The Alkahest
Chapter Thirty-Seven: How To Pick Battles
…
She spent Saturday at her parents', helping her mother in the little vegetable garden out back for the bulk of the morning. It was good, mind-numbing work, and some of the anxiety she'd woken up with (Where was Draco? Was he still furious at her, now that he'd undoubtedly sobered up?) had largely dissipated by the time her father invited her on his weekly bike-ride, a practice he'd begun a few months prior. Every Saturday at around one in the afternoon, he'd head out on his bike and spend about thirty minutes riding about their little neighborhood.
It was part of some good-faith effort to try and get the spare tire off his belly, since his doctor had recently been giving him quite the guilt trip over it. She doubted half an hour of exercise once a week would really do the trick, but she kept her thoughts to herself as they coasted out of his garage and into the street. It was better than no bike ride at all.
They mostly rode in silence, weaving up the little residential road towards a slightly busier street that all the local businesses seemed to be centered around. She'd always hated this sleepy little suburb, growing up.
Now, she could see why her parents liked it. It was relaxing. The houses all had families in them, with children playing in the yards. The neighbors waved at them a bit as they passed, and there was a sense of community here that one never really felt in London proper. Actually, most people didn't even feel it in the suburbs, either.
She followed him onto the busier cross-street, the sidewalk and the road both becoming slightly more congested. They slowed down as they weaved through everything. She wanted to ask why he didn't take an actual trail or something. Going half a kilometer per hour through foot traffic didn't seem like the best way to get a heart rate up.
He stopped, suddenly, and parked his bike. Hermione frowned as she pulled up beside him. "Why are we stopping?"
She looked up at the place they'd parked in front of, and gaped when she realized it was an ice cream shop. "Dad!" she exclaimed, staring up at it. "You bike here? You're supposed to be losing weight!"
He put a finger to his lips. "Shh!" He gestured her to follow him, and disappeared inside.
She stared at his back as he went in. "Unbelievable," she muttered, parking her own bike and storming in after him. "Please tell me you're not going on a ride every Saturday to come and gorge yourself on ice cream," she huffed as she joined him at the counter, her hands on her hips. "Mum'll have kittens."
"Well, that's as good a reason as any not to tell her."
"Dad."
"Oh, stop, Hermione. I'm getting old. I'm not going to lose any weight," he huffed, and leaned over the counter. "The strawberry. Two scoops. Jolly good, thank you." Turning back to Hermione, he said, "I'm an old man, now. If Dr. Patil thinks he can starve me to death just to tack on a couple more years to the end of this life, he's got another one coming. Do you still like Mint Chip?"
"You've been lying to Mum all these five months?" she demanded.
He turned back to the counter. "Two scoops of Mint Chip. Thank you." He paid, and shot Hermione a wink as she tried to look stern, pressing her lips together to keep the smile back.
"This is absolutely ridiculous," she said begrudgingly taking the ice cream from him.
He laughed, then, an odd little giggle that sounded extremely out of place on a man in his early fifties. "I know," he said, gleefully, taking a big bite out of his. "Listen, don't tell your Mum, or else she'll start starving me right at home."
"You could probably use a little starving."
"Said the USSR to the Ukraine," he returned, heading outside to sit on the little bench outside the shop.
Hermione gasped. "Don't make light. The Holodomor was one of the biggest atrocities ever committed," she scolded him.
"And now you're trying to recreate it in miniscule right in my own home."
"You're impossible. I should tell her. She mentioned to me this morning she wants to start eating more vegetarian," Hermione threatened, idly. She laughed at the look of abject misery that crossed his face. "Luckily for you, she's not having too much luck with that garden."
He nodded. "Well, someone's been pouring salt water all over it in the dead of night."
She gaped at him, again. "Dad!" He chuckled, and she reached for his ice cream to take it away, but missed as he held it out of reach. "She pours her heart out into that sad little patch of dirt. How could you!" Hermione had always thought that Rose simply wasn't good at gardening, even though her mother devoured magazine after magazine and book after book on the subject, trying to figure out why nothing was working.
"It was a hard decision that I really wrestled with," he said, somberly. "Until that first harvest. After the twelfth day in a row of 'Zucchini, Six Ways,' the moral dilemma all but evaporated. Besides, I don't do it all over. She'd be able to tell something was wrong. I let her have the tomatoes, this year."
"Oh, they're not getting any sun behind the house, anyway," Hermione sighed.
They finished their ice cream slowly, watching the clouds pass over the sun. When they were finally done, he swore her to secrecy before they rode back home. She'd promised nothing.
0o0o0o0o0o0
She decided to Floo to her own flat that night, knowing her Mum would expect her to stay through breakfast if she spent the night again. After feeding Crookshanks, she put some hideous-smelling mask on her hair (courtesy of Susan) and wrapped it in plastic food-wrap before curling up on the couch with a book. Since she was halfway there, anyway, she put a little pore mask on her face, too – a light blue affair that was supposed to help slough off the dead skin and make her pores appear smaller.
She read through one of the several books she'd been putting off over the last few weekends as she waited for it to dry.
Her fireplace erupted to life mid-paragraph, and she blinked up at it, startled, as Ron suddenly appeared. "Hermione, I need- Oh, dear Merlin," he gasped, recoiling from her and lifting a hand to block her horrible visage from his eyes. "What happened to your face?" He peered at her through his fingers, grimacing.
Hermione rolled her eyes. Boys. "Your fiancee, as it happens. Also, yes, please, come right in," she said, sarcastically, throwing up a hand at him in a frustrated gesture.
"Sorry, I didn't realize you were auditioning for the Bride of Frankenstein, in here, or else I would have owled ahead." Harry's abominable horror movie collection was the worst thing to ever happen to her ex-boyfriend, by a wide margin. He used his other hand to cover his nose. "It smells in here, too. What is that? It smells like troll sweat."
She looked for something to throw at him. "What do you want, you cabbage?"
"Wedding emergency," he said. He slowly lowered his hand, making a face as he was forced to look at her. "One of Susan's bridesmaids can't make it, her cousin Splinched himself and she had to go to Greece to see him with the rest of her family. Ginny said she couldn't do it, on account of the fact that she plans to be pissed off her arse throughout the ceremony, so..."
"What?" Hermione asked, recoiling a bit from him. "Surely Susan has more friends that are better suited. Or family."
"She wanted you or Ginny," Ron said, laughing softly. "Now that she's been spending so much time with you both, she feels like it's a better fit than some distant schoolmate. Besides, you know she doesn't have family," he added, in an undertone.
She winced. "Sorry, yeah, I – that just came out, you know." Susan had lost everyone in the first Wizarding War. Her parents, her grandparents, her aunts, her uncles, her cousins – everyone, murdered personally by Voldemort. She'd only had one aunt left, and Amelia Bones had been murdered in sixth year. Susan was so well-adjusted that it was easy to forget.
He nodded, and then smiled winningly. "So...?"
She wrinkled her nose, feeling her facemask crackle and start to peel there. "Oh, I hate being up in front of everyone," she whined. "You remember what happened at Harry and Ginny's, I tripped on the walk up! I knocked over that poor flower girl." It had been the grandchild of one of Molly's friends – the name totally escaped her.
"I did tell her about that, and she's willing to risk it. Also, don't knock Victoire over, or Fleur will probably rip your dress into confetti," Ron advised her. Then he wrinkled his nose apologetically. "Listen, Hermione, can we speed this up to where you say yes?Because I think we both know that I'll end up convincing you to do it."
Hermione made a face at him. "I don't even have the dress," she said, sullenly.
"That's why I'm here. We need to get that thing fitted on you, like, for instance, right now," he said, pointing back at the Floo. "The designer's over at Susan's waiting."
Her eyes nearly exploded out of her head. "I'm not going over there like this."
"Oh, like she cares."
"Ron!"
"She'll be happy you're using them," he wheedled, gently plucking the book out of her hands. He then grabbed her hands, pulling them gently up and together as he cast her a pleading look. "Please, Hermione. She's going bonkers, over there. It's not right to let the bride go spare the night before her wedding. It's inauspicious!"
She groaned, but let him pull her through the Floo. He was right, anyway. Susan wouldn't care.
Although it wasn't so much Susan that she was worried about, as it was every other bridesmaid in Susan's party, who was also waiting at her flat for the verdict. They all stared in shock at Hermione, and she dimly recognized some Hufflepuffs from her year, including Susan's maid of honor and Neville's fiancee, Hannah Abbot. Hermione froze as she stared back at them all.
Slowly, she turned her glare to Ron, who was scratching the back of his neck and looking anywhere else. "She said yes!" he declared, to divert attention.
Susan jumped up, and Hermione could see she'd been crying. "Oh, thank you, Hermione, you have no idea what this means to me," she said, sniffling a bit. "I'm sorry, I know it's stupid, but Ron had exactly four on his side and I didn't want to have only three on mine, weddings can't be uneven or it's bad luck- is that the hair mask I got you?" she asked, switching thoughts mid-sentence as she blinked at the plastic wrap.
Hermione nodded. She was sort of glad for the face mask. It was doing a decent job of concealing her mortification. "And the face stuff, too. Ron was very insistent that I come right now," she grit out, sweetly, glaring at Ron again. He found an interesting spot on the ceiling to stare at.
Susan stared at her for a beat, and then smiled. Then she laughed, all her prior misery dissipating. "Oh, I'm so sorry," she managed to gasp. "That's my fault, I think. I've been driving him absolutely mad."
She felt herself soften a bit when she looked at Susan's red-rimmed eyes and relieved expression. "It's alright," she murmured, smiling kindly. "All in the name of looking presentable tomorrow, right? So, where's the dress?" She hadn't even seen a picture of it, yet.
The designer – a woman much younger than Hermione was expecting, probably not yet thirty – pulled it out. It was blue (damn Narcissa, because now all she could think about was how awful she supposedly looked in that color), and had a kind of ruffled skirt that looked more like a wedding cake than a proper dress. It was, in a word, horrific; one of the worst dresses Hermione had ever seen in her whole, entire life. But Susan looked proud of it, and so Hermione said, "Oh, it's gorgeous."
The fitting didn't take long. They invited her to stay for wine, but Hermione laughed, gestured at herself, and simply said, "I think I should probably go back to my cave."
Susan gave her a long, tight hug before she left.
Not that it meant Ron was entirely forgiven. Given how expertly he'd been avoiding making eye contact, she knew that he knew that his comeuppance was imminent. She'd have to ply Ginny for ideas on how to make him pay for this.
After Flooing home, she washed off both masks, and inspected her pores.
They still looked the same. "Figures," she huffed.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Being a bridesmaid was busy work. She was busy trying to herd Victoire to the tent to get her hair finished, and the little blonde was kicking up a legendary fuss, from the fact that her head hurt (her hair had been pulled back and held in tightly with pins) to her pinched toes to her itchy dress. Even red-faced and screaming in rage, the five-year old looked like a beautiful little cherub.
In the back of her mind, a gnawing worry developed slowly: She wasn't sure Draco was coming, despite having accepted his invitation the week prior. That worry grew larger and larger as the ceremony drew closer without a single sign of him.
She did her best to ignore it, trying to keep her patience as she gently ushered Victoire into the tent.
The girl grumbled and ran ahead, tired of being pushed, and Hermione heaved a sigh of relief as she straightened, putting her hands on her hips. She thought she could feel her own curls escaping from the up-do they'd been put in by the frustrated hair-dresser. She hoped that scary old crone wouldn't hex her when she needed it fixed again.
Then, she heard him, and she felt her heart skip a beat.
"Oh, sweet father of Merlin," Draco gasped. When she turned to look at him, he was staring in open horror at her dress. "Where did you get that abortion?" he demanded, at full speaking volume.
"Shh!" she hissed, stepping towards him to adopt a secretive undertone. "I'm a bridesmaid, now. One of Susan's friends couldn't make it."
He shook his head, slowly. "I don't think I can be seen with you, like this." He took a step back from her, glancing around a bit to see if there was anyone lingering nearby with a camera. "What if someone takes a picture? I can't be in a picture with that."
She put her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes at him. "Oh, so our love can't handle an ugly little dress, is that it?" she teased, laughing. The faint smile fell right off his face, and she winced a bit. "Too early for jokes? Sorry," she murmured. She didn't imagine he'd somehow gotten over his mother's mental state in the past twenty-four hours.
He opened his mouth to say something, looking at her closely, but then changed his mind. He shook his head a bit. "No, jokes are... fine."
Hermione squinted at him a bit. "Doesn't seem fine," she observed. "You're still mad, then?"
"I am unusually peeved, although I've set it aside for the evening," he agreed, magnanimously. "But that wasn't why- nevermind." He smiled at her, wanly, and looked down at the dress again. "That's it. I can't dance with you. Not in that."
Squawking indignantly, she swatted his chest, earning a soft laugh. Of course, he was dressed sharply, in his usual fussy suit that looked like it had come straight out of the early 1900s. "You will be nice about this dress, today. Susan picked it, and she loves it, and it's her wedding."
He scowled a bit, rolling his eyes.
"So, go on."
"What?" he asked, boredly, his eyes already scanning the rest of the lawn. The aisle was just a runner going down the grass, with chairs set up in rows on either side. A pair of trees served as the altar.
She smirked a bit. "Give my dress a compliment," she challenged.
His eyes widened and shot back to her, and then traveled back down to the hideous layers of skirts as he blanched, trying not to let his nose wrinkle into the sneer he so desperately wanted to display. "I... can't," he finished, grimacing.
"You have to. It's her wedding," she repeated. "Do it."
He looked pained, like someone was twisting a knife into his stomach. The grimace persisted as he looked down the dress again, taking in every hideous stitch. "It... really makes..." he tried, desperately. His eyes flicked back up to her. "Your face look amazing."
She burst out laughing, and he joined her. "That..." She shook her head, still grinning. "I have no words for how abominable a compliment that was."
"It was the most truthful thing I could have said," he defended.
Her laughter finally died down a bit, and she smiled at him. "I'm really glad you came," she said, softly. "I was kind of worried that you wouldn't."
"Why, because you sent my mother into the loony bin?" he asked, faux-scoffing. The teasing tone did little to hide the bitter lilt underneath. "Nonsense. It'll be like a nice holiday, for her. They can give her one of those nice little jackets that forces her to hug herself. What are they called, again?"
"Straitjackets. And quit being dramatic."
"Well, that is what I do best," he drawled.
Hermione chewed on the inside of her cheek. "Is she really at St. Mungo's?" she asked, frowning. She didn't think it was fair that she should feel a shred of guilt at the thought, but there it was, anyway.
"No," he sighed. "She's just been somewhat subdued, since your talk."
She licked her lips, feeling an apology spring to them. She didn't quite get it out – and honestly, she wasn't sure if she should – before the screaming started.
They both startled when Victoire's furious voice tore through the air like a banshee. Hermione groaned, casting the tent a baleful look. "Shite. Watching her's my job, pre-ceremony," she muttered, by way of explanation. "Victoire. That little brat is so lucky that she's so sodding cute, or she'd have been murdered a thousand times over, by now." She shot Draco a narrow look. "Wonder who that reminds me of."
She turned to head off, and Draco called after her, "Did you just call me cute without me twisting your arm about it?" She sent him a rather inappropriate gesture, and he grinned at her as she disappeared into the tent.
0o0o0o0o0o0
The ceremony, despite Susan's self-assurance otherwise, went absolutely perfectly. Victoire managed to behave herself long enough to walk down the aisle, or maybe it was just the natural performer in her that just loved being the center of everyone's attention. Whatever it was, Hermione was grateful for it.
Hannah was paired with Harry for the walk. Hermione ended up with George, who made it his mission to make her laugh on the walk up. She wasn't sure how, but he managed to wedge no less than fourteen dirty jokes in the thirty seconds it took them to reach the altar as she tried to keep a plastic smile on her face. He pushed them, relentlessly, out of the corner of his mouth as he maintained his own smile.
"I will hex you into smithereens," she promised him through the grit teeth of her fake smile as they separated at the head of the aisle.
He turned and winked, making a little kissy face at her.
She had to press her lips together to keep from exploding into giggles, her cheeks reddening a bit with the effort. Damn him.
The ceremony was, naturally, just adorable. Hermione watched with an absent smile on her face as she watched her best friend marry a girl that she really thought he might already love – a girl that he'd probably spend the rest of his life with. The way he was looking at Susan in that moment, their hands joined, made Hermione decide to forgive him for the night before.
After all, love could make a person do crazy things.
When the ceremony was done, Ron's sappy smile turned into a full-fledged, exuberant grin, and he turned to the seated masses and pumped their joined hands in the air, like he'd just caught the snitch and couldn't believe his damn luck. As if on cue, everyone cheered.
The kissing part of the ceremony wasn't usually present in wizarding weddings, and Harry had to gently steer Ron back towards Susan, who was waiting patiently for it. At first, Ron seemed a little confused, until Susan launched herself into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him an exhilarated kiss. Hermione had to laugh, and began clapping along with everyone else.
When the kiss was over, both of them were red-faced and grinning like idiots. They went back to holding hands as they walked back down the aisle, ducking a bit as the attendees showered them in rice.
Hermione watched them disappear into the reception tent, and then her eyes panned the crowd. Her eyes caught on Draco, who was staring at her. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he pointedly flicked his eyes down to her ankles, and mouthed: "Ridiculous."
She laughed, rolling her eyes, and stepped forward to join arms with George as they followed the other couples towards the tent.
"Okay, did you hear the one about the duck with the erection? So this duck, right-"
"George, I will dismember you," she hissed.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Draco appeared at her side right before the first dance. Hermione glanced at him. "I wonder what they'll dance to," she murmured. "They've been so tight-lipped about their first-dance song. You'd think they'd written it themselves and hadn't yet copyrighted it, or something."
"Well, presumably it'll be a song," he drawled, passing her a glass of champagne. "Am I to also presume they won't be doing the standard Viennese Waltz?"
She huffed. "No! Good God, I should hope not. How boring."
"There is nothing boring about a perfectly executed waltz. Besides, it's traditional."
Hermione rolled her eyes a bit. "It's just about the least romantic- whatever. I get it, you're a pureblood ponce. Alright, moving on. In Muggle weddings, the first dance is a song the couple picks. It's supposed to, you know, be momentous. It's something that means a lot to the both of them. It's usually some sappy love song. The point is, it is meant to... I suppose, encapsulate the relationship?"
Draco watched Ron and Susan go onto the dance floor, both of them shy and all but vibrating with boundless energy. Everyone cleared some space around them and they squared away, hands curling around each other as they waited for the music to start. "That's a tradition in all Muggle weddings?"
Hermione nodded, absently. The music started, and she sighed a bit. "Oh, that's a good one. I bet that's all Susan," she murmured. "At Last by Etta James. Nicely done."
He cocked his head, listening to the song. It seemed a little dramatic, but watching Ron and Susan stare soulfully into each other's eyes while they swayed to it did make it seem a little more poignant. He glanced sidelong at his own fiancee. "What would be your first-dance song?"
She snorted. "Knowing your mother? Whatever went well with that waltz you mentioned."
Draco watched her sway with the song a bit, her eyes locked on the couple in the middle of the floor, her gaze a bit distant. "But if you had to pick," he said.
She looked at him, blinking, and then flushed. She tried to hide it by taking a sip of her champagne. "I don't know," she lied, badly. He tucked his free hand into his pocket, stifling a smile. Hermione wasn't a bad liar, when she was prepared for it. However, when he caught her off-guard and she had to suddenly and quickly lie in the moment, she looked so frazzled and guilty that she might as well have LIAR appear emblazoned across her forehead. "Probably this one," she joked, weakly.
"Seriously," he pressed.
"I don't know," she insisted, turning half away from him to hide her flush. The song finally ended, and something a bit more up-beat came on. She drained her champagne and set the empty glass down. "Want to dance?"
He eyed her, curiosity burning in him, but finally drained his glass. "It must be a pretty embarrassing song," he decided, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the dance floor.
Her face was bright red, but she didn't give in to his prompting. "What song?" she said, innocently.
"I'll find out sooner or later," he promised, turning to face her and pulling her a little close. The song was still somewhat slow, and everyone else was dancing close to each other. "Don't you think it'd just be easier to tell me? The longer it takes for me to find out, the more likely I am to make a huge deal about it and embarrass you."
Stubbornly, she said, "Has it occurred to you that I haven't thought about it?"
"No. You think about everything. Far too much, actually."
"Not everything. Obviously."
Draco just smiled, the expression on his face fond as he regarded her. Oh, yes, he would find out. And if it was atrocious, he was going to have so much fun rubbing her silly little nose in it. He kind of hoped it was as heavy-handed and ridiculous as the song Ron and Susan picked.
"Is that kiss a Muggle tradition, as well?" he wondered. "I saw that Potter had to shove him back towards her."
She giggled at the memory. "Yes, it is," she said, warming up as her stiff embarrassment faded. "At least, here and most of the rest of Europe. And America, probably. Usually the priest – that's who officiates, most of the time, unless they're a different religion, or something – will pronounce them man and wife, and tell the groom that he 'may now kiss the bride.' Then, they kiss."
"What's the point?"
She shrugged a bit. "It seals the ceremony, according to the old Roman tradition. They used to believe that part of your souls would go into each other, and so you would then commit to spending your entire life together."
Draco nodded, falling silent. His eyes drifted down somewhat naturally, and he sighed in disgust, raising his eyes back to her face. "I'd nearly forgotten about that gaudy Christmas wrapping you'd been decked out in," he complained. "Although how forgetting it was even possible, I'll never know."
"Don't be a prat," she demanded, face heating again. "Do you think I'm happy about it?"
He smirked. "No. That's why I like reminding you," he said, smugly.
"I don't know what has possessed me to keep putting up with you," she intoned, narrowing her eyes a bit up at him. "You have no redeeming qualities whatsoever."
"Perhaps you have finally fallen victim to my charm." Her snort was somewhat less than complimentary. He pressed on, refusing to even acknowledge it. "My Slytherin-honed charm, that was able to fell even the most frigid and onerous of the bushy-haired Gryffindor swots..."
"I'm not sure I care for that description."
"Well, it's my story. If you would like to write your own story, please feel free," he informed her, sagely. "Also, don't interrupt."
"Your story is rubbish."
"Duly noted."
Despite his constant complaints about her dress, the only times he didn't dance with her that night was when he danced with Ginny or Susan – or she danced with Harry or Ron. True to his word, he didn't bring up his mother again that night, allowing peace to reign for the duration of the wedding. She presumed that he was just saving up all his ire to give her a hellacious what-for later.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Although when that what-for was coming, she'd no idea. After the wedding, they'd both gone back to their separate homes. The next morning at coffee, he'd said nothing about it, nor did he on Tuesday or Wednesday.
It was kind of driving her insane.
On Thursday, she made it through half of their hour together before she broke. "Oh, damn it, Draco, will you just get it over with?" she'd exploded, after he'd commented that the coffee was rather weak, that day. Her outburst just made him blink and stare at her, his eyebrows slowly rising. "Give me hell about your mother. I know you want to," she accused.
The corners of his lips quirked, and he settled an elbow on the table so he could cup his chin with his hand. "Have you been thinking about that all week?" he asked, eyes half-lidded as he smirked.
She scowled at him.
"Good," he said, satisfied, and Hermione's glare intensified as she realized that's what he'd been playing at all along. "Also, I've noticed that you haven't tried to reconcile with her."
Hermione spluttered a bit. "When would I have done that? During the wedding, or during the work-week?"
Draco gave her a withering look. "Hermione," he said, and his tone was quiet but firm – and almost disappointed. She suddenly realized she'd just gotten another glimpse of what he'd be like, as a father.
She groaned, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. She hadn't planned on breaking the ice to make nice with the Malfoy Matriarch that early (or ever), but she supposed that at some point, she'd have to. Avoiding it wouldn't be worth getting Draco all in a snit. Pick your battles, and all that. "Fine," she muttered. "I'll owl her. We need to figure out another location for the wedding, anyway."
"Why?" he asked, frowning.
She hesitated. "That night I went home, I... I told my Dad about it. All of it," she said, softly. "Which I'd never done, before. He knew you guys were on the other side, you and your parents. He didn't know anything else."
He sobered, swallowing a bit. "That's going to make family dinners a bit tense."
Hermione nodded. "He said he refuses to give me away at the same place I'd been tortured. He wants me to stop all of it, actually – give up my wand, rather than marry into your family." His spine stiffened. "I won't, obviously. I told him about the ring, and... well, he's not happy, but at least a little appeased. He doesn't hate you, by the way," she hastened to add. "Since you were a teenager at the time."
"He just hates my parents," Draco said, a bit sarcastic. "Is that supposed to be better?"
"And your parents spent their entire lives hating me," she snipped, pointedly. That shut him up, and she sent him a faint glare before continuing. "Without reason, I might add. Just because I was born. At least my father has the good sense to hate your parents for torturing his only child half to death."
"I get it," he ground out, his eyes flashing.
Hermione eyed him, wondering if he did, but nodded and let it go. "Anyway, we need to find some neutral ground for the ceremony. If you've any ideas, speak up."
He considered his coffee for a long moment. "I don't know. Hogwarts," he suggested, with a bit of a shrug. "School will be out for the hols, you always liked it there for some reason, and the grounds aren't too ugly."
Hermione fell silent, thinking. She wouldn't lie and say it hadn't occurred to her. The school grounds were half of her childhood home – a place where she'd laughed with her friends and felt truly, innocently happy. It seemed like a good enough place to try and start a new, terrifying adventure. "If your parents agreed, I could probably ask Headmistress McGonagall. And I'll ask Narcissa," she added, to placate him.
Draco was staring at her, and the intensity of it made her face heat a bit.
"What."
He blinked, and then smiled, the intensity disappearing. "Sorry. My thoughts were a million miles away. Yes, that's fine." She shot him a suspicious look, but let it drop.
"Is she feeling any better?" Hermione wondered, softly. "She's not still crying, is she?"
He shook his head. "No. She's distracting herself, planning some fundraiser for some- I don't know, one of her little projects. I wasn't really paying attention. Something about the war – she was mumbling a lot. I didn't catch most of it."
"Huh," Hermione said. She was surprised Narcissa was willing to focus her time on any sort of war effort, although she supposed that was as good an indication that the woman was healing as any. "I guess it's good that she's got something to fill her time with. Maybe I'll help her. Harry and I did a lot of post-war efforts right after, but we have a lot of ideas that we never got to use. So now," she added, raising her eyebrows. "We just need a hobby for you."
"Me?"
"Certainly! Are you going to just sit in your Manor being disgustingly rich, all your life?" she scoffed. "Your father increases your wealth with whatever dirty back-dealings he does, your mother lends her social support to various things. What are you going to do?"
He hesitated. "I don't know. Nothing. I don't have anything that really interests me," he admitted, with a shrug.
"What about potions? Narcissa showed me the playroom off your suite," she added, when his eyes widened a bit. "You had a whole set-up in there. What were you making?"
He looked briefly embarrassed. "Nothing, just- nothing. I just goof about."
"On what?" she pressed, curious.
"Whatever's in my head for the day." He had his shoulders all bunched up, and was glaring into his coffee. "There's no grand project I'm working on, I just try and mix up a few things and see if anything comes of it."
"You're experimenting with new potions? Inventing them?"
He hesitated. "Not really, it's sort of- I don't know, an alchemical thing," he muttered. The look of embarrassment on his expression deepened at her speculative look. He scowled. "I was reading a book on that stuff and I wanted to test a few of the theories out. It's not that important."
"How long have you been doing that?" she asked, bewildered.
Draco didn't respond. When she waved a hand in his face, impatiently, he mumbled, "Three or four years."
She started to laugh. "Well, I hate to break it to you, Draco, but I think that classes it as a proper hobby. I thought you didn't have any hobbies."
He sighed, looking exasperated. "I don't have a hobby. It's just something I do when I'm bored."
"That's- That is literally what a hobby is. Do you not hear yourself, when you speak?" she demanded. When he just rolled his eyes, she blazed on: "Did you ever go to that Centre for Alchemical Studies, in Egypt?"
"No. That's a school," he murmured. "I'm not going back to school."
"Why? School's great."
"Oh, Merlin, I'm getting married to such a swot," he groaned, raking his fingers through his hair. Things would have been so much easier with Astoria Greengrass. She would have never tried to improve his personality or try and make him do productive things with his life. "I imagine this is a divine punishment, of sorts. Maybe I really did die in the war, and this is what hell is like."
"I'm going to get you some brochures," she promised, brightly, ignoring his unflattering little rant.
"Do not get me brochures."
"Just a couple." His glare intensified. "Just a couple!"
TBC...