This is written for LadiePhoenix007, one of the most wonderful, supportive and delightful humans I've been fortunate to meet through the world of fanfic and tumblr. I'm sorry you're going through what you are, and hope these stories can help lift your spirits a bit.
I apologize for any spelling or grammar mistakes, I wrote this on my phone between baby naps. It is as edited as time allowed.
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He wasn't proud of the thoughts he'd had over the years, the beliefs he'd held, the words that had spewed like liquid trash from his lips. He was ashamed of how easily childhood grudges, jealousy and what - at the time - he'd believed true hatred, could inflict such wounds, such damage.
The day she'd been tortured, there on his floor, he'd seen. Her blood run as red and as fluid as his own and he knew. Knew how wrong he'd been, how wrong all the fanaticism and insanity was. And he'd felt a devastation that struck him to his marrow.
That was the day, the moment, the impetus, that altered Draco Malfoy forever.
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"Watch where you're going!" An exasperated voice said, barely dodging the two children running haphazardly out of the shop she was entering. "You're not a pair of hippogryffs!"
The bell dinged over the door as she entered, and the young man felt his heart skip in his chest. He hadn't seen her since his trial, two years prior, and he felt his palms begin to sweat at the possibility of conversing. The certainty of imminent acknowledgment.
"How may I help you today, Granger?" He asked, politeness personified, keeping himself still as she whirred around at his voice by the till.
"Malfoy... I didn't realize... you work here...?" She trailed off, her pseudo question hanging in the air and in the minuscule pauses between her words, he noticed.
The bags under her eyes, hidden by a poorly spelled glamour. The way her shoulders appeared to carry an invisible weight, dimming the fire that usually crackled around her very essence. She seemed to have aged by years yet also appeared as fragile as a girl half her age.
He knew why, most of the wizarding world did unfortunately.
"Was part of my parole," he shrugged - a self deprecating movement - offering a small half smile, "And I found I enjoyed it, so stayed on. Found I have an affinity to potions, and discovered sourcing and cataloging to be soothing."
She stared at him, eyes almost unblinking as he spoke. A twitch of her muscle began in the right corner of her left eye, and he could make out a smudge of ink just under her jaw line towards her left ear. She scratched the ink spot, making it spread. He bit back a grin at the innocence of the moment.
He'd been waiting years for this, to talk with her. And now she was here.
"Is there something I can help you find? Is this for work... Or... pleasure?" He asked again, his tone carrying a slight caress of silk now; when she made no attempt to speak, nor move from where his initial greeting had halted her in her stead.
His words - or tone - seemed to jar her into action and she gave her head a shake. She blinked. And then...
She grinned. Quick as lightening and brief as an eclipse but it sliced across her lips none the less and he felt his breath catch.
It was more than he'd hoped for. He'd made her smile.
"Pleasure..." She said, moving toward the till where he stood. "Though not my own. I'm helping George work out the kinks of the latest invention for the shop, which is based on notes Fred..." Her mouth grimaced and her voice caught slightly, and his hand involuntarily flickered as if to comfort before remaining where it was on the transaction counter.
"Fred left behind?" He asked, finishing for her. She nodded, her eyes bright, and he pulled out a thick tome from under the counter. Opening it to what appeared to be an arbitrary page, he trailed a long finger down the right hand side until he rested on some figures scrawled almost eligibly in black ink.
"Eye of newt, salamander skin and red skull mushroom tails." He read off. "George sent an owl this morning, saying a courier would be by later to pick them up. We chat quite often these days due to our work, but I had no idea you were his courier, nor that you worked with George. I thought you were still at the ministry, and to be honest, I'd assumed..." He broke off, then plowed ahead with what he was going to say.
"I'd assumed after what happened with Ron you'd be well shot of the Weasleys?" His face wasn't derisive, but openly curious.
Hermione sighed. "They're family." She said simply. She shuffled a bit, then glanced around the shop.
"I suddenly find myself parched, and in need of an afternoon cuppa." She said, his eyebrows raising at her deflection but he wasn't surprised if he was to be honest with himself. He had expected the brush off, as polite as it was, and turned away to package up George's supplies.
And then she shattered any notion he had that he knew anything about her at all by asking, "Care to join me?"
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They sat in a muggle tea house, a first for him. Not because he thought himself above such a place, or the people that patroned it. No, he'd overcome that poignantly obsessive bigotry that day in his drawing room. Cleanliness, though, was something he still was particular about, and was pleased to note this establishment was up to his standards.
It was a first for him as he'd never known a place like this existed. Though desperately curious since his revaluation about how the 'other side' lived, but not knowing how to navigate their world, Draco held back from venturing into the muggle world and culture without a guide.
He was still a Malfoy, and thusly never liked to appear ignorant. Masks and filters and all that rubbish.
They sat there, at their table for two, doctoring their tea to their own desires and making small piddly talk as they whittled away the awkwardness.
"I forgave you, you know." She said quietly, leaping over the topic of weather and into deeper waters. She stirred her cup - two sugars with a skiff of cream - like a potions cauldron. He watched, fascinated at her motions. "You were a right shite to us in school - though not so much to me past second year as you were to Harry every year - you were the loudest bully with the most clout..."
He grimaced, knowing how terribly he'd treated his classmates, especially the 'golden trio' and moved to speak but she cut him off.
"...But you were just a pawn, like all of us children were during the war. A silly, brainwashed, spoiled-rotten pawn." She looked up at him then, and her brown eyes - the color of freshly tilled earth - seemed to pierce him to the core.
Softly, her words almost a caress she said, "Pawns aren't meant to move out of turn, and only in one direction. But when it really counted Malfoy, when it looked like all your childhood taunts and desires could be met by identifying us... You went out of turn. You stepped up and proved you weren't a pawn anymore. And I forgave you all and everything in that moment."
He started slack jawed as she tentatively reached across for his hand, his hand that cradled his teacup with whitened knuckles and a stiff wrist. He unlocked his fingers at her touch, her warmth seeping in and thawing the winter of his soul, and he turned his fingers to entwine with her own.
His mouth tasted of bile, remembering the smell of burning flesh as his aunt mutilated her arm with her curses and her wand, his heartbeat quickened as he reflected upon that day. He was surprised she let him touch her, lacking as he was.
"I could see it, when I was being tortured. I glanced at you when she was carving up my arm, throwing me around with crucio after crucio, and I could see you shattering right along with me. I heard Ron screaming for me from below, but it was that sight of you that gave me strength. I saw you, Draco, the scared desperate child behind the mask, and it propelled me. Gave me the strength to survive. To outwit. If you could live with that monster and defy him, I could outwit his psychotic lieutenant."
He jerked as if slapped, hearing his name fall from her lips. Like sun melted butter it slid over him, draping him in warmth. And then her words penetrated and he stared at the woman across from him in awe.
"You were, are, fucking amazing Hermione!" He croaked out, absently rubbing his thumb against the side of her hand.
Another lightening eclipse of a smile.
"I'm sure you can still be a shite, I'm sure a compulsive snob, still spoiled-rotten by your mother," she continued with a smirk, and neither acknowledged his father though the omission was as loud as If she'd shouted Lucius's name, "but that doesn't make you a murderer, nor evil. Nor does it make me permanently hate you, which, for the record I never did. Just strongly disliked your actions."
"You should," he said and tightened his hold on her hand, marveling at how tiny it felt in his own, yet feeling the power almost vibrating from it. "I believed what I spewed, whole heartedly, for years. I was so sure I was right to hate you, right to think muggles and muggleborns were filth that I never stopped to question..."
He stared at their hands, resting on top of the table, clasped to each other as if to a lifeline. Stared and felt the familiar cloak of shame rest upon his shoulders.
"I can't believe you're actually here, that we're talking, I've wanted for the last two years to thank you ..." He murmured.
She waved her hand at that, flicking away his thanks like a fly, but he persevered.
"It was your testimony, yours and Potters, that kept me out of azkaban. That kept my mother on house arrest and not behind bars. I couldn't." Here his voice broke. "I wouldn't have blamed you had it gone the other way... But i won't lie and say I'm not forever grateful. I would have said something sooner, but I didn't know how...I didn't know how to thank you. How do you go about thanking someone for saving your life when you did nothing but torment them for years?"
"This tea is a start." She murmured and he felt something shift, settle, in his chest.
A start, she said. A start.
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They met at random times in random spots over the next few months, sometimes on a whim and sometimes planned out in advance. She became his unofficial guide to all things muggle, and he enlightened her to all the rites, traditions and intricacies of pureblood society she'd been denied knowledge of or exposure to. Every time she learned something new of their world he felt proud to be the one who's given her that piece.
Tea was consistent, different tea houses in both muggle and wizarding London. They went to the London zoo, to a muggle library - after which he in-turn opened the doors for her to the Malfoy library, letting her loose - and he didn't see her for hours. It would have been days had he not promised the doors would remain open to her henceforth in order for her to join him for dinner. She introduced him to muggle food, he was able to get her on a broom.
They grew closer, dancing around feelings unvoiced. They created a little bubble around their budding acquaintance, keeping the world at bay. But despite their shared camaraderie, she also kept him at bay, an invisible curtain keeping him separated. He desperately wanted the curtain to part. But he knew, instinctively, and she needed time, needed to feel safe.
He worked hard at making her feel safe.
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"Ron blamed me," she blurted out one day as they sat in the Malfoy library, practicing random charms from an ancient tome. They sat across from one another, books piled between on the table, parchments with revised incantations littering the floor.
Draco stilled, knowing that her next words were what the wizarding world was in desperate want of knowing. Understanding how hard the next words would be for her after months of growing closer, of knowing her. After years spent surreptitiously watching her behind his mask.
She toyed with her wand as she said, "He blamed me for years for so many things, some in my control others out of it. And I let the guilt of that eat at me... For years, starting in school even. He blamed me for my cat, my need for control, blamed me for not saving Fred, which is a load of hippogryff dung as what could I have done? I was a student for Merlins sake! He blamed me..."
She stopped, pausing - it appeared to him - to shore up her armor.
"He blamed me for not being enough. That's why he ultimately left, why the prophet is having such a fantastic time cataloging his exploits, he's having the time of his life, you see, and he wants the world to know it. And to know that it's not with me. He said I wasn't enough for him, too boring, too controlling, too bossy. I worked too much, I wasn't 'proper wife' material. Nor mistress material even... I left my career at the ministry for him, but it wasn't enough... He still left. I wasn't enough..."
Draco expected her eyes to be sad, to be a bit bright at this revaluation and reached in his pocket for a handkerchief. But when he went to hand it to her he noticed instead of sadness, an air of defeated anger shrouding her instead.
'Fuck!' He thought viscously, 'She truly believes she wasn't, isn't, enough.'
It angered him that she believed what lies the red-headed Weasel had fed her.
"He's a tosser," he spat, "and you're well shot of him. Of course he left, but not for those reasons, not exactly." He shook his head,l in disgust, and she looked at him quizzically.
He sighed, exasperated that the smartest witch of their age could be so dense when it came to her moronic ex and blind to her own strength. Granted, he'd also been jealous of her strengths for years and done what he could to tear them down as well. Didn't mean he didn't admire what he'd sought to destroy.
"Granger Granger Granger..." He said shaking his head. "He knew he'd never measure up and so it was easier to pull you apart instead to make him feel better about himself. Think of the witches the prophets have linked him to since you've split. Young, naive and easy to feel superior to. With you, he'd never have that chance, and he knew it. He's always known it, any fool could see that."
He was warming to his subject now, his voice growing bolder and didn't notice her eyes begin to shine in a different light as he spoke.
"You never took shit from anyone, Granger, despite the fact you'd probably have had a more socially agreeable time if you had let some things slide. And you were top of every class, even ones you didn't take, despite all the years of tutelage us purebloods had in those subjects since the age of 5. You just waltzed in and trounced us all. I was so jealous and yet secretly impressed." He coughed. She arched a brow.
"Not that I would have ever admitted that at the time," he grinned and was pleased to when an answering grin flashed across her face.
"And as for you not being 'proper wife' material, well... If that means staying at home and raising his brats and sacrificing your dreams then no, you are not proper wife material, as I see you using that brain of yours for grander things than cleaning charms and recipe creation and changing nappies."
"There's nothing wrong with..." She began but he waved her off.
"No there's not Hermione. My mother was a home wife, though of a vastly different elevation and stature than weaselbee's. Mother's career was our family, the estate, and our reputation. But you..." He eyed her baldly. "You could have the world. Despite how backwards S.P.E.W. was - "
"You know the correct name!" She exclaimed, astonished.
"Of course I do," he said, his genetic hautiness infusing his words. "Know thy enemy and all that..."
"Anyway," he continued, smug that he'd been able to genuinely surprise her, "you have brains, you have drive and you're a bloody heroine. You could make real change. And if you became a mother too, well, that's just icing, but only to a man not the Weasel. One that would honor you as a human and not just a brood mare."
She moved to speak and he held up his hand.
"And on the mistress front, of course you're not mistress material." Something fractured in her gaze at that, and he mentally cursed, feeling months of progress on the edge of collapse . He moved to sit beside her, and moved his finger to tilt her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet his.
"Silly Hermione." He said, and took a chance, dropping a kiss on her nose. "Mistresses are to be kept hidden. Any wizard lucky enough to share your bed should show you off like the Crown Jewels - never hidden. Should be proud to be on your arm, warming your bed, sharing your time. You, Hermione, are the sun to my perpetual night."
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She met his mother, a stilted awkward encounter that fostered little in the way of a possible budding friendship, but their affection for the same blond wizard kept their talons dulled and sheathed.
He met Hermione for drinks at the Leaky Cauldron, and endured the company of her friends, minus the conspicuous absence of one member of the 'golden trio'. Ginny put him through the ringer that first night, Lovegood twitted dreamy nonsense while shooting verbal darts, Longbottom sat there muted and glaring, and Potter... Potter waffled between antagonistic and curiously blunt toward him. By the third of such outing, wands were left at sides forgotten and he'd begun entering into conversation willingly with most, and in time, with all. He'd even buried the hatchet with Potter, seeing as he was Hermione's best friend and all, and would thusly be in her life permanently. Draco was tolerated by most, welcomed by a few, and he enjoyed winding some of them up and chatting quidditch with others. Hermione was happy. That was enough for him.
She met his friends one sunny afternoon, at a quidditch match he'd dragged her to. She'd only accepted, in part, due to him suggesting Ron would lose a knut knowing she was attending a game he couldn't afford but would have sold his right hand to attend.
Spite was a giant motivator. He didn't mind what motivated her as she snuggled into his side as the players flew past at breakneck speeds.
She held her own, amongst the snakes, and when it came to light how many rules the 'rule-abiding swot' actually broke during their school days - and how many laws during the year on the run - Blaise loudly declared her acceptable company, and Theo began asking her opinion on this and that, debating merit and theories. Draco knew this was as good as sorting her green and silver, and his stomach unclenched. No words of hate were thrown, no reference to wars fought. Pasts were left buried, and they moved forward as young adults free of the shackles of their forefathers.
The girls however, Daphne and Pansy and Millie, were all slower to come around, and Hermione more prickly in their presence. He did what he could to shelter her from Pansy's knife sharp tongue, but he needn't have worried. Hermione could give as good as she got, and in any other house it wouldn't have made her any friends.
"I've never been great with girls," she'd said. "Too many variables, too many moods."
Female hostilities and grudges being what they were, it took just over a month for Pansy and Hermione to come to terms with each other, but a begrudging truce and respect grew between them, and the other girls also lay down their emotional weapons and declared peace.
For all that was rosy, for all that had changed, Draco and Hermione still fought constantly, fire and ice colliding. Despite this, she told him it was different than the fights she'd endured with Ron. These challenged her, motivated her, infuriated her. Turned her on.
He relished hearing that, and never held back, in any area of their relationship.
Their first time was in the Malfoy library, following a heated row over some nonsense neither remembered afterward, their breaths labored and parchment and books spread around them like fallen leaves.
Later, in the supply closet at Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes, after she'd shown him her latest contribution, he demonstrated how proud he was of her. Very very thoroughly.
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Theirs was a partnership in the truest sense of the term, one that grew stronger over their years together. Never dull, never yielding.
They pushed each other, supported each other, as friendship turned to friends-with-benefits turned to a full-fledged relationship.
And years later, when asked by his children what had ultimately brought their parents together - as no one could deny that even years later they were still fire and ice personified - he glanced away reminiscently and said, "It all started with a spot of tea."