crushed it in his palm, letting the burn from the cig smack him back to reality. “This is a horrid habit you need to be rid of.”
Theo’s mouth gapped open as he stood up. “I was about to suggest the same for you.”
Draco was about to deliver a line back to him with bite when he was distracted by the velvet wing chair Theo had just stood from.
Theo turned around to face what Draco was glaring at. “What? I didn’t get any ash on the chair.”
Draco went to swiftly pick of up the embellished pillow up from the chair as if to such for something.
“Mate-“
“Where is it?” Draco swiveled around-his hair now disheveled from the gravity.
“Where is what?”
It was then he stood up straight, leaning his head back, eyes closed as he let out a slow breath. “The stain.”
“The-“ Theo’s voice rightly perplexed.
“The wine stain. Why was it removed?”
Theo's eyes widened and lifted his hands up. “Why would I know anything about a stain? And also--wild thought here--why wouldn’t your mother remove the stain?”
Draco shook his head in frustration as he swiftly made his way towards only Merlin knew where.
Theo watched his best friend leave the room with concern and complete puzzlement. “Mate’s lost the fucking plot on that one.” He said under his breath.
______
“Hermione, this is mad.” Ginny huffed as she plopped on the edge of Hermione’s quilted bed.
Hermione sat two more sweaters she had just folded in her bed as she let out a sigh and turned to face her disgruntled friend. “This was always the plan.”
“A plan you made with your ex lover.” Ginny rolled her eyes and flicked something out from under her nail.
“Ginny, Draco was my fiancé.”
“Nobody knew that, though.”
“You did.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Ginny!” Hermione crossed her arms. “Don’t be cruel.”
Ginny let out an exasperated sigh and sat up. “I don’t mean to be, Mione. I promise. I just hate it— all of it.” She threw her hands up.
Hermione nodded and smoothed her burgundy thermal shirt down. “Which part? That I’m not spending Christmas with your family, or that I almost had one?”
It came out more bitter than Hermione wanted, and that made her cheeks flush.
“Oh, Hermione, but we are your family.” Ginny reached across the bed where Hermione stood and grabbed her wrist. “Please don’t spend the holidays alone. It can’t be good for you.”
Hermione shook her head. “Don’t pretend this was even your idea to come see me. The only person concerned with me being there is Molly and maybe George because I laugh at all his idiotic jokes. But you? You don’t even come around.”
It was true that Harry, Ron, and Ginny stopped coming around but only after she snubbed every invite out to a pub or a quidditch game. After she ended things with Draco, she was rather turned inside out. She felt as if every vulnerable part of her was hung out to dry, and she slowly decayed into crunchy pieces of what she thought her life was going to be.
Where they would go.
Where they would love.
Where they-that was all.
It didn’t matter what it would look like, as long as the itinerary was filled to the brim with him and her.
It was like a map of endless possibilities for two sets of feet. But that map was burned and Hermione had nothing left to feel, except for that.
“Merlin, Hermione. I can see there are still specs of him in you.” Ginny looked away from Hermione and at the wall. “Look, I’m sorry we stopped showing up, but don’t pretend as if you would have been warm to us if we did.”
“Well, we’ll never know, will we?” Hermione said under her breath with some bite as she kept herself busy stacking books and eyes away from Ginny’s face.
“You just-“ Ginny paused in thought. “You just completely iced us out after it all. You didn’t come over, you said no to everything, and you didn’t tell me what happened.”
“I told you enough.”
“No, that’s your problem, Hermione. Being vague and sparing us the gruesome details like some fucking martyr.” Ginny rubbed her eyes with two fingers. “You think you have to carry everything alone.”
But Ginny didn’t get it--Hermione knew she would tell het that what she did was complete rubbish and scream at her to stop having a hero-complex.
But it wasn’t like that.
Hermione knew there wasn’t going to be another way. Once that reality slapped her across the face, she couldn’t ignore it.
The reality in question being the prick, Lucius Malfoy.
Hermione would never forget the oxymoron on display as she stood in Mr. Malfoy’s cell in Azkaban. The stone walls being entirely cold and unwelcoming as he sat, legs crossed, in a Bergère chair sipping from a toile teacup.
She bit on her tongue to hold back a smirk as she addressed him.
“Ms. Granger, I’m not one for pleasantries, so you mustn’t pretend to be happy you’re here.” His silver eyes instantly reminded her of Draco’s but Lucius’ looked heavier. Perhaps it was the purple stains under his eyes and his chopped hair— as if to say the damage from war escapes no one. Not even the wicked.
“I hadn’t realized I was giving that impression.” Hermione clamped her hands together in front of her and cleared her throat.
His eyes crossed down to her hands. “I see congratulations are in order.” Hermione looked down and quickly tucked her hands behind her back as she fidgeted with her ring. “No need to hide it now, though I am a bit disappointed Draco didn’t come and tell me himself—man to man.”
“I’m sure he meant to.”
Lucius grunted and nodded. “That’s just it, isn’t it? My son means numerous things.”
“I-“ Hermione bit down on her bottom lip.
“He means to do many things, but he has a tendency to be distracted.”
Hermione’s eyes furrowed as she was about to interject.
“Yes, I can see you already wanting to fight me. I can see the fire, and while I don’t think I would care for it, I can understand how my boy got caught up in it.”
“Mr. Malfoy, it seems a bit daft to be alluding to your backward idealisms, given the reason you’re here is because of it.” She crossed her arms, prepared to walk right out.
She didn’t know what she expected.
A warm hug?
A kiss on the cheek from her, regrettably, future father-in-law?
This was always going to end up being a mistake and a waste of time.
He laughed as he grinned down at his tea. “If I were a betting man, I’d say you’re right.”
“But?”
“But because my hands are tied, as you’ve so gracefully pointed out, I’m left with no other choice than to bring them up to you.” He took another sip and flipped a page from The Prophet.
“Reminding me that I shouldn’t muddy up your bloodline, is it?” She didn’t care how prickly she sounded, she would let him of all people have it.
“More so that you can’t.” He pressed his thin lips together.
“Right. I’m aware you are less than thrilled about our engagement, but Draco is-“
“The only heir, Ms. Granger. And the thing about being an heir to this bloodline is that there have been generations of spells and contingencies in place to forbid someone who is not from purity to produce offspring with him.” The words fell into place like brick on cement as he spelled it out for her.
“Something Draco has been entirely informed of but like I said, he gets distracted.” He waved out his fingers mindlessly.
“It can’t be undone?” Hermione felt the warmth of panic sliver up her chest and on her neck.
“I’m afraid not.”
A pause.
Another pause.
“Even if you were to find a way to be together, you would never be able to fall pregnant.”
She wanted to pry his teeth out for being so invasive with her, but retaliation would fall on deaf ears because there wasn’t a solution to what he was saying.
“Unless he forfeited his birthright.” Hermione said under her breath.
That produced a belly laugh from him. “And how selfish would that be? To persuade him to turn his back on his own family and leave his mother in the dust.”
“Of course, I would never do that.” Hermione spit. “I love your son, Mr. Malfoy. I would never want him to be anyone else but himself.”
“Knowing we are on the same page, Ms. Granger, warms my half-dead heart.” Lucius patted his chest.
She nodded and pinched at her wrist to fight back the tears that were stinging her waterline.
“All that being said, you’ll need to be the one to end it. I’d hate for Draco to do anything rash.”
Hermione twisted her jaw and wiggled her nose in an effort to not fall a part right there in front of him. She needed to kick herself into the demeanor she carried during the war.
It was like that, in a way. Except with war you never knew what exactly you’d lose, and here on this battleground she knew for certain she was about to lose everything.
“I’ll need you to owl me that it’s done. Just for peace of mind.”
I hope you never know peace for the rest of your rotting life. Hermione let curses swirl in her mind and she turned on her heels to leave.
“What makes you think I’ll go through with it?” Hermione looked back to the man who ripped her lifeline right under her feet.
His eyes crinkled as he shot her a wicked smile. “I am a betting man.”
______
Draco rarely found solace in the Manor unless he was completely alone down in the basement. It was where Hermione and him made many memories watching movies on a teleprompter—a muggle device Draco could get behind.
It was where Hermione first fell asleep on his shoulder, when he'd let his whole body go stiff so he wouldn’t wake her.
Where they first had sex.
And where they spent countless hours sprawled on a blanket, legs intertwined, as she traced the veins in his hands as he counted the freckles on her body. Each time he found a new one he’d kiss it and tell her the freckle was his now.
He’d do it just to touch her.
He’d do it just to see her smile.
It was only appropriate he packed all his physical things of her down here. Like a graveyard he’d sleep well in, he could almost hear the echo of her snarky laugh when she beat him in a game.
“At least I still have this.” He whispered to himself as he stared down at the dark mahogany box with his hands shoved in his pockets.
He teetered back and forth with whether or not he should open it, but decided to fall on the latter as he sat down and let out a sigh.
In the box he found old pictures from a muggle fair, a gold bracelet, trinkets from their dorms and a handful of letters they used to send each other while Draco spent the summer in Prague that year. The letters were aged at the edges, but he still got a whiff of her vanilla and daffodil scent. It hit his nose with nostalgia and scratched at the scabs of the heart he carefully locked away.
It was suicide to open them, but he was already at his end for the day, and he’d rather go out with a bang.
And a bang it was.
Draco,
I want to hang the professor who said it was a good idea to teach
the Amortentia potion to first years.
Forever,
Your favorite Gryffindor
PS: I never want to see another snog in my life.
Granger,
I have a snog in mind you might want to revisit.
Yours,
DM
Draco Lucius Malfoy,
I can’t believe you just suggested such an act to a witch you
just addressed by her last name only.
Forever,
Try Me
PS: come home and remind me, maybe?
A genuine laughter bubbled in Draco’s throat as the letters reminded him exactly where he was when he knew he was royally fucked. That from then on, everything Draco was, was tied directly to Hermione. He wanted every part of her, and everything he said and did would go on to prove that.
He shuffled through a few more letters, some of them stinging more than others.
Draco,
I’m so exhausted of having to prove to my friends that my love for you is real.
That what we have has to be proven at all.
It’s as if everyone believes love is supposed to be some grandiose show,
or it’s nothing. It’s very Gryffindor, I suppose. I can hear your eyes roll now.
Forever,
Hermione
P.S. I love you so much I think I would die for you in secret
Was it sadness? Was it anger?
No, it was grief. The grief that stuck to all of his yuck that he tried so hard to keep inside. All the betrayal he cemented in the darkest parts of who he was. Never to be shown or seen again.
If he couldn’t share it with Hermione, he was to share it with no one. If the haunted parts of him scared the golden girl away, no one would stand a chance.
But he was unable to blame her. Even some shades of dark gave him chills.
Draco smeared his palms across his eyes as he sniffed.
“Enough.” Draco commanded to himself as he stood and picked up the box. But it was as if fate had enough of chaos running its timeline because right then, a letter--a letter one would argue Draco was never supposed to see--fell to the ground.
Draco glanced down and bent to pick up the unopened letter. His long slender fingers flipping it over to see it addressed to Mr. Malfoy.
Mr. Malfoy,
As per our delightful conversation, you’ll be eager to know that it is done.
I am not one to waste time with the inevitable.
Now, I wish to be rid of this narrative you have spun for my life. I would like to move on with grace and peace.
I would say, I would wish the same for you, but if I were a betting woman, I would say your future doesn’t hold either of those attributes.
Merry Xmas, please don’t owl
HG
“Oh there you are, my love.” Narcissa’s voice echoed through Draco’s ears from a distance, but he was unable to unglue his eyes from the parchment.
“Draco?” She came over and touched his shoulder, but he flinched and stood back from her.
“Did you know about this?” Draco snarled.
Narcissa’s lips pouted. “What are you on about?”
He handed her the letter with deliberate force. “This.” He spat.
His mother delicately took the letter from his hands while keeping her eyes on him. “What did father threaten her with?”
Narcissa’s eyes scanned over the words as she lifted her hand over her mouth holding in a gasp. “Oh my boy.” Narcissa’s eyes looked glossy as she looked up to her son. “I haven’t the faintest idea of what this was about. I wasn’t privy to any of this.”
Draco ran his fingers through his hair as he stared up at the ceiling. “He made her believe or do something that called off our engagement. It explains everything.” He sniffed as he felt agitation crawl through his veins.
How could he just take what she said for face value?
How could he just walk?
Was there a sign in her face he missed?
A signal he was supposed to catch to call her bluff?
Did he truly not know her love to know what she was saying was faulty?
Was he truly that dense?
“How did this even end up here?” Narcissa spoke softly, still in utter bewilderment to have come across an exchange between her late husband and her son’s ex-fiancé.
“Look at the date. It’s the 27th of December, and Father passed the day before.” Draco’s jaw ticked. “All of his things were directed to the Manor, but how it got in my box is another story.” He concluded as he arched an eyebrow towards his mother.
“It’s very possible Lottie thought it was for you. You’re the only Mr. Malfoy she knows.”
Draco nodded as he took the letter back from her hands and folded it up to place in the box.
“So what will you do?” His mother’s question hung in the air. The question of the year, really.
But he didn’t feel he deserved that question. That he lost that luxury of fixing things the moment he walked out the door. Out on her.
“What is there to do?” He glanced up at her, praying to whatever god that she would give a glimmer of hope.
That was all he would need. An ounce of hope that he could have her again—that— he could get high on for an eternity.
Narcissa shook her head as she came close up to her only son and folded his hands in hers. “Everything.” She searched deep into his eyes. “When it comes to love, my son, there is everything to do.”
______
“Thank you.” Hermione half grinned and nodded to the conductor as she scooted past the cluster of people already sitting on the train.
Much to her dismay, Ginny didn’t leave her place happy. The argument spiraled into harsher words and ill-willed wishes. She knew she was just angry, and Ginny was always a petty one when she saw red.
When she got back, she’d make amends with her over Butterbeer down in Hogsmead. Hermione assured herself. She might even send a letter in advance to lock it in so she’d have the satisfaction of penciling it in her calendar.
She started to hum softly to herself, looking down to see if everyone had boarded so she could sprawl her books over the seat.
Not only that, but she couldn’t help but feel anxious to take this journey on her own. It was supposed to be with Draco that she was going to prepare her childhood home to be ready for sale. She had pushed it for years until Draco, one day out of the blue, said he would go down with Hermione. He promised to make an occasion out of it and that she could take as much time as she needed.
There were many ways Draco gave his love to her, but she never felt more seen than when he made that gesture. Not a single friend or person had asked her about her parents—let alone the aftermath of Obliviating her out of their life.
That they were off on a happy journey with a newborn, while she was still staring at the wallpaper her mom picked out for her room.
She left it all there to rot, not able to muster up the courage to do something with it. Until him. Until Draco made it his to deal with, too.
She owed it to them, Hermione had decided. That the final nail in the coffin of their love was to finish what they were going to do. It was going to be her closure.
Hermione let our breath as she patted her legs and decided that no one was going to need the seat across from her.
She started to take the plethora of books she knew she wasn’t going to have time for but brought anyway when she heard a soft nock.
Hermione jumped at the sound and looked up to see the same phantom she saw the night before.
Snow for hair.
A jaw that ticked.
A familiar smell of apples.
And lustrous eyes that looked like the front steps of home.
“I was going to see if that seat was taken, but it looks like Men Who Love Dragons Too Much has snagged it.” His voice came out cool, and it sent shivers down Hermione’s back at the sheer shock of it. She assumed she would never hear it again.
“I-uh.” She tried to get up and pick up the books at the same time causing her to slip as the train started to move.
Draco swiftly caught her waist and the book that was about to fall. “Clumsy as ever still, Granger?”
She tried to ignore the burn his sturdy hands were making at the small of her back as she unraveled herself from his hold.
She stepped back, not wanting to make eye contact for fear that she would spill the beans right then and there and beg him to hold on to her forever.
That she needed him to sleep, and she was desperate to listen to him for the rest of all her tomorrows. All her mornings.
Hermione’s heart was cracking at the edges just having him right in front of her. She didn’t know if she could be strong—not again.
She knelt down to pick up a book but wobbled back when the train bumped slightly.
“Here.” Draco caught her arms and placed her firmly in one of the seats. “Why don’t you stay put, and I’ll grab the books.”
Her throat tightened as she met his eyes again and met him with a slow nod.
She watched as he stacked the books together neatly and placed them back in her bag. “Would hate for any of the edges to get jammed.” His eyes softened as he met her eyes.
“Mhm.” Hermione twitched her lips and looked toward the window, knowing the tears were soon to drip, whether she liked it or not.
Draco frowned as he sat across from her and leaned to grab her knees. “Hey, it’s nothing to fuss over. Everyone knows muggle feet are no match for gravity.”
She shook her head as she ran her shaky hands through her disheveled curls. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Her voice cracked.
“No-“
“I can’t believe you’re here right now.” Hermione kept shaking her head. “You’re here because you remember, right?”
“I always remember, but-“
“Oh god.” Hermione knelt, her head into her palms. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Hermione.” Draco silenced the space around them as he firmly called her name.
She shot up and met his gaze.
“I would never forget what you were going to do this Christmas. But you under the bizarre delusion of not deserving me is an entirely different issue.” Draco took the folded letter from his pocket and handed it over to her lap."It's a terrible line of thinking, Hermione and not a becoming one for someone with a brain like yours."
Hermione nearly gawked down at the familiar handwriting. The color withdrew from her face as the memories flooded back to her. “How did you get this?”
“Irrelevant.”
“Did you read it?”
“Obviously.” Draco’s tone reminded her of the one he had in school.
She swallowed the saliva that was starting to coat her throat. “So you know then.”
“I know my delusional father’s dying wish was obviously to fuck up my life.” Draco leaned back, not taking his eyes ofd Hermione. “And I know that whatever crow-shit he fed you, it was convincing.”
“Your legacy, Draco.” Hermione smoothed out her skirt. “You wouldn’t be able to have an heir.”
“According to?”
Hermione waved her hand up in spiral. “Your miserable ancestors. Some sort of spell.”
There was a brief pause between them before Draco bursted out laughing. He slapped his knee as the laughter continued, causing Hermione to nervously laugh while also wondering if he was on the brink of a psychosis.
“I’m serious, Draco. You wouldn’t be able to be a father, and I couldn’t rob you of that.” Hermione tried to speak over his relentless laughter.
“Oh fuck sakes, Hermione.” He got out before he kept laughing.
Hermione crossed her arms and leaned back, feeling rather embarrassed.
“That demented man making sure he controlled me even from his pathetic grave.” Draco shook his head and leaned his head facing up.
“It still doesn’t change the rules.”
Draco scoffed. “Hermione, there is no bloodline spell that keeps me from marrying who I wish and having children with them. That is absolute asinine.”
Hermione’s lips gaped open. “But-“
“If I married you while he was still living, he very well might have taken my inheritance, but his life was already coming to an end when we got engaged.” Draco leaned in close so he could place his hand in the middle of her thigh. “He knew he was going out, and he decided he would bet on you being the fucking martyr Gryffindor that you are and do what needed to be done.” He squeezed her leg, not letting her slip into her head. “I’m just relieved it was this insanity and not something you actually wanted.”
“So it was you at my store’s window.” It wasn’t a question.
Draco’s cheeks looked slightly tinged with pink. “Possibly.”
Hermione’s eyes widened, realizing she was never mad to begin with. “It was you every time!”
“I wouldn’t go around telling tall tales, my love.”
“Oh Draco-“ Hermione jumped from her seat and wrapped her arms around his neck. “How could I be this foolish?”
Draco pulled her into his chest as he swung her legs over his lap. “For the brightest witch of our age, it is rather shocking.”
Hermione flicked him off while her face was still nuzzled into his neck. Draco laughed as he kissed her temple.
“I’m honestly the fool to think you’d just call it quits like that.” He grabbed both sides of her face and moved her to face him. “Please forgive me for not fighting for us.”
Hermione batted her lashes, hoping the tears wouldn’t pour again. But the swell in her heart grew, being this close to his face. His lips. Those eyes.
Her home.
“If you’ll have me, Hermione Granger, I promise to never give up on us from this day forward. I’ll fight until death if need be.”
“Careful, Malfoy, that sounds an awful like a proposal.” Hermione smirked as she echoed the very words she spoke before to him a couple of years back.
“It could be.” Draco gave a smile that showed a bit of his canine. “But I’d never be so cheesy as to propose again on Christmas.” He traced a line down Hermione’s nose.
Hermione hummed in agreement. “We do have more pressing matters.”
Draco nodded. “Ah yes, that’s what I was actually here for.”
“Oh?”
“You see, I’ve been itching to expand my living spaces and seeing as I need to brush up on my muggle studies, I was hoping you knew of a house that was for sale?”
Hermione sat up. “You want to buy my childhood home?”
“Yes, with one stipulation.”
Hermione jerked her face at him as if to say, “Well, go on then.”
“The original owner has to live with me.” His eyes looked down to hers.
"My dad? Needing to fill that fatherly shaped-hole, are ya?"
"Hermione." Draco deadpanned.
“Are you sure? We might not be ready for that. Everything just came to light and—“
He grabbed her face again and brushed the loose strands of hair behind her ear. “Hermione, I am not a praying or begging man. But every sunspot on your skin, every hidden nook in that busy brain of yours— that is where I find my religion.” He paused for a brief moment and leaned his forehead onto her. “And I plan to display devotion to it for the rest of my dismal life. So bloody move in with me, okay?”
Hermione’s eyes danced across his face, taking in the moment and locking it away for a keepsake. Taking in that he was here. That their love stood against time and control and the relentlessness of his past. Their past.
“Okay.”
-——-
Mum,
He thinks he’s the lucky one.
But he’ll never know how tender his mouth looks when he says my name.
Always Yours
Hermione