Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor any of its characters. They are the property of JK Rowling.
Dedication: to the love stories we can't stop watching, over and over again. To les, my fellow Slytherin; Rhea, Ravenclaw buddy; and Sara, the Gryffinwhore.
Notes: Chapter two already. I surprised myself, to be honest. I hope you enjoy it. I love Blaise; can't really say why because he's not in canon much, but I'd like to think he has a wit and a half and that he just needed someone to bring his ego down a bit. Get him to care, mostly.
Sometimes, Hermione wondered what stopped wizards and witches from adding hours to the day – slowing the rotational velocity of the earth, or something.
Irrational wondering, she thought sleepily; it was probably irrational to use magic to make the daylight last longer, but considering how much work she had yet to do, she couldn't bring herself to give a damn. Surely everyone would like a few more hours, to sleep or… file all of the paperwork they'd decided to postpone until the next day because it was already almost nine in the evening by the time they'd gotten to it.
She yawned as she walked through the door of Cream and Sugar. Perhaps it was before six, but out of her group of friends, Hermione was one who liked to ease into the day. Even if she lost an hour and a half of sleep, she preferred to spend the time at her favorite coffee shop, doing things that she enjoyed before heading off to a long day of work.
Like reading on a chaise lounge with a cup of properly brewed coffee.
"A medium caramel latte with an extra shot of espresso, please."
As she turned around carefully with drink in hand, Hermione discovered she wasn't the only one.
She hesitated for a moment. They looked busy, but not saying hello to a friend would be rude…
Walking up to a man hidden behind a book, she noted, "I didn't think they bottled up souls of children here, but I can admit that I've been wrong before. What does it taste like?"
Malfoy lowered his book and leveled her with a stare. "Earl Grey tea. And I thought you were a know-it-all, Granger."
"Oh, so you thought you were one, too? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint."
The third, of slightly darker complexion, threw down his pen and newspaper before looking at them. "God, you two, what must a wizard do to get some peace and quiet around here so he can finish his crossword? Isn't that what these places are for?"
"That's a library, Blaise," Hermione drawled, taking up the third seat at the table and setting her magazine down. "I see you found a ferret on your way here."
He shrugged before picking his pen up again. "Draco was on his way to Tea Haven, and I had to save him from their second class brews they dare call tea."
"It's not - ," Malfoy began.
Blaise interrupted him. "How do you like the tea here?"
Malfoy muttered something under his breath.
Hermione leaned towards him slightly. "What was that? Or were you choking on something?"
"It's passable," he said, swirling the teacup.
Shaking her head, she looked at Blaise. "Is that a Malfoyism for 'perfectly splendid' or something?"
Blaise snorted into his cappuccino. "A higher form of praise than that." He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "I think I might die happy now that I have earned it."
The subject of their discussion seemed to sink lower into his armchair, book over his face. "Do you two normally do this? Dally in the morning, drinking espresso, and making fun of men who like their tea?"
They looked at each other and shrugged.
"Yeah," Hermione said.
"I normally do like to get some reading done," Blaise said thoughtfully, "but you know what they say: never waste an opportunity to poke a sleeping dragon."
Malfoy's voice was muffled from underneath his book. "You know, I don't think that's an actual saying."
"It should be."
Settling back, Hermione sipped at her latte. "I don't think Harry would agree with you. Honestly, he'd suggest that you avoid dragons at all costs – go around an entire country if you think one is there. That's why he didn't go with Ron."
"Ah, I was wondering why he's been around the Ministry without his shadow."
"He's hardly a shadow." She frowned, torn between telling Blaise off for the nth time and just accepting that everyone else's perception of Ron couldn't be changed through her words.
Blaise rolled his eyes, waving his hand by his head. He missed entangling his fingers in his dark wavy hair by centimeters. "Merlin, Hermione, if I've said it once, I've said it a million time: I get that you are supposed to defend his honor, being friends and all. Ask this arsehole how I spent almost our entire friendship."
"I never asked-," Malfoy started, but Blaise ignored him.
"And maybe it's a little bit different for you two, being exes and all, but seriously, if we have to go through this in a usual way: Harry is the hero, you're the brains, and Ron's the sidekick. Nothing to be ashamed of; just the order of things. I was the brains for this… antihero."
"You know how he hates that label. Everyone-"
Malfoy took his book off his face, and waved it at her. "Granger, if there's something I've learned from my… life experiences, we'll call it, it's this: that if an overwhelming majority of people say something about someone, it's often true."
"Fifth year, Malfoy," Hermione pointed out tartly. "Most people disbelieved Harry about Voldemort's return, despite him being the chosen one." She put on her most Trelawney-esque voice for the title, and the two men smirked.
"But that was a special case. Media manipulation and what have you. I'm saying that, as someone who has… observed the group dynamics-"
"And mocked us," Hermione added, mock-glaring.
"- Weasley has always filled in the cracks, but he's not a major piece in and of himself."
She sighed. Rubbing her brows, she said quietly, "That is often the most important part, though, right? A wall cannot stand without mortar inbetween the bricks."
"Right," Blaise said slowly.
"But he's still a sidekick," Malfoy said matter-of-factly. "It doesn't mean that the sidekick isn't important – often, they're the ones who save the hero from themselves. However, they never really leave that role."
"You should never date them just because you're afraid to leave them."
The last point came from Blaise, and Hermione tilted her head to stare at him, eyebrow quirked.
"I thought you wouldn't say anything for or against him."
He stood. "I'm not. Anyway, Shacklebolt wanted to talk to Harry and me about something, so I'm going to leave. You two going to stay here and chat like old biddies?"
Waving him off, Hermione drew her chair closer to the table. "Go on. Now we can talk about you."
Pulling his green cloak over his shoulder, Blaise fixed the clasp."You know what they say: if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all."
Hermione stared at him with wide eyes. "But then it'll be really quiet."
Malfoy snickered.
Blaise sighed. "You hurt me, you really do."
He kissed her on the cheek before he left.
"I didn't expect you'd be here," Malfoy said as soon as the door had closed. "Not that… I particularly mind or anything, but…" He shrugged.
"Yeah, well, you weren't the only one who was surprised. Blaise…"
It seemed neither of them had anything to say about him other than that; they turned to their reading material.
He was reading We by some foreign fellow – the name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite remember…
"What's that about?"
Malfoy looked up from the pages. "This? It's…"
He paused, staring at the pages with a look of consternation. "It's complicated, but let me see… It's a dystopic novel. Apparently they're the thing now, in the Muggle world."
"My mother says they're all over the place, like pigeons."
"I will differ to her expertise. Anyway, all of the human race lives in something called the One State, where imagination and emotions have pretty much vanished. People are assigned jobs and lovers. D-503 is an engineer-"
"D-503?"
Malfoy sighed. "They don't have names."
Hermione frowned, twirling one curl around her finger. "That sounds perfectly awful."
"Just because they don't have names?"
"Well, no," she said slowly, "but there is power in a name, you know? It's not a perfectly unique identifier. I know that, while I'm not one of many, there is another Hermione out there, but 'Hermione' means something. It's not a random collection of letters and numbers."
"That's the point, though. There's no individuality, no love – no choice. The government has everything neatly set up. They live in this gigantic bubble and each person's room is clear so everyone can see in and out except when they… require privacy."
"So the book is about breaking out of that? Presumably, there is love."
Riffling through the pages, Malfoy nodded. "This woman who is part of a resistance – entrances him despite what he feels is his better judgment."
She waited for him to speak, but he stayed silent. "Is that it?"
"I haven't finished it yet, Granger."
"Would you recommend it?"
He nodded, turning back to the pages.
This time, she was halfway through an article about the value of the Gringotts stock when Malfoy asked, "So what happened to Weasley?"
"He's in Romania, with Charlie to study dragons."
"Charlie?"
"His brother."
She waited for him to make a comment about the number of Weasley children, but he only hesitated before asking, "Why's that?"
"It's protocol, for Aurors. They're required to specialize in one particular area, and seeing as how rarely Charlie ever leaves Romania and foreign magical creatures were on the list, it seemed a fitting choice."
He said delicately, "You don't seem to think so."
"Well… I just think it wasn't necessarily a good reason for someone to drop everything and leave the country. I'm sure that's not an unusual reaction."
"Is that why you two broke up?"
It was just like Malfoy to bring that up when she was drinking. Sputtering and choking, it was a while before Hermione could ask, "What would make you say that?"
He rolled his eyes as he set his book flat on the table. "Granger, no one is blind – you kind of jumped him in the middle of a hallway during the battle and I was at Hogwarts for the last while, despite… some people's disagreement."
She couldn't help flushing. Fiddling with her mug handle, she said, "It seemed rational at the time."
When he shrugged his shoulders in response, she couldn't tell if he was agreeing or not, but decided not to question it.
"To answer your question, we're taking a break. The strain of long distance relationships can end it on the long term, so we're… just waiting."
He snorted for what must've been the tenth time. Hermione had never seen him so amused.
Given, that was mostly because at Hogwarts, her presence only had tended to make him raise his hackles in some taught offense.
"It sounds more like you're afraid."
Frowning at him, she finished her latte. "What is there to be afraid of?"
"You tell me."
She leaned over the table, closer to Malfoy. His eyes followed the movement. "I can't speak for your relationship experience, so I won't, but I think that anyone will agree that the scariest thing about them is knowing that you could lose them if you're not careful. I'm not going to force him to think of what I'd think. Anyway, it's important that we both learn to be independent of each other. I'm still a person, and I am okay without him."
"You're scared of holding him back, that you'll lose him. That he's your only option and if you don't have him, you won't have anyone."
It was her turn to make an ambiguous gesture as she settled back into her chair. She didn't really know what she was afraid of – she didn't know if she was afraid of anything at all.
Part of her wondered what he knew of courage.
Considering sixth year, she thought a little bit. No one could survive the Dark Lord, even if they're on his side, without more than a tablespoon of it.
Neither of them opened their respective books or magazines, this time. They looked at each other, assessing, Hermione thought. She'd had her time to assess him just last week, but she could tell that he was drawing his own conclusions.
When he opened his mouth again, though, he didn't have anything to say about her.
"He's changed," Malfoy said. His voice hovered just above a whisper.
"Who?"
"Blaise. He… talks more."
Hermione laughed quietly, drawing her knees up into her chair. "Is that all?"
"No, but that's… he's… mellowed out. I mean, he's never been the most vehement anti-Mud- Muggleborn, but he was still… still one of us."
She noted his almost slip, but decided to let it go. Changing is difficult, she thought almost-sympathetically.
Part of her, though, couldn't help wondering how deep change had sown its seeds in him.
"'Was', being the keyword. Mind you, it took a while for us to get anywhere remotely near friendship. I remember the first time we talked after the battle. I'd asked if I could borrow 'Moste Potente Potions' when he was done with it because I needed it for class."
In her mind, she could still see his face, looking at her like she was a piece of lint hooked onto his cashmere sweater. "I remember his words even now, to the letter. 'Haven't you seen the Slytherin common room enough?'"
Now, she could laugh, looking back on the confrontation, but back then... "I was so angry – it had been the first week of moving in with all of these people, some of whom suffered from a gigantic case of hero worship and others who would love to see us die in our sleep and he wasn't making my life any easier. 'Like I need to sneak in there – most of you would invite any girl – even a Gryffinwhore - up without a second thought.'"
Anyone else's mouth would've dropped open. As it was, Malfoy sat up straight and leaned forward. "You said that to Blaise?"
"I mean, looking back on it now, it seems ridiculous. His standards are way too high." Hermione couldn't help grinning. "He looked so shocked, but… it was great. Almost as great as the time I punched you."
"Believe me," he muttered, "it wasn't that great."
"Oh, perhaps not for you, but I have a really good right hook. That was another bad week, now that I think about it.
"Anyway, we very slowly became friends. Took a while until he actually talked. Snarky little bugger... I like to think I was a good influence on him."
"Awful influence, you've been. He was so mean to me – you heard him!" Malfoy sulked, ruffling his hair with one hand.
Smirking over the rim of her mug, Hermione said, "Sorry, I think I was too busy chortling."
She finished her latte as Malfoy slumped against the chair. "I just keep thinking about how we're here now. Eleven – hell, five years ago, I would never have expected that… we could…"
"Talk about Muggle books? Sit here reading one and talking to a Mudblood?"
He looked up at her quickly when she said it.
"Something like that. I just… wonder how we got here. How we all changed. Because we have, I think. I don't know how it happened, but to get here… things would have to be different. After the war, nothing was the same."
Hermione set her mug down harder than she anticipated, eyes hard. "Of course! How could we possibly all get through that war and not come out completely changed? All that we saw – all that we did…"
Her voice faltered, and she went silent. "We were so far apart, that there was no room left except to grow closer together."
She thought she heard him say, "I'd like to think I've changed," but he was standing up then, holding his hand out to her. "Time for us to join the day, don't you think?"
Hermione looked at his hand thoughtfully before taking it. Quietly, they tidied up the area around their table and left the café.
"When will we know about the sphinx, Granger? Mother is rather... impatient, at times. I mean, I know that you cannot hurry up the process, but I was curious to know."
Tilting her head to the side, Hermione considered the timeline for such requests. It had been her first major one, so she only had the theoretical date on hand. "I'm pretty sure you'll get it. It's not like they're doing anything else with the sphinxes. According to all of the readings, leaving them with nothing to guard leaves too much opportunity for mischief."
"That's a relief to know."
"I can't really give you a precise date, though I will, of course, get into contact when I know more."
"Thank you."
She blinked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing. Nothing." Hermione fussed with the fraying edge of her cloak. An anti-unraveling charm, her arse. "I was just thinking," she sent him a sidewise glance, "that I thought Malfoys made a pledge as soon as they could talk to not thank a Muggle-born."
"Well, pledges are made to be broken."
She stared at him, shocked. "You really do make a pledge?"
He laughed. It rang just slightly in the dingy January air. "You are rather gullible, aren't you?"
Now she remembered, as they walked down the streets and testing the water (so to speak); now she could think about and understand wanting more time and why it wasn't… well, plausible. After all, she had played and twisted time more than the majority of the wizarding community, hours and days hanging on a flimsy piece of jewelry hanging around her neck, and so she knew more than most that the little things, like bigger ones, were not without consequence, after all.
Like giving chances, choosing to believe that someone whose history was intertwined with yours could make something different out of their impending future than they'd made out of their past and into the present.
Days like these, those every days before and after a war, felt like scraps of the fabric of time – so short and fleeting that they'd rip from their own weight. They're held together by those times we feel are too long, the threads. Hermione didn't know what to do with those pieces, but did anyone, really?
And there was the tiny inconsequential fact that slowing the earth's rotation would cause burns from the sun's radiation.
Something like that, anyway.
