Turning the Page

He’s… excited.

Looking forward to it.

And… he has changed his clothes three times in the last half hour. The second time he made it all the way to pulling on his shoes before he hated the way the collar of his shirt was cut just an inch too low.

He hates the turtleneck. That is where he had started. It felt like hiding.

Now, he has a bloody scarf in his hands. 

“You are not wearing a fucking scarf,” he tells his reflection.

Stalking out of the bathroom, he tosses it on the bed and pulls off his shirt.

Draco is proud of the ink that covers his torso and his right arm. He is even proud of the narcissus flowers on his left. 

They are beautiful and meaningful and - full. Full of emotions he has always been too scared to show.

He goes back to the drawer holding the majority of his clothing and pulls out a soft olive henley with three quarter sleeves.

It covers the mark, but the edge of the flowers and the potions ingredients on his opposite arm are visible.

Perfect.

He changes out of his slacks and into a pair of muggle bluejeans.

Muggle dinner with a muggleborn witch.

He is way out of his depth.

And he is late.

Grabbing his book, his keys, and his jacket, Draco leaves his apartment.

It’s a cold morning, but there are bulbs in his neighbours flower boxes, evidence of Spring just around the corner.

Draco notices more, now that he is out from under the boot of his mistakes.

The bookstore is silent when he arrives and he is grateful that Laura seems to have chosen a late morning. She keeps such sporadic hours it is a wonder this place stayed open for so long before Granger started working here.

He flips the open/closed sign and gives himself busywork, pulling books for the March window displays. 

Granger had done them all in the past. Laura asked him to take the task on.

He was loath to do it.

Crafting isn’t exactly his forte. Except once he had started thinking about it, he’d come up with a million ideas.

And as much as it may not be a masculine theme, he had settled on books titled with flowers.

Chrysanthemums by Steinbeck.

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

Flowers for Algernon.

The Perks of being a Wallflower.

Tulip Fever.

It has been fun to walk through the stacks looking for floral titles.

But books do not a display make.

Which means Draco Malfoy had paper flowers to make.

So that is how he spends his morning. In between customers, he cuts a stack of paper he found in the storage room and glues petals together.

The first few come out terrible. Lopsided and crinkled from his frustration.

But then he finds his groove.

Draco packed his own lunch, so he can pay for the date later, so he hides out in the store, turning over the sign and sitting behind the register, his book propped up in front of him.

Laura waltzes in through the muggle entrance at 2 o’clock and Draco shows her his flowers, which she gushes over a tad bit too much.

He manages to smile instead of scowling though.

“Hermione tells me you are fair at potions,” Laura changes topics smoothly.

“It was my best subject in school,” Draco nods his head.

“I was thinking maybe you could help me, with some brewing.”

Draco tries not to let his face fall.

“Laura, I can’t do magic. Any kind of magic.”

“Auror Brently came to speak to me, you know. Right after you started. He has it out for you.”

Draco is aware of that.

“Well maybe you can’t do magic, but you can dice rat tails and measure out lacewing flies. You can certainly stir a cauldron. Can you not?”

He can’t do any of that without running the risk of something going wrong. Something he would need a wand to protect himself from.

“Yes, but,” Draco shrugs his shoulders.
“And you can do all of that while I watch on, wand at the ready. Dear, I am terrible at potions. I much prefer the cleansings and the charmwork that go along with owning a magical bookshop.”

Again, Laura is proving herself too good for the world in which she lives.

“If Auror Brently figures out that you have been condoning my violation of the ministry’s terms, you could get in trouble. I have a hearing to request access to my wand in a couple of months. I can wait.”

Laura purses her lips and crosses her arms, though Draco knows she is not upset with him.

“Are you sure?”

Draco nods.

He wants to brew potions. Wants to cast a spell. Any spell. Merlin, Lumos would be a wondrous feeling right now.

But he also wants to keep his freedom. 

He never wants to see the inside of a cell again.

“If you change your mind, let me know.”

“Thank you, Laura,” Draco looks at the wall behind her.

“I like this outfit. Very academic,” Laura looks at him, dragging her eyes up and down Draco’s form.

He doesn’t say anything, embarrassed.

She leaves him be and the rest of his afternoon passes with little excitement.

When the store closes he flips the sign, turns off the lights, and then heads for the wizarding side.

Granger is right at the desk when he walks in.

She looks lovely, in a pair of muggle jeans and a scoop neck blouse. It’s purple, and very flattering. It makes the freckles across her nose stand out.

“Draco,” she greets.

“Ready to go?” he asks, shrugging towards the door he’d just come through.

“Just a minute. I want to leave a note for Laura about the hex bags,” she leans over the desk, jotting out a quick message.

Then she grabs her coat and offers him a bright smile.

“Ready.”

Draco holds the door open and they weave through the dark store.

He locks it behind them and then offers his arm.

“A gentleman,” Granger smiles, taking his offer.

“Manners cost nothing,” he quotes his mother, probably quoting some other pureblood mama from antiquity.

Granger chuckles and holds his arm tighter. The temperature has dipped and the sun is already setting, so Draco is grateful the restaurant is just a block away.

“Saffron,” she reads the sign hanging above the restaurant doors. “I’ve been wanting to try this place since we moved!”

Draco feels like he could fly without a broom. 

He’d at least not made a mistake picking the restaurant.

It isn’t busy, but Granger is nonetheless pleased when he says that they have a reservation to the maitre d’.

Once they are seated, Draco is grateful for the menu in front of him.

“How was your weekend?” Granger asks, tipping his menu back so he is forced to meet her eye.

Right. You have to talk to the woman you are out on a date with, Draco.

“It was fine. I did some work for the author visit this week. And I scoped out this restaurant. Oh, and I finished that advanced reader’s copy you gave me.”

“The Kite Runner? Did you like it?” Granger asks, leaning forwards excitedly.

He had liked it. It had very nearly made him cry.

“Is it real?” He asks instead, because the question had been burning in his mind since he had finished it.

“No. It’s fiction. You didn’t like it?”

Draco shakes his head. “No, I did. I liked it. I just thought it was real. Amir, well I thought he was out there somewhere.”

Their waiter comes by and Draco is grateful that Granger handles the ordering.

“That’s why I like fiction so much. You get to live a thousand different lives,” she says when the waiter leaves.

“Like an escape.”

The restaurant is quiet and Draco can’t help but glance around at the other tables, interested in who else is out to dinner on a Monday evening.

“Where would you choose? To escape to,” Granger pulls him back in.

He looks her in the eyes, wanting to turn the question back on her.

“You first,” he says, doing just that.

“I’d probably pick somewhere that no longer exists. The Library of Alexandria. Or Camelot. Places that have been lost to history.”

“Why not somewhere real? Somewhere tangible? Have you already been everywhere you want to go?”

She blinks. Then she smiles.

“No, of course not. There are so many places I’d like to go. I just think it would have been remarkable to see magic practised in a time before muggle  invention kicked off.”

“A time without mobile telephones?” he asks.

He’s made her laugh again. He wants to do it all night. 

“You didn’t answer, Draco. Where would you escape to?”

“I had a lot of time to think about it,” he starts, trying not to sound too tense. “I think I’d pick a small corner of the world. Maybe in France. Lozere.”

“And what would you do in your small corner of the world?”

She is gentle about her query and Draco is thankful.

He’d thought a lot about leaving London after his release. About running away from the world that despised him. But he’d have had to sacrifice his magic for good or risk returning to Azkaban. And he didn’t see the DMLE leaving him in his chosen hideaway.

“Maybe open up a sister store to Turning the Page,” he shrugs, finishing his water.

Their food arrives and they each go quiet as they portion out food for themselves and dig in. It is delicious, and hot, and it fills his body in a way that he is so desperate for.

“What would you really do?” Granger asks, apparently not buying his open-a-bookstore statement.

“I’m not sure. Without my magic, I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what would feel like enough. Like I wasn’t just wasting more time.”

More quiet eating. He wishes they’d ordered something alcoholic to drink.

“Levi managed a loop de loop on his children’s broom yesterday,” she mentions.

Draco grins.

“You allowed your son a children’s racing broom?” he asks.

He tries to picture Granger watching her son zoom around on a broom. All he can summon is an image of her biting her nails and hiding her face behind her hands.

“Harry got it for him. Without asking, of course,” she shakes her head, but smiles.

Harry. Right. Her best friend.

Except she never talks about him. Is that because she assumes Draco hates Potter still?

“How is Potter?” 

His question doesn’t seem to surprise her.

“He’s fine. He’s an auror,” she says.

Not much detail and she doesn’t seem to want to elaborate.

“And Weasley?” 

“Fine too. Married last year.”

Okay, this is strange.

“Do you not get to see them much?” He asks.

Granger sets down her fork and sinks a bit.

“We’ve just sort of grown apart. It’s my fault really. Going to muggle university. And then Mason and Levi- I didn’t have as much time to see Harry and Ron. It’s my fault,” she repeats herself.

“I’m sure it’s nobody’s fault,” he comforts or tries to comfort. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Oh, no, you weren’t prying,” she rushes to reassure him. “You were being nice. Asking about my friends. You had no way of knowing-.”

No way of knowing that the golden trio isn’t so golden anymore?

“Besides, we are all still friends. Harry is Levi’s Godfather actually. Hence the broomstick. It’s just, he lives so far away and he’s always working. I should really owl him.”

Things had been going so well.

He should have guessed Potter and Weasley would ruin it.

Draco snorts to himself and then tries to think of a better conversation to have with Hermione Granger.

“Are you looking forward to meeting Kid Stuart?” 

Kid Stuart is the author coming to do a reading at the bookstore. Draco had assumed Granger had done the legwork to invite him.

“Yes, very. He is one of my favourite authors. I read all of his books when I was pregnant.”

“Did Levi come out already speaking?” 

She laughs again.

Draco relaxes. He’s managed to move back into safe territory.

“No, but I was worried his first word would be a swear word. My hormones had me all over the place and my fuse became incredibly short.”

“Hermione Granger, a short fuse? I’d have never guessed,” Draco teases gently.

“We had to implement a swear jar after he was born, I swear.”

“A swear jar?”

She is practically giddy now. Bubbly and excited to talk to him. It’s remarkable.

“Every time we said a curse word, we had to put a pound sterling into a jar. It paid for our Christmas holiday to Switzerland,” she clarifies.

And so Draco asks her about their holiday.

Perhaps he shouldn’t be so content to listen to her talk about her husband and their son, but she is so full of joy.

They talk through dinner and dessert and Draco hardly has to share. It makes him want to start building his own treasure trove of happy memories.

After dinner, Draco offers to walk Granger home.

She counters with a stroll around the city.

The tip of her nose goes red in just a few minutes in the cold winter air, but she just tucks in closer to Draco’s coat.

They wind through the streets, pointing out leftover holiday decorations and laughing about muggle versus pureblood traditions. He decides he’d like to experience the American muggle holiday Groundhog Day. Granger had made it seem like terrible fun.

Eventually, they find themselves in front of a row of townhouses.

“Well, this one is me,” she points up a flight of steps to a beautiful white door under a large arch. She still has Christmas garland twisting around it.

“This is where you live?” he asks, looking up and down the street, confident that it was on his route to the Ministry. How many times did they just miss each other on the street?

“I’d invite you up but I’m not sure if Levi is awake. Pansy is terrible at keeping to his bedtime,” she turns, standing opposite him. Close but not too close.

He nods, understanding. She’s a mom. That’s so strange. Yet it fits her like a glove. She’s just the sort of person who should have kids. 

“I’ll just wait to see you inside then,” he stuffs his hands in his coat pockets.

“I had a really lovely time, Draco,” she teeters a bit on her toes.

“Me too, Granger,” he smiles.

She glances up at her door and then back at him.

He should kiss her. Prove how lovely a time he really had.

But in the second where he should have leaned forward and pulled her against him, she turns and walks up the steps.

He curses himself silly, wishing he had an invisibility cloak or a bottle of poison.

“Good night, Draco,” Granger says at the door.

He could walk up the six steps and kiss her now. Or he could ask to see her again outside of work. Hell he could tell her just how pretty he thinks she is.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” is what he says instead, frozen to the ground. “Hermione.”

She’s got the door open now but she shoots him the brightest smile of the night.

Draco may not have managed to romance her, or make a move, but he had managed to call her by her first name.

Which was really saying something, he thought.