Chapter 3
Charlie Weasley rescheduled his date with Hermione three times, which she was surprised to find herself somewhat ambivalent about. This was mostly because Hermione was focused on trying her best not to fall stupidly in love with her handsome, thoughtful neighbor.
Draco was one of the most charming men she’d ever met. And specifically in the way she liked—he had a good sense of humor, attractively serious eyes, and a wry smile. She got the sense, sometimes, that he was different from other people. She liked it. She was a little different too, after all—bookish and overly intense. Soft-hearted.
Around a week after Draco moved in, Hermione had to rush home unexpectedly from work. She’d forgotten a copy of a document she wanted to include in her report.
She took the lift up to the second floor (it was a lifesaver, this lift—the stairs at Flora Place were unusually steep and the building was unusually tall) and found Draco standing directly outside her door.
He looked up abruptly at the sound of the lift door opening.
“Draco?” she asked, surprised.
“Hey,” he said easily. He took a casual step away from her door. “Back from the Ministry early?”
“Yes, I just—” she frowned. “Did I already tell you I work at the Ministry?”
“I saw you in the Prophet a while ago. With that Magical Creatures bill you were trying to pass.”
“Oh!” Hermione was pleased. “Wow, I’m glad people saw that! It was just a tiny article. But the more people know about the challenges our Magical Creatures face, the better…”
She walked up to him; Draco slid his hands in his pockets and smiled down at her.
“I think it’s great that you work on things like that,” he said. “I donated to the endangered creatures fund, actually, because of that article.”
“That’s amazing!” she said, smiling so wide her cheeks hurt. “Wow. Thank you for letting me know.”
“You’re welcome.”
Draco wore no tie today. The top button of his shirt was undone and Hermione noticed—with great interest—a flash of black ink near his collarbone.
Good lord, did Draco have a tattoo?
What was it of? He looked so clean-cut, she wouldn't have expected any ink.
Did he have any others?
Hermione cleared her throat and tried not to stare at the bit of exposed skin.
“What, ah—what are you doing?” she stammered, forcing herself to look away.
“Ah,” he said. “I was just looking at your doormat. I was wondering if I should get one for my flat too.”
“Oh! It’s cute, isn’t it? All the flats here have got novelty mats. I think it must be a building culture thing. I got mine once I realized everyone else had one.”
Her doormat was green and said Leave Me To My Books.
“Really cute,” Draco agreed, looking at the mat. He shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. “Bookworm, are you?”
“Yes,” Hermione said proudly.
Draco smiled.
“Shoot,” she said, checking her watch. “I just came back home to grab something—I better get back to work.”
“Sure.”
Draco stepped to the side, clearing her path to the door, and she gave him a quick, grateful smile.
She found her binder on the counter where she’d left it, then ran out the door again. She resolved to start another conversation with Draco later. Maybe she’d ask him if he intended to get a doormat, and what would it say if so? Or would that be too transparently flirtatious…?
_
Draco waited for Hermione to leave the building, then went to her door once more.
Frowning, he crouched down to examine something on the mat.
There, just on the edge of the word Books, was the unmistakable outline of a large shoe print. Much larger than Hermione’s little feet. This was a man’s shoe—nearly as large as Draco’s own size.
Had someone been here?
Draco knew that Hermione hadn’t hosted any guests since he’d moved in. He would have heard them through the wall—and anyway, he paid somewhat careful attention to who went in and out of Flora Place. Although he’d apparently missed someone.
He straightened up, dusting off his trousers. Looking to make sure no one was around, Draco muttered a quick series of spells and unlocked Hermione’s door. He stepped in.
Hermione was very clever. She had some rather advanced security charms along the threshold, but Draco had worked for a stint in the Bulgarian Ministry’s Auror Department. Civilians—even intelligent ones, like sweet Hermione—stood no chance against anyone with formal training.
He took off his shoes before he set foot in her kitchen, mindful of keeping things neat. He knew, after all, that Hermione was a tidy little thing. Her kitchen was charming and warm—she had burgundy oven mitts that hung cheerily over the oven, and her stove was home to a mismatched set of cookware that made him smile.
All the cookware in Malfoy Manor was severely matching. Cast iron or stainless steel. But Draco had no problem at all with breaking tradition, especially if it meant Hermione would be able to make his kitchen as hodge podge and cozy as she liked. He wanted her to do whatever she wanted with the house, he’d already decided.
With this happy thought in mind, Draco walked through the kitchen and into the living room, checking the rugs for any more shoe prints.
He checked her bedroom too, keeping his eyes carefully fixed only on the floors. Draco wasn’t a creep. He had no desire to nose around her underthings, or to peer in her nightstand drawers. He only wanted to keep her safe—and keep himself apprised of what goings-on might impact her.
There were no more shoe prints, to his relief. And finally, on a sticky piece of paper tacked to the fridge, he found the answer.
PACKAGE DROP OFF NOTICE - Dept. Magical Beasts - Recipient H. Granger - NOT HOME; notice to pick up files from front desk in Atrium before October 12.
The shoe print had belonged to the delivery man.
Satisfied, Draco gave Hermione’s furnace a quick check (it was still running smoothly), then left. He was glad there had been no more sinister meaning behind the shoe print. He wasn’t sure what he would do, if some strange man had been in her home uninvited.
~
All in all, Draco Malfoy had been exceedingly blessed by nature.
Generations of very wealthy men and their extraordinarily beautiful wives had produced sons like Draco: strong and tall and with the beauty of both titans and sirens blended in his face.
He had the sort of vicious good looks that turned normal men into lazy, self-indulgent layabouts. Only—he wasn’t a normal man.
For all his gifts, Draco lacked one thing in particular that most people considered crucial. Psychiatrists called it empathy, philosophers called it a soul… Draco felt it was probably something in between the two. He just wasn’t like other people.
When he was five years old, in Year One of schooling, his teacher had called both his parents in.
Is everything alright at home? Draco is a very smart boy. But he doesn’t talk much. He doesn’t laugh with the other children.
And…
And there had been that dead bird.
Draco hadn’t been the one to kill it, actually, but he’d found it behind the classroom one afternoon.
He touched its soft head, its sharp, tiny beak.
Draco was curious about it—a scientific, intelligent curiosity. But his curiosity was undamped by the fear that all children had, undamped by the sadness a normal little boy would have felt about a dead bird. So when Miss Ethel saw him examining the small carcass, his face serious and his fingers grazing the bird’s lifeless face, she’d been frightened.
Draco decided—in his utilitarian little way—that he didn’t want to be frightening. He wanted to be successful and powerful and admired. So he observed the other boys and girls in school, learning how to mimic their multitude of expressions and the little ups and downs lilting in their voices—down for sad, up for happy, down-up for a question…
He was a fast learner. His Year Two teacher sang a very different tune from Miss Ethel.
I’ve never met a sweeter child!
He’s perfectly darling. And the way he makes the other children laugh, my goodness.
Intelligent, kind-hearted, and humble. I’m sure Draco will go far.
Draco was no serial killer, nothing like that. His lack of empathy was not by choice, it was simply the lot he’d been born into. He still enjoyed having friends, still enjoyed a Friday evening at the pub with a few of the Durmstrang boys who’d come from similarly aristocratic families. They were fun to be around, with their raucous laughter and their boyish interest in expensive scotch and beautiful girls.
Draco was not immune to those temptations either. Even as a sixteen year old he loved fine things—imported wine and weekends in his parents’ holiday villa overlooking the countryside. And when it came to girls—Draco’s libido was perfectly functional, if not even a little over-active. But he was no animal, and as he grew a little older he ran into a very straightforward issue: namely, Draco was evidently the kind of person that required some sort of emotional interest to muster up sustained physical excitement.
And—as cruel fate would have it—he simply didn’t possess enough of a soul (as the philosophers would have said) to harbor emotional interest in anyone.
So at seventeen, Draco determined that he didn’t need to find passion in his life. He would become successful and wealthy and respected, and then—at the age of thirty, or something—he’d find himself a wife. She would be beautiful and intelligent and come from a good family, and he would make her pregnant. Then the Malfoy line would have its next heir, and Draco could return to focusing on the family’s investment portfolios while his faceless wife traveled the world, or whatever it was she wanted to do with her days.
As bleak of a prospect as this might have been for most seventh year boys, Draco found the whole plan pleasing in a cold, detached sort of way. Satisfying. Like putting together a cardboard puzzle.
But then, of course, he met Hermione.
A kaleidoscope.
~
The Yule Ball was the best it could be, considering that it was hosted by Hogwarts.
Draco hadn’t really wanted to attend. But Headmaster Karkaroff insisted on the presence of all his favorites, so—dressed in stiff formal robes and bored out of his mind—Draco showed face.
His date had been arranged for him. She was a petite, honey blond Beauxbatons girl in his year, who very clearly hoped to make a positive impression on Draco.
He did all the right things to make the evening pleasant and just flirtatious enough for Belle (was it Belle? Maybe Blanche?) to stay eager, yet not quite flirtatious enough to demand any follow up interactions once the night was over.
Draco’s school champion, Viktor, had a Hogwarts girl as his date.
She was remarkably beautiful, and being as her date was the most famous Quidditch player in Europe, Draco was not the only one to be eyeing her with warm curiosity.
Not his usual type. She had some freckles, and Draco’s mother had always told him that unblemished skin was most desirable. But freckles looked good on this girl.
And she had the most amazing smile Draco had ever seen.
Wide and beaming. No shrewdness or sharp-eyed strategy, even though her date was one that almost any other girl here would have gladly stabbed her between the shoulder blades to get. She radiated pure happiness.
Draco looked at her for a few moments longer than was normal. And he, along with everyone else in the room, fell very briefly in love with her.
But then the Beauxbatons girl tugged at Draco’s hand and he looked away from Krum’s date.
“You want to dance?” he asked Belle or Blanche.
“Oui!”
“Allons-y, then.”
Draco danced with the girl and didn’t think about Krum’s date for the rest of the party.
Afterwards, Draco decided he’d partaken in enough innocent festivity to have earned himself a few sips from the flask he’d snuck in. The Hogwarts students might be tooth-achingly wholesome, but he was a Durmstrang seventeen year old. In his pockets were Firewhiskey, cigarettes, and a pocketful of Galleons for when the other boys finished with their dates and were ready to go to the speakeasy slash strip club that one of their father’s owned in Diagon Alley.
Until then, Draco wandered into an empty classroom and took a few swigs of liquor while looking at an Arithmancy proof on the chalkboard.
He snorted.
Good grief. He’d never seen a more pathetic attempt at a proof.
Draco picked up a piece of chalk and prepared to remedy it, but just then there was the unmistakable sound of a row in the corridor outside.
A girl was yelling, fury evident in her voice. There was the sound of her little heeled shoes stomping down the corridor.
Draco, having no desire to interact with her, dropped the chalk and took a few slow strides back into the more shadowy recesses of the classroom. Which was a good thing, because shortly afterwards the girl ran right into the classroom.
It was Krum’s date.
Draco’s eyebrows lifted. Had she rowed with Viktor?
He took the opportunity to take in the sight of her again. She was very pretty, though her previously joyous face was now streaked with tears. She rubbed her cheeks angrily, slamming the classroom door shut behind her.
Draco grimaced and tried to keep his breathing quiet. He had no interest in comforting this girl, however beautiful she was. He had expended most of his social performance energy already on Belle-Blanche.
Luckily, Viktor’s brunette date seemed distracted with her own problems. She covered her face with her hands and gave a muffled, angry scream.
What had Viktor done, Malfoy wondered with some amusement, to upset this girl so much?
But then the door flew open again (Malfoy groaned inwardly) and a boy ran in. A redheaded boy, with long ungainly limbs and a scowl on his face.
“Go away!” the girl screamed. “Haven’t you ruined my night enough?”
“Come on, Hermione! Don’t act like I’m wrong. You’ve been dancing with the Durmstrang champion all night, you don’t think that—?”
“No,” the girl (Hermione?) snarled. “No, I don’t think. And you know what? Maybe I’m tired of thinking! Maybe I’m allowed to dance with a handsome, famous Quidditch player without having to worry about what you’ll think!”
She had a surprising amount of fight in her, Draco had to admit. And her face was somehow even harder to look away from now, flushed with anger. Her eyes flashed like dangerous, sharply cut jewels.
Draco stared.
“You’re fraternizing with the—“ the boy started saying.
But Hermione whipped out her wand then and pointed it directly at the boy’s face. She screamed a spell and a dozen golden birds flew out of her wand and shot towards the boy like so many gold-tipped arrows. He yelled hoarsely and fled the room, the birds drawing blood from his face and neck.
Draco was, by this time, undividedly interested in Hermione.
Nobody was watching him—she didn’t even know he was in the room—so Draco didn’t have to worry about how his face looked. If he’d been in a crowd, he would have had to pay careful attention to his expression. Probably he would have frowned very slightly—not to show displeasure, but to indicate careful thought. His eyes would have been soft and curious, in a friendly way. All the little things he’d learned to do, so as not to scare people.
But here, in the shadows, Draco didn’t have to mask himself. So he stared at Hermione with naked interest, his eyes hard and hungry. He’d never seen that spell before. Had Hermione invented it herself? He never would have guessed such a sweet-looking girl could be so vicious.
He darted his gaze all over her, starving for more information.
Hermione’s lipstick was smeared. So she’d been kissing someone, then. Not the redhead; he had no lipstick on his mouth. It must have been Krum.
Draco felt a cold and foreign tide of jealousy in his stomach.
He continued to watch as Hermione stamped her foot and screamed into her hands, obviously still furious at the red-headed boy. It was oddly cute. A smile flickered across Draco’s face.
Hermione then smoothed her skirt down, still breathing hard, but seemingly preparing to re-join the ball. She fiddled with her hair and started walking out of the room.
Draco was struck with the bizarre urge to follow her, but then Hermione stopped abruptly in her tracks and he recoiled silently back into the shadows.
Hermione wheeled to face the chalkboard. She glared at the clumsy scrawlings, and—with an angry, frustrated pah! of derision—snatched up the same bit of chalk Malfoy had held earlier. In seven vicious scrawls Hermione fixed the proof. Then she slammed the chalk back onto its holder and stormed out of the room.
Draco stared after her. He realized distantly that he had, at some point, become hard.
~
Hermione’s date with Charlie Weasley was on Wednesday evening.
She’d felt a little disappointed when he told her that Friday wouldn’t work, that he was supposed to have drinks at the pub with his brothers and Harry that day.
But Wednesday, she told herself firmly, wasn’t bad. It didn’t mean that he’d be keeping her a secret from them forever. Just now—on their first date. That made perfect sense.
She left work a little early to run home and change out of her work clothes. She did her hair, then her makeup, and was out the door again.
Draco was in the hall as well, waiting for the lift. At the sight of her he smiled.
“Hey,” Draco said. He was holding a bag of groceries. “Wow. You look great.”
“Oh! Thank you—I’m just on my way to a… dinner.”
Hermione realized she didn’t want Draco to know it was a date. She was—truthfully—starting to wish it wasn’t a date. Having drinks with Charlie had seemed fun and a little naughty when he suggested it last week, but now that the day was here, dread filled her stomach. What was she doing? Ron’s older brother?
She cleared her throat.
“Are you heading somewhere too?” she asked.
“Yeah. One of my friends is having a dinner party.” He gestured to the grocery bag. “I was tasked with bringing wine and dessert.”
The lift arrived and they stepped in. Draco shifted slightly, rebalancing his grocery bag. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows. He had nice arms, Hermione noticed. They looked... strong.
“Looks like you’re running late?” Draco asked.
“Hm? Oh!” Hermione said, checking her watch. “Yes, a little. I think Charlie will probably—”
With a jolting sway, the lift came to a halt.
Hermione toppled to the side, catching her balance against the wall. She had changed out of trainers and into sandals for the date, and her ankle nearly twisted. Draco caught her arm with his free hand.
“Jesus,” she said, straightening up. “What was that?”
The lights in the lift flickered on and off, on and off. She couldn’t make out Draco’s face, but heard him clear his throat.
“Is your ankle alright?" His silhouette looked around. "Looks like the lift broke.”
“Oh, no. God—I can’t be any later than I already am…”
Hermione pulled her wand out of her dress pocket and opened the small compartment in the elevator that held its magical workings. She tried to peer inside—sparks flew and the compartment made an insulting sort of farting noise. These damn, truculent building appliances…
Draco laughed, then started picking up his groceries.
“Shit, sorry,” Hermione said, whirling to help him. “I didn’t see you drop all that. I didn’t even thank you for catching me.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Hermione helped Draco pick up the cake box, which was luckily only slightly smushed, while he picked up the wine bottle.
“I’m glad this didn’t break,” he said, checking the bottom of the bottle. “Those pretty shoes of yours would be no help against a floor full of broken glass.”
“Thanks,” Hermione laughed. He must have great eyesight, to be able to see her blue sandals in this flickering half-dark.
She handed the cake to him and then turned back to the lift compartment box.
“Reparo,” she said hopefully.
The lift box barked a creaky laugh and slammed shut, narrowly missing her fingers.
“They’ve got a mind of their own,” Draco said. She heard him shift a little, saw his silhouette check his watch. “It’s still five minutes to eight. Was that when your date was?”
Hermione was glad it was too dark for him to see the way her cheeks heated. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t a date—she was harboring an increasingly intense crush on Draco, and didn’t want him to think she was unavailable. But she couldn’t lie.
“Yes,” she said. “But it’s—I don’t know. I’m starting to wish I had never agreed to it.”
Draco’s silhouette shifted a little.
“Then… maybe it’s good that you’re not making it on time,” he suggested.
“Optimistic outlook,” she said with a weak laugh. “I like that.”
“We can’t always control events. But we can try to control our mindset,” he said with gentle fondness. “I am the captain of my soul, as the poets say.”
“Invictus?”
“Yes.”
Hermione sighed, leaning against the wall. She slumped to the ground. The lift was tiny, and her toes nearly touched the opposite wall when she stretched her legs out.
Draco sat next to her and his legs were too long to extend. He relaxed against the wall with his knees partially drawn up, setting the bag of groceries between his legs.
“Well—the earlier part of that quote says differently,” Hermione said, fiddling with her sandal strap. “I am the master of my fate. If I really were the master of my fate, my life could go just as I wanted it to.”
Draco didn’t say anything to this for a moment.
They were sitting very close together, here in the blue-ish half-dark of the broken lift.
Hermione could feel the heat from his shoulder. She could hear the sound his wool trousers made, shifting against the thin carpet of the lift floor.
“It’s never possible to really master fate,” he finally said. “You can only guarantee so much. There will always be some things you just have to hope for. Though it's good to try to control as much as you can.”
Hermione smiled, though she was sure he couldn’t see it.
“How very romantic,” she said.
“Yes,” Draco said. “I think so too."