Thanks to those of you who are following the story- please feel free to give any feedback, but be gently as this is my first story on xx
As she entered, a gust of warmth hit her as she passed from the cold, to the inside of the shop. Her eyes immediately fell on the jackets section to the far left of the store, tucked away in a corner. Giving one of the employees a smile as she walked over there, she was already sure she'd found the perfect one. She read the label 'Balmain, wool and cashmere coat.' It looked as if, when wearing it, it would fall at knee length, and had two rows of beautiful silver buttons.
Unsure whether she could afford it, she checked for the price, with a tag nowhere to be found. She tried it on, however, and it fit like a charm. Bringing it up to the till, she said to the woman sitting there;
"Hi, sorry I wasn't able to find a price on this one, could you tell me how much it is?" She let out a small groan as she sat up and took a look at the garment.
After inspecting it for about a minute, she came to a conclusion, "that'll be sixty-five galleons she said, sitting back down on her stool behind the desk."
"Sorry, isn't that a little expensive. I only have thirty-eight galleons on my person at the moment…" She was interrupted when the door behind her was flung open, and she heard a familiar voice.
"Helen, can you bring me the order I placed last Thursday, I need it quite urgently, and put it on the Malfoy Tab" Came the loud and commanding voice of Draco Malfoy, her ancient persecutor, but also, her recent friend. She turned around to where the voice came from, as the lady ad the register said "I'm sorry but I can't give this to you for that little."
"Granger?" Malfoy said, with a look of mock shock on his face, approaching her. "Bloody hell Granger, I haven't seen you at all since we graduated!" He said, waiting for her to reply with a typical smart and, usually offensive retort.
Hermione just nodded, "hi Draco, how've you been?" She said, faintly. He gave her a quizzical look.
"Are you alright Granger? Looks like you had no sleep last night," he inquired, as she shook her head, the memories of last night flooding back to her, tears rushing to her eyes.
"Oh, no I'm fine," she choked.
Draco, indicating to her coat, and the bags that the woman working at the shop had fetched for Draco. "Put those all on my tab, Granger, come on let's go and sit down, you look like you've seen a ghost," he said, with a small smile playing on his lips. She let out a small laugh. Draco, grabbing the bags, lead her to a little coffee shop where he sat her down, ready to investigate as to what was wrong with her.
"Jesus Granger, I'm being serious, are you okay?" He asked, as Hermione was recovering from her little flight of emotion back in the shop.
"Yes, I'm sorry Draco, I just… had a bit of an incident last night, and I guess I'm a bit sleep deprived" she pined.
"Bet it's Weasley that's been on your back. Probably acting like his usual arsehole self" he said, almost to himself, as Hermione began to cry again. Draco didn't notice until she took a sharp inhale in order to try and calm herself down. As he saw her red eyes, and face, creased with devastation, he couldn't help but feel an element of pity for her as she sat there, beside herself with woe.
She saw him watching, "I'm fine," she reassured him.
"What happened?" He asked her, smelling out her obvious lie. She sighed, yet again, unsure whether this was the best idea to tell Draco, of all people. But maybe telling him was a better outlet, because he wasn't necessarily a big part of her social circle, and she needed a friend to talk to above all else.
"Last night, Ron was really drunk, and he started accusing me of things and…" she trailed off. Draco leaned forwards, inquisitively, his brow furrowed. She didn't know why she told him what she did but… "and he hit me." She said, hiding her face in her hands, avoiding those grey eyes, not knowing what he'd think of her.
"Are you fucking serious?" He asked, almost standing up in frustration. She nodded profusely, still avoiding looking at him. She could feel other customer's eyes on them as she shut herself up, trying to cry as quietly as she could. He stood up, was he going to leave her in the café, crying to herself?
"Take my hand" he said softly, and Hermione slowly reached out one of her shaking hands to meet his. As soon as their skin made contact, she felt herself apparating. When they stopped, she felt sick. Where were they?
Looking up, through teary, red eyes, she saw a living room, furnished with a mainly white and green colour scheme. A beautiful fire-place was opposite the giant window overlooking London, the bright light from outside making her squint.
Draco lead her by the shoulders over to one of the sofas in, what seemed to be his living room. As she sat down, her head slumped over her neck, as she continued crying, while Draco ran to the kitchen to make some tea.
"He's done this a lot you know…" she said, quite quietly from the sofa, but Draco heard, and stopped what he was doing. She heard him exhale, and began to walk over in her direction.
He sat down on the same sofa as her, but a few centimetres away, enough to make it too far, but too close at the same time. He didn't know how to react. With her fluctuating emotions, Hermione leant towards Draco, and hugged him. He was tense for a few seconds, before relaxing into her.
"I'm sorry to be such an effort," she said, not knowing what to make of Draco's kindness. When they broke the hug, Draco sat back.
"When I last saw you two together, you were basically inseparable…" He was testing the waters, to see where was safe to tread or not.
"We-we were, but then, I think that after Hogwarts, when he started drinking, he got quite stressed, and didn't really know how to handle it, s-so took it out on me," she clenched her jaw and bit her tongue, stopping her from starting another round of crying.
"Where are you staying tonight?" Draco asked, trying to change the subject. All the emotion, though it was horrible for Hermione, he did not know how to behave under such circumstances.
"I'm not sure… I mean, I stayed at Harry's last night, but they have Teddy staying with them, and… I mean, I felt as if I was intruding…" She said
"Well I mean, if you aren't able to find any place else, you are always welcome to stay here tonight." Did he really know what he was getting himself into when making that offer? No, not really, but he felt it was a good time to spend time with her, without the presence of Weaslebe always lurking. Hermione, as he'd discovered in the last year of Hogwarts, while sharing the Head chambers with her, that she wasn't all that bad.
"Oh, no, no I couldn't, I'd feel as if I were intruding" she exclaimed, though in the deepest parts of her soul, she secretly wanted him to persist.
"No, I insist, if there's ever a time when an ole school chum of mine is in need, I'd be happy to help," flashing her a devilish grin, as she felt her cheeks redden slightly.
"Okay, well I'll see what I can do about finding somewhere else to stay, so I don't have to stay and cause any unnecessary trouble," she laughed, her manners ever-gracious.
"But… if you wanted to grab some things from, even though I have spare toothbrushes and shampoo, I can't exactly admit to having any women's pyjamas lying around," he chuckled to himself, though Hermione went quite pale at any mention of returning home. Not with Ron there. But perhaps… she pondered… perhaps, with Draco there, he could help her to get in and out as fast as possible.
"Actually, maybe that's a good idea. I do need some time to figure out what I'm going to do about this situation, and perhaps it would be good to have a bag of things with me, so that I am a bit more agile," she stuttered, hoping Draco was not assuming that she planned on staying with him until she decided what to do. He, of course, would take any pleasure in taunting Ron Weasley, and what better way to do it than to take Hermione for himself. That was what he told himself anyway, that he was doing it purely for selfish means, even though he knew he did it because he cared about her, though he is refusing to admit it.
Draco nodded, silently, his face in a grim and contemplative expression. He was deciding his next move. Glancing down at his watch, he checked the time. Three thirty. When did it get to be so late? He felt his stomach rumble.
"Ok, so Granger, I have an idea. I'm quite hungry, and I kind of got caught up in everything today too much to grab a bite to eat, so how about, we go back to diagon alley, get some food, then I will personally escort you to Weasley's… I mean, your house, and then we can come back to mine, and you can make yourself at home, while I go through some paperwork," he finished, realising that this, rather than sounding like a suggestion, was more like a plan.
"Sounds like a plan" she said, seemingly more uplifted in spirits. She was determined to sort this mess out. And might even leave Ron for good. The thought of it made her eyes gleam. Draco stood up, straightening out his jacket, reaching into one of the shopping bags, and pulling out the coat he had bought Hermione in his rush to her aid earlier. He placed it over her shoulders, and she looked up at him, giving a sincere smile, sliding her arms into the sleeves.
"If we could also stop by gringotts again, I'll pick up some money to pay you back for the coat," she started, before he cut her off.
"Don't worry about it," he started. "I have more money than I know what to do with" he laughed, playfully pushing her by the shoulder. She laughed, rolling her eyes at him.
"I thought you'd outgrown your conceitedness?" she said with a giggle, him being taken back by her retort. I guess he'd forgotten the level banter they used to reach back at Hogwarts.
"Okay, so are you ready?" He asked, reaching out his hand to help her up. She slid her hand in to his, her smooth skin brushing gently over his as they gripped on to each other, before he pulled her off of the sofa, coming face to face with him. She blushed, looking down to the floor and taking a step back. She could already feel the sexual tension building, though unsure of what to make of it.
She let go of his hand, tilting her head up to face his, as he ushered with his other hand to the fire place. She knew what he meant, and she made her way over, Draco following swiftly behind her. As Draco picked up a small handful of floo power, he told Hermione to hold on to his waist, as he muttered some words under his breath, that she could not quite make out.
Within a split second, they had arrived in the fire place of, quite a small restaurant. She couldn't tell where they were at first, until she made her way towards one of the windows along the left hand wall of it, and looked out to see there, a bustling walkway. She was sure she'd never been there before, however, due to her muggle born status, she did not tend to come here when she was younger, and had rare occasion to come here in her day-to-day life, as she was usually so occupied with work.
"Welcome to Sallie's patisserie" said a jolly old lady, with greying hair, wearing a pink and blue floral dress under a red apron, to match the colour theme of the place. This was not the sort of place she had expected Malfoy to have brought her, due to his extravagant nature, this place was extremely humble in comparison. "Is there anything I can get you?" The woman continued, before Draco asked, in his most charming manners whether there was a table available for a late lunch.
The lady seemed more than happy to guide us to a table by the window. There was a copy of this morning's daily prophet lying on the surface. The image on the cover drew her attention. There was a picture of, what seemed to be Draco on the front cover. As they sat down, she attempted to read what the article said before drawing his attention to it. Hermione, however was not one of the subtlest of characters, and Draco, within the first few seconds followed her eye line to the article, and let out a small and breathy laugh as she looked up to meet his silvery eyes.
"That's not really important," he laughed. "I could tell you more about that if you're that into business statistics?" Glancing to her, expecting her to lose interest automatically.
"Go ahead," she said, with a challenging look on her face.
Raising his eyebrows, he looked down at the paper, had a quick scan of it, and finally said "It's to do with an international business deal I've got doing on with distant relatives in Russia, and to do with working conditions, and ethical things to do with globalization," he huffed, slamming the paper down on the table face down, making Hermione jump a little.
"I didn't realise I was in the presence of an economic celebrity," she teased, her eyes looking him up and down. He almost burst out laughing.
"I'd hardly say a celebrity… and I mean, look who's talking, Miss. Primary member of the Golden Trio" he said, pretending to praise her.
From then on, the meal was quite relaxed. They talked with more ease than they had this morning, and it seemed that the shock from last night was wearing off, but all the while they talked, she was dreading going back to her house after this. She felt in the pit of her stomach, that something was going to go horribly wrong.
They finished on a full stomach, with the both of them having to undo their top button as they gazed quite contently at each other, fully satisfied with their meal. But now was going to be the hard part. As Draco called for the bill, she felt her stomach beginning to flutter, and her heart picked up pace. It was time.
