The site: a pub, the Hairy Hodag.
The rules of engagement: no wands and no magic. Instead, a sudden-death battle of verbal wits.
After one combatant had gone, the next had to begin a response within three seconds. Any longer and the last to speak automatically won the match.
Most areas were fair game: insults to one’s character, one’s physical characteristics, and one’s sexual performance were highly encouraged.
The topics off-limits (fouls) were attacks on one’s friends or family and attacks on ancestry. Once a foul was called, the guilty party had to begin a new assault within three seconds or forfeit the match.
The prize: a free beer.
As Hogwarts alumni pressed around the scratched little two-top and awaited the start of the match, Hermione flicked fluff from her jumper and coolly regarded her opponent. In response, he cracked his knuckles and met her eyes with a gaze of brushed steel.
***
Back at school, a matchup between H. Granger and D. Malfoy in the Duelling Club had always drawn crowds — not only for the competitive crackle of Muggleborn vs. Malfoy, but because their techniques were so different, each in its own captivating way.
Hermione was direct, fiery, and boxed her opponents in with a slate of conventional, linear offensive spells. She thought ahead, but not by far. She relied on the spectacular force, speed and accuracy of her frontal bombardments and hoped for the best.
Draco was all Slytherin: tricky, oblique, fond of a sneak attack. He could think seven steps ahead, anticipate movements and lay traps. He often used Transfiguration and his awareness of his environment was sublime.
The most famous faceoff between the prodigies had featured a hail of Bombardas and Expulsos and Oppugnos from her side while Draco raised waves to her knees, befuddled her with clouds of feathers, and loosed incandescent spiraling charms that besieged her from the back and from above. He left with his robes in tatters and eyebrows nearly singed off while she left looking like a drenched, electrocuted chicken, each equally frustrated not to have bested the other. Each sportingly telling the other to go to hell.
That had been just months before life darkened and twisted into something else. Something that, all these years later, Draco dreaded revisiting. In eighth year he had given her a long letter of apology to which she’d never responded, and after an initial pang of disappointment, he’d let it be.
Over the years, he gave her space. Instead of begging her forgiveness, he worked on building a life he could be proud of — he was now on a magidemic track in Potions — and approaching life in a different way than he had before.
One of these, he learned over his years of sessions with a Mind Healer, involved letting go of pride. In their twenties now, the war behind them, there was a rising interest in Muggle pastimes and in experimenting with Muggle limitations. Draco, feeling loose and unafraid of embarrassment for the first time in his life, decided to try them all.
He joined Pansy, Blaise, and Theo in trying out an “escape room” which they only fled within an hour because Draco solved the whole thing — the other three sat on the floor talking. Draco almost left without the idiots, but relented and let them out when they promised to buy all his beers for a year.
He tagged along with Luna and Neville to try badminton, whose tiny shuttlecock, in addition to being horrifically named, was somehow even more frustrating than a Snitch. As a Seeker he had a sharp sense of ballistics and aerodynamics, but whenever he tried to anticipate where the small ball of feathers was going, it went somewhere else.
He even let the Patil sisters drag him to karaoke. Draco had never sung in public, but in his new, loose incarnation, he shocked everyone by choosing a song he’d liked on the Muggle radio. After some initial difficulties with the microphone, he swayed slowly, focused on singing in tune and on the beat.
As his sweet, frank tenor wafted slowly through the club — I'm not a girl, not yet a woman — he noticed that everyone was staring, and for a moment his stomach tensed with fear. Was the song stupid?
Then it relaxed. They didn’t seem to be staring in a bad way. Instead they seemed enraptured by him singing about things he was not. Chins rested in hands, conversations died out, and any rogue whisperers were promptly hushed.
In the back of the club he was surprised to see Granger. He saw her here and there, polite words only, also venturing out of her comfort zone. Tonight she was in a red jumper and tight jeans, leaning against a pillar with her arms crossed. Her hair loose and her mouth slightly parted. Her eyes skeptical, amused — well, she had a right to laugh at him if she wanted.
He didn’t see a date or companion with her, and he’d heard somewhere that it was easier to perform if you chose someone in the audience to sing to. In an act of dumb courage, he decided to sing the song to her, locking his eyes on hers. I used to think I had the answers to everything fit her, as did I've seen so much more than you know now.
The line that rocked him with memories of the past and of broken things was All I need is time, a moment that is mine while I'm in between. They were now 25, and while sometimes it seemed like everything had changed and healed, at other times the past seemed just minutes behind them.
He finished the song and replaced the microphone. He’d sung it for her and to her, but it gradually dawned on him that the entire club was clapping wildly. He reddened, then bent down to thank the Patils for bringing him and left. Walking quickly past Granger before she could stop him or critique his performance on the way out.
The moment of intense vulnerability in front of everyone — in front of her — lingered with him. It got to the point that he felt empuddled, a bit out of sorts. You’ve gone soft, mate, he thought as he found himself daydreaming for minutes on end about the song, the stage, her eyes in the back gazing at him. Realizing that deep down, he still ached for her forgiveness.
But one could only puddle for so long. After awhile he slapped himself back to reality. He needed to rebound. To recover his sense of derring-do. That cheerful audacity, that irreverence that had allowed him to dump feathers on her head. The humor that flashed in his eyes as he dodged and fended off her extremely Gryffindor mode of attack. That sense of being gloriously, deliciously her equal.
He was finally tired of groveling for Granger. He was tired of still being the villain in her story — or at least, in what he imagined was her story. Years had passed. If she couldn’t find a new way to see him, he’d have to find a new, encouraging way to see himself.
When word reached him of a Muggle pastime, the “roast battle” or verbal duel, he decided to look into it. The way it worked was by challenge: any individual could challenge another, and if the invitation was accepted, they had a reserved spot at the Hairy Hodag on the next available night.
The matchups so far had been funny and bizarre: Pansy had challenged Ron Weasley, wiping the sticky floor with him, and Padma Patil had challenged her longtime crush Luna, which had devolved into an exchange of compliments each sweeter and more floral than the last. But so far, there had not been a true crossing of wands — a meeting of equals.
Draco was thinking of challenging Potter, who had quick wit and with whom he had found an unexpectedly easy adult rapport. Then Potter himself drew Draco aside at a bar night and gave him news that nearly knocked him off his feet: Hermione Granger wished to duel him at the Hodag the Friday after next.
“She — pardon, what?” said Draco.
While cordial, he and she had not had a full conversation in over seven years. He hadn’t even called her “Granger” to her face since Hogwarts. That didn’t feel earned. So what was this?
“Olive branch, mate,” said Potter. “A chance to mend things in the way you two do best. Come take the absolute living piss out of her and let her do the same for you. It’ll break the ice. I’ve got too many metaphors going now. Anyway — say yes?”
“...yes?” said Draco weakly. And that was that.
Word spread fast of the upcoming duel. Plans were canceled. Dates were broken. When the bar, owned by none other than Seamus Finnigan, learned who was facing off, Finnigan bought and learned to operate a Muggle videocamera. It wasn't every day H. Granger and D. Malfoy were reunited in battle for the first time in 10 years.
Nobody would even consider missing it except Draco himself, who spent several days combing his memories for things to make fun of about Granger, and in the process combed out other memories that he ended up processing with his long-suffering Mind Healer.
When Draco arrived at the Hairy Hodag with Luna, Neville, and the Slytherins in tow, he was greeted like a returned hero. Someone took his coat. Someone else handed him a beer. Granger was receiving the same treatment on her side, Ginny Weasley massaging her shoulders and whispering something in her ear.
Granger met his eyes and looked as intense as she had the day she nearly burned his eyebrows and face off. He shivered.
They took their seats and the rules were read. Granger dug for a coin and they flipped. Draco won and would go first.
“Time,” said Seamus. “Go.”
***
Draco froze for exactly one second, then came out swinging with misdirection: “Oh, Granger, that I were a long, thick, rock-hard — ” everyone laughed — ”800-page Runes textbook, that you might take me to bed with you.”
Scattered cheers and a few claps.
She rolled her eyes. “In matters of length and thickness, don’t even presume to compete with a textbook.”
He laughed in spite of himself. He didn’t have a giant horse cock or want one — he brought plenty of pleasure with what he had to offer. But since she’d attacked pettily on size, he attacked back, finding his rhythm.
“Will somebody please hand me a telescope?” he said, looking around helplessly. “To confirm if I’m actually dueling a grown witch or a Cornish pixie — or no, a pomposterous little ant.”
He’d meant to say preposterous, but the crowd hooted as she banged the table. “Ants can carry twenty times their body weight without a featherlight charm,” she scoffed, “while you, Malfoy, stagger under the burden of your riches, your good looks and all that luxurious hair. How do you sleep at night?”
While Draco was processing good looks, Finnigan blew a whistle and he and the other referee, Cho Chang, discussed whether Hermione had fouled by attacking on the basis of ancestry or origin. They ultimately ruled that she had not. Draco, running his hands through said luxurious hair, now had three seconds to respond.
Sleep. Pillows. Sheets. Dreams. “I sleep extremely soundly,” he said casually, “but if I ever woke up and saw you next to me, I’d look outside to see if kneazles flew.”
“And I'd immediately look for a burning smell,” she proclaimed, “because I would have woken up in hell.”
I'll buy you a ticket myself, Granger. An old joy stirred in him and he decided to hit harder.
“Hell indeed,” he said, batting his lashes. “imagine how deeply I’d have to wrong womankind to be condemned to a bed with you for eternity.”
“It would wrong the gods themselves,” she said solemnly. “Nothing could offend their eyes more than the sight of us — mating.”
We really are talking a lot about beds. “I wonder if you’ve ever mated, my dear Granger,” he said smoothly. “It would require allowing a suitor to get within ten feet of you and not using Crucio on him as as he did it.”
He kicked himself for his insensitivity as he said it, but she frolicked on. “If he can’t get within ten feet of me,” she crowed, “he’s a pathetic navigator by land or by sea; and if his presence inspires torture, then his courtship skills are worse than your rapport with Magical Creatures.”
Touché. “But I don't think you’ve ever even been kissed, Granger?" he shot back wickedly. “With all the Fiendfyre that spews from it your mouth must be a literal portkey to hell." Hell again. "I don’t think anyone would survive the trip.”
She sniffed. “The only heat in me is the warm blood of a living woman; the one who can’t handle it must be a pile of snow or ice. Are you sure you've ever been kissed, Malfoy? Your victim’s tongue would freeze to yours like a child’s on a flagpole in winter.”
“My tongue is as warm as they come,” he laughed, flushing a little as he said it, “but I expect you’ve bitten many clean off, just as you bite off everything enjoyable in life and spit it back out as tree toads and coal.”
“I’d rather be as plain as a flag on a pole than a slithering double agent, hissing in different ears to find the direction of the wind,” she said grandly.
“You mean plain and simple, like using the same half-dozen dueling spells every time?” he taunted. “And speaking again of poles, are you perhaps in need of one to scale? Or is that 800-page textbook not satisfying your needs, you mad minx?”
“If you knew your fundamentals you wouldn’t need to show off the way you do. And the only pole I need is a poll of everyone here to confirm what I see: the one who’s mad is you.”
The crowd bellowed and his mind clanged, slowing down a bit. “The madman was Krum when he took you to that dance. Potter and Weasley should have turned — ”
The whistle blew. “No mentions of friends or family. Start over.”
He pivoted quickly. “When you turned yourself into a cat with Polyjuice Potion, Pomfrey did us no favors by turning you back.”
She fired back instantly. “When you were turned into a ferret, McGonagall owed that noble animal an apology for turning it back into you.”
Everyone began screaming; they loved the ferret story. Draco was quickly thinking about what to say next when, unexpectedly, his mind went blank.
Because she cheated.
Granger cheated.
Hermione Granger was a cheat.
While the crowd was at its loudest and most distracted, and while he was deciding whether to riff on McGonagall or noble animal, she nudged his foot with hers and whispered almost inaudibly, so only he could hear:
I accept your apology.
***
Everything came to a halt.
“What?” said Draco.
“Three seconds. Two. One. Time,” said Seamus.
The bar erupted. Everyone screamed louder. Seamus slammed Hermione’s free beer down in front of her, liquid foaming over the edges. She drank it quickly, her throat moving as she downed her ill-gotten gains. Everyone whacked Draco on the back and told him well done, including Potter, who said he’d come as close as anyone to defeating Granger in this particular type of battle.
As the crowd finally dispersed and left them alone at the table, she put her victory beer down and looked at him. And, with the competition over and his nerves finally calmed, he truly looked at her for the first time that night.
The red jumper was back. Her hair tumbled loosely over her shoulders again, held back by a black headband. Roses in her cheeks. She looked as fucking smug as could be, after distracting him at the critical moment, and she also looked radiant. Playful. Happy.
Healed. She looked healed.
Draco weighed all of his feelings together, and they were confusing.
He was exhilarated — and a little turned on — from the duel. From finally getting to talk to her. Use his full wits on her. Unleash his full power on her.
He’d missed it so much.
He’d missed her so fucking much.
He was also annoyed that she’d won by cheating. That had been low. And depraved. And cheeky. And it also meant…
“I forgive you,” she said.
It was overwhelming.
“You said some very scathing things to me,” she continued sternly.
He laughed. “Bit of a lifelong habit. And you did give it right back. I hope — I hope none of it was too much,” he said. Remembering other words, said long in the past. Words that had hung heavily between them. A word on her body.
Words he carried deep in his heart as remembrance and resolve to do better.
She rested her chin in her hands. “If anything, you went too easy on me. And of course, I cheated. So when will we rematch?”
“Rematch?” he spluttered. “You want to do this again?”
“Remember how I mentioned your good looks?” she said, smiling. “I want to see you again.”
“Like…to do things together?” he said, in utter confusion. Also praying: I hope she doesn’t like badminton.
“Yes. I’d like to hear you sing again,” she said.
Draco thanked the Muggle Britney Spears for her contributions to his life.
Then he pointed out something important. “You realize this would require me to come within ten feet of you. Regularly.”
“Hell itself,” she said mournfully. “I guess we’re going to hell together, Draco.”
A small thrill passed through him. “Nothing will compel me to kiss you except a Sticking Charm,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“And nothing will compel me to touch you except a full-body search for scales or feathers,” she said primly.
“You looked like a drowned chicken after the last time we dueled,” he grumbled.
“And you looked like an ear of corn that fell out of a chimney,” she said, raising her eyebrow.
His heart pounded with wonder and joy. But he still had questions.
“Don’t you want — Hermione, don’t you want to talk about it first?” he asked plainly. “About everything that happened? Closure and all?”
“We already talked it out, don’t you think?” she said, flagging Seamus for another beer for both of them.
Sliding his in front of him.
Nudging his foot again as she did.
He met her eyes and they said everything that had to be said: What I needed was time. I'm a woman now.
Maybe kneazles did fly after all.