Turning the Page

Draco is a chicken. When he sees Granger the next day, he tells her that he has to rush off somewhere vague. He mentally thanks Laura for having the muggle shop close at the same time the wizarding one opens. Sure, there will be some crossover, but if he wants to avoid Granger, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

He just goes home and sits around until his stomach reminds him he hasn’t eaten all day. 

Catching up with Pansy was nice. It made him feel a bit less broken. Like maybe he could be the ‘contributing member of society’ everyone wants him to be.

When staring at the four walls of his flat gets old, Draco stands up and makes himself supper.

After he eats, he works on the stack of translations he’d brought home with him.

It’s nice to have something to occupy his mind. He’d been having a really hard time quieting the anguish and self hatred.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Granger appears three hours before Draco’s shift ends.

It’s been three days since he’s held more than a two second conversation with her.

He continues down the aisle he was restocking, shifting the books in his arms.

“I’m not avoiding you,” he lies.

“Do you really still hate me? After all these years?”

What? Draco turns around to look her in the eye and assure her that he definitely does not hate her.

She looks upset. Her arms are crossed and is leaning forward, as though ready to charge.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I don’t hate you.”

He should say more than that. Like how grateful he is to her for helping him escape the first circle of hell.

“But you have been avoiding me,” she says, uncrossing her arms.

Draco doesn’t want to admit it, so he turns back to the shelves.

Except when he pulls two books from the stack in his arm it slips and pain shoots through his wrist.

Draco lets out a hiss.

“Are you alright?” Granger’s tone changes.

Draco doesn’t turn around, he just swallows down a small pained whimper and nods his head.

“I’m fine. Just busy.”

“Draco,” her hand is on his shoulder. 

He shifts the rest of the books to sit on the shelf and turns.

“I hurt my wrist a couple weeks ago, at work,” he shows her his wrist which is still tender. 

“And you haven’t seen a healer?”

“I couldn’t afford to,” he says, using the past tense even though he still can’t afford more than food to eat.

She looks at him and he hates the flash of pity he finds there.

“Come on,” she says, tugging on his sleeve.

Draco has no choice but to follow. She takes him through the door, and grabs her wand from the table.

“You don’t have to-,” he starts, but she puts up a swotty hand and he goes quiet.

“I’m going to fix it, and then you are going to promise that if you get hurt again, you will come to me,” she gives him a fairly intimidating look that makes him nod.

She wants him to go to her for help.

It’s an easier said than done situation.

Draco spent five years getting beaten by guards and prisoners alike. He’s had more broken bones than he can remember.

What he can’t remember is the last time someone took the time to notice he was hurting, much less help him.

“Brackium emendo,” she casts, and Draco can feel his bones healing, knitting back together. There is a brief pinch, but then all of the pain is gone.

Flexing it back and forth, he wonders if she’d reset the bones in his other hand that had healed incorrectly over a year ago.

“Draco? How does it feel now?”

His breath goes shaky.

His hands are sweaty and his eyesight goes pitch black. He tries opening his eyes, focusing on something, but the darkness is everywhere.

"Look at me," Granger says in the distance and he tries to open his eyes again.

“Draco!” It’s louder, but he can’t quite hold onto it. He’s just trapped in his own mind, everything flooding back.

“It’s okay,” the voice soothes and Draco scrapes the further recesses of his mind for warmth. It’s there, at the edge of all of the pain and suffering.

A warm light that he hasn’t seen in years.

When he opens his eyes, his pulse is still thundering in his ear and his breathing is ragged.

“Draco?” Granger asks and he looks down to where he is clinging to her hand with his own, his knuckles white.

“Sorry,” he manages, pulling his hand back and stepping towards the door.

He needs to quiet his mind but he can’t.

“You need to breathe,” Granger stops him by taking his hand once more and this time pulls him towards the chairs they had sat in just a couple of days ago.

His lungs can’t quite get enough air.

Draco’s jaw is tight, like he is going to start chattering from the cold, but it’s warm in the store.

He is in the store.

“What can I do?” Granger asks.

He shakes his head, having no idea what is going on in his mind right now. It’s like he has no control over his body.

“Levi asked me who you were,” Granger says.

He shakes his head, not following.

“Actually he asked me why you were so pale, but then he asked who you were,” she says lightly.

Draco can’t breathe, or it might have made him smile.

“Focus on your breathing,” Granger says. “He’ll be three in April. Levi.”

Draco takes a deep breath in, but it still isn’t enough.

“I went to muggle University after Hogwarts,” she says.

He gets a sudden visage of Granger with her hand up.

“Which one?” he manages to spit out.

This time, breathing feels less impossible.

“Oxford. Just outside London,” she answers, and Draco notices she is tracing soothing circles into the back of his hand.

“I studied linguistics and did a bit of language anthropology. I think you’d like muggle university.”

“Oh yeah?” Draco sounds more like himself now.

“You were always top of our class,” she shrugs. “After me of course.”

He manages a scoff, which makes her smile bigger than he’d ever had the privilege to witness before.

“I was worried I’d lost you there for a minute,” she squeezes his hand and then lets go.

He misses it but doesn’t say anything.

“Has that happened to you before?”

Draco nods, thinking of how inescapable the attacks were in Azkaban. It’d take hours for him to crawl back to himself.

“I get them too sometimes,” she surprises him. “From the war.”

His heart clenches and he focuses on breathing.

Thinking of what she’d suffered at the hands of his family might send him into another panic and he is mortified enough as it is.

“Is that where you met Levi’s father? Oxford?” A distraction.

Perhaps not a very good one, but the only one his muddled brain could conjure up.

“Yes, Mason and I were in the same year,” she nods.

Draco can’t help but notice a faint blush that rises in her cheeks.

“Mason?”

“What? It’s a lovely name. Mason Walsh. Proper English name,” she laughs.

Or a profession. He doesn’t say that though.

“You two didn’t work out?” 

Granger looks down at her hand and Draco realises he’s made a mistake.

“He died actually, just last year.”

Fuck. He shouldn’t have said anything. He should have just been grateful she’d shared that she’d gone to university.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry,” he says awkwardly.

“Please don’t apologise, you didn’t-,” she starts waving him off.

“No, please Granger. I need to apologise. I made your life hell during school and played a large part in the war. I made so many mistakes that caused you hurt and I should have said something sooner. I’ve just been so lost and terrified.”

She goes quiet and he wishes he could see what she is thinking about.

“We were both young, and we’ve both suffered too much. I’d rather get on with living my life, wouldn’t you?”

Merlin, she’s pragmatic.

But Draco nods, because he agrees. He’d like to stop living in the past. Some days it feels like his feet have been jinxed in place and he’ll never move forward.

“Thanks for healing my arm,” he stands up, knowing he should get back to the muggle side.

“You’re welcome, Draco.”

“Your total is £14.79,” Draco says to the woman across the counter.

It’s a sweet older muggle woman who’d asked him to show her to a rather racy romance novel.

“You are new,” she says.

“Yes, ma’am,” he rocks back on his feet.

“And handsome,” she hands him a £20 note.

Draco focuses on getting the woman’s change rather than her words.

“I have a granddaughter that would be just perfect for you,” she says, tucking her change back into her small pink pocketbook.

Draco tries to think of a polite way of telling the woman to fuck off, sliding her book into a brown bag and then a bookmark with the store's name and address printed on it.

“I could give her your number,” she winks, taking the bag.

“I’m seeing someone already,” he shrugs, hoping she’ll accept the lie and be on her way.

“Oh is it that girl who works here? She’s gorgeous. Prettier than my granddaughter,” the woman says conspiratorially.

This actually does make Draco smile.

“No, she doesn’t work here. Have a lovely afternoon,” he settles on charming her out the door.

She seems to get the hint because she nods and then winks again before making her way out of the store.

Draco could swear he hears her mutter “so handsome” under her breath.

So far, Draco has come to realise that there are several regulars who seem to give the store most of its business.

Most of them are harmless, if a bit too chatty for his taste.

It’s the older women that cause problems. In the last week, not less than five women have tried setting him up with their niece, or their daughter, or their granddaughter.

In the wizarding world, matches are carefully crafted. Drawn up decades in advance.

Muggles don’t seem to have any problem treating relationships like a game of gobstones. Just throw it all out there and see what sticks.

Draco sits down after cataloguing the woman’s purchase, opening a copy of The DaVinci Code which was, so far, a bit of a disappointment.