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As always, all rights to the original Harry Potter series belongs to JK Rowling.

He remembers the faces of both of his parents as he stepped out of the fireplace, dusting vaguely green soot off of his nondescript black tee and jeans. Easily lifting the trunk behind him, he looked forward and was startled to find both his mother and father in the room they used exclusively for guests who Flooed into the Manor. Both parents and son froze, staring at one another with their typical masks in place, as if on stage as tragedy actors. A disruptive crack of Apparition didn't faze his father in the least, but made him jump in surprise and broke his mother into a rare smile that lit her face like a beatific halo.

"Master Draco!" a voice squeaked at his knees. "Ah, Tully is so glad to see you! Missus was worried sick, she was."

"Tully, shh," came a soft warning from his mother, the smile still illuminating her face. "Draco. Welcome home."

He stiffly received his mother's embrace, and tentatively patted her back when she held on. He was just as glad to see her, of course, but he was just unused to such embraces from his impeccably mannered mother. He could tell that she was trying to compose herself lest she break into joyful sobs – the smile was already more emotion than she tended to show, even in front of him. At least, not such bright smiles. All the while, his grey eyes were fastened to his father's similar pair of eyes, unreadable as always. His father was usually not the sneering, domineering individual in his own home as he was outside, and yet the man wouldn't have been called warm by anyone.

"Draco," his father began.

He was startled to hear the age in his father's voice, a weariness that overtook every sonorous drawl.

"Father."

"We've expected you for the past 20 minutes. I'd hoped you would be timelier, at least for the sake of your mother."

Some things never did change, did they? he mused.

"I apologize. It wasn't my intention to make you wait."

So he'd spent 20 minutes in the Ministry, then. He could've sworn it was more like an hour.

His mother finally detached herself from him, again visibly gathering herself. She began to search his face, much like Hermione had, probably noticing the slight details that had changed about him that he'd never be able to tell.

"Lucius, he's here now. There's no need to chastise him," said his mother.

His father's eyes narrowed, studying him from head to toe. He could tell his father disapproved of the Muggle jeans and shirt he wore, no matter that he'd intentionally avoided wearing the more outlandish outfits in his trunk. Outlandish by his father's terms, that was.

"Will you have to go to the Ministry tomorrow, then?" said his mother, never taking her eyes off of her long-awaited son's face. "Otherwise, I'd planned a small welcoming party for you and for all the children of our friends who'd been placed in a similar situation."

Avoiding the use of the word 'exiled', were we?

"Surely the party can wait, Narcissa. He'd hardly even had time to… reacquaint himself."

His still-beautiful mother turned toward her husband, away from his view. But he could easily imagine the neutrality in that face, but the slight firmness around her eyes that asserted her will.

He could already feel a headache coming on. He adored his mother, despite their lack of outward affection. He couldn't say the same for his father, but gradually learned to coexist with him if only for the sole fact that he was his father, regardless of what past sins he may have committed. But the Manor was always like this – semantics and subtleties were what mattered here, more than words or expressions or actions. Hermione's flushed face flashed in his mind's eye, and he found himself wishing that his parents were as half as expressive as she.

But this was the fact of his home, and so he had to readjust and reacquaint himself, as his father had so delicately put. The correct word was probably 'return' – return to who he used to be, return to his world, return to the son that used to follow his father blindly.

But the fact was, he'd forgotten how to return to that Draco Malfoy.

No, that wasn't the exact excuse that she made. She did ask him to tea, she did ask about the cryptic postcards, and she did ask him a vague question about what he did for the past five years and got a vague answer back. But she did have a purpose other than her own irrational desire to study his changed features again.

So it was with his hawthorn wand in hand that she sat at the same teashop that she and Narcissa Malfoy visited once a year, but at a table next to a discreet window in the main room of the shop that filtered in a slant of sunlight to her hair. She'd chosen the spot, well aware that the window showed a view of an alley that was infrequently used, other than by street cats and the occasional drunkard from the Leaky Cauldron nearby. It was iced peach tea today, with a hint of lemon – perhaps perfect, considering her rather jubilant mood and the weather. June was perhaps her favorite month, during which the sun peeked through the most in London's dreary climate.

She was happy about so many things today – Ginny and Harry were finalizing their wedding plans, set to be held in October, just as the leaves would turn to shades of orange and gold at the grounds of the Burrow. The flat she shared with Ginny was piled with scraps of sample fabric for the bridesmaid dresses and table settings, but even after dealing with Ginny's exasperating indecisiveness for an hour that morning, she was happy for her two best friends finding their place at last. Of course, that meant she'd have to find yet another place to live, but that could wait. Maybe a place in Muggle London, nearer to the Ministry booth…

Her thoughts wandering, she didn't notice the timid clangs of the bells at the door. She was gazing out at the alley, staring intently at a fresh green leaf that had sprouted through a crack on the wall of the store opposite the teashop, when he politely cleared his throat next to her.

"Granger," he said, tipping his head forward very slightly.

Was that a smile that was dancing at the corners of his mouth?

She was right – there was no hint of his old arrogance, only a quiet sort of confidence that came with his good breeding rather than any outdated philosophy of superiority. Even if he felt such things still, he was too socially conscious to show it in a world that was no longer accepting of such prejudices. Smart man, he was. She'd never have thought about him all those years if she hadn't known that. He sat in the chair opposite her, discreetly motioning to a server to order tea.

Darjeeling. A smile tugged at her lips, despite the tumultuous flip-flops of her stomach with him sitting before her.

"Having a good day?" he asked, quiet but amiable.

She held back her surprise at his comment, her busy heart speeding up a little more before it resumed an erratic beat that she could still feel at her fingertips. She just wasn't used to sitting with him, or speaking with him without any hostility.

They'd all grown. War tended to do that to a person.

"Ah, yes," she replied evenly, giving him a rather timid smile. "It's beautiful weather."

A faint expression of serenity seemed to pass over his face.

"So it is."

The two simultaneously raised their cups from the saucers and brought them to their lips. Hurriedly, both put the cups down, and she couldn't stop a nervous sound from escaping her mouth.

He cleared his throat again. Her eyes immediately went to his neck, and she suddenly noticed that he was wearing a white Muggle shirt beneath the collar of his robes. Her gaze shot back to the teacup before her, but she was well aware that she was still smiling like a lunatic.

"Shame there's nowhere to go jogging," he commented.

Jogging? Oh, right. That was his alternate method of exercise to flying.

"I don't believe that. The Manor must be beautiful this time of the year."

His long fingers wrapped around the porcelain of the teacup, unfazed from the steam. He seemed to stare at the liquid for a moment before he spoke.

"It is," he said, his voice quiet and neutral. "But I can't run there."

A 'why?' was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. Of course. Lucius Malfoy. He'd hardly be happy that his son had taken to such a blatantly Muggle hobby.

"I used to live near a park," he said, adding a sugar cube from a small jar at the center of the table to his tea. "Holford Gardens. Stunning in June. I always ran there after work."

I know, she wanted to say. I know more about you in the last five years, more than your own parents, but I still know so little.

"I kept waiting for you to send me a postcard from where you lived," she blurted out, going slightly pink and kicking herself for her curiosity. Oh well, the cat was out of the bag.

He seemed taken aback.

"Oh," he said. "I sent you postcards of Scotland, didn't I?"

"Yes."

He blinked a few times.

"I thought you'd like those more. You didn't seem to stay indoors when the weather was good at Hogwarts."

Oh.

When had he noticed?

She merely nodded, unwilling to let her mind run free and imagine all sorts of silly scenarios that she'd only regret later.

She noticed that his eyebrows rose slightly and an expression of realization flitted across his face. Instantly, his pale cheeks took on a duskier shade, not a flush of any sort but a subtle change in shadows. So he realized what he'd said.

They sat in a loaded silence.

Almost with a jolt, she remembered her actual errand (albeit one with a lot of ulterior motives) and drew out his wand from her magically expanded purse. She held it out to him, and was pleased to see that her hand didn't shake.

"This is yours. I'm sorry I didn't remember until earlier."

He stared at the wand in her hand for a moment, before he reached out carefully and grasped the wood. A spark of blue jumped between his hand and the wand, and he visibly flinched as the magic spread back into his hand and body. He thanked her, his eyes trained on his wand and turning it this way and that, studying it like some foreign object instead of an integral part of his self, as a wand was.

She realized then that it wasn't just the war that had changed him. It was those years of exile that made him able to sit here in front of her, talking about the weather with her and bringing memories of Hogwarts back between them. This wasn't the Draco Malfoy from school days, or even the Draco Malfoy of the courtroom she'd secretly harbored in her mind all of these years. This was a new man, a wizard who was unused to wands and quills, a man wearing a tee beneath the impeccable robes of his heritage. A flick of recognition lit in her, and suddenly she thought she could understand his last words back in her office.

In those two words, he'd expressed all the previous wrongs that he'd done to her and to himself, because no other words would've sufficed.

And some cerebral part of her protested at the warm feeling that spread throughout her at this knowledge, and that part disliked where her heart was exactly going toward this almost-stranger in front of her.

Or rather, where her heart already was.

That was a rather long Hermione chapter. But we'll have some Draco next chapter, adjusting to his life (as he always seems to be in this story).

Everybody get the Darjeeling and the postcard reference?

It's my (evil) goal to make people reread every chapter before reading a new chapter just to get the references, hehe.