Autumn
At the beginning of Draco's self-imposed isolation, his friends sent him owls, of course. When their letter were returned unopened, everyone but his mother took the hint.
Draco leans his chin on his hand and stares out the window at the darkness of the village square. These days, after the letters stopped coming, that's mostly all he does. His books have lost their charm. He barely uses his wand. He hardly eats. He hardly sleeps. In fact, he hardly stirs.
Right now, it's before dawn - much too early for any of the villagers to be awake. In wakeful night after wakeful night, Draco has come to know the patterns of the village as well as the back of his own hand. So he is immediately alert when he catches a flash in the window of the long-abandoned bakery.
Draco strains his eyes. The flash is followed by a warm glow, as of candlelight, faint through the years-old dust of the bakery window. Then a swirl - red - fabric. Then an arm draws shut the dilapidated curtains, and all is quiet again in the village square.
Later that morning, when Minky comes to bring him his customary cup of coffee, Draco inquires, "Is someone moving into the bakery, Minky?"
"Minky is not knowing of anything, sir," says Minky, with a curious look from his bulbous eyes.
"I thought I saw something there last night." "Minky is thinking," says Minky, "that Master should not be sleeping so late at night, sir."
"Never mind," says Draco.
"Minky is receiving one letter from Mistress Narcissa Malfoy, Master." Minky holds out the envelope, addressed in the unmistakeable copperplate of Draco's mother.
"You know what to do with it," says Draco listlessly. He dismisses Minky and the letter with a wave of his hand.
Neither Minky nor the letter moves. "Minky is thinking," says Minky, still holding out the envelope, "that Master should be opening the letters form Mistress Narcissa, once in a while, sir."
"Minky, go away," says Draco, and at last, with one last reproachful look, Minky Disapparates.
Draco returns to his vigil over the little abandoned bakery across the square. Perhaps Minky was right. Perhaps Draco had been imagining things. Perhaps his mind, like everything else in his life, is finally beginning to crumble.
Suddenly golden light beams through the chinks of the old curtains. Draco stares. The strange light beams again, blue this time, and Draco would swear - another flash, pink, for a second, and blinks out - Draco would swear, if he didn't know better, that the flashes came from a Colour-Changing Charm.
Over the next few wearing days, Draco becomes more and more convinced that the mysterious tenant of the bakery building is indeed a wizard. Even Minky and his companion Tibby are forced to admit something suspiciously magical about the shop's aura.
There are the continual Charms at night, for one thing, with their distinctive flashes of coloured light. In the morning, splashes of paint daub the pavement outside, and the village children crowd around the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the interior.
One day before dawn, Draco notices a spidery mist emitting from the bakery's chimney, rolling over and settling on the ground in a manner that no mortal mist could. It is so subtle that he doubts anyone but he has noticed it. He opens his window to investigate it further. It creeps up his wall, and into his room, and Draco's nostrils are filled with the inviting scent of vanilla and cognac.
He feels a cold panic grip his heart. Why a wizard? What kind of wizard? Draco specifically chose this Muggle village, secluded from the outside and so far removed from the magical world it might as well be on a different planet. He specifically chose it so he would never be bothered, never be reminded, again. Why has this wizard, now, come here as well?
Then on the third week the bakery sign comes down and a new sign goes up, and Draco's fear evaporates, for the sign says in curly old-gold lettering: Chatoyant Chocolaterie.
A chocolaterie! What kind of fool would open a chocolaterie here, where a quiet evening at the pub is considered the height of debauchery and entertainment? Why, Draco doubts half the villagers even know the difference between milk and dark chocolate! Surely the chocolaterie will be out of business within a week of its opening, leaving Draco in blessed solitude once more.
Draco's shoulders sag in relief. To think he was so worried, only a few days ago! That night, for the first time in many, he is able to sleep well. Surely, after all, the troubling chocolaterie will soon be gone.
Draco watches the shop closely on its opening day. The spidery smoke surrounds the village now, seeming to whisper enticing things, ever-so-sweetly.
The villagers are cautious, but curious. Draco sees first the children, then the young men, and finally everyone up to the pub-owner himself, pour in, partake, and exit beaming.
In the week that follows, the chocolaterie shows no sign of diminishing in popularity. Though perhaps it doesn't have a stream of customers, it can certainly be said to have a steady trickle, which for this village is high praise indeed.
Draco grows more and more agitated. He says to Tibby, who has come in to clean, "What could be its secret?"
Tibby stacks five empty coffee cups on top of one another and clucks at the way Draco has carelessly tossed them aside. "Tibby is not knowing, Master, and Tibby is not thinking it matters one way or another, sir."
"Of course it matters," says Draco. "I didn't come all this way to this godforsaken village to be found out by some cocktossing crackpot."
"Then perhaps, sir," says Tibby, "Master can be thinking of leaving, sir."
"Don't be silly, Tibby," says Draco. "You may go now."
"Tibby is just saying what Tibby is thinking best, sir," insists Tibby, before Disapparating.
A few weeks into the chocolaterie's tenure, Draco cracks. "Minky," he says one morning, "d'you think you could get some of the chocolates for me?"
"Minky cannot, sir," says Minky airily, and Draco remembers that he can hardly send house-elves to an establishment patronised by Muggles.
"But Minky is thinking," continues Minky, "that Master can be going himself, sir."
"What?" says Draco. "Minky, are you crazy?"
"Master," suggests Minky, pointedly looking nowhere and especially not at Draco, "is still being perfectly capable of using his own legs, sir."
Draco practically growls as he dismisses Minky from the room. Perhaps he is being too lenient with his house-elves, the cheeky things.
But when left alone, he considers. It's true that his house-elves are personas non grata in the Muggle world outside this house. Furthermore, it's true that he still retains full use of his physical capacities. Finally and most glaringly, it's true that he craves to try the chocolates that have stirred the village.
Is it worth it? Draco wonders, and his brain tells him no, that if he once lets in this taste of the outside, it will invade his senses and permeate the protective fortress of his mind. But perhaps it's the silky vanilla-cognac smell, forever wearing away at his resolve, or perhaps it's just the return of his natural curiousity - and the notion does not leave his mind.
As he grips the chocolaterie's door-handle, Draco is arrested by an unwelcome thought. Through the fractured glass of the door-panes, the owner looks suspiciously like -
It is indeed Hermione Granger herself who comes forward to greet him, and freezes. He would recognise that headful of curls anywhere.
For a moment neither speaks. Then Granger smiles - carefully. "It's a pleasure, Malfoy."
They shake hands. A month ago he wouldn't have gone within a metre of her, much less - Her hand is warm and floury.
She doesn't ask why he is here. Her smile doesn't waver. "Since we're alone," she says, "I see no reason to keep the Statute." She closes her eyes and her lips move almost imperceptibly, and Draco feels an unknown wave of magic wash over him.
"What was that?" he says, in a half-whisper, and hates how vulnerable the vanilla-scented warmth makes him sound.
"Oh, it won't harm you. I do it to every new customer - very subtly, of course. It helps me find out their favourites."
"Their favourites?"
"Their favourite kind of chocolate. The spell took me just ages to work out."
"A highly modified Revelio," says Draco.
"Exactly," says Granger, looking at him with some respect. "Malfoy, you seem to have a soft spot for capezzoli di Venere."
With a quick and successive series of flicks, a pyramid of chocolates flies out of a display cabinet and into a box. A wide, dull-gold ribbon wraps itself around the box, and the whole thing plumps itself in Draco's hands.
"Obviously with Muggles, I do it the Muggle way," says Granger.
"I would think so," says Draco.
"The first box is on the house - that's my policy. More customers, like that."
"Granger - " says Draco. "I'm - surprised."
"Thank you," she says lightly, and turns away to attend another customer who has just entered.
As Draco reaches for the chocolates in the box, he realises that this is the first time he and Granger have ever had a conversation. They never talked, not really, not during their school years - he doesn't think they ever said more than a few dozen words to each other throughout their Hogwarts careers. After that there was the trial, but that was perfunctory. Kingsley Shacklebolt would hardly have started off his reign as Minister by imprisoning a boy so young, so broken, and so misguided. Granger was there, he remembers, but limited her words to her testimony, and left soon after.
"Go on," says Granger, guiding him out of his dangerous reverie.
He looks back to her, and realises they are, once again, alone.
The chocolate is bite-sized, and pinkly perfect. It's tipped with a tiny marzipan ball. Draco lets it melt in his mouth, and beyond the rich rosy swirl of brandy and chestnut that ruptures on his tongue, he is infused with a strange but familiar sense of satiation. He hasn't felt this way since - since before he left home - before the War. He tastes another, and another, savouring each, and each time it feels the same - that slow, soft, sensual feeling.
"How are they?" says Granger, who has sent off the customer with a box of florentines. "Good?"
"Yes," says Draco. "But how did you get the, the - ?"
Granger smiles, mischievously, and it's not at all like her first strained one. "The post-coital effect?"
Draco almost chokes. "Er, yes. That."
"My chocolatier magic," says Granger, "involves lots of emotion. I pour my feelings into my work, literally. It works something like a Pensieve. The Charms are stirred into the couverture, before sugar or other flavourings are added. I thought such emotions would be particularly suited to rich chocolates like these."
"Yes," says Draco again. And in the fluster of discussing such subjects, or in fact any subjects, with Hermione Granger, he forgets about why he came - to ask her why she moved into this town, and how dare she disturb his peace, and then to find out how long it will be before the media swoops in to claim their darling. On the way out, he merely says, "Thanks for the chocolates," and she says, "No problem, Malfoy, you're welcome to come again."
Draco leaves the chocolaterie well enough alone for a few days, but before two weeks have passed he returns. After all, the chocolates were divine - worth braving Granger's presence.
Still, though, he is wary. He makes sure to come late, after the Muggles have dispersed. He isn't ready yet to face their multitudes.
He purchases sharp circles of chocolate-coated peppermint, which release short bursts of clean energy throughout his system. That night, when Tibby espies him pacing the hallways instead of sitting in his usual seat at his desk, the house-elf gives a startled squeak at the unfamiliar sight.
The third time Draco goes, a few days after that, he chooses cabernet truffles. "Good choice, Malfoy," says Granger. "You shouldn't have any nightmares tonight."
"Modified Dreamless Sleep?" says Malfoy.
"Very, very mild dose," agrees Granger, with a smile.
And then he is back again, craving the silk of chocolate against tongue, and bites into tiny oysters, which release a flood of pearly cream.
"Undetectable Extension Charm," explains Granger. She glints to herself. "I always was a bit of an expert with those."
"Granger," he says, "surely selling all these charms and things to Muggles- "
"No," says Granger, very quickly. "I checked. The Statute prohibits only disruptive or detectable magic in the presence of Muggles. That's why it's legal, for example, to Obliviate a Muggle. My spells are neither disruptive nor detectable, and so I'm quite able to hold my own against the Wizengamot, should problems ever arise - which they won't."
"Trust you to have done all this research to circumvent a convention," says Draco. Then, "But why not such a shop in Diagon Alley? I thought you were daft not to. I'm sure you'd do much better - "
Granger's smile freezes. She thinks before answering, "London got a little noisy for me."
As a Slytherin, Draco has a unique and highly-trained ability to detect half-truths. He ponders over what Granger's true reason for leaving London - leaving her inseparable friends - could be. She cannot be hiding from her past. How can he find out?
"Minky has a letter from Mistress Narcissa Malfoy, Master," chirps Minky, as if on cue, and Draco starts.
"Pass it to me, Minky," says Draco.
The letter is filled with half-hearted gossip, of descriptions of the Manor and changes Narcissa is making. "Everything will be changed when you come back," she writes, "but I haven't touched your room."
Draco understands his mother so that he's able to read between the lines and see how much she misses him. To his surprise, he feels a twinge of empathy in response - a twist of pain.
He writes back, and not just to inquire for news of Granger. He fills ten pages with everything about the village, about the chocolaterie, about himself. It's as if a great heavy weight on him has dissolved - has left him with the owl that takes the letter to his mother.
When the response comes, Draco is relieved to find that Narcissa Malfoy, with her trademark tact, is not pushing for his return. She responds cleanly to his questions, and owls him several newspaper clippings also, amongst which are several headlines of particular interest to Draco.
"War Heroine Disappears, Covering Tracks Neatly"
"War Heroine Takes A Breakaway From Ministry Position"
"Vanished: Where Is Hermione Granger?"
Photographs: Granger and Weasley conversing heatedly. Them stalking out of the Bell & Jewel. Weasley engaged in a passionate liplock with Lavender Brown.
A tabloid cover, too - Witch Weekly: "Wizarding World's Golden Couple Splits! See a Timeline of Their Doomed Romance!"
Draco knows a fellow refugee when he sees one. He is able to piece together a timeline of his own.
AN: Of course I own nothing but the details of the plot! I recommend Chocolat by Joan Harris - it's a great read and super imaginative. Other than that, I hope you enjoyed, and whether you did or not please review. Tell me your thoughts! Tell me if I'm OOC! Tell me if the vignette format works for you! I will try to have the next chapter up within a week. The whole thing I am planning to be maybe about 3 or 4 chapters long. One thing I have to say is that I'm not a huge stickler for chapter length - chapters will be as long or short as I think they should be based on plot development, so don't be disappointed if my chapters are not very uniform in length.