Chapter 4
You may not get to live a long life, but I hope that I can at least give you a full one.
October 2006
Hermione was very pleased to see just how well Malfoy had responded to her very ad-libbed, and quickly brewed potion from her first visit. It was difficult for her to brew back in Britain without getting a clear idea of how this potion had affected him. She wondered if it would be possible to owl him on that small desolate island. Probably would have taken twice as long as the time it would take before she would be back again.
Despite that, she had left that warm September day with a wealth of new information on his vitals and responding symptoms. It would really allow her to get into the thick of it once she was back in Britain. She could brew something that would be somewhere closer to perfect next time, something to ease his migraines, to stop the nausea and other symptoms he had grown accustomed to living with. For now, he would continue with the same potion.
Hermione had decided that due to his antics and Shakespearean levels of dramatics, that she would not treat him to the sweets she had brought that day. He could wait until her follow up visit for them. This was, of course, decided very rashly on her angry walk back up to his house from the beach. He had actually been fairly pleasant the rest of the day. But once her mind was made up, it was made up.
The following month, she found herself walking the same path, completing the same journey, except it was much more lovely than the last, with the sun shining out all the clearer, despite it being October by that point already. The fields around her seemed to stretch endlessly that day, and she would have been happy to walk into oblivion just like that. It was a mesmerising tapestry laid out before her, which she found easier to appreciate in the sun. She supposed that there was a harsh beauty that came with the countryside and the rain. However, she still thought she preferred the sun, the same sun that had kissed the face of all humanity before her, the sun that had known Hermione her whole life.
The gnarled oaks and trees that dotted her path, keeping her right, rustled gently, branches stretching themselves towards the heavens. They whispered tales of ancient stories, telling her that this place was filled with old, old magic. She felt at peace. She had not been disturbed again by the fae path on her journey, and for some reason, felt that she should not ask Fiachra about the peculiar raven she was met with on her first day. Some stones, occasionally, were better left undisturbed and unturned.
When she was met by Malfoy that day, she did smile genuinely at him for perhaps the first time ever. She felt content.
Ginny had been right about them. They were not normal, they did not have the benefit of anonymity that a normal healer-patient relationship would bring. She needed to begin treating this relationship as such - something different. She wanted to approach today differently.
“You’re looking very chipper today, Granger.” Malfoy had greeted her in, and she followed him into their shared space. His greeting had made it feel like no time had actually passed between them, let alone a month. Or maybe the calm casualness of it had meant that a lifetime had passed, that they were born again as different people, no longer on different sides of the same war.
“Well, the weather is surprisingly beautiful today. And it is quite peaceful out here, I suppose.” She had begun to unpack herself: tomes; equipment; pens galore. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she hadn’t, “I brought you a few things from the mainland. Britain, that is. Not Ireland. Sorry.” She didn’t know why she had apologised or why her spiel had come out so awkwardly. She cursed herself!
As opposed to letting the awkwardness grip her any tighter by the throat, she retrieved the bag of goodies from her beaded bag. So maybe she had spent the previous night sweetening her already sweet offering up. It didn’t mean anything. She had managed to find a plastic bag on the island, which she had transfigured into a neat little gift bag, which she hoped had managed to nestle inside it the thoughtfulness of her actions. She passed it over the table into his sceptical hands.
As he delicately unfurled the colourful tissue paper within, she noticed that his eyes widened, and perceptibly. First, it seemed to be with shock, and then with genuine joy. He rifled through the bag, smile growing ever wider.
“I also included some Muggle sweets, if you want to broaden your horizons. But I thought that you must have been missing some home comforts, after all these years.” She shrugged her shoulders at him, whilst he continued to marvel through the bag. “Given your sweet tooth, and all.” She wasn’t sure why she had added on that tidbit, and as she noticed his smile morph into something else, she was sure she had just given him ammunition unwittingly. He was ungrounding.
“My sweet tooth?” He flashed a cheeky grin at that, all teeth on display and pearly. She rolled her eyes but could almost feel a blush creeping its way up. Ridiculous.
“You take two sugars in your tea.” She tried her best, her utmost to sound nonchalant about the observation.
“And you noticed?” He was teasing her.
“You used to get daily deliveries of sweets to school!” Now she was talking to him like the spoiled posh boy he was at heart.
“And you noticed.” This time it wasn’t a question. It was a statement that had lulled slowly out of his delicate mouth. And yes, she had noticed. Surely, it would have been hard not to - all of the school surely had noticed! What else was there to his words, then?
He placed all of his confectionery back into the bag after hoking through it, leaving aside one chocolate frog. “This is very kind of you, but surely, as my doctor, you should be advising me away from this sort of filth.” He laughed at himself as he said the word ‘filth’ - he was all schoolboy humour. How dirty and sexually he had said it. He could well have moaned it.
“Give it back, then.” She could play along. She could show him that actually, she wasn’t always the staunch swot he thought she was. She had even stood slightly and leaned herself across the table with her hand outstretched for effect.
In response, he actually had slapped her hand away, calling out, “Oh, Granger, how you wound me. A dying man being denied his little earthly pleasures.” She was shocked by the physicality of it, and because of his playfulness. Maybe he could be nice, maybe he actually was… funny.
It had felt very precarious, though, the whole thing. From the very start, around Malfoy, she had felt as though she were balanced on a razor’s edge. One move too far in any direction. She had expected that surely a little mudblood or two would have surfaced by now. Maybe he would catch himself on in that moment, that he was allowing himself to joke along with a Muggle born.
But it hadn’t come, and so she had laughed along then, rolling her eyes once more. “Eat your bloody chocolate frog. We’re starting in five.” He didn’t need to be told twice.
At some time during her second hour of work on him, the heavens had split, and, as if summoned by some unseen hand, rain had descended with dramatic crescendo. A deluge of calm had seemed then to settle itself between them, heavy but not at all unpleasant. The air had been filled with the intoxicating sweet scent of the earth. Petrichor, the renewing smell of time. Testament to the rain always breaking, the soil’s yearning answered. The earth would keep on spinning, with or without them.