Taste
She staggers through the hoard of bodies, being pushed from side to side by strangers. She feels ungrounded and strangely weightless, like a jellyfish floating in the sea, content to let the waves of drunken students push her to and fro. She floats on like this for a while, lost in the music and the sway of the crowd, before the wave spits her out near the bar. Great—she’d love another drink.
As she finishes telling the bartender her order she spots a shock of bright, blonde hair in her periphery.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
His tone is nonchalant, detached; the voice of someone who is speaking to a child about to pet a rabid kitten, but who has no desire to prevent the inevitable injury and onslaught of tears that will ensue. He clutches his whisky, black leather gloves still on, as if he has just come in from outside. There’s a slight dusting of snow on his hair, only a shade lighter than the layered strands.
It is his voice that startles Hermione. She had been used to hearing a different voice, a different tone: sarcastic and snarky but light, always teasing. Hearing him like this—casual, unaffected, slightly cruel—was like having a rug pulled out from underneath her. She suddenly didn’t know where she stood, where to place her feet.
“I thought you went home for winter break”, she says, trying to pretend that he’s just another college classmate. Trying, desperately, to be civil.
“I decided to come back.”
They drink in silence. Hermione is grateful for the loud thumping bass, the generic pop ruckus that is playing throughout the bar, if only for the fact that it saves her from the unbearably awkward silence that would otherwise undoubtedly unfold between them.
Draco orders another round and pushes a drink towards her.
“A toast,” he says, smirking a little, meaning to mock, but Hermione can see the shadows under his eyes. He looks terrible, like he has not slept in days.
“To new beginnings.” He raises his glass, then drains it. She takes a careful sip of hers, no longer in the carefree, careless mood she was in before she had spotted him.
“That’s unfair, Draco,” she says quietly, more to herself than to him. She’s surprised that he hears her.
“Hardly unfair. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“But it’s not…it’s not like I’m just going to forget you. Chapter closed, moved on—it’s not like that.”
“But that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“I think it’s important for me. For my own self development, you know…” she cringes into her drink as the words linger between them, floating in the tense air. The most cliche break-up lines in history: it’s not you, it’s me.
He laughs without humour. “Alright,” he says. “Enjoy your coming-of-age, ‘finding yourself’ trope. Very original and exciting. I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for in a random stranger going at it between your thighs tonight.”
She feels her blood boil. She stands up, suddenly charged with too much energy and nowhere, and no way, to release it. Shaking, Hermione aims her anger at the only person she can think of.
“If I have a random stranger between my legs tonight then don’t blame anyone but your mother, Draco,” she spits.
He chokes on his whisky. “What?”
“She couldn’t bear the thought that her perfect little pureblood boy was going around with a filthy Mudblood like me on his arm. She was the one that threatened to get me kicked out of here if I didn’t break it off with you. And I am sorry but I have worked way too hard for my place here to let some callous, archaic cow derail my—”
Hermione halted, eyes widening in shock. She didn’t mean to say any of that. She had promised Narcissa that she wouldn’t. Or, more accurately, Narcissa had threatened her to not tell a soul.
Draco stares at her, eyes wide and luminous for the first time that evening; mouth slightly ajar.
“Shit,” Hermione groans, sitting back down on the bar stool and putting her head in her hands.
“I didn’t know my mother did that,” Draco murmurs. Through her fingers, she can see him staring at the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar, eyes glazed and unfocused.
“I wasn’t going to tell you. I’m sorry, I’ve just had a lot to drink. Firewhiskey is so good,” she laughs feebly, pathetically, trying to lighten the air.
“It is,” Draco concedes and, out of the corner of her eye, Hermione sees a flash of crystal spin in his long fingers. “But Veritaserum has no taste.”