Chapter Nine
Hermione kept a few vials of potion for headaches. She stared at them lined up neatly in her medicine cabinet and was not convinced that they would last through her vacation. She hadn't brewed more because who would think of headaches on a vacation? She felt her temple, contemplating saving them in case it worsened. It wasn't unbearable after all.
Draco peeked his head in through the crack of the bathroom door. "Alright, Hermione?"
She nodded, opening the door up the rest of the way. "My head hurts a little."
He frowned. "You should stay here then."
"I told Harry I'd meet him for dinner."
"As your boyfriend, I should have a say in this."
"What would that be?"
"Stay here and rest."
"Draco," she sighed. "Harry is my best friend. He needs me now."
"This is your vacation."
She kissed his cheek. "An hour."
He glowered at her back, she could feel it as she walked to the living room. "I'll be counting the minutes Hermione." It wasn't meant to be sweet and that bothered her like nettles in her shoes. Nonetheless, he held the neckline of her coat helping her put it on.
Facing him, pulling at the sleeves, she said seriously, "I love you, Draco. I trust that you will eat, won't you?"
"I'm not a child."
She took a breath, reminding herself of the habit she had, but then again, she grew up with Harry and Ron. "I'm sorry." She turned to the door, but he caught her hand and pulled her back to him.
"I love you, too." He kissed her two seconds longer than normal, and he let her go.
It was hard to let Hermione leave. He had won, so what was he worried about? If Potter did risk their friendship (he wasn't Draco, who would risk everything, including every knut he had in his vault) and told her the truth she would believe him. Not only would he lose Hermione but he would end up in Azkaban. Yet, that conclusion didn't make him go after her, to tell her everything. He would take his own risk and Potter could take his. All for the girl.
Draco held the curtain watching her back become smaller and smaller, until she was fully out of his view. Still, he did not leave, not until there was a knock at the back door. Draco reluctantly left his post to answer it.
Cook stood there too cheerfully with a suitcase. Draco scowled, snatching them out of his hand. "I told you to leave them. You're fired."
Cook nodded as if it wasn't a bothersome thing to hear. "Okay, but I thought I could meet this woman -"
"Who said it was a woman?"
Cook smiled the same knowing smile that his uncle always had and it infuriated Draco further. It wasn't Cook he was mad at, it was Hermione meeting Potter, but nonetheless Cook would pay for it.
Cook let the suitcase fall with a thud. "Uncle Theo wants to know when you're coming home?"
"Why is he asking?"
"Because, 'it was irresponsible to leave an incompetent business hopeful in charge of an empire,'" he mocked his uncle.
Draco laughed. "He's right, but I had no other choice."
"She must be something." His tone implied that he already knew. "Golden."
It was times like those that Draco wished he could fire him for good, not every week and be expecting and needing him back in the morning. He gripped the edge of the table where he found himself leaning, as if he was in some sort of pain. Pain, yes, at the thought of Hermione meeting Potter.
"Hermione Granger, you fool. Now leave."
"Where is she?"
"Out!"
Cook smiled, inclined his head in a lazy bow and left.
If Hermione was there to witness his behavior, she would have smacked him. If she was there, he wouldn't have behaved that way. If she was there, she wouldn't be with Potter.
Like a madman he searched the cabinets for Firewhiskey. It didn't have to be Firewhiskey, it could have been any alcohol, but he found none. How could he forget that Hermione hated to drink? Oh, yeah, because his mind was consumed with the nightmarish clarity of her and Potter kissing, of her lying in his arms naked, how he touched her. Potter caressing his Hermione.
Draco was shaking, bending to grasp the basin, his head bowed, willing himself to get it together. It was a figment of his imagination. Hermione loved him, didn't she? She slept with Potter. Harry Potter. The bane of his existence. The reason his father went to Azkaban, the reason he lied bleeding in Myrtle's bathroom.
That was it, he couldn't take it anymore. The image unfolded into a storybook love of their lives while Draco glared on enviously. He ripped open his stupid muggle suitcase and took out his stupid muggle clothing and raced to stop the inevitable between the stupid half-muggle and the gorgeous muggle-born.
Harry half-expected her not to show. It would be a good enough reason as any to return to her vacation house and hex Malfoy. He would give it ten minutes past the time they had set. He wanted the excuse because right then, he couldn't charge him with anything. Proof is something that he never grew accustomed to and yet, his whole career weighed on it.
The cafe was roads away from the beach but the saltiness and bits of sand carried. It was quaint with genuinely friendly waiters and strings of collected seashells around the molding, and nets hooked with fishing gear, and a giant plastic fish over the entrance. There were lots of things to stare at, but he chose his pocket watch, the one that Mrs. Weasley had kindly given him.
She had three minutes, and there was the clinging of the bell above the door, and there she was. Dressed plainly in jeans and a blouse she still looked as beautiful as she was at the ball. Harry felt he learned things too late, and he felt that Hermione was the worse of those things.
He stood and she smiled, wondering at his odd behavior. Quickly he sat, his chair making a loud sound against the tile. He flinched. Hermione sat across from him, her hands folded on the table, her fingers touching her menu that displayed "the best fish and chips" in the county.
"You don't fool me, Harry Potter. What is wrong?"
I think you've been poisoned.
Malfoy did it.
You love the wrong man.
I need a vial of your last memory in London.
You should love me.
"Sorry to disturb your vacation," he said instead.
Hermione leaned forward, her face marred by concern. It was something he hadn't seen since the last battle, and he looked uncomfortably down at his watch again. Time had suddenly sped up.
"Harry, you're scaring me."
Now or never the voice that sounded frighteningly like Ginny said in his head. He had truly spent too much time with her while Hermione worked. "You should be scared of Malfoy."
Stunned she fell back in her seat. "I thought you were okay with this."
"I thought I was too."
"I don't understand. You stood up at his trial and exempted him."
"He's not right for you, Hermione."
"Because he was a Death Eater," she whispered, her eyes scanning the room for eavesdroppers but they were busy robustly chatting among themselves.
"Because he's Malfoy!"
"You are the one that talked to Ron, got him to see sense. How can you take it back?"
"You don't know him as well as you think you do."
Angrily she stood, and Harry inwardly flinched remembering the birds she sent on Ron, how she yelled at him to return her wand to her, punching Malfoy, and a number of other things that Hermione was capable of.
"If there's something you know, tell me now. No more secrets, Harry, you promised me."
Harry remained quiet. He couldn't tell her, but he should have because Malfoy had the worst timing in the world.
It was called The Sea Shack, and it was a shack. The place was made out of blue shingles and life preservers. Why would anyone need a life preserver so far from the ocean? Did the place frequently become under waves? That would explain the smell, the places that needed repainting and how it appeared that if Draco so much as let the door close behind him they would be under its pitiful rubble.
All of that escaped his mind at the sight of his archenemy's face. Potter looked scared, and Draco would have laughed gleefully if he hadn't seen his girlfriend's face. For that small moment in time he felt sorry for the bloke. Hermione had given him those looks for seven years and no matter the time apart it still sent his skin prickling. Not that she ever knew that, of course.
"Everything alright," he asked carefully coming to stand beside her. His hand hovered over her waist, afraid to touch her, that she would turn around and smack him. It was five years ago and he swore he never regained full feeling in that cheek. Then again, Hermione said he was an exaggerating fool and that was true among the many things she said.
"Yes, we're done. I'm hungry, Draco. Lets go." She turned and stormed out, the door banging behind her loudly enough to break the annoying chatter, all eyes on them.
"Now it's over," Draco chose to say, going after Hermione before Potter had a chance to respond.
Hermione was further down the beach than he expected, her legs eating up large strides. Although he couldn't see her face yet, jogging up next to her, he suspected she was glaring at the past incident that had taken place moments before his arrival.
"Talk to me."
"I don't feel like talking," she seethed.
"I don't either," he replied honestly. He would much rather scoop her away inside the house to have a not-so-quiet night. Unfortunately, the sounds were going to be far different than he wished. "Talk to me anyway."
She spun on him, and he stumbled back, water soaking his socks. Inwardly he cursed Merlin's name.
"Do you love me, Draco?" Before he could answer, she continued, "Draco Malfoy, if you tell me you love me I'll never question it but it better be the truth or I swear on Godric's head I will curse you to the day your were born."
What kind of stupid question was that? Forget ravishing the girl, he was truly curious as to what Potter said to her that made her question such a thing. He risked his relationship with his family to be with her. He wanted her to move in. He loved her enough to break laws beyond his family and lie and erase her memory. He was angry and hopeless, but he sighed, took her face in his hands and looked her straight into her eyes.
They weren't the same eyes he had once knew. The eyes he was staring at were losing their depth. They weren't the warm brown of coco. It was as though someone was draining them of their life. They were milky and it disturbed him greatly, but he didn't look away.
"I love you, Hermione."
She nodded, no small feat in how tight he kept her face. She looked up into his eyes, a look that should have moved worlds, but past the freckle above her lip was a trickle of bright blood. He let her go, and she felt her nose, the red smeared on her fingertip.
"Oh no," is all she said.
"Lets get you home." He picked her up in his arms the way he thought of doing earlier. She kept her head back pinching the bridge of her nose. Worriedly he asked, "do you get nosebleeds often?"
Nasal she responded, "this is the first time."
He didn't like the sound of that. Was it a symptom of the potion he slipped her? He would have to check his great-grandfather's potion book. Once more, he wordlessly cursed at settling with potions because he was rubbish with oblivating. Anyhow, he was a right coward, not being able to point a wand at her again.
What kind of spell had she put him under?
