The Coffee Shop Boy
Dedicated to December Girl.
Hermione was on her way to meet her husband for dinner when she saw him.
There was no reason for her quick glance to the left, but she was sorry she did look.
In the window of the coffee shop was a man she knew.
He had both hands clamped round an empty mug as though it was radiating heat, there were red rims round his eyes and Hermione thought he looked like he had forgotten how to smile.
He was sat with a group of people, but he looked strangely detached, like he wasn't really there at all.
Very slowly, he raised his gaze from a spot on the pavement to meet hers, though there was no way he could have known she was there.
His lips moved to form two extremely comprehensible words.
"Fuck you."
He went back to staring at the ground.
For some time, Hermione just stood there, thinking about how surreal it was to see him… but he didn't look up again, and so Hermione walked away.
When she walked back later that night, he was gone.
All that was left was an empty cup and a small indentation in the chair he had sat on.
O
Hermione didn't know why she went back. There was no real logic or explanation behind her actions, but there you have it.
She went back.
It was with a hesitant step that she approached the window, but she supposed that the pram she was pushing didn't exactly lighten her load.
He was there.
Sat in the same chair, wearing the same clothes and with the same world-weary air as before.
She stopped in front of the window and waited. His eyes flickered up to meet her own before glancing at the pram. She raised her chin defiantly. 'Yes, Hermione Granger has a child. Yes, that means she has had sex. Ha.'
Except she didn't feel triumphant. She felt… empty.
No burning sense of loathing, no murderous tendencies, not even the need to say something insulting.
Just emptiness.
This was not the arrogant boy she had known.
This was a man who sat in a coffee shop all day because he had nowhere else to go.
This was a man who wore the same clothes for two days in a row because he had no-one to remind him how to be human.
This was a man who had forgotten how to smile.
"Fuck you." He mouthed.
She smiled sadly and walked away.
O
He had lost his jacket.
That was the first thing she noticed.
All he was wearing was a pair of jeans and a faded grey top. No jacket.
It took longer for him to look up than usual.
Hermione thought he knew she was there, but kept his eyes on the pavement rather than on her.
When he did, Hermione nearly cried out.
One side of his face was covered in bruises and cuts, and the eyelid on the left eye was dropping, and yet his face remained cold and unrevealing.
For a while, Hermione thought about going inside, but she knew she would never be brave enough. She hoped she didn't look too horrified.
She waited.
And waited.
And waited.
They never came.
The words that had haunted her dreams, that had been so expected, never came.
He went back to staring at the pavement and didn't look up again.
Hermione walked away with the shadow of a smile on her face.
O
Her children were pulling at her arms to try and make her leave, but all she wanted to do was stand in front of the window and look forever.
He was looking at her – just sitting and looking.
And she was looking back.
He hadn't even spared a glance for the two brown-haired children she was with; it was just her and him; him and her, on either side of a window; looking.
Hermione felt like she was naked – like there was nothing he couldn't see. She had never been looked at like that before, not ever.
Her husband looked at her lovingly, tenderly, angrily and very occasionally lustfully… but this?
It was so frank, so blunt, so very open that Hermione wanted to blush.
His eyes weren't particularly wide or narrowed, they weren't passionate or hateful, they hadn't lit up or darkened when he had seen her, but they were so deep that Hermione rather thought she could very easily drown.
His expression, as usual, gave away nothing, but oh his eyes. He was looking at her like he'd never seen her properly before, which, Hermione supposed, he hadn't. All he had seen before was another piece of filth to be disposed of.
But now?
Now she was someone who had noticed him in the window of a coffee shop and took the time to keep noticing him.
A waitress picked up his empty mug and he smiled very slightly at the waitress, breaking the spell.
But Hermione was content.
He had seen her.
She glanced at her children and scooped the youngest up in her arms.
She walked away from the window without a backwards glance.
O
She didn't stop.
She walked on past her usual spot, and, just as she was about to disappear around the next corner, she looked back over her shoulder.
He was watching her with both eyebrows raised in surprise.
He nodded to her.
She looked away again.
She would stop next time.
O
Hermione came to a very deliberate halt in front of the window and looked up.
He was already staring at her, one eyebrow raised as if to say 'oh, it's you'.
She smiled.
At him.
He looked shocked.
His eyes travelled to her lips and then back up to her eyes.
Then again.
He raised one eyebrow again.
Hermione got the message loud and clear.
'So?'
She raised hers in return. 'It's your turn.'
One corner of his mouth twitched.
Hermione smiled again. 'Thank you.'
O
Her husband was with her.
They were walking along, hand in hand, and Hermione was trying very hard not to look right.
She did.
He was staring very determinedly at the ground.
'Look up,' Hermione thought. 'Look up.'
He did.
He sneered at her and nodded in the direction of her other half.
She shrugged.
Then she smiled.
Seemingly against his better judgement, he returned the favour.
O
He wasn't there.
Hermione was rooted to the spot.
He wasn't there.
She didn't know what to do.
He was always there, in his seat in the coffee shop window.
But now all that was left an empty mug.
With… an envelope.
She walked inside and to his usual table.
The mug.
The dent in the worn leather.
The envelope.
"For you."
Hermione began to breathe heavily. Surely he meant her?
Who else would notice if he was there or not?
Nobody would.
Only her.
She nodded to herself, as though the decision would seem more real if she made some gesture to confirm it.
After throwing a furtive glance around her, she picked up the envelope and opened it.
It was just an A4 piece of paper with seven words typed on it.
"Because the colour of truth is grey."
And suddenly, she understood.
Who cared if they were different? If she was on the White side, he was on the Black.
But surely, somewhere in the middle, the lines must meet; and there, the colours would blur.
There would be a patch of grey, and there the truth would be.
The truth is something nobody wants to hear.
The truth is grey.
It was that simple.
She had to find him.
Still clutching the piece of paper, she ran out of the coffee shop and she ran right.
He was sat on a park bench halfway down the street.
She came to an abrupt stop and sat next to him.
For a while, no-one spoke. Then she reached out her hand and covers his fingers with his.
She said, "I don't see black and white either."
A/N: Okay, this was going to be in chapters, but it's too short. Inspiration came from a man I saw in my local Starbucks, who was doing exactly what Draco was doing the first time Hermione saw him. Red rimmed eyes, staring at the ground, in a group of people, empty mug… the whole package. He really was gone the next time I walked past him, and he didn't see me, but boy did I see him. He didn't look up, and he didn't swear at me, but it got me thinking about what someone would do if he did. Next thing, "The Coffee Shop Boy" was in one of my notebooks.
The title is extremely unoriginal, but I couldn't really think of anything more interesting, so sorry about that. I hope it didn't deter anyone from reading it!
I mean no offence by the black and white references, I just remembered the scene in the 5th film, where the Order Apparate in, as do the Death Eaters, and I thought about the colours of their 'smoke'.
Don't
forget to tell me what you thought!