something that burns brighter
In all the years he had spent devising words to wound Hermione Granger, Draco had never deigned to call her by her name. It felt as if he was speaking aloud a word he had only ever read in books, carefully metering the syllables to ensure proper pronunciation. Embarrassingly, he found becoming himself light headed. He paused briefly at the apparition point to in order to regain his bearings. “Idiot,” he said aloud to the meadow before turning on his heel.
Percy Weasley was already seated at the little muggle café where they had met every week for the past five years. Straight-backed, he adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses that needed no adjustment. “Draco,” he said in a clipped tone.
“Percy,” Draco said, tipping his head. “Care to hear about my latest crimes?”
“As your lawyer, I am once again advising you to alter the way you greet me. One day the Daily Prophet will get wind of the things you say I swear to Merlin” he said, removing his carefully adjusted glasses to rub his eyes.
“I’ve been considering getting back into pure-blood fascism these days.”
Percy groaned in answer, pulling out a stack of forms from his dark leather briefcase. “Obviously, there are no updates to your case. The Ministry is still keen on keeping us buried in inane paperwork. Luckily-
“Your name is Percival Inane Weasley.”
“Draco, you know my middle name is Ignatius. Luckily, I am well versed in these particular forms and I am rapidly reaching the end of the proverbial line.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning in a few months’ time,” he said, a genuine smile now thawing his stern features, “you’ll be cleared to own a wand again.”
Draco shrugged his shoulders non-committedly. “I appreciate your efforts but I don’t think they’ll ever let me own a wand again,” he drawled, watching Percy’s smile wane. “I am the only marked Death Eater roaming outside of Azkaban. And I don’t think there’s a version of the world in which I am allowed to partake in magic again.”
“Just give me a little time Draco. Didn’t I famously get them to release you, thus making you said only marked Death Eater roaming outside of Azkaban in the first place?”
As usual, Draco found himself wanting to take solace in the quiet authority of Percy’s words. In his beliefs borne out of diligent work and a crisis-weathered ethos. There, sitting across the table, was someone who had also gotten it all wrong. Yet from the rubble of his old world, he had patiently reoriented himself, becoming a better brother, son, man.
I wonder what it is like to have a family who will gladly usher you back into the side of light.
“They only let me go because they got tired of your face and your legalese.”
“That’s the spirit. Anything new on your end of things?”
“Yes actually. Hermione Granger is living in my backyard.”
“Hermione Granger is what?!” Percy coughed loudly.
“Hush, think of the Daily Prophet reporters,” he teased, albeit momentarily second-doubting himself and casting a quick glance at his surroundings. “Hermione Granger is living in my backyard. She’s hired me to help her brew a particularly complicated potion. Do not breathe a word about this to anyone, I don’t want your family showing up at my doorstep with murderous intent.”
“Never in a million years would I have thought notoriously autonomous problem solver Hermione would be asking you of all people for help.”
“While I am a rather competent potion maker, I am just as surprised as you.”
He found himself conjuring the image of her at his trial. Beyond the bars of dark wrought iron that encircled him, he felt as though he was seeing her clearly for the first time in his life. She spoke with an assuredness he knew he had never experienced even a fraction of in his life. Her face bore some unnamable emotion. Grief, rage? No, something that burns brighter. As a child, his parents had once brought him to a church in France in which a famous wizard had been interred. He recognized the look of the martyrs that had puzzled him, then, on her face. Righteousness.
Later - when the paperwork had been filled and filed - Draco stood to leave, feeling a sudden flash of nervousness at the prospect of returning to a home in which he would find Hermione Granger. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Percy said in a serious tone.
“I don’t think she would harm a wandless wizard.”
“No, I meant with her. She doesn’t act like it but she’s been through a lot, is still going through a lot. Just try your best to be kind.”
I don’t think anyone has ever taught me kindness. “And how would you know that?”
“I was your Head Boy don’t you remember? I keep an eye on all of you. That’s why I’m your lawyer”
∆
She had set up her tent, a thick white canvassed structure with a tin chimney. He spotted her kneeling in the dirt, face deep in a lavender bush, her loose hair dotted with small faded purple grains. Not wanting to startle her, he cleared his throat loudly.
Her shoulders tensed at the sound, her hand automatically reaching for her wand for a split second before steadying herself - a practised motion. She stood up, brushing dirt from her jeans. “Your lavender smells very nice,” she said.
“Thank you,” he answered. Idiot.
“My mother used to make little cloth bags of lavender and put them in my drawers so my clothes would smell nice, I’d forgotten.”
There was a sorrow so deep in her that Draco felt the need to avert his eyes. “It’s the first thing I planted here. It took me so long to plant everything without magic, I was so shit at it. I spend so much time with my head in bushes everything I ate tasted like lavender for weeks,” the words tumbled out of him, some primal urge moving him to attempt the quell her impromptu melancholy.
“Does that mean you can’t stand the smell now?”
“On the contrary, I’ve acquired quite a taste for it.”
He saw her mouth twist ever so slightly in amusement. A foreign thing fluttered inside him. Is this what it is to be kind.
“Should we begin?” she asked.
“Right. We’ll need to start by harvesting and drying out the rue.”
They toiled quietly under the sun. What Draco perhaps loved best about potion-making was its repetitive motions. Sever the herb from its stem, dry it on a rack, crush it. A thousand small invisible sequences made up the substrate of any given potion. Idly he wondered about the motivations of his unlikely gardening companion. What could the brightest witch of our age possibly liquid need luck for? He watched her sit back on her heels, letting out a quiet sigh. He considered possible scenarios that would drive Hermione Granger to seek help from him and not her rabble of friends, family and ministry connections. Perhaps she hasn’t told anyone what she’s planning, but why? Pride? Embarrassment? Stubbornness?
Rolling up her sleeves, she continued diligently clipping the herbs. He saw it then. The years had faded it somewhat, yet the jagged word his aunt was still there, carved into her arm. Her eyes met his and he quickly averted his gaze.
“Healers couldn’t do much,” she said neutrally. “Not that I think much about it anymore, it’s just there on my body. A thing that happened to me.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About everything.” I’m sorry I taught you that word and that my deranged aunt carved it into you.
“Yes, I know you are. I read your letter.”
He had penned it in Azkaban where he spent days and nights haunted by her screams of pain, her writhing body on the floor of his childhood home. She had seemed so vulnerable then. A part of him, in spite of all his hard-held prejudices, his world-shaping bigotry, could never envision her being captured, of being in danger of being killed. In spite of his disdain for her, he always considered her something akin to a touchstone – some invulnerable thing against which he would always bitterly measure himself. He realized how childish he had been as he saw his aunt reach for the knife.
“I’m glad.”
“I know Harry and Ron got one too.”
“Obviously,” he drawled, unable to stop himself. “It is the Golden Trio. And I was shit to each one of you.”
“You were quite shit weren’t you?”
“I had my moments.”
“Are you still shit?”
He absentmindedly rubbed a stem of rue between his thumb and forefinger. “I am trying my best not to be.”
“Good.”
Satisfied they had enough clippings, they carried the rue into his potion room and began tying their stems with twine to his drying rack. So engrossed they had been in their task they hadn’t realized that night had fallen. Outside the cicadas grew louder.
“Would you like to eat something?” he asked her, feeling his previous anxiety return as his hands were no longer busy with set manual tasks.
“Oh, I have a kitchen in the tent. I think I’ll retire for the night. Thank you for offering though.”
“Right well, if you need anything you know where to find me.” Idiot.
She gave him a small smile and disappeared into his yard, her hair swallowed by the darkness of the night. He stood there, watching the space in which she had stood long after she had retreated into her canvassed door.