Chapter 8
Draco is having the best morning of his life.
Is this what the books mean when they talk about domestic bliss ?
Hermione demands to wear his button-down shirt. He goes shirtless instead, and she seems to really like that. She keeps leaving lingering touches on his back, his arm, the muscles on his stomach—and she’s barefoot in only his white shirt sweeping the middle of her thighs and they’re making breakfast together.
Maybe everything that happened, everything in the world and everything Draco did, even, was worth it to plop him here in this moment.
Draco tries to help, though he rarely cooks. He makes toast, carefully watching it in the pan as it browns, focused on making sure it’s neither too soft nor too burnt.
Hermione loops her arms around his waist from behind, and rests her cheek on his back.
He brings his hand to his stomach, where her fingers are splayed. He rubs his thumb gently over her knuckles.
“This is amazing,” he says, and Hermione laughs.
“You sound so serious.”
“I am serious.”
She just laughs again and kisses his back—right in the center, her lips soft and warm over his spine, and then goes back to finish making the eggs.
They eat the toast with strawberry spread. Draco did a good job and the crispy pieces came out perfectly, exactly how he wanted them to.
And Hermione’s cheddar eggs are so good.
“Oh my god.” The eggs are creamy and salty and why has he never had cheese in eggs before?! “These are unbelievable.”
“Thank you! Aren’t they?”
Draco takes another huge bite, and if the delicious, savory, fucking God are those chives chopped in and mixed throughout? eggs themselves aren’t enough motivation to eat a whole plate, then Hermione’s beaming face certainly is.
“Wow, you love them!” she says, her smile wide and joyful.
“Yes! Yes I do. Oh, man—are there more..?”
Hermione beams and goes to get him seconds.
“Thanks for staying with me last night,” she says, scooting her chair closer to his. She leans her head on his shoulder and Malfoy turns to look her in the eyes.
She’s smiling at him. It takes him a moment to realize he’s smiling back—absently, not even noticing he’s doing it—just basking in the joy of her presence.
“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”
“Do you have to leave after breakfast?”
There is something a little nervous in her voice. She’s searching his eyes, trying to be surreptitious. She’s hoping he won’t go.
“I don’t have anything to do today,” Draco says. “I can spend more time with you. Though I might need to shower and get a change of clothes…”
Hermione is giddy with excitement and Draco can’t help but laugh.
“I don’t have any men’s clothes here,” she says. “But I can throw yours in the wash? You’ll have to be naked…”
She giggles and Malfoy’s face heats. She is so—sweetly, un-self consciously flirtatious. He wishes he could return some of that energy, and he’s trying. But being naked in Hermione’s flat? The first time he’s here?
He’s too nervous and eager for her affection for something like that.
“I can just pop back to my flat and grab something really quick,” Draco says.
“Really quick?” Hermione repeats, laughing. “Just a quick nip up to London, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says. She’s distracting him, with the way she looks at him.
“It’s hours of driving, Draco. It’ll take you all day to go and come back. Let’s hang out here instead.”
“Oh. Right—I forgot it was that long of a journey.”
“Silly,” she says, giving him an odd look.
“I don’t really want to be naked while we wait for my clothes to wash and dry,” Draco says awkwardly. “Um—maybe you can come with me to buy some new clothes?”
Hermione decides they ought to go to a little street in a neighboring town that has a nice menswear shop. There’s also a place that sells Italian sodas, she explains. And she wants to have one with him.
Draco is, frankly, not that used to wandering around in public, spending a lazy weekend day strolling past shops and looking into window displays.
He stays inside a lot these days, both because he has his own demons and ghosts to reflect on and also because being outside means being subject to the looks.
A lifted eyebrow, an angry glower. Sometimes, in the months immediately after the war ended, people would throw things at him. These days it’s simmered down to a quiet judgment. Nobody wastes their energy on hating him; he’s just… quietly unwelcome.
Not so in the muggle world.
Hermione walks with him through a sunny, tree-lined avenue. The cobblestone streets are shoddier and more broken-apart than Draco is used to. But it’s quaint—so quaint. There are some people wandering about: a mother and her young son, two old men, some laughing teenage girls. Nobody glances at Draco unkindly.
He and Hermione blend right in.
It’s amazing.
She's given him his shirt back—it's wrinkled but Draco doesn't care, it smells like her—and she's wearing an oversized blue t-shirt and some casual black shorts made out of a stretchy material. Malfoy tries to imagine what they look like to muggle bystanders. Just a man and a beautiful girl. Happy.
The trees lining the street are alder, it looks like. Slim, dark trunks exploding into branches covered in round leaves. Malfoy hasn’t walked down an old cobblestone street—crowded and lined with alder trees—in years. Maybe ever.
“What do you think of children?” Hermione says, watching the small boy grab a handful of leaves and toss them a short distance away.
Draco considers the question.
“Cute,” he says, after thinking for a moment. “Small.”
Hermione bursts into laughter.
"What?"
“I bet you were a cute kid,” she says, by way of answer. She takes hold of his hand. “All that blond hair.”
Draco smiles at her.
“I’m told I was ill-behaved and scrawny, actually.”
“I refuse to believe it. Did your parents say that? What're they like?"
It takes Draco a moment to answer. Luckily they’re entering the gelato shop—the one with the Italian sodas—so he has an excuse to be silent as they examine the menu.
“Strict,” he finally says. “Um, these look great. What flavor do you think you’ll get?”
Hermione gives him a look but doesn’t remark on his caginess.
“Hm…” She examines the chalkboard. “Cherry sounds good. Oh, wait, they have pecan? That sounds so interesting…”
“The blueberry looks really good too.”
Five minutes later they’re sitting outside under a red-striped umbrella and slurping on half-clear, half-syrup sodas.
“This is great,” Draco says, surprised and looking down into the fizzing glass. "I've never had one of these before. I always figured it would be watery."
“They're so underrated! Try mine; the pecan is bizarre but not in a bad way—”
By the time Hermione and Draco enter the menswear shop, it is already the best day of Draco’s life. It always seems to be that way, with her. Each day better than the last, each day more shining and beautiful and full of joy.
Hermione’s phone rings while Draco is examining some shirts. Is that a bowling shirt? Do they have anything normal in here—
“Hello!” Hermione calls, sing-song. She’s examining some leather jackets. “Mhm, yes. I’m actually on a date right now.”
She meets his eyes and sticks her tongue out at him. He smiles.
Draco supposes it makes sense that she has some muggle friends. He wonders if it's that other librarian—Miss Hodge?—on the line. Maybe her friends know more about Hermione's history; it could be useful to talk to them, and piece together when she “moved to town”, or where she lived before.
Not that he wants this fantasy to be over. He’d happily live like this forever, if he could. They could move here, to this tiny muggle village—maybe he could buy that little gelato shop and they'd move into the flat above it.
He lets himself daydream.
They would have cheddar scrambled eggs every morning.
He would buy her flowers every day. Twice a day.
“Yes, he’s very handsome,” Hermione says with a laugh. “Yes, very tall. Mm… we haven’t slept together yet, but if I had to guess, I would say he’s very big …”
Draco chokes and turns red; Hermione laughs.
“Listen, I have to go,” she says. “I’ll tell you about him later. Alright. Bye, Gin.”