She walks into the bar, full of people, and wonders what they must feel like, totally anonymous in the world, not having to worry about other people knowing who they are and judging them right off the bat. She wonders if time will ever pass just enough for to her to be shaded in anonymity like everyone else's.
She sits down at the bar, ignoring the quick looks and frantic whispers that pass her wherever she goes. Even in a bar, where one would think people would be too far gone into their drinks, she gets glances. The bartender comes over, and barely looking at him, she orders her drink. Hard liquor to haze out the crowd around her.
Halfway through her second glass, someone sits next to her. She can feel their pointed stare on the side of her head. She clears her throat, hoping the person will take the hint and turn away. But no luck. She knocks back the rest of her drink and turns to see who has dared to approach her.
Striking blond hair and striking grey eyes and striking pale skin. Angular features and a cold, knowing smile.
"Malfoy," she says with a sigh and turns to flag the bartender for another drink.
"Hello to you too, Granger," he replies, his smirk never leaving his face. "Is that any way to greet an old friend?"
"I'd hardly call you a friend," she says, staring defiantly back at him. Her heart drums in her chest.
"You haven't changed a bit," he says.
"Really now?" she says, staring off into the distance behind him. "They tell me I've gotten more frigid and bitchier, actually."
He laughs. It is not a cruel laugh, as she might expect after their last meeting, but the warm, deep laugh she remembers. Her spine chills.
"Impossible," he says.
She glares.
The bartender comes over with her drink, and before she even has time to react, her companion has knocked it back. He orders two more. "On me," he says to her.
She rolls her eyes. "Buying me drinks is not going to melt my icy heart," she says. He only smirks in response. Her heart drums faster.
When their drinks come and he's sipping his, he re-initiates the conversation. "So what have you been up to lately, Granger?" he asks.
She doesn't want to have this conversation with him. She doesn't want to sit and exchange small talk with this man. She wonders how he is so brave to try. Nonetheless, she replies, "Doing a shitty job of staying out of the papers. Even muggle papers are still printing our faces. It's been over six months! People need to get back to their lives."
"I stopped reading the newspaper about four years ago," he says.
"Easy enough for you. My mum sends me all the clippings of me from any and every paper she can find. How a muggle woman got a subscription to the Prophet is beyond me..."
He laughs. "How is your mum these days?" he asks.
"She's good, I guess. Gets by. She still asks about you," she says.
Something flashes across his face, an emotion she can't quite read. He turns away. She takes the opportunity to study his face. He's thinner, his hair falls into his eyes, and he needs to shave. He's still beautiful.
"Tell Potty and Weasel I send my regards. And congrats to Weasel on the Mrs.," he says. He stands. "It was nice to see you again, Hermione."
She doesn't know why she does it, if it's from loneliness or if she's been missing him or if it's the way her name rolls off his tongue, familiar and intimate, but as he turns to leave she grabs his wrist.
"Wait," she says softly. "Stay."
They stare at each other, and to her it seems endless. All she can think about is the way his eyes sear through her and the way his wrist is warm and familiar in her hand. He has managed to push the stares and the whispers from her mind and she can't even bother to worry about what the papers might have to say about this tomorrow. She doesn't want to think about what her friends think or what his friends think or even what she thinks. She only cares about what she feels, and with him, she feels...home.
In the moments they stare at each other, the endless moments with his eyes searing through her and her hand grasping his wrist, now as if letting it go would mean letting go of herself and her sanity, she is able to admit to herself what she couldn't those six months ago.
When the war ended, it was just too much for her. Overwhelming feelings of loss and of guilt and, mostly, of void. They blocked her senses and crowded her mind and at the end of that one nasty fight, when he asked her if she loved him, asked her with so much hope so evident in his eyes, she said no. And she left.
But he is in front of her, in the flesh. He is no longer an image in her dreams and in her nightmares. He is no longer far out of her reach.
And so they stare at each other. She takes his face in her hands and kisses him. Softly at first, but it has been a long six months and they both pour their every emotion into the one kiss.
When she breaks the kiss, it's like he can read her mind. "I love you, Hermione," he says softly, for her ears only.
"I love you too, Draco. I love you so much."
Everything isn't righted with those words, and the people around them are buzzing with excitement, but to Hermione, she is home.