Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, nor do I possess it
A/N: Yes, yes. Another one-shot. These little fits and bunches are the result of #dhrfavorites on tumblr so send all complaints to them. (Just kidding don't.) (They're precious muffins.)
A clock ticks on the mantelpiece to the right.
He adjusts his collar with a fidgeting motion and shifts his weight from one leg to the other. He feels out of place. He feels like an abnormality.
"What's all this about, then?"
Hermione is weaving her fingers in and around each other like cords of knitting pulled taut. Mesmerizing, really. Her knuckles are white.
"Well, I – They aren't here, you know."
He blinks.
"I didn't ask –"
"But you're thinking it."
His eyes dart around the tiny room. Pictures of the Grangers hang and recline everywhere. Threads are pulling free of the ancient sofa. A glass vase of daffodils decorates a table. Glass, not crystal.
Draco Malfoy does not belong in this place.
Draco Malfoy is not good enough.
"I know it's your birthday," she says quietly.
His eyes settle back on her face, and he tries to ignore the way they hit her lips first, and the memories of softness and sparks that blur his heartbeats together.
"I see."
"Owled your mum," she answers his unspoken question.
"Invasive little busybody, aren't you?" His attempt at a stab of humour falls flat. It does nothing, either, to ease the tightness of his throat.
"Look. I know you didn't want me to know," Hermione says. "Or do anything. And I get… I understand why you don't think it's something to be celebrated."
She looks at Draco steadily. He glances away, unable to meet that too-wise gaze.
"But I wanted to show you that, well… that it is. To help you see what you can't. At first I was planning on doing something really grand – getting you some amazing gift, maybe writing you a nice long letter with lots of poetic language to explain just what I think you're worth. Extravagance, you know; first thing that comes to mind when you want to show someone you care."
He swallows hard. Care.
"But then I thought," her fingers showing no sign of loosening, "that you've been getting extravagant things your whole life. And… what do they mean, really? All the gilt and flowers. They're just cover-ups, aren't they, elaborations on something that should be simple. It's all just a lot of… of unnecessary tosh, and you deserve better. 'T's what I was trying to show you in the first place."
She takes a step closer and Draco feels the blood grow warmer in his veins as a consequence. She's his sun, he's come to realize. Too great a proximity and he'll combust.
"What you haven't had nearly enough of is honesty," she goes on. "And I've found, against my every instinct, that's something generally conveyed best with less words. So. This is my gift."
She finally unhooks her fingers and slides one hand around his wrist, then up past that precious barrier of his sleeve. He goes rigid. Her nails scrape feather-light across the place she knows is where his demon resides, and she traces the shape by memory, hitching the fabric up as she does. When she bends to press her lips to the spot, he releases a choked noise and tries to pull away.
"Stop," she says, in such a commanding voice that he does. She holds his eyes in that blindingly intense way once more before letting her mouth drop to his Mark, firmly, assertively. Goosebumps break out across his skin and suddenly, he feels like crying.
Her face moves from his arm to his ear. And then she's whispering the words she's never said to him before. The bare truth that he has denied for so long and yet resounds with so fully. A phrase he's hungered to hear, but has grown to be so afraid of that the hope of it was a painful thing ever prodding its thorny head into his heart.
There's a shaky intake of breath and beyond that, not a sound but the clock ticking on.