Ficlets

“It’s just not something I’ll ever be good at, I guess,” said Granger one afternoon as they sat at their table in the library, Potions notes spread out before them, with an exceedingly poor attempt at a nonchalant shrug. “There’s got to be one, right?” 

Draco, calling upon a deep well of gentlemanly reserve and self-control, ignored this blatant implication that she was brilliant at everything else and quelled the urge to point out that personal grooming, namely hair care, was another subject on which she might not be an absolute expert. It seemed unnecessarily petty, even for him, given how generous she’d been with her time and her forgiveness these past few months. It was entirely down to her that he was managing to make it through this eighth year at Hogwarts in relative peace and not being shunned completely or hexed on a daily basis. Or both.

“How do you know you’ll never be good?” he asked. “I’ve never seen you anywhere near a broom. Have you even tried to learn?” 

She nodded and a pink flush crept across her cheeks. He did not find this fascinating in the slightest. “Harry tried to teach me once,” she said. “It… did not work.” 

Draco scoffed. “Of course it didn’t. Potter can’t teach you.” 

She bristled, visibly. Her hair increased in volume (how??? he thought) and began to spark. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say against Harry—” 

“Listen to me, Granger,” he interrupted, before she could get on her high horse and gallop away. “The reason Potter can’t teach you is because he never learned himself. He’s a natural. He just picked up the bloody broom and flew.” Draco’s jaw clenched and his teeth began to grind. “It’s really fucking irritating, actually,” he spat. “Some of his technique is absolute shite, but of course there’s no telling himthat, not the ‘youngest seeker in a century’—” 

“Malfoy.” 

“—who only cares about catching the Snitch, no thought at all to doing it properly with the correct form—” 

“Malfoy!” Draco shook himself from his Potter-induced rage spiral to find Granger watching him with wry amusement in her eyes. “I feel like we may have got off track a bit.” 

“Right.” He cleared his throat. “As I was saying. If you want to learn to fly you need to find yourself a teacher who was taught. Potter can’t explain how he does it because he doesn’t know himself.” 

She tapped her quill against her lips as she considered this. “That… makes a lot of sense, actually. But who could I ask? Do you know anyone who might be willing to teach me?” 

“I would.” The words were out of his mouth before he’d properly thought them through, but once the offer was made he realised how sincere it was. He could teach her, he knew how. And what was more, he wanted to. He wanted to give her something, for once. 

Granger blinked at him in blank astonishment, her mouth open in a distended ‘O’. She made no reply. Humiliation washed over Draco in a prickly, bright-pink rush of heat that he could feel in his cheeks and down the back of his neck, and abruptly he wished to be anywhere else in the world but here. 

“Forget it,” he snarled. Blindly, he snatched up his books and parchments in a haphazard jumble and began to storm away. 

“Wait!” she called after him, but he ignored her. He didn’t want to hear her excuses or platitudes. “Malfoy, wait!” Draco’s progress came to an abrupt and jarring halt as his legs seized up beneath him. She’d hit him with a leg-locker jinx.  

“Granger, what the fuck?” 

“Sorry!” she cried, appearing at his elbow to catch his books before his arrested momentum sent them flying from his grip. “Sorry, I just couldn’t think of another way to stop you.” 

“You should have let me leave!” 

“But you didn’t give me a chance to answer you!” She dumped the books back into his arms then glared at him, hands clenched in tiny fists and planted on her hips. Her hair was sparking again. “You can’t blame me for being surprised that you’d offer me help. Realistically, now.” 

He scowled. “I suppose not.” 

She appeared mollified by this reply and her expression softened into something curiously shy. The flush returned to her cheeks. “But if your offer is genuine then my answer is yes. I’d like that. Thank you.” 

“Oh.” Draco swallowed hard. His heart began to drum a resounding, insistent beat against his ribcage. “All right. Um. When do you want to start?” 

“Today? Is that too soon?” 

“No, that’s, erm. Fine.” Merlin, he thought, what had he got himself into? “Meet me on the Quidditch pitch after Arithmancy?” 

“Okay.” A small smile played around her lips. Draco worried that his heart might actually escape his chest and careen away. “I’ll be there.” 

With a wave of her wand she released his legs. He stumbled slightly before regaining his balance and her smile bloomed full and bright. “Smooth,” she observed. “I trust you’ll be more graceful on a broom. Now if your tantrum is quite over, come back to the table. We still have studying to do.”

As he watched her settle herself back in her chair and pick up her quill again, Draco grappled with a peculiar sensation, as though his world had been knocked right off-kilter. Something had shifted, he felt, some terribly significant yet intangible thing that he could sense but not identify. He wondered if Granger felt it too. 

He supposed he’d soon find out.