Best of You

The rest of Sunday night dinner went fairly smoothly. When Hermione and Fred had rejoined the family Ron had given a stilted apology to Hermione and kept his mouth shut for the rest of the night. He had clearly had a talking to from Molly and Ginny on top of the ‘physical reset’ from Fred and seemed to have his tail sufficiently tucked. It had made the rest of the evening fairly pleasant.

The evening hadn’t provided Hermione with another chance to be alone with Fred, and honestly she felt that was for the best. Instead she had some time and space to sort things out in her own head. It was an odd sensation to have a childhood crush come rushing back as a fully grown adult and she really had no idea what to do. It certainly seemed like Fred felt the same way, but she really couldn’t be sure. He was pretty notoriously single and maybe he was just attracted to her now? No matter how confident she was in her brain, Hermione had never developed Ginny’s strong sense of self as a confident physical being. It still seemed somewhat unbelievable to her that any man would be interested in her, romantically or physically.

Monday morning found her having this internal conversation as she stared at the ceiling above her bed. After the fifth time thinking in the same circle Hermione huffed in annoyance and decided it was time to get up and get on with her day. She wasn’t making any progress like this and she was very unlikely to at this rate. She dragged herself from the bed and went through her usual morning routine. Shower, followed by skincare. The final step of her skincare regimen found her reaching for an empty jar.

“Shit.” She muttered to herself. This was, by far, the most important step. It was a cream from the Wonder Witch line from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes called Blemish Be Gone. It had been designed to cover up things like dark spots and pimples, but the twins' expert charm and potion work had created a cream that was also magnificent at covering scars. Even cursed ones. Her gaze shifted to the scar that remained red and raised on her arm. The potent combination of glamor charms, notice me not charms, and a diluted polyjuice variant was the only thing that covered the damned thing. It wasn’t her only scar, not by a long shot, but it was the only one she was really concerned with hiding. It still wasn’t something she was able to wear proudly, and brought attention she really didn’t enjoy.

With that deciding what she was doing with at least the first part of her day Hermione moved on to getting dressed before heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Even though school wasn’t in session yet, Breakfast and Dinner were still served in the Great Hall for any professors who wanted to be social, and Hermione wanted to invite Harry along for her morning excursion. Since the school year wasn’t in session though the large tables were still tucked away. Instead the Hall held just one long table down the center for the professors to use as they pleased. Hermione settled into a spot and filled her plate before tucking in.

“Granger.” The silky drawl of Draco settled into a seat next to her. “It’s August. I know we’re in Scotland but the long sleeves are still a bit much.” Draco reached over and pinched at the fabric of her long sleeved blouse sitting on her arm. “I really do need to take you shopping.”
Hermione grimaced slightly and pulled her arm away. “I know.” She said quietly. “Unfortunately it’s not optional today.” She couldn’t quite bring herself to look up at him.
Draco assessed her for a moment and she practically heard his eyebrows raise next to her. “Shit Granger.” She glanced over as his forehead thunked to the table. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think…”
Hermione rested her hand on his arm. “Draco, it’s fine.”
He rolled his head to the side to meet her gaze before sitting back up. “It’s not fine. Nothing about that will ever be fine.” His voice had turned more serious than she had heard it in a long time.
She smiled sadly at him. “No. It won’t. But it’s not your fault.”
Draco snorted and rolled his eyes.
“It’s not!” Hermione insisted, shoving his shoulder. “You were just as much a prisoner in that situation as the rest of us. A child! You didn’t put the dagger to my skin and without you…” She took a shuddering breath. “Worse things would have probably happened.”
The two stared at each other for a long moment, sharing the weight of their grief for their childhoods. Eventually they smiled at each other and shifted their focus back to breakfast.
“How do you usually hide it?” Draco asked quietly. “For… science.” His weight leaned onto his left forearm.
“Cream from Fred and George’s shop.” She explained around a mouthful of bagel. “Not sure if they were intending it to be such a strong coverup for cursed scars but it works wonders. I was going to go into Hogsmeade today to grab a new jar if you’d like to tag along?”
Draco shifted in his seat to stare at her more fully, a grin on his face that somehow was both dirty and arrogant. “Oh you were were you?”
Hermione avoided his gaze again, but for a completely different reason this time. “Yes. I need a few other supplies in town as well.”
She continued to stare at her plate as Draco continued to stare at her.

During her eighth year at Hogwarts the twins had opened a location of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes in Hogsmeade, taking over for Zonkos. Fred had moved to Hogsmeade with the opening to run the new location, while George remained at the Diagon Alley location. They had employees and managers of course, especially now, but the twins still liked to run their business in a very hands on manner.

“Mmhmm.” Draco finally drawled out at her, sounding scarily like Ginny had yesterday. Man Harry had a type.
“Mornin’.” Harry grumbled as he fell into a seat across from Hermione, very much still half asleep. How this man functioned as a professor Hermione really wasn’t sure. “Wha’s goin on?”
“Granger was just inviting us to go to Hogsmeade with her this morning.” Draco shifted back to eating his breakfast. “She needs to pick up supplies and drool over Weasley again.”
“I am not going to drool at anyone!” Hermione defended herself. “I just need to pick up some cream.”
“Hogsmeade sounds nice.” Harry said around a mouthful of eggs, seemingly oblivious to half of the conversation that was happening.
“Hogsmeade it is then.” Draco stood from the table. “I’ll meet you in the entry hall in 15 or so minutes. I need to go grab a few vomit bags if I’m going to have to be around you and Weasley.”
Harry might be a little slow to start in the mornings, but Hermione didn't miss that Draco had automatically assumed the Hogsmeade invitation was for both of them and she certainly didn’t miss the way that Harry’s eyes followed him as he left the Hall.

___________

15 minutes later the new, slightly strange, trio were headed down the main road into Hogsmeade. Hermione was dying to question Draco about what he thought he knew about her and Fred, but she couldn’t figure out how to bring it up without seeming desperate. Instead the three had fallen into easy conversation about the upcoming school year and their class plans.

“You know,” Hermione said, bumping Draco with her shoulder, “You’re probably going to need to start calling me Hermione. You can’t keep calling me Granger around the students.”
Harry snorted. “Oh he has his ways around it.”
“It just sounds wrong to call you lot by your first name.” Draco shrugged. “I usually just don’t call you anything in front of students, or go for the full ‘Professor’ title.”
Hermione laughed at that, steering the group towards the first shop she needed to explore.

As well as the cream from WWW, Hermione needed to grab a few supplies for her classes and she wanted to explore some of the other shops around the wizarding town for things to add to her living quarters. By the time they had reached the twins’ shop she had quite a few items shrunk down and stuffed into her bag. It might not be the same little beaded thing she had dragged around the country-side for a year, but they certainly had a lot in common.

As they walked into WWW Draco was carrying the bag with his arm in it up to the shoulder.
“How in the hell…” He shifted to stick his face in the bag as well. “This is one hell of an extension charm!” He shouted from inside the bag.
“Don’t fall into it.” Harry warned. “We’ll never find you again.”
Draco pulled out of the bag and handed it back to Hermione before turning to Harry with a wink. “And that would be devastating for you, eh Potter?”
Hermione set the bag back on her shoulder, laughing at Harry’s flustered expression in response to another very overt flirt from Draco.
Oh he definitely calls him ‘Potter’ in bed. She thought to herself, making a note to include this in a letter to Ginny later in the week.
“Welcome!” an employee approached them with a slightly nauseatingly peppy smile. “How can I help you today?”
Draco groaned and Hermione elbowed him in the ribs. “We’re looking for the Wonder Witch products.” She smiled back at the employee.
“Ah yes, of course!” The smile was taking somewhat of a manic turn. “You will find those on the third level by the windows!”
“Thanks.” Hermione nodded at the employee before dragging Draco and Harry to the stairs before either of them could push the poor man to snapping entirely. Working retail was no joke, even when you worked here.

When they reached the third floor the Wonder Witch products were immediately obvious with a sickeningly pink display. Hermione walked over to the display, wrinkling her nose.
“Someone needs to talk to Fred and George about this display,” She said over her shoulder to Harry and Draco. “Doesn’t appeal to the adults very well.”
“To be fair,” the voice that responded sent an increasingly familiar shiver up her spine, “most of the customers at this location aren’t adults.”
Hermione turned to see Fred leaning against the railing of the staircase up to the next floor, arms crossed in front of him and a lopsided smirk on his face.
“And what’s your problem with pink?”
“Fred!” Hermione could practically hear Draco’s eyes roll off to her side and she aimed a swipe in his direction, missing entirely and looking like she just took a swing at absolutely nothing, “How did you know we were here?”
Fred pushed himself off the railing and walked over to join them, shaking Draco's hand and giving Harry a quick hug as he reached them before stopping in front of Hermione. “Some years may have passed but people still easily recognize the saviors of the wizarding world. Got a frantic note from my employee downstairs that he felt they deserved special attention from the owner of the store.” His face shifted to a thoughtful look as he glanced back towards the stairs. “I genuinely don’t think he remembers that we know you.”
“Yeah,” Hermione’s gaze shifted in the same direction, “he seemed stretched a bit thin. Might need some time off.”
Fred nodded thoughtfully before returning his attention to her. “You know, while you’re here Hermione I could actually use your help.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Do you have a moment to come and look at something I’m working on? I’m a bit stuck and I have a feeling your big wonderful brain could help get me unstuck.”
Hermione blushed, “Sure.” She smiled at Fred, who smiled back and then turned to lead the way back up the stairs.
As they walked away Hermione could hear Draco making retching sounds behind her and sent a stealthy stinging jinx his way, smiling to herself when his yelp indicated that she had hit her target.
“What are we supposed to do while you ‘experiment’ Granger?” He shouted after her, making air quotes around ‘experiment’.
“Shop!” She responded. “Aren’t you good at that?” She looked over at him and Harry, winking just before rounding the spiral of the staircase and going out of view.