Parchment
Malfoy - Draco - William, led her out through the back of the shop. There was a small door she hadn’t noticed underneath the darkwood stairs, which he pressed. It popped open, was so narrow that he had to nearly turn fully on his side. Even she felt close to the edges of it.
There was a corridor with damp smelling walls, which led into a small courtyard. She had forgotten to feel nervous, and was surprised at how dark it was outside already. A selection of climbing plants in various pots spilled up over the tudor-white walls of the place, filling the air with a warm scent even while the temperature was turning cold. A small bench lay at the opposite side, a little ashtray on one side.
“Do you mind?” He asked.
“Not at all.”
They sat together as he smoked one cigarette. She tried to hold her curiosity in.
“Are you the only one who works here?”
“No,” he said, exhaling smoke above them. There was a cautious distance between them, though the bench wasn’t long enough for anything comfortable. She could feel the warmth of his arm. “Though they usually close in August. It’s a family-run business. I offered to keep it open for them.”
“That’s nice.”
“There’s a flat over the workshop. I needed somewhere to stay.”
She nodded and said nothing. He offered the cigarette to her, though she declined.
“Thank you for showing it to me.”
“It’s nothing.” This had a weight that had been missing in their last few interactions. She wished he would let himself be who he was with her. She wanted to address it head on, she didn’t. They sat in silence, until he finished the cigarette, then moved into the back building.
Malfoy illuminated the place with a wave of his cherry wand, and it was soon filled with a glow as warm as the shop. Inside there was a similar, though more chaotic energy to the place. A large, old fashioned printing press painted black was in one corner. Rows of alphabet stamps were organised all round it, the press itself was working magically already, shuttling through monthly layouts for more diaries. On the larger table in the middle, needles were stitching pages together, the scent of glue filled the air. On the right side, rows and rows of notebooks were being squeezed and dried.
He led her to the centre table, pulling out the narrow drawers which held different kinds of parchment and paper, letting her touch all of them, explaining how each were made.
“Our parchment comes primarily from sheepskin, though we also use goat sometimes in the smaller folios.”
“Are they magical sheep and goats,” she asked, wondering if it was the same process as muggle parchment making. He looked at her funny.
“They’re owned by wizards and witches,” he said after a while. “I don’t know if they’re magical.”
“Are the parchments spell-resistant?”
“We don’t treat them with anything. So - I suppose. I suppose they are just the same as muggle parchment.”
“Interesting.”
They flicked through some more of the animal skins.
“I didn’t know muggles used parchment,” he said, after a while.
“They do. Used to use it much more. Now they mainly use paper.”
“We have a wide range of that, too.”
He showed her. Colours, drawers full of the stuff. They were standing closer together than they usually did in the shop. It wasn’t silent in the workshop either. With the plink of alphabets being rearranged in the printing press, the scrape of thick thread through thicker paper, the general shuffling around of various objects, the air was thick with industriousness. His hand grazed hers, but neither of them pulled away.
“I like this,” she said, smoothing over a soft, almost cloudy-textured piece.
“It’s beautiful. Here, we have some with metallics shot through, too.”
The paper looked like a dawn, pink, purple, golden, fluffy. It was too sweet for the kind of thing she usually gravitated towards. Something that Lavender would choose to write stupid letters to Ron. She felt the squeeze of grief for her, too, and let it pass.
“You should take it with you,” he said.
“No. Not very practical.”
They were still staring at the piece, the one they were both holding. He carefully took it from her, replaced it in the drawer.
“Okay.”
She was grateful he didn’t say anything else, and instead opened another drawer filled with a papyrus-type paper, sheafs with neat black, burgundy, navy outlines.
“What about this?” The paper was smart and clean and practical. “Here, try writing on it.”
There were bottles of the inks in the shop by the door, various open cauldrons of the stuff as different types were blended. She hadn’t known they made them on site, too, though it made sense given how familiar Draco was with all the colours.
More quills, these ones already heavily used and comfortable for it, were offered to her. They spent an hour, maybe more, just side by side, scratching out on the different sheafs, testing the types of bleed through, seeing which papers were more susceptible to blotching.
“I don’t want to waste anything,” she told him.
“Don’t worry about it, Hermione. We can make more. Besides, we need to do tests anyway.”
She wasn’t quite sure he was telling the truth, but she let herself believe him because she didn’t want to stop. It was the nicest evening she had experienced in a while, the whirr of the machines filling the puddles of silence they ended up in, the small comments and opinions about things that didn’t matter, but were comfortable to say.
“Sorry, I haven’t offered you a drink,” he said suddenly, pulling himself up from the table they had been leaning on.
“That’s okay.”
“I have - well.” He disappeared, rummaging somewhere, calling out options to her. “You can have a butterbeer if you like, Hermione? Or we have some whiskey, I don’t know how long that’s been here. Water, of course. Tea. I ran out of pumpkin juice this morning but I can see if I can -”
“I’ll, um. I’ll take a beer, if you want one?”
“Sounds good.”
He emerged with the bottles. They drank slowly, still scribbling, through more carefully now that there was the possibility to spill over the notebooks. She understood how strange this was. Standing here with a poorly disguised Draco Malfoy, as though they weren't months from the war, as though he hadn’t seen her covered in blood, tortured. She wondered if he still thought about it.
With the movement of the machines and the gentle discussion of papers, she pretended it hadn’t happened. That she had just met and befriended a man who worked in a shop, who knew lots about paper. Who seemed to enjoy her company.
He was still standing close to her. She quite liked the slightly stale scent of cigarette on his jumper. They finished the beers, and he insisted on her taking some sheafs of loose parchment home.
“I’ll use it to write to you,” she promised suddenly, even though she wasn’t sure if this fragile thing would last.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’d like to.”
He paused.
“I’d like to read them.”
He had taken her back through the shop, ready to lock up again behind her as she snuck out the front door, Horizont Alley now filled with those searching for pubs rather than purchasing. Before she could lose her nerve, she kissed him on the cheek.