A/N: I write this for fun not funds, all right belong to Warner Bros. and J. K. Rowling.
I am a strong supporter of the trans community and strongly disagree with the misguided comments of Ms. Rowling. Tags: Marriage of Convenience; Cottagecore; Slow and Dreamy; Slow Burn; Fluffy; Eau de Smut; Meaning There's A Whiff Of It; Draco and Hermione are Friends; And Married; Hermione's House Is Kind Of Alive?; Theo Is A Total Dish; Like Serve Him Up On A Platter Dishy; Some Explicit Language; I'm Still Working Out If This Has A Plot Or Just An Aesthetic; Department of Mysteries Nonsense Chapter One: HelloHermione came home, smiling at the ivy-covered cottage. The thatched roof emanated a mossy scent as the misting rain fell, her cloak feeling a little heavier as droplets set in.
The flowerbeds were springing with weeds again. Hermione left the slick stone path and felt the long and lush grass drunkenly lick her ankles in greeting as she passed through the sodden lawn. She drew her wand and removed the weeds, keeping the flowers and placing them in a conjured woven basket.
The hood of her cloak fell back, and the drizzle tickled her hair into a frizzing frenzy. She smiled at its liberation. She, herself, was now free for two glorious days. She had nowhere to go and no one to see. No dinners or galas or events. Two blissful days of hot chocolate, a new book she picked up from the library, cosy fires and falling asleep on that couch she loved.
She entered the house, taking her muddied shoes off in the tiled entry, flicking her wand to perform a cleaning charm before placing them on the rack. She raced up the stairs to her bedroom, candles lighting in her wake, the orange flicker waving a welcome to her.
She smiled, "Hello, house. I'm happy I'm home, too."
The oak four-poster was puffy with freshly laundered white bedclothes, smelling of lavender. A blue and grey patterned blanket adorned the foot of it. Hm, he must have sent an elf though she kept reminding him he had no need to. Still, she'd thank him anyway.
She removed her robes and other clothing, placing them in the wicker hamper. A fluffy towel was pulled out of the wardrobe, the thick cotton hugging her. Heading to the washroom she found a bath was already drawn for her, filled to the brim with bubbles, the toasted vanilla and smoky white-fig aroma teasing her with a come-hither beckon for every inhale.
A bottle of red wine was waiting, and a large glass sat on a small table by the tub. A slip of parchment tied around the neck, a curling necklace that made the bottle seem important and elegant. She unfurled it; the paper stock expensive like everything he owned.
Friday, Granger. You're so predictable, of course I had this waiting. Enjoy yourself, you deserve it.
Wonderful, arrogant man. She laughed and stepped in, letting the towel drop onto the sheepskin rug. The water was perfection, warm and slippery from the foam. She felt the aches and kinks from the week fall away and she poured herself a glass of wine, sinking further into the silky water. She took a sip. It was heavenly. She wondered how far back in the cellar he had to go for this one.
She grinned to herself at the thought that it was her who was predictable. She imagined his face when he turned up at his classy and very exclusive key-holders-only club tonight only to find he already had a rare Japanese whisky reserved for him. He'd shake his head and tsk. Her note was embarrassingly over-the-top and was spelled to float lovehearts at him. Which he will hate of course. But it will make him laugh, too.
As her arm slid along the porcelain lip of the bath, her wedding ring made a pleasant grinding noise. She looked at it. Though still perfectly preserved, it had the look and feel of old gold. It held history. As she twisted it around her finger, she pondered how many of this ring's wives had been in the same situation as her. How many had been in worse, how many had actually been in love. Those were the lucky ones.
Though Hermione's marriage was comfortable, it was only for convenience. Draco was able to give her access to people in Europe who could help restore her parents' memories. The European wizarding communities were distrustful and patronising of Britain after everything that had happened with Voldemort and the lack of action the government took. Having a 21-year-old witch who had played such an incremental role in what could have been a full-blown European Wizarding War... Well, writing for help hadn't been received very cordially by the elite on the continent to say the least.
However, the Malfoys were well regarded in France and known amongst the families she needed connections to, and Draco had required a way to prove his reformation in England. After a 'whirlwind romance' that was heavily documented for the Prophet they got married. That had been six months ago and though they were friends, potentially even very good friends, it was nothing more.
But her parents were getting the treatment they needed, and Draco and his mother were no longer being attacked maliciously by the press and were far less maligned by the general public.
She replaced the wine on the table and submerged herself. The world warbled around her making her feel insulated and safe. Surrounded and not so alone. Draco and she had both talked about how lonely they felt, but they just didn't feel that way about each other. No matter how real they could make it look. They tried their best to alleviate the feeling by investing time together but sometimes it wasn't enough.
So yes, they lived apart. But Hermione loved her life. If she was honest, she hated the Wiltshire manor. It was so large and intimidating and cold. But it was Draco's home and despite everything, he loved it. She admired the way he so resolutely tried to turn everything his name used to be mean into a force for good. His mother had redecorated, they granted charities access to the ballroom and other public areas for free, and his potion company allowed the patents for any medicinal spells to be used without a license for hospitals and schools. As fake husbands go, she could do far, far worse than Draco Malfoy.
The burn in her lungs from holding her breath felt good, the anticipation of the bubbling release calming her thoughts. She blew out her remaining breath and crested the surface. She picked up her wine again and curled her toes at this perfect start to her weekend.
hr
The cast-iron pan sizzled with vegetables and Hermione arranged the weed flowers from earlier in a vase, placing it on the rustic table in the kitchen. The rain had decided to make a commitment to this evening, laving the windows with rivulets of water. The air smelled of butter and garlic and Hermione admired the slight vibration that ran up her arm as her wooden spatula scraped along the bottom of the pan. The bottle of wine was missing a second glass and Hermione was humming along to the wireless.
Her over-the-knee socks eased most of the cold from the timbers of the kitchen floor and she balanced on one leg, her right foot resting on the inset of the left knee. Her satin and lace camisole and shorts pyjama set was soft against her skin, kept warm by a long grey cashmere cardigan. The cottage was spelled with temperature controls so she didn't have to worry too much about bundling up and she could never sleep with anything too heavy weighing her down. Like her dreams couldn't lift her mind out of reality unless it had light materials helping them along.
She took the whole pan into the lounge and set it upon a heat-resistant placemat, conjuring some chopsticks from the kitchen. She swept her freshly washed hair to pool over one side of her head. It was always at its most full and curly when it naturally dried, though it took hours and right now it was still damp in places. She curled up on the couch in the perfectly cushioned seat nearest the fireplace. She used the chopsticks to sneak a carrot out of the pan, crunching down on it and opening her book. Draco claimed this author was the witch equivalent of Jane Austen. Hermione was sceptical. Particularly when Draco admitted that he'd only read Northanger Abbey
She ate casually and read, the crackling spit of the fireplace causing the flickering light to cascade over the book in hypnotic waves. The wine was hitting her, the mink blanket cuddling her legs, and her eyelids began drooping. As they fluttered, she heard the phantom sounds of her dreams calling to her, seducing her to sleep.
Rap-rap-rap
Her catamaran halted in its lazy wending through the yellow tussock grass. The gentle swish of fibreglass against the dry stalks playing a symphony with the zephyrous wind. And now there was the gentle creaking and swaying of an idle object in water. Had someone just knocked on her boat? Who knocks on a boat? She adjusted her sails and attempted to carry on.
Rap-rap-rap
It was an insistent noise. An impatient noise. Hermione peered over the barrier but there was nothing there. Then she was tumbling over the side and-
She woke with a jerk.
Rap-rap-rap-rap-rap-rap
She stumbled off the couch, her eyelids fluttering, her steps automatic as she made her way to the door. She tried asking her brain if she was expecting anyone, but it mumbled back at her and turned over, trying to get back to sleep.
Her head rolled forward and the acute dropping of her chin woke her up a little more. Her hair was falling over her face and she scrunched it up in a hand, massaging her head.
She blinked languidly as she finally opened the door, the winter night blasting a frigid wave of cold air over her, prickling the skin between her over-the-knee socks and the bottom of her sleep shorts, her shoulder quivering where the cashmere had slouched to uncover it.
The heavy oak gave way to someone standing on the doorstep looking out towards the path that led him there. A purple velvet cloak was dappled in a gradient as the rain drenched the hood and mantle.
He turned and green eyes met her own. The darkness and her sleepiness bringing her to a false conclusion.
"Harry?"
A quirk to their mouth brought out a dimple on their cheek. He shook the hood back and his brown hair was styled and very unlike the unruliness of Harry's black mess.
He seemed strangely familiar, but she couldn't place the man. He was dressed impeccably, more colour and flair than Draco but she recognised the details from the same tailor.
"You think I'm the Chosen One, Granger?"
His voice was teasing, it hummed like the strum of a guitar, low and tinctured with elocution lessons. The green in his eyes was spiced with cinnamon, hazel streaks lighting up in mischief.
"And just what are you doing here in the cottage, hm? A weekend away?" His quirk rose higher. "Is Draco around or have you rendered him indisposed?"
Hermione had been distracted trying to figure out if she knew him with a burrowing furrow in her brow. "Draco? Why would he be here?"
"Well Granger, I thought I had it on rather good authority that you and he were, in fact, married. Or is that just a regular old heirloom on your finger?"
"Sorry, who are you?"
Hermione's question was met with a grin. The pearlescent gleam of his teeth stark against the gloom of the night that outlined him. The even line between pillowed lips making her brain rid itself of the remaining drowsiness. Her parents' occupations having instilled a fine appreciation for the aesthetic appeal of this part of the human form.
"Theodore Nott, I've been away for a few years. Back now and deposited in Wales. Was heading to our own property but saw the lights in here and thought I'd pay Draco a visit."
The rain was collecting on his hair, sitting there in baubled tendrils, clinging desperately for purchase to the artful locks before stretching and falling desolately with imagined squeals of anguish.
"Sorry, come in. You must be freezing," she waved him inside and left him to take off his boots and cloak.
She made her way to the kitchen, shrugging her cardigan back on her shoulder and bending over to hitch up her socks as she walked. Waving a hand, a platter swanned its way out of the cupboard and a chorus line of meats and cheeses followed, arranging themselves on the wood. A French loaf started slicing itself in careful angles, stacking the pieces just so along one side. A dull, rounded knife admonished a straggling line of condiments to divest some of their contents in the divots of the board before returning themselves to their storage area. The knife, bouncing purposefully once the directive was completed, slotting itself into an empty space on the platter.
"Do you always use your magic in such a beguiling fashion?" the melodic alto pressed the stillness of the air, quavering to unseat its comfort. Hermione felt the air become curious.
She turned and saw Nott leaning on the back of a kitchen chair, arms hanging in front of him. The action was not idle but intentional. He was being very careful to be casual.
Her eyes travelled to his feet. They were bare, the tendons reaching to his toes, stark and raised. One foot stood atop the other to escape the cool floor.
"When I'm here I usually do." She waved her hand again and turned to the sink to fill the jug. It was the one Muggle appliance she had insisted on. Draco lamented her hesitancy to magically boil water, especially when his caffeine needs were at their most immediate. But she liked the way the metal whined at her, relieving its stress with billowed steam. Its pouting disposition reminded her of Draco in a lot of ways. She gave a small smile; he would hate that.
A rhythmic tapping came down the stairs, the spell she cast making its way to her. She busied herself collecting a couple of mugs. Opening a cupboard, she showed Nott the entirely ridiculous library of tea and coffee that lived there.
"Oh, that's just obscene," Nott told her, padding over to take a closer look. "Is this you or him?"
"I'm the tea, he's the coffee," she let him peruse and leant over, patting her knees in encouragement to the scrabbling patter of her locomotor spell. The ankle-height slippers rushed over and began threading around her legs, occasionally lifting to better get her attention.
Nott was looking at her, amused. Even if there was also a slight wariness like she was something exotic and dangerous.
"Good boys," she told the slippers warmly. "Now go see Mr. Nott, OK?"
The slippers looked at her with their non-existent eyes before slapping over in shy steps to the newcomer. One edged over Nott's toes gingerly, 'sniffing' him, the other hiding behind it. As if accepting Nott as being Safe, Not Danger, they excitedly wiggled all over and around Nott's bare feet.
The wizard laughed and looked at Hermione. "You're an odd one, Granger. But this is very impressive."
She shrugged. "They won't stop until you put them on."
"Fine, fine." His perfect teeth looked good in her kitchen as he pulled out a chair. He picked up a squirming slipper and pet the suede, "Come on, there's a good boy," he cooed playfully before slipping first the left then the right onto his feet. They gave a final tufting shiver before settling down.
The jug was demanding her attention now and she moved past him, her cardigan getting caught between Nott and the back of the chair as he relaxed. She trickled her fingers above his shoulder to sprinkle a small tingling sensation, startling him forward a touch to extricate herself.
"Did you find an agreeable flavour?"
His eyes were appraising, he was categorising the various parts of her that interested him. The high-street cabled socks, the luxurious and custom-made cashmere, the Malfoy ring, the shrunken Protean-charmed Galleon around her neck from Harry. She could tell that she didn't make sense to Theodore Nott. And she was especially not what he expected knowing her to be Draco's wife.
"Despite the extensive menu, can I thoroughly disappoint you and ask for an Earl Gray?"
She laughed.
An Earl Gray teabag tripped and traipsed its way out of its box and cartwheeled into the mug before Hermione poured the water in. She placed the cup before Nott and poured her own green tea with lemon and ginger while the milk bottle and sugar bowl waltzed together on their way to the table.
Nott conjured two teaspoons and had them clack together in the cadence of an equine gallop, racing around the room before coming to rest in the sugar bowl.
"OK, you're not so addled as I thought. That was pretty fun."
Hermione sat next to him at the table, blowing tendrils of steam over the rim of her mug, pinking the tip of her nose.
The visitor hitched his sleeve and supported his wrist delicately as he added milk and a teaspoon of raw sugar to his mug. A pureblood etiquette affectation Hermione had noted at various gatherings. One to be used within austere company. Despite her homey clothing, he still appeared to be nervous or at the least apprehensive.
He held a dancing question in his gaze, and she crossed her legs over the corner of the table, calves resting along the top, slumping a little in the chair as she answered.
"I miss how our magic was challenged at school. Well, how we pushed our magic since we always needed more than what the curriculum mandated. Though I'm not a fan of why we needed to learn it." She pet her necklace, her constant contact to Harry. "And when I was younger, that is how I imagined magic would be. It wouldn't be fully practical; it would be whimsical and effervescent. I didn't grow up knowing magic obviously, so I only knew what I saw in movies or read in Muggle books."
"Like Fantasia?"
That is what she had meant, one of the more precious examples in her heart. She drew her eyes up and over him slowly with a canting smile. She wondered how he knew that reference, it wasn't exactly common. When she reached his stare, the spice was peppered in his eyes again, knowing he'd surprised her.
He leaned so his upper arm was flush with the table, his head fitting onto the palm of his hand. The other grazing from the platter she had created.
"Do you mind if I'm candid?"
She waved a hand, acquiescing.
His smile dazzled her as he squinted a little, examining her for any minutiae she may give away.
"How, and I mean this most insultingly to Draco, did you ever end up with him? I mean, you're very different."
"How so?" Hermione was genuinely curious. She didn't harbour much knowledge about Theodore Nott but one thing she did know was Draco had wanted him to be his best man at their wedding. But Nott had disappeared after sixth year and aside from the intermittent missive, he'd not been able to contact his friend. Hermione would have to send word that Nott was back to Draco tomorrow since the club had wards to halt all messages coming through.
Nott grazed a tongue over the V-shaped bottom of his canine and Hermione could imagine how the enamel would drag over the tastebudded cushion of the muscle. A warmth akin to her earlier bath settled over her form and suddenly the cashmere felt a little stifling.
Nott continued, "Draco is practical, he breathes magic, but he'd never think to use it like you do. It must drive him spare. He'd be drumming his fingers and saying, 'Granger, must we have such ceremony for a bloody cup of coffee?' before the first procession got halfway to the table." He accomplished this with an impeccable impression of Draco that made Hermione cackle perhaps a little too madly.
"And you seem practical too, but in the sense that you're an anomaly. The data cannot account for you because you don't fit the pattern. Are you at least Draco's equal with romance? He really does love all the pomp and circumstance that attaches itself to amorous intention."
Hermione shook her head.
"So, Valentine's?"
"Hate it. Consumerist nonsense."
"Material gifts?"
"Only spends money on sentiment that can be expressed with words."
"Flowers?"
"Wither and die. Terrible analogy for your feelings towards someone."
Nott was grinning at her.
"See? How are you with him?"
"Maybe I need that, though. And he has a particular way of freezing my righteousness with cool reasoning. Also, he is spontaneous which ensures I don't become too stuck in routine. And I've taught him to temper his lavish tendencies when it comes to romance."
"For example?"
She smiled. "Well, I had a big deadline this week. Usually, I'd be gifted another piece of unfathomably expensive Malfoy jewellery ready to collect dust in my wall vault. But when I arrived home, Draco had filled the bath and readied a bottle of wine."
"And did he join you?"
"He's not here with me."
His smile dimmed. "Well, that seems very unlike Draco. You're having a getaway weekend by yourself? And I've crashed it? No-" he sat back up and looked around more carefully.
"You said 'home' and there are touches here that aren't normally. You live here."
Hermione nodded.
"And Draco doesn't."
She nodded again.
He tilted his head in confusion.
Hermione unglamoured the scar on her forearm. His eyes flickered to it, the only response he gave were two quick blinks and he swallowed but tried to disguise it with a sip of tea.
"I know you've been away and wouldn't know, but I was given this by Bellatrix Lestrange in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor. After Crucio-ing me a bit, she decided a cursed knife would be more fun. And while Narcissa has done a marvellous job redecorating, it's still not somewhere I want to live. I consider it the most romantic gift Draco has ever given me that I have access to this cottage, he's never once pressured me to move into the manor." She smiled down at her cup, the candlelight reflecting across the surface in gently shifting ripples.
She looked at Nott again. "It may not be conventional, but it works."
"Can I be terribly impertinent and stay here tonight? I'd love to see the two of you together."
Nott's eyes were seasoned again, and Hermione could tell he would remain suspicious until he confirmed it for himself. So much for her perfect weekend without any pretending.
"I suppose when you left Draco and I were on two very opposite sides. That must be a peculiar dissonance for you." He was looking at her strangely again, like his small deductions had only raised more questions. "The spare bedroom is made up already so of course you can stay. Let me know if you need to borrow anything of Draco's."
Hermione unhooked herself from the table corner and sent her mug to be cleaned in the sink.
"Goodnight, Mr. Nott."
He huffed a laugh. "I'm staying under your roof. You may as well call me Theo."
Those perfect teeth were run over by the tip of his tongue. The movement was subtle, and Hermione shouldn't have noticed it. She ran her hand down one of the exposed wooden beams of the house, the reverberation from her wedding ring jauntily shooting through her arm reminding her of her commitment.
"And you may call me Mrs. Malfoy."
He laughed outright at that. It sounded like the soft hush of a sprinkler hitting summer grass.
"Goodnight then, Hermione."
With a reserved smile and another side-eyed glance at him, she summoned her book to lilt behind her as if bopping to a pop song and went upstairs to bed. This time the candle lights seemed to gather together in whispered gossip.
But she ignored them.