Disclaimer: Of course, I do not own these characters or the world in which I'm writing them.
Yes, this one-shot distracted me from my two other in-progress fics, but I needed to feel productive and my other two stories are rudely ignoring my pleas to just write themselves already. So here you go. This is about as close to fluff as I might be able to get. I hope you enjoy!
She isn't really part of the Hogwarts graduating class of 1998, Hermione thinks as she surveys the Great Hall. Not technically. She had come back to finish her schooling a whole year later, after the war ended, so technically she's part of the graduating class of 1999.
And technically Harry and Ron never finished their seventh years, so they aren't part of any graduating class, really.
But, technicalities aside, returning to Hogwarts for their five year reunion feels right. It's like coming home after a long tiresome day, and Hermione can't imagine her second home without these same people.
Hermione is too early. There are only a handful of people in the hall and they're all scurrying around trying to set up the finishing touches. She scans the small crowd for a friendly face and curses her over-punctuality under her breath. It's her lack of girly qualities that gets the blame, perhaps she'd rushed too hastily through her hair and make-up prep. Or maybe it's the fact that she is unescorted. With no one to meet, she had come directly to her old school. Now she is standing by the door, unquestionably alone and embarrassingly underdressed for the occasion.
Thankfully she doesn't have to wait long for a friend. She's both relieved and a little miffed when Ron walks in. He's with Megan Jones, a former Hufflepuff from their year. Hermione knows for a fact that Ron had never once taken notice of the girl when they were in school, but when Hermione and Ron's relationship met it's inevitable end, he'd found another girl to take away the sting. He'd found her rather quickly, Hermione thinks. Ron had been in the stands in support of Ginny's first game as a chaser for the Holyhead Harpies. Megan had been cheering on her aunt, Holyhead's captain and beater, Gwenog Jones. The two had bonded over their shared love of Quidditch, something Hermione had never done well enough, she supposes. The rest, as they say, is history.
To Hermione, it has been long enough since her split with Ron that she can see him and not feel troubled. Even when he's with Megan, making lovey faces that Hermione can't recall ever seeing during her time with him. She's happy for him anyway. She can tell Megan is a better match for Ron in much the same way that she knows the sun will rise again tomorrow.
More friends start to arrive in pairs. First, it's Harry and Ginny, hand in hand. Next is Neville and Hannah, who are smiles and hugs all around. Then Dean and Seamus join the group and the rest of the hall fills with other students and their spouses.
"We're engaged!" Neville blurts and throws his arm around Hannah who blushes furiously. After a round of cheers, another announcement follows.
"We're pregnant!" Ginny looks as surprised at her voice as everyone else but she and Harry accept another round of congrats.
Hermione looks around at her friends. Harry holds a protective hand over Ginny's still flat stomach; Neville rubs Hannah's hand around her new jewelry; Ron makes bedroom eyes at Megan; even Dean and Seamus link pinkies and smile when they think no one is looking.
Her heart constricts and suddenly she can't stand it anymore. Everyone seems happy in a way that makes her feel very much like an outsider peering in the windows. She excuses herself to fetch a drink, not fully knowing how she manages to speak when she can barely breathe from emotional suffocation. An enchanted tray glides past her. Hermione grabs two champagne flutes from the tray and makes a beeline for the far corner of the room.
The wall here is redecorated with an array of photos, perfect for a good distraction. Many of the photos are from their school days. Hermione recognizes their sorting night, some random Hogsmeade weekends, a quidditch match that is barely visible through snow, an end of year feast with the hall done up for the house cup. Gryffindor, of course. There are some photos from after school ended: Hermione hard at work in her Ministry uniform; Harry and Ginny practically glowing at their wedding; Neville in his professor robes waving in front of greenhouse 3. Hermione downs one of her champagne flutes and leaves the empty glass on a return tray. The second glass sloshes in her hand.
Hermione hears the ice clink in his glass before she sees him and smells the Ogden's as he gets closer. She doesn't need to look to confirm who joins her. Apparently Draco Malfoy has the same idea as she does- creeping around the edges of the room to avoid conversation.
Why he engages her then is a mystery.
"We seem to have a gap in our photos here," he drawls and takes a sip from his glass. He must be referring to their last school year, or what should have been her last year, she supposes. Most of that year was just too dark to document and therefore quite underrepresented in the photos.
She turns on him and snaps. "Do you know who you're talking to, Malfoy?" She means to nail him with her stern eyes, but the glass of champagne is already affecting her. She spins too fast. Malfoy catches her by the elbow to steady her and she finds herself looking up into a face that seems both familiar and brand new. He's taller than she remembers, possibly because he's standing up straight again and her memories of him are all hunched in anxiety. He looks stronger as well, no longer sickly thin and tired. His platinum blond hair is still the same, as is the point of his chin, and his impeccable suit, but his eyes seem different in a way Hermione can't explain yet. And his mouth. His mouth seems softer.
"You think I could mistake you for someone else, Granger? With that hair?" he jokes, but his tone doesn't carry his old sting. She snorts, too distracted by his hand on her elbow to get out a scathing remark in return. His hand is hot. Hermione thinks she expected him to be cold, as his regal attitude had always reminded her of an ice sculpture.
When she doesn't answer, doubt takes over his features. He drops her arm and angles himself to gawk openly at her left hand. "It is still Granger, isn't it?"
"Still Granger," she affirms, waving her ringless hand toward him so he can get a better look. She watches him watching her, a slight smile forming on his lips. She thinks he must be coming up with some smart retort about how no one could love her, so she decides to take him down a peg first.
"What about you," she asks with a cheeky grin, "still a Malfoy?"
He starts at the implication, then catches her smile and rewards it with his own. "Single, yes, if that's what you're getting at." He displays his own bare fingers her way. Hermione's face and chest feel strangely warm at the sight.
"But as far as the name itself, I don't know that I quite fit that anymore, in any other way you might mean." He grows quieter, all pretense of mockery leaving him. "I... prefer just Draco now."
Malfoy's expression sobers as he lets silence overtake them again. He brings his tumbler to his lips, maybe to occupy himself so he won't say more. His meaning hits her slowly.
Well this is something, Hermione thinks. Is it an apology? If it is, it's the most indirect damn apology she's ever heard, and that's saying something, seeing as how for three solid years she dated one Ronald Bilius Weasley- a man who literally couldn't discuss emotions to save his life. She decides to take Malfoy's... Draco's... admittance as a start, though, given how uncomfortable he looks. He seems sincere enough, and not that long ago, she wouldn't have expected even this much from him.
"So I've heard," she mumbles into her own drink, because, yes, she's heard tales over the years now of his apparent rehabilitation. Harry himself mentioned several times recently how big of a help he'd been in some Auror investigation or another. "Is it true you bagged the illegal Time Turner syndicate? Without your wand, no less?"
He simply shrugs and refuses to look her in the eye. She clicks her tongue at him.
"Oh please! You used to boast all the time in school about the worst things, and now when you've done something redeemable, you can't even admit to it?"
Draco's eyes land on a photo of himself squared off against Harry in a quidditch match as he says, "I'm quite taken with being contrary lately. Contrary to myself, that is." He turns his silver orbs back to her and Hermione can't help but shiver under his gaze. "I find that if I think to do something, I'll just do the opposite, and that more often than not ends up being the right thing to do."
He studies her for a moment, then adds, "Like showing up here. Didn't want to do it. Thought it might be too prosaic, yet here I am."
Her second glass of champagne is empty, so she responds, "So? Has it turned out to be the right thing to do?" She's as surprised as he is to find that she cares to know the answer.
"The night is... not without it's perks." He draws out his words with intent, like they should be significant to her, but when she tries to catch his eye, he's looking anywhere but at her again. The ceiling, his own empty glass, their classmates. His wandering eye stops when it lands on Pansy Parkinson across the room. She's fawning over a brute of a wizard that Hermione doesn't recognize. She must be dating outside the Hogwarts pool, which strikes Hermione as surprising. Although, to be fair, it is a somewhat shallow pool. Suddenly Pansy's painted lips are on the mystery wizard. Draco visibly cringes.
"Did you two break it off recently?" Hermione asks, vaguely pointing in Pansy's direction.
"Not really." He plucks two new drinks off a passing tray and hands her one. "We were never really something that needed ending."
She sniffs the liquid in her new glass and takes a timid sip. Pleasant enough. "But that bothers you?" she digs further, still indicating at Pansy and the wizard who had yet to escape her grasp.
"Not in the way you might think. Right now I'm wondering how I stomached her for as long as I did. I was different then." He's speaking deliberately again, carefully enunciating his words. "I'm lucky, anyway. There are worse things I could have kissed." This time he looks at her, feigning nonchalance. Hermione prickles. There was a time when she would have thought he was poking fun at her, that she was his idea of the worst thing to kiss. Not now. Not with the way he seems to be boring holes through her with his stare. His dark unspoken meaning comes through- a dementor.
He chuckles lightly to lift the mood. It's gallows humor, but the more she thinks about it, humor is more honest that way. For the past several years, the wizarding world has been layering sugar coats on everything, overcompensating for the terror of war. Suddenly that feels like a betrayal of the memory. Some kinds of pain, Hermione thinks, shouldn't be forgotten. Here he is, not allowing it to be forgotten. A new appreciation for Draco Malfoy dawns in her.
And if his last allusion was an apology, this one seems strangely like a 'thank you.' He must know how involved she'd been in his trial, how she'd stood up for him. She'd been an unstoppable force of logic, spewing statistics, pointing to psychological studies, painting him as a child under duress. Eventually the wizengamot had thrown their hands in the air and conceded. They had lightened Draco's sentence, likely just to be rid of her.
To this day, she's not sure why exactly she did that. So if he's asking, she can't answer. She shrugs.
She finds herself still talking to Draco over another drink, then over the dinner. Then, when the food clears, they are back leaning against the wall as their former classmates move to the dance floor. It takes a few songs before he becomes bored enough to invite her to dance as well. Or, maybe, it takes him that long to gather his courage. The tone of his voice sounds offhanded as he asks, but the tension in his shoulders and jaw as he awaits her answer suggests that the dance carries more weight than he wants to let on. Either way, Hermione accepts mutely and follows him to the edge of the dance floor. He's been cordial, she decides, even bordering on enjoyable, and she doesn't want to go back to being the ninth wheel.
Of course the current song ends just as they reach their destination. Hermione doesn't trust her ears when the music slows, because her heart beat is suddenly too loud to hear much else, and she suspects it's possible that she's imaging the world in slow motion. She watches the other dancers who are moving closer to their partners and then finally turns back to Draco.
He tries to give her an out, but if she's anything it's stubborn. She hovers her right hand over his shoulder and extends her left out expectantly. Draco visibly gulps and his eyes flicker back and forth between her hands and her eyes. He gulps again and seems to decide something. He grasps her hands and places them on his shoulders. Hermione freezes. His warm hands are on her for a second time that night. Willingly. Kindly. His thumb is still on her wrist and she knows he must feel her heart's tempo increase. Perhaps that's why his expression is a question. He's waiting there still for her to answer.
Is this okay?
She thinks on it herself, then instead of an answer, steps closer. She's a fine dancer, and he is as well, she knows from the fourth year Yule Ball, but they do little more than sway against each other for a while.
Halfway through their dance, she catches Ron scowling at her. She gives him a pointed look in return and sends her gaze to Megan as if to say You have no right to hold this against me. He relents, his face grudgingly morphing into a dubious curiosity. It's the same look she's earning from the rest of the Hall.
"How about some air?" She asks as she pulls away from Draco's embrace. He agrees wordlessly. Hermione grabs herself one last drink to keep up her courage and they head out on the lawns toward the Black Lake. As soon as they pick a place to stay, Draco speaks.
"So tell me..."
A sudden urge to respond with the word anything spills to the tip of Hermione's tongue, but she manages to resist.
"How did that end?" He asks. His eyes fix on the ground and his voice is a little too casual. "With you and Weasley?"
She considers telling him to sod off and mind his own bloody business, though she knows she had been nosey about his love life earlier so she bites it back. She must take too long considering because Draco speaks again.
"I'm only wondering if I should want to curse him or..." He trails off again, and even through the shadows of a thin moon, she can see he's blushing inexplicably. "Or console him."
"You and Ron, buddy-buddy. Imagine," she scoffs good-naturedly. "Now there's a laugh."
"Everyone in there is probably thinking the same thing about us." He says. She barely makes out his eyebrow raising to make his point.
"True," she concedes. "A few hours ago I would have been among them."
He's closer to her now. She can feel the telltale heat radiating off him and electrifying the air around her. "We should do this more often than once every five years. Get together," he clarifies.
"We?" she asks, trailing her eyes meaningfully back to the castle where their former classmates are still celebrating.
He appears to want to respond, but then loses his courage and rubs the back of his neck. Hermione decides he needs to be led a little further.
"I agree. It's too bad though that the whole large group thing isn't quite my style." She's looking at him through her eyelashes. Finally he catches on, smiling shyly.
"I don't deserve this," He mutters as he backs away.
"But I do," she says, stepping forward to close the distance between them again. "Don't you think? Don't you think that I deserve whatever I want after everything I've gone through?"
"But... from me?" Perhaps it is thanks to the dim moonlight that she is able to hear the desperation in his voice.
"What happened to you being contrary? You think you can't give me anything that I'd want because of what, how you used to treat me? Perhaps you can prove that wrong." She pushes until he is immobile with his back up against a tree trunk.
It's not just shame in his eyes, it's remorse, and possibly that look does more than any words of apology he could conjure. He looks up from the ground and searches her face. "What... what is it you want then?"
She licks her lips and finds that he notices the motion. Maybe he doesn't realize it, but he mirrors her, wetting his own lips.
"Hmmm," she murmurs, leaning in tantalizingly close. She holds up her champagne flute next to his face. "A refill? For starters."
He cracks a smile and reaches for the glass. Their hands touch for the third time that night and they linger in silence for what seems like an eternity.
"You really want to know how Ron and I ended?" she asks, breathless. He nods. "Amicably. A long time ago. No need to curse him or console him."
"Then I suppose I'll just have to thank him instead," Draco says and he lets her glass drop to the ground. All at once they are kissing. It's sloppy, urgent, and fumbling but delicious. She can't get enough of him quickly enough. She's pulling him and pressing herself in at the same time, delirious to realize he is doing the same. She's lost in the feeling when she hears the snap of sticks underfoot. Hermione and Draco, still glued together, turn to the source of the noise. Lavender Brown has an amused glint in her eye as she pulls Michael Corner away.
"Oops," she giggles, "looks like this tree is already taken."
Hermione doesn't trust herself to breath. When she's sure the newcomers are gone, she lets her head fall into Draco's chest and murmurs into his shirt.
"I'm dreaming, right? This isn't real."
His laugh sounds like an earthquake rumbling through his body. "How often do you dream about kissing me?"
She's thankful that her face is hidden against him as she hides her initial embarrassment. "About as often as you dream about kissing me," she teases back. He extracts one arm from around her and lifts her chin with one warm finger until they are eye to eye.
"That often?"
Her eyes are fully accustomed to the night and she can see his smile in perfect clarity.
He kisses her again, sweetly this time, and whispers against her lips. "I guess both of our dreams are coming true, then."