Hermione runs into Draco, two or so months after the war. The Malfoy family fled to France, incidentally where Hermione decided to take a small solo vacation. She runs into him at the small bistro in the ground floor of her hotel as she goes to get breakfast on her fourth morning there. But Draco pretty much runs as soon as he can, leaving her standing there wondering what had just happened.
She comes back the next morning, hoping to see him again. Draco returns the next morning as well, telling himself the food was just really good.
"Don't run." she says, coming up behind him. She sees his back straighten and his shoulder tense. He doesn't turn around, but he doesn't run either. "Will you just have breakfast - you don't even have to sit at the same table."
So without a word, Draco sits at the table next to him and they have breakfast, sitting back to back at two separate tables.
"So, are you enjoying France?" Hermione asks, after they've gotten their food.
"It's fine," he answers curtly. And then there's silence for most of the meal but Draco just can't help himself. "What are you doing here?" he finally asks.
Hermione lets a little smile slip, because at least he's making conversation even if he is a little short with it. "Nothing, really."
"Nothing?" His voice sounds closer and she can tell he's turned his head, engaging with her further.
"Well, I'm doing a lot of sleeping, and some reading. And I suppose I've done a little bit of sightseeing. Really… I'm just here to relax."
He doesn't respond and Hermione calls for her check, silently gesturing to the server for Draco's as well. "Breakfast was delicious," she says in French as she hands the server her money. "I will definitely be back tomorrow." she adds, still in French and loud enough for Draco to hear.
The next morning she's halfway through her meal when Draco pulls out the chair across from her and signals for the server.
"Good morning," she greets after he's ordered. "I see you speak French."
"Obviously. Look Granger, what do you want?"
She sips her coffee. "I don't want anything."
"Bullocks, everybody wants something. What is it? Money? You going to turn us in unless we hand over a fortune?"
Hermione interrupts him with a big, boisterous laugh. It's full and loud and genuine and something he'd never seen her do before. "Oh, Merlin," she sighs as she starts to catch her breath. She wipes the moisture from her eyes. "Oh, that's rich. Truly. Thank you for that, I haven't laughed that hard in… who knows when."
Still trying to regulate her breath, she stands and puts enough muggle money to cover her breakfast on the table. "I guess I just enjoyed seeing a familiar face, even if it was yours." And he watches as she goes back into the hotel.
The next morning she's shocked and surprised to see his his tall frame nearly folded up in the small chairs in the lobby, coffee and muggle paper in hand. "Do you have plans for the day?" he asks as she walks up, not giving her a chance to greet him.
She's a bit taken aback, both by the question itself and his short tone, but she answers anyway. "Just a bit of exploring, really. Nothing solid."
"Would you like a familiar face to accompany you?"
She smiles a little. "I wouldn't be opposed to it, no."
So for the third morning in a row they have breakfast together, and afterwards they spend the day walking around the city. They roam the streets, pop into shops, and even stroll through a museum. There's not a lot of laughter, or goofing off, or even a lot of conversation; it's not a movie montage where they end up best friends by the end of it. But Draco explains some of the intricacy and history behind a few paintings, and Hermione gives highly informative insights into the architecture and lesser known history of the city and they have a nice, quiet lunch and it's not all bad, there's a calm and comfort to the day that neither were likely to admit for a long time.
"Well that wasn't completely awful," Hermione says, half joking, as they arrive at her hotel. Draco let a quick smile flash on his face and Hermione can't help but think that a smile looks good on him, almost handsome even.
"No, I supposed not." There's an awkward silence as neither one quite know how to say goodbye.
"Well, I guess I'll see you around," Hermione finally says, turning towards the glass doors next to them.
"Granger," Draco says, a little more urgently than he would like. She turns to face him, but he avoids direct eye contact. "I - I have some things to attend to tomorrow but… would you like to have dinner Friday night?"
A jumble of thoughts flood her mind, but in the end she gives him a soft smile and says, "dinner sounds great."
Friday night he waits for her in the lobby at the agreed upon time, and almost doesn't recognize her when she walks in. She's in a figuring flattering dress, in a color that brings out her eyes, and her hair is sleek and curled and partly up. It looks nothing like the Granger he knows and he can't stop the smile from spreading across his face.
When Hermione sees him she's suddenly hyper aware of everything, her dress and hair and how she's walking and she almost feels like turning and running back to her room. But she doesn't and he brings her one of his favorite restaurants and they're between courses when it happens. He tells her how nice she looks and she returns the favor, complimenting him on his suit.
"It's actually transfigured," he replies before he can stop himself.
"What?" Hermione asks, a bemused chuckle in her voice. Draco tries to hide his embarrassment with the bottom of his Scotch glass, but Hermione press him on.
"My family and I - we weren't really able to get out with much." He mumbles. It's the first time either have spoken of anything outside of what was immediately around them. They'd tiptoed around it in all previous interactions, ignored the Hippogriff in the room. And after that instance, they go right back to doing it.
They spend the next week together, and the longer they're with each other the more their pasts and the wizarding world start to slip into the conversation. Draco eventually asks about the rebuilding, and how it's going. Hermione tells him about Kingsley as Minister, and the changes he's making. She tells him about how Hogwarts is doing, and how she plans to go back to finish up her Seventh Year. She eventually finds away to slip in Azkaban, and how the Ministry have removed the Dementors.
Draco grows quiet and moody after that, ending their lunch abruptly and sticking Hermione with the bill. He shows up that night, to her room, to apologize.
"It's okay, I understand," Hermione mumbles. "Listen I'm really tired, maybe -" she starts, as she slowly begins to close the door on him. But he puts his hand up, stopping her.
"No, Hermione. I'm sorry."
It takes her a minute to realize what he's saying, but it clicks when she looks into his eyes and can see his remorse.
"I'm just - I wish I could undo everything. I wish I could take it all back -" She stops him by pulling him into the room, away from a family walking by, but she lets him say everything he needs to say. And he has a lot to say. He repeats and re-words a lot of things, rambles at length, talks to himself more than her at times, and ends up trying to hide his tears, but she lets him get it all out.
"You should turn yourself in," she says, after he's done and they've spent a good five minutes in silence.
"What?" he asks, incredulously. He's angry, but more so at himself because he's known for a while it's what he has to do.
"Turn yourself in. Give up any information you have. Do your time. And then make it better."
They fight from there, mostly due to Draco's obstinace, and she doesn't see him for three days. On the fourth day he shows up at her door, disheveled and in disarray but with a packed bag. He'd spent those three days fighting with his parents.
"It doesn't matter what happened," he tells her when she asks, "I'm coming back with you. But I need you to do something for me."
Hermione cuts her vacation short and, after Draco cleans up, apparates them directly into Harry's living room. There's a little bit of yelling, and then a lot of explaining, and the next morning Harry and Hermione escort Draco to the Ministry. In the time it takes for a few people to apparate out and back in, the press floods the Main Hall and before Harry and Hermione can get him to the Auror's office, Kingsley shows up to take him directly to trial.
"Granger!" Draco calls, but she can't get to him. And she's not allowed in the trial. He is put in chains and magically bound, then questioned relentlessly. He's forced to recount nearly every wrong doing he committed or even merely witnessed. He gave up every name he could think of, and any hideout he knew of. Hours later, votes were taken with many mixed results. And as the room full of witches and wizards surrounds him, staring down at him as they hold his fate in their hands, he calls out.
"I have one more name!" His voice is hoarse, but the room falls quiet.
"Out with it, boy!" a faceless witch calls.
He swallows. "Lucius Malfoy." Whispers ripples throughout the room. "He's in Italy." he adds, and gives them the location of where his father is, where Lucius sat in wait, alone, for any number of Aurors to show up and arrest him.
Draco is found guilty, and sent to Azkaban to await sentencing. Hermione, and Harry to a lesser extent, petition for a shortened sentence.
"Please, Kings - Minister! He gave himself up! He gave up his own father! Surely that has to count for something."
Kingsley eyes her skeptically. "Yes, his father, who seemed fully prepared for what happened to him. Odd that he was alone, and that we've yet to find his wife."
She's in Greece, Hermione thought. "He's offered to give up most of his family's fortune. Think of the good the Ministry could do with that." she says, strategically side stepping Kingsley's thinly veiled accusations.
"I assure you, Ms. Granger, all of this will be taken into consideration."
In the end, Draco is given two years. The Azkaban he is sent to is much different than the one his father sat in pre-war. There were no Dementors, living conditions and food were marginally better, and they were allowed one visitor a month.
"I don't understand why you insist on visiting that git every month," Ron often groans. Once, Hermione tried to explain to him what happened to Germany after the first Muggle World War. How the victors decimated their economy, and left the country as a whole in shambles, and how that led to a perfect breeding ground for the second Muggle World War. But Ron refused to understand the metaphor.
"How's your garden?" Draco asks every time she visits, and Hermione tries to recall anything of import she's read in the letters Narcissa has sent her, from her self-imposed and self-serving exile in a tiny town in Greece.
"It's okay," she responds. "It's not exactly thriving, but it's not withering, either."
Draco sighs and lets his chin fall to his chest. It pained him to think of his mother hidden away and secluded from everything, living a half life all alone.
"It's… quite witty, my garden," Hermione says, careful of her words. Narcissa had been opposed to writing her at first, but over the months had grown more accustomed to it, letting her personality show through in her words. Draco looks up at Hermione and smiles a little.
"Always has been," he mumbles.
After a year and a half, he's let out on probation and Hermione and Harry help to get him a low-level position at the Ministry. Hermione decides to take it upon herself to help him figure out how to disperse the Malfoy wealth, but they hit a roadblock when they go to create their first charity. Even though her whereabouts are supposedly unknown, Narcissa is still in charge of the accounts and trusts.
They fight for weeks, Draco not wanting to give up his mother and Hermione reminding him a large part of his conditional release was due to his promise to help rebuild.
"They will revoke your two year sentence and put you in for life, Draco."
"I'm not letting my mother spend one day in that vile place!"
"I told you, I can make a deal with the Minister. Your mother can go home, serve time there. You can see her again."
Draco eventually relents. Hermione strikes a deal with Kingsley; Draco gives up his mother, but they let the Aurors arrest her as though they were the ones who tracked her down, letting them save face and removing a lot of speculation on Draco's part from the equation. Then Kingsley will give her mercy and allow her to return to her home under the wizarding equivalent of house arrest, a move that shows his benevolence while also serving as a message to others who, while not marked Death Eaters, are still in hiding over their association with the Dark Lord. (In fact within two weeks of Narcissa's 'trial', three others come forward.)
With everything finally settled, Draco and Hermione get to work; they turn the Manor into an orphanage and children's hospital, create scholarships to help students pay for supplies, campaign for werewolf rights, and allocate funds to extend all kinds of research at St. Mungos.
Draco starts all of this under the guise of self preservation, telling Hermione (and himself) that it was all to help clear his name and regain power. But the longer they work, and the more results they see, the more that facade starts to crack. Helping people feels good, and even Draco Malfoy can't deny it.
But the longer they work, the more strained Hermione's relationship with Ron becomes. He doesn't understand why she needs to do this, and doesn't like her spending all this time with Malfoy. Add that and the mounting pressure from both Ron and his mother to start settling down and having children ("Four's ideal, don't you think Hermione," Ron says one night) and something was bound to give.
They're broken up for two weeks before Draco finds out, and he's livid. Over time the two had grown to be close friends, best friends even, and it was everything she could do to talk him out of hunting Ron down and cursing him into oblivion.
"I broke up with him," she urged. "Sit down, I don't need you to avenge me."
He insists on taking her out, helping her blow of steam with a few shots of Firewhiskey, but she insists on throwing herself into work. So they double down on projects and time spent together and within the year they're on their first date.
"It's not really our first date, you know," Draco muses.
"I mean, yeah we've had meals together before but those hardly count."
Draco smiles, and asks a question he already knows the answer too. "All right then, what constitutes a date that counts?"
"Hm, for a real first date the restaurant should be nice, with good food and low lighting. And we should be dressed up, like we are now, your suit and my dress."
"Is that all," he asks, putting a bite of food into his mouth.
"Well there should be… something there. Like, tension- a good type of tension, like butterflies or something. There should be an exciting element to it, if that makes any sense."
"Well then I stand by my statement. It's not really our first date."
She puts her fork down and looks at him, wondering what he's talking about for a moment before her widen and she smiles. "Paris," she says quietly.
"Paris," he confirms, and reaches across the table to hold her hand.