sneakyslytherin . severus and winterwood11 are wonderful betas. thank you.
Disclaimer: If I owned the Harry Potter universe, I'd be very happy. Right now, I'm only happy. So there you go.
Also, Happy Birthday to lovely Abby as she LOVES Draco/Hermione and that makes me happy when other people love the same pairing as me =]
Hermione's day was mostly normal. She had to deviate a little as there was a light drizzle and the balcony was wet. She accommodated the weather by enjoying her cup of tea inside, watching the sun come up. The humidity was also causing a bad hair day, so getting ready took a little longer as well. She didn't make it to the Flower Market until a quarter after six. She also didn't need to trade any graded papers for magical flowers that morning, but she was still stopped by Neville while walking through The Leaky Cauldron on her way back to the shop.
"Hermione, I'll have some monkshood ready next week, if you'd like."
Hermione thought of the beautiful purple flower and what she could do with it. She knew the Apothecary down the road would be happy to purchase some of it off her. She thought for a moment, head tilted, eyes upward, lip between her teeth, and did some mental calculations. She did catch a brief glimpse of the crossword in The Quibbler that morning and most of the clues inferred answers that were fairly real, so she'd have some time on her hands.
"Okay, fair trade. What year am I grading for you this time?"
Neville, beaming smile on his face, quickly handed her a stack of parchments, "Fourth years, properties of bubotuber pus."
Hermione grinned at the memory of her fourth year learning the same material. She eyed the large stack of parchments and shrugged. "Sounds good. I'll have these done in the next few days in time for the monkshood."
Neville simply nodded and allowed Hermione to be on her way. Yes, it was mostly a normal day and she made it back to her shop without any annoyingly good looking ferrets on the way.
It wasn't until just after lunch, when she had just started to grade the assignments, that the somewhat normal day took a turn to the strange, and not The Quibbler kind of strange.
Draco's day started off normally, and he was very glad for it. He woke up a quarter past ten, did his morning ablutions and found a cuppa on his desk waiting for him. He enjoyed his tea while debating on his plans for the day. Once he was ready he headed to the breakfast room and found a smiling mother sitting across from his normal seat, a tray of scones between them.
Yes, the day was normal, and Draco couldn't be happier. The important date, emphasis on important, the night before went off without a hitch. Astoria Greengrass was quite happy with the food at Bon Appetit, how dapper he looked in his new dress robes, and him paying for the whole meal with a small velvet coin-purse filled with galleons. Her mother was pleased with his wine choice, and the only thing that wasn't commented on were the flowers. He figured four out of five was a winning situation and ignored the slight.
His normal day though was about to change and he would have wished he had not ignored the slight.
When a screeching owl followed their normal eagle owl through the French doors with the morning post, he should have realised his day was not going to be normal, even if he had enough sleep.
The annoying owl dropped a letter, beautiful script visible, in front of his mother. That should have been a sign for him to finish his breakfast quickly and get out of there as fast as Peeves would run away from the Bloody Baron.
He was just taking a sip of some tea when his mother screeched, louder than the bloody owl did, "DRACO!"
Needless to say, his mother's ire rose when she found herself drenched in tea, on top of whatever the letter contained.
It wasn't his fault that she happened to scream bloody murder when he was just taking a sip of his tea. It wasn't his fault that she scared the living daylights out of him and the only thing he could do was spew what was in his mouth.
Yeah, Draco should have pulled a Peeves. His mother did appear more frightening than the Bloody Baron.
He quickly said, while spelling the evil tea away, "I'm sorry mother."
"You ought to be!" she replied, voice only slightly elevated.
He rolls his eyes, "It's just tea, mum. It's gone."
She shrieked at the indignity of it all. "I don't care about the tea! You gave Astoria a bouquet made of hydrangeas and lobelias! I thought I stressed the importance of this date, and you've absolutely ruined it!"
She continued to stress on the importance, and how the flowers messed everything up. Draco just tuned her out and thought about how the flowers looked pretty, he didn't see why it was such a big deal. Girls liked pretty things, he remembered the younger Greengrass girl would wear purple on occasion. She should be happy he even recalled that fact.
"Draco Abraxas Malfoy," his mother said, pulling him back into the conversation, "you better have heard everything I've just said."
He nodded, and when she arched her eyebrow at him, he said, "The date was very important for my future and the flowers were not well received."
"Exactly! Now I will have to spend the rest of the day trying to find another candidate. You will have to do everything from yesterday all over again." She explained. "And you better not mess it up again, Draco."
The look on her face would have made Lord Voldemort shiver. Draco knew not to question his mother, especially with that face.
He quickly left to do the same errands he had ran the day before, barely pondering what she meant by 'candidate'.
"Why are you here?" Hermione said through clenched teeth, eyebrows furrowed, eyes glaring. If she were a krup, she'd be ready to attack.
Draco, realising the very potential danger to his person, quickly thought about leaving the store, and completely forgetting about the flowers. But then, he realised that if Hermione was a krub, his mother was a nundu, and he'd much rather face the krup. People survived krup attacks. He never heard someone making it out of a nundu attack and surviving. He was a Slytherin, self-preservation and all that rot. Granger had nothing on his mother, and he survived living with her for twenty-two years.
He set his shoulders and scowled back. "For some reason, the flowers you gave me yesterday didn't go over so well. Give me something else."
Hermione knew that those old pure-blood snobs would understand the meaning behind the flowers, and she hid her snicker behind her hand. She fake yawned and rolled her eyes, "I gave you the flowers that you asked for."
Draco wanted to ignore that fact. He liked it better when he could blame others, and blaming Granger was so much better than blaming himself. "Maybe you're right, but I need a bouquet for tonight, so give me something else."
The hairs on Hermione's neck bristled. The cad, saying that she wasn't right when it was very clear that she was. She was about to argue the point when she realised that the quicker she gave him what he wanted, the quicker he would leave. She cooled her features, and gave him her best fake smile, "All right, what do you need the bouquet for?"
"That's none of your business," He spat out.
Hermione rolled her eyes, again, that she was sure Draco could hear if rolling your eyes ever made sounds. "I need to know so that I can give you the best bouquet. Do you want me to give you something that would make you come here again tomorrow?" She sneered, "I know I wouldn't like to see you."
Draco blushed a little, but because he was so pale, it looked like he had just walked into a blizzard, face all splotched red, "I have an important date, emphasis on the important, and I need to impress them."
Hermione laughed. This was good. Yesterday, he made her give him a bouquet the that any society woman would interpret as frigid and malevolence. She could hardly breathe. Leave it to Draco Malfoy to mess something like that up. She wondered who was the lucky recipient of that message. Did Malfoy know what the flowers meant? Would he notice if she did something like that again?
When she realised she was spending a little too much time pondering Malfoy's love life, she calmed down and started to think about the new bouquet. She glanced around her shop and an idea came to mind. She giggled as she walked around the shop pulling some multi-colored snapdragons and hollyhocks. She wished she could see the face of the Pureblood bitch who would be getting these.
As she walked back to the counter, she saw that he was smartly dressed and the tight fitting clothes did wonderful things to his body. She shook her head and she quickly spelled the flowers into a beautiful bouquet and handed them to Malfoy. For added measure, she grabbed a buttercup from the bucket by the till and put it in his shirt pocket and patted his chest. It was hard, and she shook her head and focused on the flower instead. Maybe it would do him some good, who knew. People once thought buttercups could cure lunacy, and Malfoy sure could use all the help he could get.
Just like the day before, Draco watched her create a beautiful multi-colored bouquet from across the room. He was in awe of her quick use of magic. Did they even have spells like this when they were in school? Where did she learn them? Did she create them? When he felt a pressure on his chest and looked down to find a flower, he scowled. He dropped some galleons on the counter, making sure some would fall onto the ground and quickly left.
So what if she was good at magic, the woman was still infuriating.
Hermione frowned. He may be a fit bloke, but the man still was an arse.