The Harry Potter universe and its characters are the sole property of J. K. Rowling. By using them below, I am in no way claiming ownership.
Hermione stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, confronting the terrified young girl that looked back at her, her hands gripping the counter. She hadn't felt so on-edge since the first months after the Battle, when her anxiety had been crippling. The letter had been thrown unceremoniously into the bin and putting on a façade of cool she had left her office and sought refuge in the empty women's bathroom.
Hermione stared into her own eyes accusingly. She wanted to feel something - anything - about her situation. Instead, she found only numbness.
Shouldn't she be terrified at having to come face-to-face with Draco once more? The last time she had been at Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix Lestrange had been torturing her. The visit had culminated in the death of her friend, Dobby. Returning to the house did instil some fear, but Draco... she tried to feel repulsed, tried to force some kind of negative emotion about meeting him once more. He'd betrayed them all, he was a traitor; she'd hated him in sixth year when she found out what he'd been up to. Yet the passage of time had softened her memories of him, emphasising the few good moments she remembered. Her mind's eye flitted back to that brief time in fourth year, where she had often fantasised about a relationship with him. All those silly misadventures they'd found themselves in, each mishap throwing him into her arms.
She'd thought that the heartbreak from her teenage years had long healed, yet here she was, her heart aching so hard it felt like her chest was being ripped open. It was as if she were under the influence of a magnetic pull, her south drawn to Draco's north.
I haven't thought about him in years, she tried to reason with herself. I don't even know him any more. Could she really still want him, or was it just the memory of him she longed for?
The door to the shared bathroom opened and Sandra from Accounting entered. Hermione shot her a death-glare and the young witch retreated, leaving her alone. Hermione took a deep breath and then leant forward, cupping her hands into the sink to catch a handful of water. She splashed her face, trying to bring herself back to reality.
What if this is all business? What if he's no longer the boy I used to know?
Malfoy had certainly stabbed them all in the back. When it had turned to defeat he had simply walked away from Hogwarts with his mother, away from the destruction he was partially responsible for.
The mirror in front of her cracked, making Hermione start. She reached out to run a finger along the fracture, which with her positioning, split her face into two halves.
Once upon a time... she thought to herself wistfully. Once upon a time, Draco had been her true heart's desire. Once upon a time, he'd had feelings for her. But that was a long time ago. She shook her head. I've grown up since then. I'm no longer a fool for the bad boy.
Hermione reached into her trouser pocket for her wand, thinking through the correct counter-spell to rectify the damage she had inflicted on the mirror.
She pulled her hair up into a messy bun, moving a few strands from her face, then prepared her expression. If Malfoy had wanted to see her, then he would.
Draco felt a kind of rush at the news, his elves rushing around in a frenzy to prepare the manor for its visitor. The place had fallen into disrepair under his ownership. He had received his inheritance earlier than most, with the divorce of his parents sending his mother to Romania and his father to the bottle. Lucius Malfoy had been dead and gone for nine years now, his body rotting in the Malfoy tomb which lay at the bottom of the manor gardens.
He tried to ignore the bustle of cleaning creatures and instead stared into the flames of the adjacent hearth. He swirled a glass of brandy in one hand, while the other ran along the leather of his chair.
Now that he was older and more mature, he'd had time to reflect on his life. It had been an unhappy one. The death of his father had pushed him deeper into his relationship with Pansy, but he knew now that it was a relationship of convenience, never of love. If he had loved her, wouldn't he have felt pain at her affair with Blaise? Perhaps Pansy had done it for the attention, trying to spur her partner into a display of feeling, but it had failed. Malfoy had felt nothing. Their divorce had been finalised within months of her infidelity, leaving Malfoy alone in his ancestral home.
At least he had kept himself occupied, returning to an old passion from his more innocent days. Under a nom de plume, Draco had published several novels. Critics often said his work was formulaic, with a consistent heroine simply under a new name in each release. He knew they were right. He'd only met one true heroine in his life, his muse in all his works of fiction, and they'd been separated for far too long.
