Chapter 9
“I think I want to go to York university” Draco said as he sat down with Sirius the next day. “And, I think, I would quite like to stay here a bit longer as well”
Sirius looked surprised, which Draco hadn’t been expecting, and he suddenly doubted the offer for him to take the cottage.
“Are you sure?” Sirius asked, hesitantly. “Sure you want to stay here?”
“I mean, I don’t have to if you don’t want me to anymore” Draco said, looking at his fingers twisting in his lap.
“Oh, Draco no of course I want you to. We all want you to. I just thought that you might be put off by whatever went on between you and Harry and Hermione?” Sirius asked, clearly knowing more than he let on, likely told by Hermione herself.
“I don’t think Harry likes me much, or will ever like me much, but that doesn’t change that this is the nicest place I’ve ever been, and that you and Remus are the kindest people I’ve ever met. I really don’t want to go back to my father.”
“Draco, the cottage is yours for forever if you want it. I’ll get Hermione to show you how to use UCAS if you're serious about this. If you want to go this year it would have to be a late application, which doesn’t guarantee a place, or you could go through clearing?” Sirius asked, saying a lot of words Draco vaguely remembered from year thirteen.
“I’m confident enough in my academic ability that hopefully my grades will allow me a place” Draco said, trying not to let himself think of what he would do if he didn’t get in.
“Okay then. What subject were you thinking?” Sirius said, smiling at him.
“I’m not sure. Maybe French with business studies? And then maybe I could apprentice with you in the financial running of the farm?” Draco suggested tentatively, worried Sirius would find him too forward.
“That sounds amazing, and honestly I could do with the help” Sirius said, grinning widely at Draco. Draco grinned back, feeling like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.
True to Sirius’ word, Hermione showed up that afternoon, in running shorts and a cropped polo-top and she and Draco holed themselves up in the office in the farmhouse, and Hermione took Draco step-by-step through the UCAS process, which was much more arduous than he expected.
“Aren’t you going to uni? Any of you?” Draco asked after they had finished. The question had been weighing on his mind for a while.
“I’m doing an online course about law and politics whilst I decide what I want to do. My dad has sickle-cell, and gets quite ill, so me and mum like to be there for him. Harry loves it here too much to ever leave, and this farm is his birthright here. He fits in here as much as the cows do, and he has his a-levels should he ever change his mind. Ron is the same. They’re happy here together. I know- I know that you might not understand that, given the world you grew up in, but there's a lot out there outside education, you know? And lots of people struggle within the traditional academic structure. Ron is really dyslexic, and he found school near-impossible. For him, uni would likely be the same” Hermione said.
Draco tried not to be offended that Hermione assumed he’d judge Harry and Ron for their decisions, but he also had to concede that it was a valid observation to make, and had she told him when he had first arrived he probably would have reacted with disdain.
He applied for French with Business studies as a late application to York and to Leeds as his insurance, and once the final page loaded saying his application had been submitted on the somewhat ancient computer, he felt lighter than he had in a long time, barring his birthday with Pansy. He called Sirius up with excitement to show him, and heard the slow and heavy sounds of Sirius’ feet on the stairs. Draco immediately felt bad for dragging him up if his hips or knees were acting up, but it was soon eclipsed by excitement.
He vacated the chair to let Sirius sit down, and just as Sirius did so a facebook notification flashed across the screen reading ‘Andromeda Tonks has accepted your friend request! Say Hi!’
Draco and Sirius looked at each other and grinned. Five minutes later, another notification that read ‘you have a message from Andromeda Tonks!’ flashed across the screen, and Sirius’ hand was shaking as he guided the mouse to open the message.
Draco read along, muttering under his breath. It read; ‘Sirius, what a lovely surprise to hear from you. So nice to hear about Draco, as well, though I have never met the boy. I am delighted at the prospect of correspondence with you. The ‘black sheep’ of the family, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
When Draco finished reading he looked at Sirius, who had a sheen of tears in his silver-gray eyes. “This is amazing, Sirius” he said, and he heard his own voice crack a little with emotion. He distantly noticed Hermione slip silently from the room to let them have their moment.
“REMUS” Sirius yelled, and the man came running. “What is it, love?” came Remus’ gruff voice. Remus walked in and stood behind Sirius’ chair, bracing his hands on the armrests and leaning over to look at the screen.
“Andi replied to me” Sirius said, turning his face skywards to look up at Remus. A single tear wended its way down his cheek. Remus looked down with the softest expression Draco had ever seen.
“That's amazing, love” Remus said, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to Sirius’ lips. “You should invite her here, t’farm. We could have a family dinner; you, and her, and Draco, all the outcast Black’s together.”
Draco felt his cheeks heat at being remembered; being included. He kept forgetting that he was liked here. His instinct when addressed by adult men was to shrink back, hide himself, become smaller, as he did with his father, his late grandfather before his passing, the teachers at school who still believed corporal punishment should have been legal. To feel safe around men like this was still a new and tentative feeling for Draco.
As he pondered this, Harry’s words swam around his head. God, Harry would hate him so much more if Andi was introduced, as it would be something Draco had in common with Sirius that Harry didn’t. Well, Draco decided, Harry would just have to deal with it. He was nearly twenty now, that was old enough to move beyond feelings of jealousy that revolved around parental figures. and, thought Draco petulantly, Harry had had Sirius and Remus his whole life, Draco had only had them for a few weeks.
Draco was pulled out of his thoughts when Sirius announced that he would think about inviting her to the farm. Draco didn’t understand why Sirius didn’t just do it straight away, but not only was he young and likely couldn’t understand the nuances and complexities of Sirius’ feelings towards his family, he had also only been away from his family for some weeks, almost two months or thereabouts, whereas Sirius and Andromeda had been cast out of the Black’s for years.
Sirius and Remus then descended into conversation between the two of them so Draco excused himself and found Hermione and Harry sitting in silence in the kitchen. It was so at odds to the first time Draco had seen them interact, when Harry had lifted Hermione off the floor with the force of his hug. Draco hated that he was the reason for this.
He said as much, announced it into the stale air of the kitchen. Harry and Hermione both turned wide eyes on him. Hermione immediately started protesting.
“Oh, goodness Draco no, this isn’t about you-” but he cut her off.
“It is though, and none of us need it. I’m sorry my existence is so troubling to you, Harry, but that's between yourself and myself, so make up with Hermione already, okay?” Draco said, directing his gaze on Harry, who hung his head, looking undeniably young in that moment, despite the muscular and scarred arms that told otherwise.
“S’not, though.” Harry mumbled.
“It's not what?” Draco asked, going to the kettle to prepare a cup of tea.
“S’not between us. It’s one sided. Jus’ me being an arse” Harry said, still mumbling. Draco just hummed noncommittally.
“Well I’m not stopping you from being an arse to me. I’m saying to stop being one to Hermione”
“Honestly, Harry. I did not expect this level of immaturity from you. We keep talking about communication.” Hermione interjected.
“That's rich coming from you. Where’s any of tha’ fucking communication between you an’ Ron, eh?” Harry asked, suddenly angry. Draco was honestly surprised.
Hermione looked taken aback for just a second, before taking a deep breath and walking out the room.
“What the fuck was that, Harry?” Draco said mildly as he got two cups down. He watched out the window as Hermione went and sat on the doorstep of his little cottage. He sped up making tea for the two of them, and snagged half a pack of chocolate digestives from the breadbin.
“I don’t know,” Harry sighed. “I just…” but he trailed off into nothingness.
“Well, figure it out. She deserves better than that.” Draco said, tone still light as he tucked the biscuits under his arm, picked up the two cups of tea and walked out, leaving Harry staring at the wall in silence. As he walked out the front door, he heard footsteps make their way into the kitchen and a deep sight.
“What is going on with you Harry?” Came Remus’ deep voice, gentle yet still somewhat reprimanding.
Hermione stood and sniffed when Draco got to the front door of his cottage. “Keys are front pocket” he said and Hermione stuck her fingers in and pulled them out, opening the door for them. She flopped onto the sofa and Draco handed her a cup of tea, setting his down on the little lamp table next to the sofa alongside the biscuits.
“Why does he always have to be like this?” Hermione asked, angrily. Draco lifted an arm and she immediately tucked herself into his side, clutching her mug in both hands. “Whenever he’s in a good mood he’s all about letting Ron and I figure it out for ourselves, but the minute he’s backed into a corner he gets defensive and weaponises it against us.”
“Do you want to tell me about Ron?” Draco asked gently, rubbing his hand up and down her arm. It was weird, doing this comforting thing to someone who wasn't Pansy, but clearly Pans had been good practice, at least Hermione wasn't crying… yet.
“God, where do I start?” Hermione laughed a little. “We’ve known each other since age eleven. Harry, Ron and I all went to school together in a slightly bigger village about a forty-five minute drive away. Harry and Ron had been friends forever and Harry and I gravitated towards each other as we were the only people of colour in our year. I think at first, Ron resented me for what he perceived to be me taking Harry away from him, because of course we had something in common he had no access to.”
Here she stopped to sip her tea, then set the mug down on the floor and tucked her feet up onto the sofa.
“Then, I think he was jealous of my academic ability. Like I said, Ron is really dyslexic and didn’t get a diagnosis until year ten, so the first three years I think he harboured a lot of jealousy towards me, and honestly I encouraged it, unknowingly. I was always so proud of myself, you know? I never shut up when I got good marks or when I got praised and I think it really got to him.
And then, it was fine, you know? Year ten and eleven were good years. We found our groove as a friendship group, and it was like the three of us against the world, you know? And then after out gcse’s we had a group of Romanian exchange students, and one of them asked me to the year eleven prom, and I said yes because a boy had never shown interest in me like that, and it turns out that Ron had been building up the courage to ask me, but Victor got there first and it turned into a whole thing, really put a dampener on our gcse summer, and poor Harry got stuck in the middle of us.”
“That sounds really tough,” Draco said in what he hoped was a soothing tone. Hermione huffed.
“It gets worse. When we came back for sixth form Ron had this girlfriend, Lavender. And Lavender hated that Ron used to like me, and would use every opportunity to undermine me. Really nasty stuff, you know? She would insult my appearance, my clothes, and my nerdiness, and Harry noticed and tried his best but Ron was blind to it, you know? He was so wrapped up in her. Eventually, she started saying he wasn’t allowed to see me without her present, but she lived in the same village as the school, which meant Harry was once again stuck between us at home, like on the weekends and stuff.
Finally, Ron’s brothers spoke a bit of sense into him and he broke up with her, and year thirteen was a bit like a dream. We were all good again, and Ron and I were getting closer and building a better friendship.”
She broke off and sighed again, reaching for her tea.
“These things take time, you know? And we need to have a friendship that is free of that childish resentment before we can start anything more than that, and we’re just not there, you know? We need more time to trust each other as friends and Harry knows that, but whenever he’s mad at us he keeps insisting we just need to hash out all the old stuff and then jump each other.”
Hermione let out a weak laugh, and Draco tightened the arm around her shoulders.
“You’re doing the right thing, you know? And Harry just keeps lashing out at everyone now, so whilst I know it's hard you need to try and not take it personally. I heard Remus go in to talk to him, which hopefully will knock some sense into him” Draco said, reaching for his own tea, and passing Hermione the biscuits.
“Thanks, Draco. I don’t know how I coped before, without you to talk to” Hermione said, giving him a small but genuine smile that warmed him up from the inside out.
“It's nothing. You're the only person under forty who can tolerate my presence so it's the least I can do'' Draco joked, but Hermione detected the underlying dejection.
“Oh, Draco. Ron likes you, you know? He just feels a lot of loyalty to Harry so he doesn’t talk to you much. You would really know if he didn’t like you. I’ll talk to him about talking Harry round” she said, patting his arm in a distinctly motherly way, despite the fact that she had been leaning on him for support just a few minutes ago.
“Honestly, Hermione don’t go to the trouble. He doesn’t need to like me, it's okay. It's not breaking my heart or anything.”
“Look, Draco, at the risk of sounding like an arsehole and viewing you as an object, as much as it's not important to you, it's important to me, and especially Remus and Sirius that Harry isn’t like this. He had a lot of issues when he was younger surrounding his parents and then it all settled and I think Sirius at least saw you coming as a bit of a test to see if Harry was really as… well adjusted as we hoped he was. And I know that sounds awful, and Harry clearly isn’t doing too well, either.” Hermione said, looking guilty as she spoke.
“Thats- thats okay. I understand, I think. And honestly if it had been the other way round and Harry had come to my house and wormed his way into my life there indefinitely, I would have acted like the bratty private schoolboy I very much used to be.” Draco said, trying to be reassuring. Hermione sighed, but her facial expression settled into one of calmness, which Draco took as a win.
“You can stay here tonight? I’ll take the sofa” he said, even though it wasn’t late at all.
“Yeah, that sounds good. We could watch a film?” Hermione asked. Draco nodded and offered her one of his t-shirts to sleep in. He let her change in his room and she came out again, his t-shirt, that was another school one, drowned her, covering her shorts and falling to mid-thigh. Before now, Draco hadn’t quite appreciated the height difference between them, but he often forgot how tall he was, because of how small he had always felt at home.
They watched 10 Things I Hate About You first, followed by She’s The Man, and Remus knocked with a tray of sandwiches for their dinner, and a promise to try and talk to Harry a little bit more, which Draco thought was a little unnecessary. Harry hadn’t done anything but dislike him, which barely felt like a crime, even if it wasn't that nice for Draco himself. He felt like he’d caused a lot of aggro and for no reason.
Eventually, he felt Hermione’s head drooping onto his shoulder and he helped her up and steered her to the bed, going as far as to tuck her in, before he pulled a hoodie on, not bothered to get the blanket from the farmhouse, and fell asleep.