Almost from the moment he first became involved in the war, Draco Malfoy regretted the role he had played in supporting the Dark Lord. So after the fall of Voldemort, Draco made an effort to escape his past, away from everyone who remembered what he and his family had done. In order to distance himself from what he once was, and maybe forget, he decided to live as a Muggle, among the people he had once fought against.
With this background, you should not be surprised to find Draco Malfoy sitting in his dingy flat one Friday afternoon, watching his favourite show on the telly, Dancing with the Stars. A plate of burnt toast lay on the sofa cushion next to him; he had still not learned how to use the blasted toaster, despite his transition to being a Muggle. He missed being a rich, pampered pureblooded wizard who had people waiting on him. Last week he had bought a parrot, which he intended to train to do everything he needed, like the Muggle equivalent of a house-elf: it would prepare food for him, iron his robes, and talk to him when he was lonely. However, his efforts were surprisingly fruitless. Now, poor Draco still had to do everything himself, while his parrot yelled at him. It was certainly not the situation he had hoped for when transitioning to this new life.
"Lyra, I'm hungry," Draco whined to his parrot.
Lyra fluffed her beautiful green feathers and squawked, "Hungry, eh? Can't make a bloody piece of toast, eh? Well don't come crying to me - last time I made it for you, you complained about the claw marks."
"You left footprints on my toast, that's disgusting," Draco insisted. "Why can't you learn to make toast properly?"
"Why can't you eat anything but toast?" Lyra asked shrilly, turning away from him in a dignified manner. Draco slouched on the sofa once more and returned his attention to the dazzling dancers on the screen. But he was still hungry, so he went into the kitchen and burnt some more toast.
Elsewhere in the wizarding world, other people were doing more important things, but most of them are not relevant to this story (even the really cool ones like the wizard in Mongolia who was building a flying yurt - perhaps a story for another day). Our story concerns a young witch who, at the same time as Draco Malfoy was eating his dry, blackened toast, was going to a very important meeting.
Hermione Granger walked down the street, her seven-inch stilettos clicking sharply. She had taken to wearing high heels lately because it gave her a certain amount of power with the Wizengamot; as she was now so tall that her head grazed the ceiling, everyone couldn't help but pay attention to her as she spoke up about house elf rights. But this time, she wasn't going to a meeting about house-elves. She was meeting up with an old friend - the owner of Viktor Krum's School of Dance.
"Herm-own-ninny," Viktor greeted her warmly. "How vonderful to see you again. I haff been hoping that ve vould haff the opportunity to dance together again."
Hermione smiled. "It's lovely to see you too, Viktor. I was so thrilled when I got that letter from you saying you'd opened up this dance school; it's your dream come to life! And I really didn't have enough things to do until now, so I'm glad to have this. I even had four whole minutes of spare time yesterday after work and it was a disaster! I had no idea what to do with myself."
"I know exactly vhat you mean," said Viktor sympathetically. "After the year vhen I vas simultaneously an international Qvidditch star, a student trying to pass my exams in another language, and a Trivizard champion, being only a Qvidditch star has become dull."
"Shall we dance, then?" Hermione asked.
"Of course," said Viktor, holding out his hand. "Let us begin vith the valtz."
Hermione and Viktor waltzed happily around the room - Hermione in her lethal stilettos, and Viktor in his dragon-hide boots - while Draco Malfoy lounged in his flat with no shoes at all.
"You look homeless," Lyra told Draco helpfully. "Wash your hair! Shave off that beard! And put on some damn socks!"
"I don't look homeless, I look like a pirate," Draco corrected her. He could potentially see himself as a dashing, swashbuckling hero at sea if all else failed. And his parrot was good for nothing anyway except criticising him - maybe she'd like him more if he was a pirate.
"You look stupid."
"Fine, I'll get rid of the beard, if you make me some toast with marmalade. Please? You know, the claw marks aren't even that bad."
"You're not completely inept at making toast yourself," Lyra encouraged him. "It's only because of that bloody toaster. It's broken - you need a new one."
Draco did not bother to put on shoes, but he donned an eye patch and a fake hook hand as he set out for the local supermarket to buy a new toaster. "Don't forget to buy me some sunflower seeds!" shrieked Lyra as the door swung closed behind Draco.
His trip to the shop was successful, despite being accompanied by a few odd looks. Along the way home, he walked by a new dance studio - could it be the same Viktor Krum as the international Quidditch star he'd met at Hogwarts? Could Draco learn to dance as well as those stars he'd just been watching? He decided to stop in for a look, cradling his precious new toaster under one arm as he opened the door.
About ten dance students were gathered, with Viktor Krum in the centre, demonstrating a step. "Good afternoon," said Krum. "Ve are in the middle of a tango lesson, if you vant to join in."
But Draco didn't hear this: he was staring at the person behind Krum. It was Hermione Granger. The know-it-all, frizzy-haired Mudblood whom he had loved to antagonise during their Hogwarts years.
Their eyes met from across the room - the steely grey and the soft brown. Sparks flew between them, which destroyed Draco's new toaster and burned the arm that was carrying it. The tension in the room was so thick and tangible that you could have cut it with a Sectumsempra. A thousand thoughts raced through Hermione's mind as she opened her mouth to speak.
(Meanwhile, the Mongolian wizard who is not at all relevant to this story flew around all of Asia happily but aimlessly in his airborne yurt, until he got the brilliant idea to equip the yurt with an emergency rocket booster in case he ever got stranded anywhere. But I digress.)
Hermione spoke. "Malfoy?" she asked simply.
I know you were probably expecting more than that, right? But come on, they've hated each other for years, so it's not like they're going to instantly fall in love after one fiery, passionate meeting of eyes across the room. That would be unrealistic, and out of place in a story as realistic as this one.
But, Fate should have it that Draco ended up dancing with Hermione that afternoon. Poor Viktor Krum was left to dance with Draco's new toaster. (Fate thought that was pretty hilarious and sat at the side of the room giggling about it.) Despite Hermione's fabulous shoes, she was not a very good dancer, so Draco winced as Hermione's pointy stiletto stabbed his toes.
"Ouch, Granger, you clumsy Mudblood. My foot will forever be in pain, thanks to you." He sniffed in a very superior manner. "I deserve better than that. I am Draco Malfoy."
Hermione frowned. The nerve of that spoiled, entitled brat, waltzing in here out of the blue and then complaining about her dancing! It served him right. "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."* She stamped on his foot again.
Draco whimpered again, both about the pain in his foot and the powerful censure of that philosophical Granger. He began to wonder if his foot would fall off in pain. On the bright side, he thought, then he could get a wooden peg leg and be a proper pirate, and then Lyra would respect him enough to make toast for him.
He left early from that dance lesson, as he was not enjoying it, he didn't like his dance partner, and he was still quite hungry for some toast. Hermione watched with satisfaction as he walked out the door.
Draco went home and griped to Lyra about women while she snacked happily on sunflower seeds and watched a rugby match on the telly, until Draco got fed up with the display of foolishness before him and switched the channel back to the excellent dancing. These people were far better than that Hermione Granger.
His toes still hurt. So he asked Lyra to ice his foot and elevate it and see if it was broken, and get him a snack. Lyra crudely told him where he could put his foot instead.
So during the week, Draco shopped online for a wooden leg, should the need arise. When Lyra was not busy making birdseed pancakes for Draco and purposely stepping in them, she was destroying the new toaster by filling it with crisps and heaps of sunflower seeds. Meanwhile, as Draco became increasingly more pathetic, Hermione was a total badass who transcended all bureaucracy in the Ministry of Magic by passing eleven new house-elf rights bills. Most of her jealous co-workers, however, attributed her success to slightly taller shoes.
Draco and Hermione both found themselves back at Krum's School of Dance at the same time and same place the following week. Draco was on the way home from buying yet another toaster, and Hermione was there because she had instantly (and realistically) fallen madly in love with Draco after he'd left the dance studio last week and was hoping to see him again.
Viktor Krum, for one, was not thrilled to see that shoeless loser at his studio again, and so Draco ended up watching from the sidelines for the first dance, and more often than not his gaze was on Hermione. How he wished to dance with her again, for some unfathomable reason or ill-disguised plot device. And so he stood up again. Malfoys didn't lurk in corners without shoes, and certainly nobody put Draco Malfoy in a corner.
Draco walked up to meet Hermione, pausing once to glance at her feet and make sure she was not wearing seven-inch stilettos this time. She wasn't; this time they were nine inches tall. After a moment of hesitation, he asked her to dance.
"Of course, Malfoy," she said. "I mean Draco."
She grasped his hand, and he fell in love with her instantly. Draco found he didn't even mind the occasional stabs to his toes anymore, because he was in love, and true love heals all wounds. Nevertheless, by the time they decided to get married, a full two days later, Draco's toes were as good as new, which almost disappointed him because he had just spent so much money on a wooden leg and a secondhand pirate ship.
Ron Weasley was a bit disappointed to hear the news that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy were engaged; he hated Malfoy, and he'd always had a crush on Hermione. But it all turned out fine for him, in a way that didn't cause any retrospective regret to the author, and all readers totallyshipped it. Ron eventually married Eloise Midgen, the girl he'd once snubbed before the Yule Ball in their fourth year at Hogwarts. It so happened that Eloise was actually a Veela, and over the years her face had cleared up nicely and she had become the most stunningly beautiful woman in all the land, who also happened to be incredibly rich.
(In fact, Eloise Midgen was so rich that she owned a castle more impressive than Hogwarts. It had twelve floors, and corridors so spacious that someone could easily get lost. Ron Weasley did indeed get lost when he first moved into the castle with Eloise; he had to phone that Mongolian bloke to fly an emergency rescue yurt all the way to England and get him out. But that's part of a story for another day.)
Anyway, Draco and Hermione got married and then sailed out to sea to be pirates on the great ship Dramione with a ragtag crew of house-elves (who were paid for their service on board), remorseful ex-Death Eaters, and people with really excellent taste in shoes. Draco's green parrot Lyra was named as captain, and under her guidance, they crossed the oceans, learning sea shanties and accompanying dances, looting the occasional town and liberating house-elves wherever they came ashore. There were worse things than a life of crime, Hermione reasoned. At least she wasn't dead, or worse, expelled.
So their pirate life was pretty excellent. Hermione Jean Granger, or "Salty Jean", as she soon became known, alternated between pirating and furthering her motives of equality in the wizarding world. Draco went between swabbing the deck and making gourmet birdseed biscuits for Captain Lyra, and was known behind his back as "Lyra's Weak Apprentice" - an epithet of which he was unaware, perpetuated by Lyra. But at least he became the greatest dancer across the seven seas, and also the best toast-maker.
The most intense fighting that occurred was not in towns they looted, or between them and the Ministry of Magic, but between themselves and the pirate vessel called Eloisley. Ron and Eloise, who had also become outlaws at sea, adopted a stray cat they found in the Amazon rainforest, and when they'd met with the crew of the Dramione some time later, the cat had attempted to eat Lyra. Henceforth there was war between the two ships.
Since there were no cannonballs on board the Dramione (Draco had used all of them while trying unsuccessfully to catch fish), they had to use another powerful weapon: the Howler. Salty Jean fired one out of the cannon in the direction of the Eloisley, and was pleased to hear the side of the ship's hull crunch with the impact of her words. "RONALD WEASLEY, YOUR FERAL CAT ATTEMPTED TO EAT OUR CAPTAIN!"
But Ron had a massive supply of Howlers on board, most of which had been sent by his mother, who disapproved of his lifestyle. So he crossed out his mother's letter and wrote his own, and then the air above the Dramione was rent by the loud yelling of "NOW YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS, HERMIONE! I STILL HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN ABOUT SCABBERS!" ending with a touch of Mrs Weasley's shrieks at the end which Ron had sloppily neglected to cross out: "-BREAKING LAWS, WHILE YOUR FATHER WORKS AT THE MINISTRY!"
The war, as it turned out, ended when the Mongolian emergency yurt pilot got annoyed at the bickering he could hear from all the way around the world. He removed the rocket boosters from his yurt, attached them to a massive ice shelf, and propelled the iceberg into the two ships, reducing them both to smithereens. Everyone got away to safety, though; they were saved by true love. And because the floating bits of wood from the ships' wreckage were quite obviously big enough for more than one person.
Anyway, despite that minor interruption, they continued their lives of crime (or in Salty Jean's case, a life of part-time crime and part-time lawmaking), and everyone lived happily ever after, including the rocket-yurt inventor who, with a need for more adventure than simply sailing a flying yurt, stole all of Salty Jean's looted Time-Turners and went back in time about 800 years where he took over all of northeast Asia in a barbaric fashion and united the tribes into the Mongol Empire. That's neither here nor there, and if you really want the rest of that story you can open a history book.
The end!
The asterisked quote is from The Princess Bride, and the line about Draco in a corner is adapted from a line in Dirty Dancing - neither of which I own. I also do not own Dancing with the Stars.
Thanks for reading this utterly bizarre story! I think I might have gone crazy.