Chapter Two: Malfoy
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter
It's nearing noon and I'm standing on Granger's doorstep on Boxing Day. It's freezing and Scorpius is ringing the doorbell for the fourth time. It makes an annoying sing-song chime at a high volume, but to be honest any volume higher than off is unbearable for me at the moment. I have the distinct impression that Scorpius is anxious to get away from me and is ringing the doorbell both as a cry for someone to come save him from my presence and also as an attempt to drown out any possible conversation starters I may think up. I don't know how we reached to this point. At one point in time I used to be someone he looked up to, not just because of height differences, but because he respected me and thought me amazing. I had been expecting my fall from superwizard status maybe when he reached the age of six, seven maybe, when he'd realize that I was a mere wizard who just happened to have a lot of money. But he doesn't even see me as an ordinary wizard. He seems to equate me with the same regard that he'd have for the filth stuck at the bottom of his shoes.
I'm tired. I want to go home and drink out the brandy that Daphne got me for Christmas. Yesterday's visit with Father was the worst. He's on his last appeal, but seems to have resigned himself to his fate. He's reformed, but Mother thinks he's pretending. She held up bravely, but as soon as we touched on the mainland she broke down in uncouth tears, big blobs of it falling mercilessly on my silk shirt. It lasted only a few moments before shame caught up to her and her tears seemed to have stopped mid-fall and she sniffled and pretended she had never done such a thing.
In some sort of underhanded retribution for witnessing her unravelling, consciously or unconsciously, she spent the rest of the day trying to get me to talk about Astoria's death. In a fit of frustration (and this is commendable as far as I'm concerned, since she spent upwards of seven straight hours needling and giving not-so-subtle suggestions) I finally snapped at her that I have no interest in shedding any more tears for Astoria. Of course I only meant that I was feeling all cried out and definitely didn't know what to say again because nothing I said was ever going to bring her back. But of course all Scorpius heard was that I'm an insensitive prick who doesn't give a flying fuck about his wife who recently killed herself. Later, I saw one of the house elves with his hideous Pterodactyl feet stuffed into the dragon hide shoes I had bought for Scorpius for Christmas. The little ungrateful shit gave away one of my presents! I'm just as tired of him as he is of me by this point, so I'm glad for him to spend his afternoon at Granger's while I can go home and wallow waist-high in self-pity and self-loathing. For snacks I'll have some brandy and suck on some sour grapes dipped in bitter batter.
The door opens and there stands Granger.
I nearly laugh out loud at the expression on her face. It's like she opened her door only to see the Dark Lord doing a tap dance. Her brain must have shut down for at least fifteen seconds. I only smirk though.
"Granger,"
"Malfoy?" She questions. I think she would prefer if it were Delores Umbridge standing outside her door. She looks that shocked and confused. "You came?"
"To drop off me, Mrs. Weasley." Scorpius answers for me and she looks towards him, then to me and then back to him in what could only be described as desperate gratitude for that explanation. Good grief, the witch looked like he saved her from drowning! She visibly relaxes.
"Scorpius!" Her daughter shouts from behind her. She peeks her head out from behind Granger and says in a bright and cheerful tone that no child who was not my own ever used with me,
"Hi, Mr. Malfoy!" I'm so taken aback by her friendliness that I give her a grimace of a smile and mutter something that could be taken as a hello or not. She apparently has the attention span of a fly and immediately moves on from me. "Scorpius I'm so glad you could come. You have to come see this!" And she pulls him past her mother, nearly spinning her around. I notice some interesting artwork in the background and a staircase that takes focal point. Granger rights herself only to see me still standing there and the look of fear that I would be staying returns.
"Oh Granger, you look like a Death Eater showed up on your doorstep." She stares at me. Her eyes pop open so much I fear that that they may fall out. "Hmm, I knew I was right. You don't have a sense of humour." Her facial expression slackens and she's back to looking at me with no attempt to hide her annoyance. Ah yes! The Granger I know and hate? Not anymore. I honestly can't say I can muster up that much emotion for her anymore. She's a mild irritant.
"Right, well…thanks for letting Scorpius join us today. I know that he's had a rough time of late. He's a really nice child. I'm glad to see that you let him wear the jumper that I got him."
That's where he got that from? Clearly Granger has no fashion sense or at least no idea of the best colours for the Malfoy skin tone. She bought him a pale yellow jumper with broad white stripes. It completely washed him out. He looked like a jaundiced ghost! And I'm sure he knows it too. Still, he put it on, though I feel it was only to spite me after I said he reminded me of consumption.
"…and he's probably looking for some kind of female figure in his life and I'm happy to provide it. I was shocked when he wrote to me –"
"Wait, what? He wrote to you? When did he write to you?"
She looks like she's seriously considering lying and telling me he only wrote her a cheque and not a letter.
"You have a correspondence with him? What do you talk about? He doesn't even write to me anymore!"
"Calm down, Malfoy!"
"What do you talk about? What's going on with him? He's stopped talking to me completely. Granger, with what are you filling up my son's head? Are you to blame for –"
"Good grief! Shut up!"
I do as told out of pure surprise. It's the first time really since I saw her a few days ago at the train station that we've come back to something resembling the relationship that I know us to have – one borne out of mutual hate, except now it's probably more out of mutual annoyance.
"Listen, he wrote to me when…when your wife died. He said –"
"Hermione! Get in here! Quick! Oh my! It's a disaster!" Someone says from deep inside the house. It sounds like that idiot Weasley. She looks back, then back at me, her expression worried and torn. I want to stop her and tell her that I'm sure the knuckle-dragger could manage a kitchen disaster. He managed to help take down the Dark Lord, I'm sure that he can survive a burnt roast. "Hermione! Are you coming! I don't think this is supposed to be moving after it's come out of the oven!"
She rolls her eyes and I'm a second behind her in mimicking the action. She does the unthinkable and grabs my arm as she pulls me inside. "Wait in the study. I'll talk to you in a bit." She literally pushes me inside a room a bit further down the hall and runs off before I can protest. I stand there feeling duped and violated like I just got taxed from a five year old. It was highly confusing.
I regain some sense and close the double doors of the study in front of me. I would hate for Weasley or one of the other disembodied voices I heard in the kitchen to walk past and see me in here. I would absolutely hate to run into Potter. I doubt that Granger would announce my presence unless she wanted to get a row going between myself and her two husbands, Weasley and Potter. I close the door and realize that I'm inside a Gryffindor's house. As soon as I do it, I feel like I just locked myself in with an actual Griffin. I half expect to turn around and see some sort of abominable lion-eagle creature from hell's discard pile. I turn around and I am completely…unsurprised.
There are books everywhere. I have never wasted a spare thought on what Granger's study would look like, but somehow I look at this study and feel as if my expectations were realized. This is what Granger's study would look like. Two out of the four walls are covered in floor to ceiling bookshelves that are all filled with books. The wall opposite the door has huge fixed light windows that look out onto a frozen lake and the fourth wall has a fireplace with a bookshelf built around it. There are books on the couches and on the sides of the couches serving as makeshift end tables. I peer closer and realize that though it may look disorganized there is a method to this madness. She might even rival the Malfoy library judging by this room alone, because I am sure that the rest of the house is just as ridiculously stuffed to the brim with books. Astoria was never an avid reader, but I am. I remember getting lost in the books and she would come down to the library to beg me to come to bed. She didn't need to beg too hard.
I point my wand at the fireplace and the fire roars to life. I look around the room some more and realize that it's very traditional, but the ivory leather couch set and glass top table stick out like red flags in a sea of pinewood panelling and cherry wood hard floors. On the mantle over the fireplace, there are pictures of Granger and the mouth-breather Weasley on their wedding day. Grief hits me like a wave of nausea. It always happens in the most unsuspecting moments. I saw someone yesterday from America. When he asked me how my wife was doing, I felt physically pained to have to say all over again that my wife died over the summer. How did she die? She had an accident in the bathroom. I don't see it as a lie really. Lots of people accidentally slash themselves with their husband's razors.
I peer closer at the photos. Granger looks…I'm not going to lie. She looks incredibly pretty. And I say 'incredibly' not meaning awe-inspiring, but as in in-credible; as in hard to believe that she could clean up that well. I lean in a little closer. The door opens and I suddenly pull back when I realize what I was doing. I feel like someone just caught me doing something dirty, like I just got caught wanking to my Aunt Bella's photo or something. Granger gives me an eyebrow pop of suspicion. It's a look I know well. I stare at her with a slight lip curl. I want her to know that I couldn't care less about her. I want her to forget what she just caught me doing. She caves in first and looks away before she looks at me again. This time her expression is neutral.
"Right, sorry about that." She closes the door behind her. I was right. She doesn't want anyone to see her with me either. "Slight disaster, but the crisis has been averted." She comes over to sit on the couch and nods for me to do the same. Reluctantly I acquiesce, but I sit as far away from her as possible on her right side. My back is to the door and I feel slightly uncomfortable about that. She tries to make polite conversation.
"Growing a beard?"
I shrug and absently scratch the scruff on my face. "Something like it," Not everyone understands that razors make me uncomfortable now.
There's a brief pause when we realize we don't know how to relate to each other now. It's disconcerting. I keep feeling like she should be insulting me while she ducks behind the couch to avoid one of my hexes. That is not happening and her failure to follow the script is the reason our interaction is odd and strained. I know it's awkward because I'm living in the past. I remember the last time I saw her. It was at the Room of Requirement when Crabbe nearly burnt her to a crisp. I decide to make the first move, but I'm struck dumb when she offers me tea and a tray with a shining tea set and biscuits on a platter appear. I wonder if it's sterling Goblin silver. I highly doubt it. There're a couple of cracks on the platter, but it at least looks clean. There are no marks on it.
"Or if you don't want tea, you can always stay for lunch..." She says very quietly and with her eyes averted. She looked like a school girl then asking me out on a date.
"Did Potter tell you to ask me to stay? I don't know why he always wants to play the nice guy." I take a biscuit off the platter. The bloody tray kept nudging me in my arm and spilling tea on the platter. I couldn't stand the mess. Casually she mops it up with a sweep of her wand.
"Yes, he did and I think it's only because Luna asked him too."
I don't know what to say to that except that Lovegood and Potter are both touched in the heads – nothing new. "And Weasley disagrees? Nice biscuit. I've never seen this brand."
"No, Ron doesn't know that you're here. It's homemade. I made it. Try not to spit it out. I didn't poison it."
I stare at her, my mouth stuffed with the biscuit. Should I swallow? I wonder how many times Pansy and Astoria had to ask themselves that question. I swallow reluctantly.
"That thought wasn't in my mind, but now it is. Also, I never took you for the baking type."
She smirks at me. "I guess you'll never know until it's too late."
I don't know what she meant by that. Did she mean whether she poisoned the biscuit or did she mean about her skills as a baker? I change the topic. "Anyway…"
"Yes, Malfoy…Scorpius wrote to me after…after…what happened,"
"After my wife's suicide?"
"Yes, then. He…he wanted to know more about you."
"And he decided to forgo asking the person who would be most knowledgeable on the topic, i.e. myself, and decided to ask the one person who knows the least about me. I suppose it makes sense in the way that it doesn't make sense at all."
"Hang on. I think that I know you pretty well. I've seen you at your worst. If that's not knowing someone, then I don't know what is."
Her words strike me like a slap to the face. "You don't know me. You don't know anything about me. And besides, knowing the worst of people is not all there is to it. You don't know my best."
"I've seen your best as well." She looks up at me and holds my gaze. I know instantly what she's referring to. She's referring to that infamous moment in my house when I could have given up Potter, Weasley and herself, but I didn't. A table lamp is on directly behind her and balancing precariously on a stack of hardcover books. The lamp has lit her…I don't want to use the word romantically, but that's how the lighting is. It's soft and delicate. She's also side lit by the light streaming in from the window; a light blue that reflects the clearness of the sky. Her hair is a mess, but in this light, in this light she looks…I hate to say it, but she looks…something nearing pretty. I turn my gaze from her to stare at my clasped hands but she forces me to look at her when she says,
"Here you go," I look up and she's handing me a cup of tea. She's sitting so far away from me that she has to stretch to hand it to me. Apparently the thought of moving closer or using her wand never crossed her mind. She leans over a bit and being taller than her considerably I can see down her shirt a bit. I feel like a pervert. Out of the corner of my eye I can almost swear that I see Astoria laughing and muttering 'Dirty, old man.'
"Malfoy, would you take the tea!" She repeats because I got distracted. I blink twice to make sure that my dead wife isn't really in the room. Granger stares at me suspiciously.
"What?" I ask snappily, guiltily. Again I feel like I just got caught doing something dirty like shoplifting one of Lovegood's atrocious magazines.
"For goodness' sake!" She moves closer and grabs my left wrist and shoves the teacup in my hand. The teacup wobbles violently and she holds onto the saucer with both her hands. Reflexively I move to grab it too, but she's already holding it so my right hand ends up grabbing her left wrist. The result is that we're both holding onto each other with a cup of tea between us. We stare at the tea for a moment to ensure that it's settled and hasn't spilled and then we realize what we're doing. We're touching each other. She's not slapping the skin off my face. I'm not pouring hot water from my wand onto hers. We're touching each other and nothing bad is happening. Well, in the back of my mind I still expect a meteor to be hurtling down to Britain as fate's punishment for this unholy alliance. I look up at her and she's blushing. It's at that precise moment that the door opens and it's Weasley.
The look on Weasley's face nearly kills me. It's hilarious. He looks as if he just walked in on us having passionate and angry sex on the couch. Granger doesn't add to the situation when she flies off the couch like something bit her and exclaims,
"Ron!"
Potter only adds insult to supposed injury when he skates in a half-second later bawling out, "Ron listen, I can explain," as if he were the lookout or something. Explain what?
"Malfoy. What are you doing here?" Weasley asks.
The tea spilled anyway and I take out my wand to clean it up instantly, but the smell would remain on the couch. She's going to have to scrub that out. It's leather. It would smell. I stand up as well and replace the teacup and saucer back on the floating platter.
"I was speaking to Granger about my son."
He looks confused. It's like he recognizes all of the words and knows that they're in the right order, yet it still makes no sense to him. I understand. He was never the fastest broom in the shed. He fixes his eyes on Granger and she nods. "Scorpius has been having some…" she mumbles off never quite finishing her sentence.
"It's Mrs. Weasley now." He says with his gaze back to me and it's my turn to look confused. Why is he telling me about his mother?
"What?"
"Her name. It's not Granger anymore. She's Hermione Weasley now." It's said with just a hint of pride and a bit of a warning. I look over at Granger and wonder why she never corrected me. I know her name had changed, but still I called her that. Habit? He turns his gaze to her again.
"Everyone's here, 'Mione. We're waiting on you."
"Oh. I was…" She turns to me and I never thought that I'd see the day when Granger would look like she wanted to spend more time with me. She hesitates to leave.
"Malfoy, why don't you stay for lunch?" Potter asks and for a brief moment I have to remind myself whose house this is. Clearly, Weasley would rather I leave, yet Potter is inviting me to stay as if this was his house. Weasley surprises me.
"Yeah, you should stay." He clearly doesn't mean it and out of pure spite I feel like I should follow up on his invitation. I still haven't finished my conversation with Granger regarding Scorpius and Blaise's suggestion suddenly reverberate in my thoughts…
"Sure, why not?" Everyone looks stunned like they just lost a bet. I hope they did. Potter recovers first.
"Okay, well come on then. I'll put out an extra chair."
Again I wonder whose house is this. Weasley leaves the study last, behind me. I feel deeply uncomfortable. It's not just because of this entire situation, but because I find myself staring at his wife's backside as she walks in front of me. What the hell did she put in those biscuits!
XXX
What the hell was I thinking?
I must have been out of my mind. Was I Confounded? Did someone put an Imperius on me? I go back to my original suspicion that Granger put something in those biscuits, but it makes no sense. I can see no reason why she would want me around and I can see even less of a reason of what would possess me to stay here. Oh right. Blasted Blaise and his schemes…
They're everywhere; Weasleys, that is. I'm standing outside at the back of the house where a huge dining table has been erected and I'm looking at the Weasleys pouring out of Granger's kitchen. It reminds me of that time in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom when she stomped on a pipe and hundreds of cockroaches ran out of their hole. It was absolutely disgusting and I made like a cat and was nearly halfway up the wall to get away from the disgusting creatures. It's like déjà vu.
There's the old mother and the decrepit husband. There's the one that got slashed by a werewolf. Speaking of which, there's my cousin the half-breed with his hair a bright shade of green. I heard he got placed in Slytherin – his one redeeming quality, which might explain the green hair at the moment. There's the Veela. Clearly she too had the biscuits because I cannot figure out what she saw in a Weasley. The one that married the twin had the biscuits as well, I think. These Weasley men have a knack for marrying women out of their league. There's the stick-in-the-mud one. There's the twin. Hmm, the other one died, didn't he? Oh well, thank Merlin he did the world a favour and rid of us of his presence. If only he had taken the rest of them with him. Tsk tsk. And there's the Weaslette. She seems to have put on a bit of weight, mostly in her chest and hips. I don't know what wizard would find her attractive. People always talk about her fire-red hair. It's more of an orange really. She looks like a carrot in winter. Potter must be happy, I suppose. I always saw him as asexual. And then there're all their little brats running around unleashed. Scorpius is running around with them as well. For shame!
A warming charm has been placed around the table. The food floats out together with Luna Lovegood and a tall wizard that I don't know. The guests fall into two distinct groups – one that watches me with open suspicion and one that pretends that I am invisible. Scorpius has signed up for the latter. Granger takes a seat and I find myself pulling a chair next to hers as everyone else's company is even less desirable than hers at the moment. At least this way I can continue our earlier conversation. When it is too late I notice that Luna Lovegood is sitting directly opposite me. Fuck! Her curious stare is bone-cutting. Everyone knows enough not to speak to me, let alone ask me what I'm doing here, but that will not stop Luna Lovegood. I suspect Potter convinced them not to attack me on the spot, but like I said, that will not stop Lovegood from asking me awkward questions. I take the time to inspect the cutlery. At least there are no marks on it.
"Hi, I'm Dr. Dennis Granger. I'm Hermione's father. I don't think I've met you before." The man next to me says and offers his hand.
I look down at his hand and wonder if he'll remember me if I say that I was his daughter's worst enemy for years, but I didn't know her as Hermione; I knew her as the filthy, disgusting and vile Mudblood. I take his hand.
"Draco Malfoy." He smiles and shakes my hand firmly like he's trying to remember why he should remember that name. He introduces me to his wife and I shake her hand as well. Our conversation is restricted to those safe and formal pleasantries the English should have patented. Everyone else ignores me. After a while our conversation lulls and all I can hear is the scraping of cutlery against china. Someone mentions something about the neo-Death Eaters that still haven't been caught. I glance up and Lovegood is staring at me. She looks like she's about to say something to me. Thankfully, Granger decides to get my attention. I swivel my body almost entirely to her just to block out Lovegood.
"You were right. I don't know anything about you."
"What changed your mind? This is a good risotto by the way. There's a really good recipe that uses champagne in it."
"You shook my parents' hands. The Malfoy I thought I knew would never have done that. I used ghee in the risotto. It gives it a distinctive taste. I'd like to try that champagne risotto though."
"'In youth we learn, in age we understand.' Well, the mushrooms are my favourite part. I've only had the champagne risotto in Venice. What is that, a mole sauce on these mushrooms?"
"That is a mole sauce. I roasted the Portobello mushrooms and then added the sauce. And I've never been to Venice. I've been too busy. Also, Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach? Why Malfoy I had no idea that you subscribed to Muggle reading materials."
"My father is to blame or thank for that depending on your perspective." She gives me a look of confusion. "Yes Granger, he has reformed in prison. If he didn't after twenty years in prison, then there'd be no hope for him. But he has reformed. You really should make the time to go to Venice and have that risotto. The mushrooms are even better than the risotto, by the way."
"I find that hard to believe. The ghee was Padma's idea. You remember her, don't you? Padma Patil? She's the editor of the Daily Prophet now."
I put down my fork and she turns to me. "You find it hard to believe that my father has reformed or that your mushrooms are better than Patil's risotto?"
"It's a bit difficult to believe that your father has reformed."
"Do you know what's difficult to believe? What's difficult to believe is that I'm here sitting with you and all of these other…people," she looks at me suspiciously, knowing that I wasn't going to say 'people' but something a little more derogatory. "I'm eating your food. I'm eating off your plates. We're chatting about food and Muggle literature. I'm literally rubbing shoulders with Muggles. At one point in time every time I heard your voice or read an article that you wrote, it made me want to vomit. My hatred for you was so intense that the mere sight of you made me want to learn how to box." She puts down her cutlery and focuses on me her intense Granger-like stare.
"And now?"
"And now I think that clearly I've changed if my current position is anything to go by and I'm also telling you that my father was very influential in that change."
"He was always very influential with you, wasn't he?"
Her eyes briefly flick over to the tattoo that she knows is hidden under my long-sleeved black sweater. I look down at my arm then back up to her face. She looks at me defiantly, not caring that I caught her staring. She never did like to back down.
"He has changed and so have I."
She says nothing for a few moments, but I know that she's choosing her words carefully.
"I haven't seen you in years," she says quietly. I have to lean in to hear her. I'm already so close to her I can see that she has a light dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose and precisely two freckles above her lips, under her right nostril. "I only heard brief things about you over the last twenty years – your imprisonment, your release, your marriage, the birth of your son, your wife's passing – you know, the things that would make the papers. Before that, the last time I had any interaction with you, was in the Room of Requirement. That's the last and most significant memory that I have of you in the last twenty years. That's the one that sticks out to me. You tried to give up Harry. You nearly killed me in the process."
"I was doing it for my parents." I hiss at her. "I didn't want the Dark Lord to punish us. I just wanted us to be safe in the eyes of the Dark Lord. I did it for my parents."
"You really did it for them?"
"I believe in honouring your parents. I believe in family, the horror of shame and the pride of duty. It was how I was brought up." I look back at Scorpius. He's at the end of the table. I narrow my eyes at him. Clearly he is up to some mischief. He briefly looks up at me and looks away like he never saw me. I turn back to Granger. She watched the entire two-second scene. Her eyes soften.
"He hates you." She says to me frankly.
"I know. He likes you, though. Make him stop." I realize a second too late that I sound desperate. She sighs heavily.
"I don't know if I can. Right now I'm in the same position as he is. He sees you as a smug, racist Death Eater and the problem is that I see you as the same thing."
I don't know what to say to her. I feel ashamed and defeated in that one moment and I don't know why. All I know is that this was a bad idea. I look down the table at Scorpius and he's laughing happily with the other children. The old mother is talking to him and he blushes as she ruffles his hair. The twin says something and the table explodes in laughter including my son. He turns to Potter's youngest son and whispers something that makes Potter's son's eyes bulge in shock as he blushes and pretends to be angry with him. He sticks his tongue out at Granger's daughter. Granger's son says something and all the children crack up, including Scorpius. I haven't seen my son laugh in ages. Is this what he wants? I can't give him this.
I get up suddenly from the table and walk briskly to the edge of the anti-apparition wards. I can barely hear Granger calling after me. I turn on my heel and briefly glimpse her standing against the backdrop of her frozen garden before I disappear to reappear outside my own house. She looked lost. I feel defeated.
A/N: So, Malfoy ended up at the Boxing Day lunch. Never thought that would happen, huh? Did it seem natural enough? He's still a bit mean (see his thoughts on the Weasleys), but he does seem to be trying. Or is he trying too hard or not hard enough? Was Hermione right to be weary of him? Did he make enough of an effort? Review and let me know! Up next: Hermione!
