A/N: This piece was written for the DFW Halloween Fest, "trope" themed. My trope was coffeeshop. And I hope you enjoy.
Warning: Character death(s?)...It's Halloween.
Alpha thanks to the marvelous Kyonomiko who encouraged the happier ending. Beta love to the dazzling CourtingInsanity. I'm completely grateful for these ladies.
There was one thing Hermione Granger was absolutely certain of: this was a dream.
Or at the very least, she was living inside her head for the time being.
This new business district of Diagon Alley was usually bursting at the seams with freshly employed witches and wizards any time of day. But every time Hermione found herself standing in front of Carla's Coffee, the street was deserted. And there was a feel of something otherworldly beyond it.
It was also telling that all the scenes before and following these moments standing in front of the coffee shop were blank. She'd lost count of the number of times she'd 'woken up' and just stood, outside the abandoned establishment. Based on the two obvious facts of memory lapse and isolation, she could rule out the theory of being caught in a strange time loop. Besides, her most recent case had nothing to do with time turners or anything remotely mysterious...It had been...
Hermione bit down on the inside of her cheek as her brows pulled together. She couldn't remember their recent case. Harry had pulled them to...something.
She remembered being surprised...
Also. She knew the name of this establishment. It sent a shivered down her spine, if such a reaction is possible in a dream-like state. Huh. It would appear she had no trouble recalling that to memory.
Interesting.
She frowned. And pursed her lips into a thin line as she stared at the beverage establishment.
The lingering questions remained still: How long had she been 'dreaming'? Why did she always 'awaken' here? And how could she get out?
Then the darkness swallowed her. And she knew nothing more.
Until she woke again.
Maybe she was supposed to go in.
It would make sense...
Continually appearing before the same building while in a dream-like state...It would make sense to enter said building.
And yet...
Hermione hesitated.
This was the coffee shop, after all...
And the door was already open.
It seemed her subconscious was taunting her; determined to mock her.
She held her breath (was she even breathing here?) and stepped one foot over the threshold. And then the other.
She looked around.
Everything looked the same: coveted booths around the edges of the cosy shop and those irritating little round tables in the leftover spaces. They were the only seats available whenever she went with...
Her eyes stopped roaming when they fell on that table.
That shock of platinum blond hair. Eyes of iridescent layers of blue and grey meeting hers.
Everything stopped.
He blinked once and tilted his head at her, keeping his expression otherwise blank. Just as he would do when he she would come to see him in the Ministry labs, and he was too engrossed to speak, but still wanted her to join him.
Or like that time she'd come late to high tea with his mother and hadn't had time to change from her mucky Auror robes and dirt-caked boots.
Or like that time she'd stumbled through the Floo of his study to find him working his way through a bottle of Firewhisky - that Friday she'd finally put together that he would work from home when Friday fell on the thirteenth (the precise day his father had died in Azkaban).
Only this time—instead of gliding right up to him, settling right across from him, or into his side, as if it was where she'd always belonged—she spun on her heel.
And fled the coffee shop.
No. No. Definitely not.
The blackness didn't take her until she'd run in an empty circle, almost making it back to the hanging wooden sign reading 'Carla's Coffee'.
"You've been avoiding me," he said.
Hermione's lip curled into that reflexive frown when she knew he was right; and she knew he was right, but by Godric, she wasn't going to admit it to him. She huffed in acknowledgement instead, stalking up to his table, their table and pulled out the chair opposite him, making a show of sitting down.
Even if it was an audience of one.
"No, I haven't," she answered primly, meeting his gaze.
Even though she lied. She'd been able to keep track of this time: she'd stood staring outside the coffee shop three more times between intervals of darkness and void. And in those times of cowardly indecision, she'd come to realize she had no trouble remembering anything regarding Draco.
None of it prepared her for the physical manifestation of him, however. Or rather, her subconscious approximate...
His lips bent in that beauteous smile; not his teasing, knowing smirk. A brilliant and genuine smile. The one he saved for her. And only her.
"You have," he repeated. Simple and without malice. He wasn't accusing. But he could always tell when she lied.
Like the last time they'd been in this coffee shop, three months prior when he'd asked her what was wrong and she'd formed a tight smile and shook her head. Saying nothing.
Until…
This time, however, it was Draco who didn't speak. He just sat across from her. Silent and studious. Observing and discerning.
Merlin, she couldn't bear it.
"Why are you here?" she bit out, folding her hands crisply over her lap.
"Where are we, exactly?" he asked, ignoring her question.
She rolled her eyes. "In my head, I would surmise. You're a figment of my imagination, or some sort of test, and if I figure things out, I can wake up."
He raised a delicate narrow brow. "Really?"
"Yes," she snapped. "What else could this possibly be, Draco?"
A second brow lifted. "So…I'm Draco again?"
There was the unmistakable cadence of hope in his question. It shot to the centre of a frozen layer she'd ensconced herself in these last three months.
She sighed, moving her hands up to the table. "You never stopped being Draco…" She faltered seeing that hope spread and spark in his eyes. "I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable at work after…" She floundered again. Gods, she hated her subconscious right now.
"I see," he interjected softly. "But you said you needed space. You said you couldn't do 'us' anymore." The pain in his voice was palpable, melting - no, decimating - every last reserve she'd built up.
"No." She shook her head in the negative, opening her hands, palms up. "No, you couldn't possibly, because I didn't explain anything to you, Draco. We were great." She paused, swallowing hard. "We were doing great, and I got cold feet…"
He looked strained as he watched her. As if trying to decide if he should reach out and take her hands or not…
Would it be possible to luxuriate in the warmth of his touch in this dream-like-state?
Hermione decided to remove the option for the both of them (or her subconscious…). She withdrew her hands to her side of the table, drumming her fingers on the edge. "I was scared," she said, slow and clear. "Gods, I got so scared. I was falling for you and I could see it…I could see it all, you know? And it took me back to…Ron…" She winced at his obvious displeasure at the comparison to her ex. "Ron wanted the stay-home wife and mom, and you're from a pureblood family too, and I couldn't have that conversation again…" She cut herself off, jaw trembling.
He considered her with one of those blank and unreadable expressions. And the weight of his vivid gaze made it seem an eternity before he finally spoke. "Did I ever pressure you for that? Any of that, Hermione?"
"You didn't." She shook her head fiercely. "You never did."
"Did Mother?"
"No!" The force of her defensive outburst surprised her, but she'd developed a soft spot for the pureblood matriarch, in spite of the tense aforementioned official first meeting involving high tea, tardy Hermione, grimy Auror robes and one unfortunate house-elf.
"Narcissa was lovely," she continued. "Always. It was all me. I was scared and I deflected with safe excuses to justify hurting you and ending us...I told myself it was for the work. Because I love it, Draco. I do. I can't give it up for kids indefinitely….I could take the first year off, maybe, but…"
He uttered a sad chuckle. "Salazar, you really do think for everyone, don't you?"
She offered a useless shrug, not exactly thrilled with voicing aloud one of her biggest faults, even to herself.
The smile he offered her was a heart-breaking combination of sorrow and love. "It's alright."
Hermione simply sat, weighing his answer as a painful rolled over them, like a scratchy table cloth. His forgiveness was soft and quick. Too quick. Like when he'd just let her end it all without fighting back. As if he still deep-down believed himself a failed Death Eater who'd been lucky enough to have her give him a second look that first case she'd ventured down to the labs to deliver evidence.
No more.
No more steam rolling and thinking for two.
"It's really not, though," she said.
"No?"
"No," she said, confident and certain. "I shouldn't have just ended it all and walked away. I was wrong to break two hearts for irrational fears that I didn't even discuss with you. Merlin, I was so wrong." Her voice felt thick, and she found it odd she wasn't in tears.
She knew she'd cried in dreams before...
"I forgive you, witch." His response was again quick, but there was an undeniable seriousness to his tone, she believed he meant it.
"You do?" she asked. It never hurt to be absolutely certain.
"Of course I do, Hermione," he answered, scooting closer to the table; his knees could have brushed against hers under it. "I love you, I told you so. It hurt you hadn't said it back yet, but I wasn't sorry I told you. It was the first time I'd said it and meant it to anyone apart from Mother. And I couldn't stop hoping..."
"Oh, Draco." She leaned over the table reaching out her hands again, even as he leaned close enough to take her by the arms, and she tried not to be disappointed that he didn't. "What if it's too late? I mean, this is a conversation in my head..." She gestured over him with her fingers. "What if you're not as understanding or forgiving in person?"
"Has any of this," he sat upright, waving over himself and then between them, "seemed inaccurate thus far?"
"No," she conceded, flashing a look that she hoped would be described as coquettish. "You're the same handsome and brilliant Draco Malfoy I remember." A light warmed her from within as he winked at her.
"Good answer, Beautiful." He smirked at her now. "I'd say your chances are good that I already have."
Unable to hold that stunning gaze any longer, she dropped her eyes and darted them around the empty shop. "I wonder how I get out of here now…Or tell myself to wake up." She chewed her lip a moment, looking back to the conjured mental image of the wizard she loved (Yes, she loved him.) "It feels like I've been dreaming for a long time."
"Is that what this is?" he asked simply.
"What else could it be?" she tossed back.
"Do you remember how you got here?" he deflected, eyeing her cautiously.
She shook her head. "I just remember waking here and seeing the coffee shop…"
"And avoiding said coffee shop," he added with a small amount of mirth.
"And then avoiding said coffee shop," she repeated, admitting her err freely, furrowing her brow. "I don't know how long it's been though. I can't determine time in here."
He nodded, accepting (or considering) her answer. "What's the last thing you remember before waking up here?" he prompted before muttering. "If that's what we're going to call it..."
"Well, it's the best guess I've got," she countered, quickly, making a face as she thought. "I can't be entirely sure, Draco," she said with an almost defeated sigh. "At first, I couldn't really be sure of anything. I just knew I knew this place and it wasn't usually empty. And I knew why I didn't want to go in…But nothing recent. I'd have a sense of self-awareness and thinking something about Harry before the darkness; a-"
"The darkness?" he queried.
"I don't know what else to call it," she shrugged. "But I can only assume I'm awake in real time, because I'm certainly not here,"(she waved about the room), "anymore. I haven't come back here with any recent memories though. Just more…unfolding, I suppose. Like I remembered I'm an Auror, I'm Harry's partner, but I knew our most recent cases didn't have anything to do with time, but I can't remember what any of them were."
"Not one of them?" His gaze was pointed and imploring.
He knew something.
"What is it, Draco?" She couldn't help the desperation in her voice. She needed to get out of this. And if some part of her had buried that knowledge and hidden it away from the rest of herself…
"I can't tell you," he answered vaguely.
Her eyes narrowed into thin slits. "But you know things, don't you? Or rather it's me projecting it on to you, correct?"
"Is it?" He drew his lips together, pressing them tight.
She blinked, chewing on her tongue. "Isn't it? I mean, this is different than any other dream I've been in. It is funny that it was almost a repeating loop until I came into the coffee shop. I would always wake up from the darkness and find myself right outside."
"Yes?" he hummed.
"Well…yes…" That still sounded as more a question. "Yes," she nodded, "I'd come right back from wherever and be right outside the coffee shop door. Whenever I tried walking away, everything would go black until I'd wake back up at the coffee shop door."
"What about when you first came in and saw me?" he asked.
"I remembered you." She stared into him, trying to sort the puzzle pieces. What was she missing? "I saw you and remembered visiting you in the labs. I'd bring you lunches, and we'd talk cases together. Or potions. Or runes. I remembered the first time meeting your mother and how it was just supposed to be 'one quick lead', but I fell down the well, and came to your Mother's cottage dirty and irritated and we ended up having a debate over house-elves and—Merlin, that day, Draco."
He chuckled lightly. "Go on," he urged.
"I remembered the day I put it together with your father's passing away on a Friday, the thirteenth. You always took that day off, until I skived off work and instead helped you polish off the last half of a bottle of Firewhiskey."
There was a definite glint in his eyes now. "Yes. You did. And I never felt the need to drink on that day afterwards…"
Something in his answer struck her, but she couldn't determine what precisely.
Moving on, she smiled in silence as a substitute for speaking, drumming her fingers over the surface of the table.
"What else, Hermione?" he asked again.
"You, Draco." It was the only response she could immediately contrive through the mist in her mind. "I remember every detail of you and us and this ending, the coffee shop…"
She stopped. Shooting upright in her seat, hands falling to her sides.
"Draco!" she cried, eyes wide at him. "Carla's Coffee! It was here! Harry and I were called in to a case at this very location."
"Yes," he agreed. It was a prompt.
And it fuelled her.
"There've been some recent explosions all over wizarding Britain," Hermione continued, a thrilling surge coursing through her, "and we had a tip about someone in this coffee shop early before they opened! Harry and I came here first thing. He was talking with the owner outside -" she pointed out the door "- and I was over there -" she pointed to a far corner now, one foot giddily tapping the floor "- and then suddenly, you came through the back door!" She jumped out of her seat, too excited to contain herself any longer. "Merlin, Draco! I remember being so upset, wondering why in the name of all the Founders you were here already. Thinking there shouldn't have been any lab data for you. And I was so awkward and cold to you - that's another thing I'll need to apologize to you for when I'm awake -"
She looked back to him, eyes full, surprised to find something sorrowful in his own expression.
"What happened next, Hermione?" His inquiry was so soft, just above a whisper. And there was a gentleness in it that felt…off…
Her head titled at him of its own accord. Staring at him. And into him. "You know, you're so very much like the real Draco," she murmured, stepping around the table at him. "I don't recall a dream conversation ever being this realistic before…" She stepped closer and his eyes widened even as he lifted his chin. "Or one looping continuously in the precise spot."
She shook her head, stepping up to him again. "This…" She halted, uncertain if she wanted to tread down this train of thought.
Hang it all, she'd come this far.
"This isn't a dream," she breathed.
He had scooted his chair away from her reach, but she wasn't reaching out, afraid of what she may discover.
"None of this has been a dream, has it Draco?"
He swallowed. "Hermione," he started, voice thick…
And then he dissolved into ash before her very eyes.
"Draco!" She screamed, lunging to his empty seat…
Which dissolved into dust and ash as well, floating off into the atmosphere.
The table followed next, and she threw up her hands, squeezing her eyes from the minuscule debris that were coming right at her…
But it never came.
She dropped her hands, something pounding heavily inside her as everything dissolved and floated off.
That pounding persisted.
It wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream.
"Think Hermione, think," she urged herself. Darkness was coming in the distance again. Swallowing all the light in its path.
This wasn't a dream. None of this had been.
"He wanted you to remember what happened in the coffee shop," she started, forcing herself to look away from the looming shadows. "You remembered Draco, and almost saying something to him, but then didn't, almost walked away…"
She peeked. The shadows swirled around her now. Ready to strike and consume. She squeezed her eyes tight, speaking as loud as she could to hear over the pounding within her own mind.
"He said my name!" she cried, eyes flying open. "Draco screamed at me, and I remember falling, or being shoved and a loud roar…"
She froze.
Midnight ink now curled in patterns all around. Everywhere she turned, she was surrounded by thick darkness.
She allowed her chest to heave.
"He died trying to save me," she said, uncertain what to expect, but knowing she was meant to say that. To know that one simple truth.
The dark curls seemed to nod in agreement, skimming near her and then dancing from her touch as she reached a delicate hand out.
She sank to her knees, though what was holding them up now, she had no idea.
Only one thing mattered now: she needed to find Draco.
"Take me to him," she murmured, eyes falling closed, knowing nothing more as shadows and ink filled her being.
Hermione was whispered awake.
And not in the traditional sense of a person physically speaking softly in her ear, like her mum used to on Saturday mornings when she had stayed up too late reading on Friday nights.
Not as Draco had done evenings she had fallen asleep in his lab while reading and waiting for him to finish up.
It was a soft wind that traced over her face and tickled her nose. It warmed her from the inside out.
She blinked her eyes open.
The coffee shop was back.
She was standing at the open front door again.
She didn't hesitate for even half a moment this time.
"Draco!" she yelled, floating through the door.
Floating?
She stopped short, looking down and around.
There were the distinct outlines of her body, in that ghostly blue she'd become so family with from Hogwarts. And she could see through herself. And her feet her not touching the floor…
"Hello, Hermione." She snapped her head up. Draco was floating to her. "I see you decided to join me, then."
"You were dead the whole time." She wasn't asking, but he nodded regardless, eyes still managing to penetrate, even lifeless and colourless. "You died trying to save my life."
He nodded again, drifting closer to her, even as she allowed herself to float up to him.
"Was I in a coma, then? Mostly dead, but not quite there yet?"
"I think so," he answered, with some degree of uncertainty.
"Was that some form of limbo for you?" she asked, so near him now she would have threaded her fingers together around his neck and curled into his chest…if she had a physical body to speak of…
He shook his head. "I was waiting."
"Waiting?" she repeated, inviting him to expound upon that revelation.
"When I woke up - if that's what you can call it - there was this coffee shop, and a door just beyond outside" he pointed to the wall behind the counter. "I floated to the door, but when I looked back for one final look around, I just knew I should wait. In the coffee shop. And so, I did."
She nodded. It wasn't the vaguest answer she'd ever heard; not in comparison to some dribble her former Headmaster had come up with on many occasion.
"You didn't look like a ghost though." It really seemed strange that that should be what came to mind next, but floating together in such proximity, it was hard to think of anything else.
"The magic of the coffee shop, or some bollocks like that," he said, clearly focusing more on the recipient of his words than the words themselves.
She chuckled. "And so now we…" She trailed off, allowing him to finish.
"We go on. Through the door." He reached out, allowing his hand to trail up the invisible curves of her cheek. "Together, if you'd like."
She smiled, floating an arm to mirror his action. "Please."
They took their time floating up to the great unknown through the mysterious door, content to get lost in the wonder of being reunited at last, vowing to never be separated again. And when they passed through the wide-open door together, they turned back only once, for one final glimpse of the Carla's Coffee.
Their coffee shop.