Anonymous
August 1999
"I need you to understand why I did what I did."
Hermione's mother dabbed at her eyes and nodded.
"We're just glad you're all right, darling. I can't imagine… living the rest of our lives without knowing you, without remembering you."
"What unfathomable courage it took for you to do that, Hermione," her father said then, "to try and protect us. But you're our daughter. You must know how disturbing, how awful it is to think of you in some sort of… magical combat. Camping out in the snow. They must all think of you as a great heroine now."
"It doesn't matter," Hermione mumbled. She stared at her hands in her lap and said, "I went back to school to finish my N.E.W.T.s… they're like Leaving Certs. I wanted to finish my education. Harry and Ron didn't go back; they went straight to work for Ministry. It took me so long to find you both… to search in Australia. I haven't been working myself. I've been out of school for a few months now. I haven't yet decided where I'll go or what I'll do."
"But you must live here with us, darling," her mother said, her eyes wet. "It's been years and years since we've seen you properly. Please. Just stay here with us. Take a job in that world if you will, but… stay with us."
Hermione nodded a little and set down her teacup.
"I'm meant to meet Ron for dinner in Diagon Alley. We've been… you know, we began… dating."
Hermione's father smiled a little and nodded. "He's a kind soul, that boy."
Hermione felt a little twinge of unease. In truth, she and Ron had been sniping back and forth quite a lot lately, owing to Ron's stressful Auror training and Hermione's endless search for her parents. She rose from the sofa and embraced her parents one at a time, looking around the townhouse she'd arranged for her parents to rent upon their return from Australia, and then she said,
"I'll keep staying here, if that's all right. I'll be back later tonight."
Then she Disapparated, coming to inside the Leaky Cauldron.
"Hi, 'Mione."
"You're late, Ronald." Hermione stared at her empty mug of Butterbeer. Ron dragged his fingers through his ragged orange hair and plopped down in the seat opposite Hermione. When a serving girl went by, Ron said quietly,
"Butterbeer and a Shepherd's Pie, please." He adjusted his dusty robes and told Hermione, "Training was hard today. Harry and I were both struggling just a little with some tracking stuff, and… you know, it's really bloody hard, tracking! Hunting people down. You'd think that after hunting down Horcruxes, we'd be able to track people more easily, but… yeah, it's really quite hard. Quite difficult. We managed."
"Oh. Good." Hermione pinched her lips and sighed. He didn't care. He never really cared, not about anything except himself. She shut her eyes and said softly, "I restored their memories today. My parents. They'd gotten settled into the townhouse, you know. I had rented a new dental office space for them. I'm tired, too. It's difficult work, restoring the memories of parents you forced to forget you."
She opened her eyes, and suddenly Ron looked a little ashamed. He nodded as the serving girl put down his Butterbeer and his Shepherd's Pie. Hermione poked her spoon at her own stew, and she said quietly,
"They remember everything. Every birthday. Every Christmas. The day Professor McGonagall told them I was a witch. I have them back now."
"Well, that's good work, 'Mione," Ron said with a lopsided smile. "That's real good work."
"Good work," she repeated, shaking her head. "They're my parents, Ron. This isn't Auror training. I've got my family back."
"Yeah, but Harry and I are your family, you know? I know you've missed them, but you haven't exactly been alone, have you?"
Hermione set her spoon down and shook her head. "You're unbelievable."
"Excuse me."
Hermione huffed out a breath and looked up. The round-faced serving witch looked rather anxious as she said,
"There's a wizard in the private dining space who wonders if he might have a few minutes to speak with Miss Hermione Granger."
"Who is this wizard?" Hermione asked, for she'd been the subject of all manner of interviews and 'fan encounters' ever since she and Harry and Ron had been identified as 'heroes' of the last war. The serving girl looked more anxious than ever and insisted,
"He asked to remain anon… anonmonous."
"Anonymous," Hermione corrected.
"She's not going to meet with some random wizard in a private room!" Ron exclaimed, and Hermione scowled.
"I think I can make up my own mind, Ronald," she said. She wouldn't normally meet alone with someone who refused to identify himself, but she found herself cross with Ron today, and so she pulled out her wand and said to the serving witch, "Take me to the private room, will you? Ron, I'll see you later."
"Hermione!" he protested loudly, but she ignored him. She followed the round-faced witch around the bar area to a curtained space in the corner. The witch gestured toward the curtains and said in a shaking voice,
"He's in there, Miss Granger."
"Thank you." Hermione held her wand at the ready and pulled the curtain back quickly. Her eyebrows flew up as soon as she saw the pale, blond young wizard sitting alone at a round table, a tumbler of firewhisky before him. Hermione stepped inside and lowered her wand just a little, letting the curtain close behind her.
"Draco Malfoy."
"Hello… Miss… Miss Granger." Draco's high cheekbones went very pink, and he dragged his thumb around the rim of his tumbler. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."
"I did not agree to meet with you," Hermione pointed out. "I was informed that an anonymous wizard wanted to speak with me. Rather unwisely, I came without demanding more information."
"Will you sit, please?" Draco's voice was just a whisper then, which seemed very odd. Hermione frowned very deeply but sank down onto the velvet bench on the other side of the round table from Draco. She adjusted her grip on her wand and swallowed hard as she shrugged.
"What do you want? Here to taunt me? Call me a Mudblood?"
"No. Actually… well, those days are over, I think." Draco stared straight into the amber liquor in his glass and mumbled, "I grew up being told over and over that I was better than people like you. Better even than the Weasleys, who were Purebloods, but to be spit upon just the same. I was told I was amazing, that my family was amazing. That we were the only future the wizarding world had. And I think now, after some time has passed since… since that great battle… I think that everything I was told as a child was… wrong."
Hermione's mouth fell open, and her stomach quivered with nerves. She shook her head a bit and whispered,
"How did you come to this conclusion?"
Draco raised his eyes, powder blue and shining, and he took a sip of his drink. He finally noted,
"You always got better marks than me in school. You were always a brilliant pupil. But you were born to Muggles. My father scolded me for 'letting you' outrank me with academics, but I knew even then. You were more clever. You were more talented. And you came from Muggles. So after that battle at Hogwarts, I began to wonder… how is it that so many Purebloods - Crabbe and Goyle perhaps most egregiously - could be complete imbeciles, whilst Muggle-borns like you and… and… and Potter… could be exemplary."
Hermione set her wand down on the table and felt her eyes burn unexpectedly.
"Draco Malfoy," she said softly, "are you confessing to me, to the girl you spent years mocking relentlessly, the girl who punched you, the girl who… are you confessing to me that perhaps your family's views on so-called 'Blood Purity' are wrong?"
Draco looked completely abashed then. He swigged from his drink, finishing it off, and he said,
"I have not spoken to my father in eight months. My mother… I sent her an owl on her birthday. But I've been on my own. I don't see as I have any choice but to leave that world behind. My mind won't let me do it. True enough, I'll always be stuck with this…"
He peeled back the left sleeve of his robe sleeve, and Hermione sucked in breath at the sight of his dormant pink Dark Mark. Draco shoved his sleeve back down and said,
"I do not ever expect that you and I would be on friendly terms. I know I said and did a great many things when I believed so thoroughly in the rubbish. Just the same, I think it only decent that should apologise to you. It is, almost certainly, the very least I can do. I am very sorry, Hermione, for the words I used against you. I am sorry for the mockery, the… hatred. I am very tired of being hateful, and I see no purpose in it anymore. For any of the hate that was directed at you, I do apologise. I do not expect you to accept it, but I offer it anyway."
This was not at all what Hermione had expected when the serving witch had said someone wanted to meet with her. She blinked a few times and admitted,
"I thought perhaps there was a writer for the Daily Prophet waiting in this room. This… you. This is not what I thought I'd find. And I'm not sure what to say to you, Draco. My soul is conflicted, to say the least. The way you tormented me, and Ron, and Harry… it was relentless. It was endless. I do not know if I am big enough to forgive you. And, yet, I remember the way you hesitated with Bellatrix Lestrange to identify me. I remember the way you walked away from Voldemort. I remember the way you testified at all those trials after the battle. The way you rather bravely sent your relatives and family friends to be punished for their crimes. If this your way of trying to atone, trying to move forward… I suppose I would be rather a lousy advocate for decency myself if I did not tell you that I wish you the best. Whether I can forgive you… I'm not sure of that. But I accept that you're trying to be a better wizard than you once were, and I wish you all the best in that endeavour. I should go."
She pulled herself out of the bench and snatched her wand off the table. Draco held up a little rectangle of parchment with some neat writing on it, and Hermione frowned as she took it.
D. Malfoy
24 Scarsdale Villas
Kensington, London
"I'm not living at Malfoy Manor anymore," Draco said carefully. "My new residence is registered with the Ministry, but… if you should ever find any reason whatsoever to… I don't know, to write or something…"
"To write," Hermione repeated. Her eyebrows crumpled. "Why on Earth would I write to you, Draco Malfoy?"
His face went scarlet again, and suddenly she realised he had no friends left. Many of his Slytherin lackeys had either been locked up or would have completely eschewed his companionship if he rejected the ideas of Blood Purity. If he was no longer in touch with his parents, then he probably wasn't in touch with any cousins or aunts or uncles or grandparents, either. He had no Pansy Parkinson, no Gregory Goyle these days.
He was all alone, Hermione thought. And he was sorry. Did it matter? Could it ever possibly matter? Hermione tucked the little card into the pocket of her robes and said with as much compassion as she could muster,
"Be well, Draco. Goodbye."
"Bye." Draco lowered his eyes again, and Hermione shoved the curtain aside and strode out of the compartment without another word. She quickly made her way to where Ron Weasley sat, having finished his Shepherd's Pie and moved onto a glass of chocolate mousse. Hermione asked lightly,
"Did you order me dessert?"
"No, but I kept your stew warm," Ron said, his mouth full of mousse. Hermione frowned a bit and sat back down, her appetite entirely gone. Ron swallowed his mousse and asked, "So? Was it a reporter? A fan?"
"It was Draco Malfoy," Hermione said softly. She watched Ron's face twist into a hideous grimace. He set down his dessert spoon and demanded,
"What in the hell did he want?"
Hermione felt her cheeks go warm. "He wanted to apologise."
"For being a complete git, a totally intolerable bigot? A criminal and an enemy? You don't get to apologise for that. And, anyway, he isn't sorry."
Hermione felt a surge of anger then. She shoveled some stew into her mouth and gulped down some Butterbeer.
"How are any of us meant to move forward from this war, from this endless conflict, if both sides can't consider forgiveness? Atonement? Apology?"
"We don't have to apologize for anything," Ron hissed, "and I don't accept any apology from Draco Malfoy."
"Lucky, then, that he was apologising to me and not to you," Hermione said, folding her hands on the table. Ron's freckled face went the colour of beetroot, and he shoved his chocolate mousse away. He slammed a few coins onto the table and said,
"I'm going home before this turns into a public fight, 'Mione."
"Yes, the last time we argued in public, it wound up in the Prophet," Hermione recalled. Ron curled up his lip at her and shook his head as he stood.
"You're better than this. Better than forgiving scum like him."
"Scum." Hermione shook her head. "What drove this war in the first place, Ronald? Hate. Bias. Dogmatism. Tribalism."
"I don't need a lecture from you. I have more intense tracking training in the morning," Ron said from where he loomed above Hermione. "I really hope you understand that Harry cares about you, that I really care about you, and that Draco Malfoy is still and always will be our enemy. Congratulations on getting your parents back."
Hermione said nothing as he stormed away, over toward the giant fireplace. She watched him take a fistful of Floo Powder, knowing he was going to the little flat he and Harry shared in Shoreditch. As Ron vanished into an explosion of green flame, Hermione gnawed on her lip, her eyes flicking back to the curtained space where she knew Draco Malfoy sat alone.
She left via Apparition after ensuring Ron had paid sufficiently, going back to her parents' house and determining that they would watch some Muggle television programming.
Author's Note: This will be my first foray into Dramione. This will be a novel-length slow burn. I look forward to hearing your feedback. Please do let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!