A/N: Hello! I participated in the In_Another_Life_2018 Fest and am now crossposting my piece.
My surprise prompt was: It might not be much, but her family is proud of their periodical publishing house. There's no way Hermione Granger will let The Daily Telegraph force them out, but she might need a benefactor to fight them off.
INFINITE love and gratitude to In Dreams and Kyonomiko for their tireless efforts with this fest. It has been an absolute pleasure to participate in! They are absolute GEMS.
Endless thanks to Courtinginsanity for her beta work. All remaining errors are my own.
Chapter One
There will never be one walking with such courage and fear as one who walks in hope of love.
Helen Granger, Hermione's mother, had repeated that paradoxical sentence for as long as Hermione had memory. At the simple age of six, Hermione had thought her mother quite silly; how could a person be brave while still afraid? She held steadfastly to this practical opinion until the age of eleven.
To be precise, she was eleven years, eight months and eighteen days, and it was the sixth day in the month of June when the first drop of understanding penetrated her senses, for it was on this sunny day that Hermione met a particular boy—a boy with grey eyes and hair nearly as pale as his skin.
Her opinion of his hair and skin was actually the first sentence she spoke to him. The boy had reacted accordingly: a pale eyebrow promptly lifting with his chin, a sneer accentuating and exaggerating the angles of his face before he responded that her hair was so bushy she'd never know if bird landed and made a nest in it.
Such a remark from one of the boys in her primary class, like Ronald Weasley or Dean Thomas, would have had her running the opposite direction to hide her tears. But Hermione observed something different about this stranger just before the humiliating watery response could take hold in her eyes—his grey irises red along the rims.
The boy had been crying just before Hermione happened upon him.
Understanding and knowledge forged the path to a brave new response, and for the first time, Hermione laughed at such a remark.
The boy seemed shocked at first, but then joined in. He laughed all the more after Hermione told him that her mother says that very thing all the time, adding that she could be the first person ever to hold an entire garden in her hair without losing a single flower.
The boy laughed and cackled until actual tears of mirth spilled down his cheeks and he was rolling on the grass, hands wrapped around his waist. If it had been that freckle-faced ginger Ronald, Hermione would have scolded he'd dirty his clothes even more, but Hermione found her tongue uncharacteristically heavy with this unknown boy..
When the boy finally regained control of himself he sat upright, straight as an iron post, squared his shoulders, and proffered his hand; he introduced himself as Draco.
It was because of Draco that Hermione skipped home that evening, her mother's words of courage and fear bouncing between her ears.
They bounced in her ears this sunny sixth day of June seven years later as she marched along the familiar sidewalk that would cut across the cemetery which was home to The Bench.
"It is folly to take this particular path," Hermione muttered, admonishing herself for clinging to such foolish hope. "Draco did not once appear all summer last year, which means it is utterly improbable he will come back this year." Hermione's lips drew inward at that dreadful thought and she swiped at a fallen curl, yanking it behind her ear as her modest straw hat with a blue ribbon kept her from securing it back in her updo of pins.
Reason and logic had always proved a solid anchor when wading through the murky waters of emotions. They were proving useless in fortifying any manner of courage as she rounded the corner and began to follow the path up the lush green hill. Her heart accelerated with every step closer to the top—closer to a certain aforementioned bench.
"You are being ridiculous, Hermione," she scolded. "He will not be there. You have five summers worth of lovely memories to hold to when you're old and grey and alone with Father and Mother's publishing house, which is a great deal more than many other women have in their old age. You should be thankful for the past and not wasting such frivolous time with hang it all daydr—"
Her throat closed as wind left her lungs.
He was there.
On The Bench.
Draco was there.
Her feet turned to lead on the spot, and she could not coerce them forward.
She could not even contrive a single logical sentence at the moment, save for 'Draco was here!' It echoed within her, swelling and filling every empty crack and crevice in her fortress of facts, bathing her with brilliant and unspeakable joy.
"Hermione!"
Had her name ever sounded so poetic? So euphonic? Had anyone ever shouted it with such glee before? In the span of a heartbeat she concluded the answer to all these questions to be in the negative. A very emphatic and firm 'no' at that, especially when the owner of the voice leaped from his perch on The Bench and began running in her direction.
Oh!
He was running towards her; she ought to reciprocate...oughtn't she? Or would that break all rules of propriety, marr her reputation forever, and reduce her to the level of whore?
Well, the devil hang it all if it did!
Draco was running to her, and nearly at her, and so she found it in herself to run as well, throwing her arms around his shoulders, twining them around his neck as he caught her up in his arms, twirling them around and around (and devil hang it all if the world saw her petticoat and drawers, thank you very much).
What followed was merry sympathy of laughter and giddy exclamations from male and female:
"You're here!"
"You are here!"
"I thought you'd gone away to business or the Navy!"
"I hoped against hope you'd come!"
"You're here!"
"I cannot believe you came again, after…"
Draco slowed his dizzying spinning, stilling his movement as the word 'after' passed his lips. Hermione's grip slackened, allowing her to slide down, landing quite gracefully on the dirt path yet uncertain as to how to occupy her hands. Draco appeared to be stricken with the same indecision as their eyes met; as she gazed into those eyes of iridescent greys, she concluded that he seemed to be in no hurry to create polite distance between them, so neither would she.
"After last year?" she prompted, keeping her voice low and free from accusation.
His eyes clouded instantly. "Yes, about that…" His hands fell from her waist, forcing her to regretfully withdraw her own, but then he reached out, righting her hat atop her curls, lips bent upwards in a way that softened is angular features before she could feel any keen sense of loss. "You truly thought I'd joined the Navy?"
Her heart burned within her chest, and she would have sold half the books in her collection to know every thought within his gaze. "Well—" she shrugged a shoulder "—I know there is not a book I have read that you have not; there is some measure of courage in you, given the circumstances of how we first met, and you—"
She snapped her jaw shut, clapping a hand to her mouth before the last words could tumble out. Some semblance of her 'daughter of a respectable businessman' reputation remained intact as no one had been around to see her undergarments, and there was no need to spit in the face of such fortune with bold statements like, you would look quite dashing in an officer's uniform.
"And I…?" The smirk he bore gave indication he had guessed the conclusion of her sentence while her hand covered her mouth still. The darkening glaze of his eyes as they studied her, likely taking in her flushed cheeks told a story she was not certain she was brave enough to hear…
She bit down on her lip, allowing her hand to fall back to her side and cleared her throat. "It was either that or your father had put you to work at last." A wry smile worked its way up her face. "Decided you had had enough time loafing about in that private school of yours, and it was high time you earned your keep. Learned the family trade and all that…"
His lips curled gracefully as his expression took on a more serious tone. He studied her for three silent—internally thunderous—heartbeats more, a distinct bob in his throat, before he said, "Nothing of the sort." He kept his voice low, as if sharing an intimate confidence. "I would like to gloss over my absence as nothing of significance, but I fear it was illness that kept me away last year."
Her brows pulled together, drawing concerned lines over her nose. "In your family? Is everyone alright?"
"We are now." Draco nodded, tucking a dangling curl behind her ear as if he couldn't help himself, as if she were the manifestation of a dream. "I caught a bad case of the flu just before the end of term last year, and just as I was shaking it off, Mother caught it. Father was fortunately spared from it all, but in the midst of nursing Mother, some nasty chest cold decided it liked me and settled in."
Hermione couldn't help the gasp escaping her lips while Draco gave a gentle shake of his head. "Nothing to waste time fretting over now. I simply had the worst luck shaking the insufferable cough. Had to study at home with a tutor all of fall term and the doctor restricted my time outdoors, but—" his face broke out in the most glorious of smiles, reflecting the sun itself as he lifted his hat and waved a hand down the length of his body "—as you can see, right as rain, fit as a fiddle now!"
It would be simply mortifying to giggle like some silly school girl, and as Hermione was not some vapid fool, she purposefully pressed her lips together until she'd regained full composure of herself, permitting the corners to lift upwards until then. "I am all the more grateful to see you here and now, then. Has your mother made a full recovery?"
Draco shrugged, setting his hat back on his head and rubbed his neck. "All is well now, we've made a full recovery, and—wait a moment!"
The gentleman turned on his heel, sprinting back to the benching, leaving Hermione with nothing to do but admire how he'd grown into his lanky frame in the span of two years; how well his shoulders filled out his jacket, how marvelous it was to have such long legs for—
Hermione's eyes focused on a sprig of bright yellow in Draco's hands as he took long strides back to her, beaming.
"Took a bit of doing," he said, proffering the yellow bundle to her. "And I'll have you know that every florist in London thinks I'm mad, but I finally happened upon a charming establishment near that hole-in-the-wall tea shop where I was robbed—"
"You were not robbed, Draco."
"I was so." His eyes glittered with playful indignation. "I would swear in court to this day that I was robbed in that little place four years ago, and it was that devil cat."
Hermione granted herself a slight giggle. This time. "Crookshanks did not steal your handkerchiefs. You are forever forgetting them, and I maintain you simply had none with you that day."
"Ludicrous!" The yellow daffodils were hoisted high in faux-shock and then hidden behind the gentleman's back, a pale eyebrow angled as said gentleman smirked. "If I forgot my handkerchiefs, what in heaven's name did I give you when you started in with that dreadful sneezing fit?"
"It was a napkin from the table."
His eyebrows furrowed has he leaned his face down, down, down...so that his breath tickled her nose, and she could now swear to the fact that Draco's eyes were vivid sapphire-speckled lakes of silver. "It was a handkerchief from a new plain set Mother just gave me for my birthday. She scolded me when I couldn't find them at the end of the day." God in heaven, had his nose always been such carved perfection? "You thanked me and gave it back to me. Crookshanks came up and made a mess of things and when we were ready to go, the handkerchief was gone. That fat orange menace is a thieving blighter, and you won't get your present until you admit I'm right."
Whether by nerves or out of genuine hilarity in his words, the spell of the moment was broken and Hermione laughed—outright and much louder than a woman ought, she knew, and the shocked expression on Draco's face did nothing in the least to stop "Steam Engine Cackle" in its tracks.
When it was all said and done and she'd regained composure, she observed that Draco bore a bemused expression as she righted and adjusted both hat and shawl, which had both suffered the consequences of her outburst.
"Did I miss something?" he drawled, something frightfully akin to hurt hiding in the undercurrent of his tone and eyes.
"Not at all, my friend!" She stepped up, and turned, coming right up to him, her right arm almost brushing against his left, where the flowers remained behind his back. "But you see, presents are freely given, whether the recipient is in the right or the wrong, and I'm afraid my elation over seeing you again after two years got the better of me."
The young man brightened instantly, in both countenance and spirit, and the flowers found their way to her side. She took the bouquet, heart subsequently racing and breath slowing. She fingered the delicate petals and lifted her eyes to his.
"You remembered, then?" she queried softly.
"How could I forget?" His response was as gentle as the breeze and she tilted her head, sliding her eyes right, breathing in the sweet sacredness of this moment. "We met this very day seven years ago. Father had banished to my room for God-knows-what now, but I managed to stick the metaphorical finger to him—" Hermione scoffed while winked "—by sneaking out and getting hopelessly lost, winding up scared and alone in the middle of a cemetery when this angel of mercy with bushy hair found me and showed me the way back home, but not before she dragged us to five different florist shops because she was on the hunt to find the very last daffodils of the year."
Heat bloomed in Hermione's cheeks, spreading a warmth that sank into her bones.
"I missed you a great deal last summer, Hermione," Draco continued, sparing her from contriving a proper response. "I miss you every year. I count down to this day, coming to this place. I wish all the time that you would let us exchange addresses to write throughout the year and we could have more than just these summer months."
The impossible—the utter unthinkable—followed when Draco tucked a slender finger under her chin, lifting her face, tracing her jawline with his thumb. "You were my first true friend and you remain my truest of friends to this day. The memories of you and our summer afternoons brought me through some of the darkest days and nights of my life."
His throat bobbed and time froze as his thumb continued with those hypnotizing circles. Hermione's mouth had never seemed so parched as she parted her lips…
"Draco, you a—"
"I'm staying in Lon—"
They stopped speaking simultaneously, pensive silence gathering between them. She blinked through two thunderous heartbeats. He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Are you…?" Hermione began, then snapped her mouth shut, swallowing and gathering her courage. "Were you telling me that you are to stay in London longer than usual?"
"Yes." Draco nodded, bending his arm and offering it to Hermione. The young woman transfered her simple bouquet of bright yellow to her opposite hand to slip her hand slightly, ever-so-slightly, into the crook of his arm, which Draco tugged to a more secure position before leading them down the path.
"I am to begin courses at The University of London in the fall," he said, harmonious notes of pride and excitement in his timbre. "I mean to study Law."
"How thrilling." Hermione hoped her pleasure was far from excessive or too obvious, but it was difficult to hide such feelings when her very soul beamed at his gentle chuckle.
"I am not certain that is the exact word I would use to describe my forecasted future," he answered, "but it will be of use and value, which is most important to me."
She considered his answer, inclining her head. "Does your father mind your decision?"
"Not a word of argument from him." His eyebrows lifted in disbelief. "He has been less overbearing and more willing to listen since mine and Mother's brush with eternity last year. And it helps that my degree would be beneficial to him as well."
"Oh? In your family trade?"
Draco's lips pursed together. "Of sorts," was his cryptic response, and instead of expanding, he turned their conversation back to his previous introduction as they neared the bottom of the hill and veered left, heading in the direction of simple tea shop. "My purpose in telling you this is that I should very much like to give my address whenever you would be so kind as to receive it. I would like to ask for yours, that I may call on you. If you would allow it, I would like to meet your parents. I want to send you flowers and baubles and books. And I would very much like the pleasure of year-round correspondence between calls and tea outings."
"Gracious!" Was it possible for a heart to cease beating while pounding against its bony cage? She offered him a kind smile nonetheless. "It sounds like you mean to establish yourself as a permanent fixture…" An evasive tactic: acknowledgement without quite answering…
Which he ignored or did not take to heart, for he stopped walking and immediately stepped in front of her. "If you will allow it, please, Hermione." His brow creased before he added, "And, that is, if there is no one else with whom—"
"No!" she hastened to answer, not even a little embarrassed at the force of her outburst. She stepped forward, a toe of her worn but freshly polished shoe brushing against the toe of his new and expensive boot. "There is no one else, Draco. There never has been." A fumbling and curious kiss from Ronald Weasley last Christmas under a sprig of mistletoe hardly counted…
"Well then." Draco reached out and took her free hand in both of his, gently rubbing his thumb over hers. "I repeat, if it would be acceptable to you, I would very much like to take a proper step forward with you."
The sun had begun its idle descent in the summer sky by the time Hermione made for home; thoughts muddled and hazy, not able to focus on much at all, save for the fact that the clouds always appeared darkest when the light seemed to be at its loveliest.
She dug deep within herself for more fortying courage.
Draco was to remain in London the duration of this year.
For the next four years.
They had discussed many other things on their afternoon walkabout and tea, all things merry and of little or no other consequence, save for the fact they were intimate conferences entrusted freely to each other. And no one else.
His sincere bidding, 'Please, Hermione', thrumming through her veins all the while. Whether it was as the beating of distant battle drums or the thrilling drumroll of an orchestra, announcing the next movement, Hermione had yet to determine.
A breeze floated curly tendrils across her face and she loosed a slow breath, yanking them behind her ear. Anything to give her hands an occupation and keep them from trembling.
He had asked for her name. Her full name. Just before they parted ways, coming back to The Bench. "I respect your wishes to think over my request, but if I may, I have one last thing to ask of you today."
"Yes?" Other girls like Lavender Brown would have responded with something coquettish. Something like, only one? But, her mouth had turned to sand again as his clear eyes slowly blinked at her.
"Your name," he answered, inclining his head to her. "Your proper name. We were children when we met, and I have taken it for granted all these years that we're on such intimate terms with each other."
The world had come to a stuttering halt at the word 'intimate,' but Draco seemed to take no notice. "And if I'm able to address you as 'Miss So-and-so', then I will have the pleasure of requesting permission to call you 'Hermione.'"
"Granger," she had blurted, compelled by some powerful and otherworldly forces. "Hermione Granger," she said again, slow and clear.
"Miss Granger." He had grinned broadly and lifted a hand to his hat, tipping it lightly. "Shall we meet here again tomorrow?"
"We shall." She was beaming before circling crows cawed, drawing her attention to the time of day. "Oh, I'm afraid I must go." She'd spun on her heel, launching herself down the hill before doing something truly scandalous, pausing halfway down to toss back over her shoulder: "And I prefer 'Hermione'!"
Her fingers fiddled with the fringe of her shawl as she marched herself back home. There was no more avoiding the inevitable. Their obvious class distinction would come into play now. While both from business families, his was clearly the wealthier. His manners, his schooling, his clothes, the way he had only known of certain sections of London before meeting Hermione, the way he'd almost gagged coming to more pungent areas—everything about Draco screamed that he came from more money than she.
He would even come to learn all of her background...What if it came to make a difference now that he wanted to…to…court her?
She sighed, rounding a corner of the sidewalk, lifting her skirts to avoid an all too family lining of mud and horse manure where carriages usually stalled, waiting for paying customers.
Perhaps this is more of what Mother had always meant with her saying. If it came to it, and it mattered to him: the full measure of her background, the money, the fact that her mother worked, and that Hermione should like to have some means of an occupation while in the role of 'wife'...
She swallowed, banishing her qualms down to her toes.
If it came down to making a choice, her parents and their publishing house would come first.
It always had.
It always would.
"Sorry I am late getting back, Mother," Hermione called out, hanging her hat and and shawl on her designated peg on the wall, making her way to the drawing room. "I found someone I knew on my walk, and thought I'd check to see tomorrow's deliveries were organised properly, and—"
Her words died on her lips as not one, but two gentleman rose from their seats; one offering a tight smile under a thick brown mustache, the other, portly and balding, and flashing his teeth more than he was smiling…
"Hello, darling." Her father stepped forward, dropping a light kiss to her temple. "You remember Mr. Nott?" He gestured to their non-smiling guest as he led her by the hand to the sofa where her mother sat.
"Of course." Hermione nodded to the gentleman, stifling the urge to gulp a hard breath. Or shiver as his glittering eyes appraised her before returning her nod. "If I may—" he echoed her father's movement's forward, giving the table a wide berth "—you've blossomed into a handsome young woman. I see you've finally managed to tame your hair."
Her shoulders stiffened as she lowered herself beside her mother, lacing her fingers together in tight knots. "Thank you," she forced through her lips.
Mr. Nott canted his head, studying her as though she were a horse in a barn. "Very handsome indeed." He blinked, proffering his hand to her father. "The offer stands, Mr. Granger. For a hasty arrangement, we can discuss the possibility of a fixed interest rate once the two are in the family way."
Blood drained from Hermione's face and she felt her mother's left shoe press into her right. Her father coughed as he led Mr. Nott to the foyer. "We'll need time to discuss things, sir."
"Right, right." The gentleman's voice boomed in the open room. "Just not too long. My offer stands until the end of the week."
Hermione and her mother continued in a thick silence; Hermione's expectant stare fixed on the entryway, waiting for her father to return alone. Heaven knew what her mother had chosen to look at. Possibly their tea set with painted delicate blue flowers. Or perhaps the bare fireplace. Or the ridiculous knick-knacks along the mantle she'd insisted on displaying around their humble home above the publishing business—Mother insisted such frivolity gave the impression of having more money.
Hermione thought them useful for little more than collecting dust.
Burdened footfalls sounded in the foyer, making their way to the drawing room. "The family way?" Hermione rose as her father's shadow crossed the threshold of the room, feeling as though a knife was slicing through a dense fog. "You assured me we were doing well this quarter." Her fists clenched into tight fists. "You promised me we were doing better, Father!"
"We are."
"What little I heard from Thoros Nott suggests the precise opposite."
"Hermione…" Her father's shoulders sagged as he came and took her hands in his, moving to kneel, forcing the young woman back beside her mother, who instantly bound an arm about her daughter's waist.
"It hasn't been enough," her mother murmured. "We've been behind on payments for too long, and the bank is demanding payment in full by the end of the month."
The words were as stones tossed into a dried up well. Falling down, down, down…
"And there are no other options?" Hermione blinked into her father's weary brown eyes...Funny how they managed to have such similar eyes even though…
"The Daily Telegraph—"
"Hang The Daily Telegraph!" Hermione hissed, cutting her father off. "They've been hounding on The Niffler'sdoor for a decade-and-a-half now, and they're not getting us now. What exactly is Mr. Nott proposing by means of assistance?"
"Do you remember his son, Theodore?"
The falling stones found their mark at last, crashing into Hermione's chest…
"He's just graduated from private school, and—"
"And this would somehow be a mutually beneficial arrangement…" Hermione supplied, reeling and breathless.
Her mother cleared her throat. "The two of you have met several times. You commented once that he's not beastly at the table like Ronald."
"And smart as a whip, according to Thoros," her father added...as if either of their contributions mattered.
Hermione's heart sank down into her shoes, seeping out onto the floor. "So, for the sake of family, he'll help save The Niffler?"
"Yes."
Her corset became unbearably tight.
All previous hopes of Draco died in that moment.
Thank you for reading. Chapter two coming tomorrow.