September 16, 2001
"Each of you tell me one fact about yourselves."
There is no sound in this room. Minimally decorated with just a white chair, a matching love seat, and a coffee table between them, it is impersonal and soulless. The coffee table could've used a fresh bouquet, in Hermione's opinion, and the silence could be helped with the ticking of a muggle clock.
Instead, it is horrendously awkward. So awkward that Hermione, who had planned to not even speak out of principle, finds herself desperate to begin a soliloquy just to end the suffering. She shifts uncomfortably in her spot, which is difficult as she'd pressed herself as firmly against the arm as possible to keep distance between herself and him.
The witch across from them just blinks, waiting to observe which of them will inevitably break the silence. Hermione internally compares her to Dolores Umbridge, the only person she'd ever met as soulless as this room, though it is a bit unfair. Mind Healer Trinkle looks much less like a toad, after all. She is perhaps more of a horse, with her large, dark eyes and long face.
Hermione senses that he shifted his slack clad legs, and a moment later his voice echoes in the empty space.
"I don't enjoy tea." His voice is flat, uninterested, eager to get through the mandatory hour without saying much of anything.
He isn't lying. Hermione had observed him many times during their sixth year, trying to determine if he'd joined the dark side or not. He always drank coffee. No additives, either. Just black.
She supposes he must've needed a lot of energy to attempt murder on a daily basis.
Healer Trinkle hums, and a quick-quotes quill appears in her lap to jot it down. Her big eyes flicker towards Hermione now, and she lifts her chin a bit to feel more in control.
"I enjoy tea," she blurts out.
There, she thinks. Clearly they are fundamentally incompatible. Surely Healer Trinkle will notice that and recommend them for immediate separation.
Somehow, though, Hermione's response makes Healer Trinkle smile.
"How do you take yours?" she asks.
Hermione blinks at her. This woman is meant to be thoroughly educated. This therapy session is meant to be conductive. So far, it feels like an awful joke.
"I fail to see how that matters," Hermione answers honestly, voice a bit crisp with her aggravation.
He snorts from beside her. She clenches her jaw. He finds this amusing, does he?
"This is just to ease you into talking about yourself with a subject that doesn't make you vulnerable," Healer Trinkle explains patiently.
Hermione bites back a scoff. She struggles to stay in her seat and not storm out of the room. Vulnerable. Vulnerable! Oh, what a joke! If these bastards had cared about anyone's vulnerability, they wouldn't have forced strangers into marriage, something meant to be sacred! Now, she's sat beside him, wearing a wedding band, and stuck in a couples therapy session that she doesn't need, because she's not meant to be in a relationship at all!
"Fine," she snaps. "Milk and three tablespoons of honey."
The quill jots the words down. Hermione eyes it with disdain, recalling that cockroach Rita Skeeter having one, too. It wrote down exaggerations and lies. She wonders if this one will do the same and she will one day see it in the paper. She and her husband are quite popular among the writers these days, after all. The poor mudblood betrayed by the government she helped save matched with the horrid Death Eater who should be in prison, or sometimes the tale of two star-crossed lovers coming together through blood, sweat, and tears, or perhaps the golden girl helping a lost boy find the light.
Positively vile.
"You like some sweetness, then?" Healer Trinkle asks.
Hermione gives a small nod, having no inclination to speak anymore. It is clearly a waste of time, Ministry mandated or not.
"Would you say that translates over to your interpersonal relationships?" she pushes. "Do you typically form relationships through general niceness and small talk?"
Hermione is now realizing that she should've answered first. He'd spoken once and never again. He'd announced himself and then hid behind her, thus camouflaged. He'd sacrificed her. He was always selfish, of course, so she supposes this isn't a surprise.
"No," she answers stiffly.
Healer Trinkle raises an eyebrow. "No?"
Hermione takes a brief moment to fantasize about slapping her. It brings her a small fissure of joy, though it's no comparison to the satisfaction she felt when she'd slapped him all those years ago.
"I do not typically enjoy unnecessary or frivolous conversation," Hermione almost grinds out.
Healer Trinkle smiles then. It is abhorrent to see.
"No, I didn't think you did," she says, and then finally shifts her attention away from Hermione. Hermione nearly sags with her relief. "And what about you, Mr. Malfoy? How do you take your coffee?"
Hermione's insides freeze at the sound of his name, at the reminder that it is also her's now.
"Black," he says primly.
"Bitter, then," Healer Trinkle says, humming lightly in thought. "Would you say that you are a no-nonsense type of person?"
Hermione would argue that he is only nonsense. His hair color is ridiculous, his three piece suits are ridiculous, his unfathomable, illogical floor plan in his ginormous, unnecessarily grand manor is ridiculous. Him being her chosen husband is ridiculous!
"Yes. I like order," he reveals.
Hermione scoffs under her breath. She feels his eyes burn into her for a brief moment before they leave her. She does not breathe until they do.
"Order," Healer Trinkle repeats under her breath, nodding like this is the most interesting thing she's heard all year. "Of course. How do you keep order, then?"
"Servants," Hermione says bitterly, and then immediately bites her lip to suppress her embarrassed blush. Gods, she hadn't meant to say that.
Both sets of eyes are on her now, one prodding at her nosily and the other burning hot. Steadying herself, she forces herself to meet the angry ones.
Draco Malfoy looks supremely unimpressed with her, glaring like she's a child who couldn't follow directions. Part of her wants to bristle at the thought, and another part of her wants to bristle either way, because he looks ridiculously, nonsensically attractive as he does this.
Bloody bastard. Damn blasted government. She might just be losing her mind.
Huffing, she rips her eyes away from him and looks back at Healer Trinkle. "Excuse me," she tells her softly, rising to her feet. "I have to use the loo."
Hermione walks out of the room without looking back, those two pairs of eyes glued to her back as she goes.
She does not return.