Draco enjoyed a bit of a lie-in the following morning. The night had stretched on sleeplessly, the memory of Hermione's soft lips and her hands inside of his coat warming him until he felt feverish. Shadows on the ceiling took on the shape of two lovers, as he imagined what it would be like between them. What she'd feel like, look like, sound like… Each time he thought sleep might come, he imagined her curled up beside him, his face in her curls, and the circle began again.
His sleep was cut short at ten by the pop of their house elf, Bick. Draco was nearly tired enough to ignore him, but when he heard the unexpected sound of papers rustling on his desk, his eyes blinked open.
Bick looked at him with his round eyes. "Master and Missus would like to see you. When you're ready."
Draco crossed the room to find the morning paper laid out for him, a pile of howlers twitching beside it. On the front page, in black and white, Draco and Hermione were kissing under the light of a street lantern.
With the war barely three short years behind them, it was very big news. And while the newspaper reported the facts without too much speculation — that they'd dined, kissed and separated — the howlers were full of outlandish theories and general disdain. Some even went so far as to suggest he'd confounded Hermione or used the Imperius curse. He pushed a hand through his hair, ready to throw something.
First, he suffered through his father's threats.
"I'll see who I wish," Draco said, deeply angry. His father stared at him with a look he'd only seen a few times in his life. His disappointment bordered on contempt.
"Your poor choices have reflected on this family. There must be consequences," Lucius said, the threat hanging like a noose from the bannister above them. "I've allowed you liberties I was never afforded. Casual courtships, drinking with commoners—"
"Father—"
"It ends today," Lucius bit out. "You know your obligations, Draco. End things with the Mudblood and stay away from that pillock Zabini."
Draco stood tall, defying his father with his very posture.
Lucius narrowed his eyes. "Do you prefer them to your heirship?"
"I prefer my freedom."
"You squandered it," Lucius replied in a dangerously low voice.
"And if I don't comply with your wishes?"
"There is no if. Your access to the Malfoy vaults has been restricted. You're allowed one-hundred galleons a month until you're properly wedded."
Draco didn't move a muscle.
"And if you're seen with Ms. Granger again, you'll get nothing at all."
As his father grabbed his cane and left the room, Draco couldn't fathom conceding. He'd suffered through cautionary tales of Purebloods who had broken from tradition and been disowned, disavowed, but somehow he'd always thought his parents were different. They'd had their falling outs over the years, but they loved him and they doted on him. They forgave him when he transgressed and sometimes they let things go too easily. He was their only child.
He knew they would be displeased and put up a great stink over any choices they disapproved of, attempting to manipulate him into leading the life they had chosen for him. Yet, after all they'd been through, he never thought he could end up a cautionary tale.
Things were equally awful when he saw his mother in the dining room, but she seemed more distressed than angry. As though she knew what was coming next and was searching desperately for a way to avert disaster.
"A Muggleborn witch?" Narcissa said, brow drawn in worry.
He wanted to be furious with her. He wanted to condemn her way of thinking, to denounce all the old ways that had steered them into the wrong side of an ugly war, but he knew she wouldn't see reason.
Not yet. Not so soon.
"She's worth it," he said, his voice thicker than he would prefer. "Brilliant, talented—"
"Beautiful?" his mother said, a single brow raised. And again, he felt as if she thought very little of him. Of his entire gender, if he looked objectively. He wondered sometimes at what she'd suffered in a house overrun with Death Eaters.
Hermione was pretty, but in a world of glamour charms and age serums, beauty wasn't especially unique.
"If that's what I valued most, I could have it at a lesser personal cost. You raised me to be the man that I am. And I haven't always been the best version of myself but surely you understand what motivates me."
Her expression softened and she looked at him with a puzzled expression — like he had spent so many years placating her she didn't know what to do with his sincerity.
Maybe he was wrong for not trying to be more honest with his mother sooner.
"You're wrong," she said quietly. "You're a much better man than I raised you to be." And before he had a moment to feel anything about what she said, she continued, "You're also a reckless fool. You've taken for granted everything your father and I have ever given you, and before you realize the grievous error you've made, you'll have lost everything. Over a woman."
"Over a principle," Draco said, calmly placing his cloth napkin on the table. This was about more than just Hermione. He couldn't risk everything for a woman he'd been on one date with, even if he did feel strongly about her. He had to make the decision because it was the right one.
She looked at him with more sadness and worry than he'd seen since his trial before the Wizengamot years ago. "If you continue on this path, he will disown you," she whispered. "And there will be nothing I can do. How would you survive on your own, Draco? Have you considered it?"
It wasn't her words that sucked the air out of the room — it was the reproving look that told him exactly what she was thinking. He couldn't survive in the world on his own, without his mother and father and their family fortune.
Narcissa retired to her room after that, leaving him to picture a world in which the worst outcome had taken place.
Would he end up homeless and destitute, or was he resourceful enough to make a life for himself outside his parents clutches?
He could live the life his parents wanted for him — a privileged life built on a rotted foundation. A father who would disown him. A mother who underestimated him. A fortune inaccessible until he did the thing he wanted least — to marry for obligation instead of love.
Or he could risk it all for an uncertain future.
The lead weight in his stomach told him regret might follow him whichever path he took.
He stared at the blank parchment for ten minutes before he gathered the courage to press his quill to it.
Hermione,
I'll be fortunate if you find this letter among the many you've likely received today. The publicity was unexpected, but it changes little for me. I won't assume the same is true for you. Tomorrow, I'll wait for you at the time and place we last found each other.
Draco
Instead of pacing back and forth in front of the window, Draco thought to pay Blaise a visit. They hadn't been very close friends until recently. In fact, Draco had never really had any close friends in all his life. Goyle and Pansy were friendships forged out of obligation. Their loyalty was bought, traded, and weakened from the events of the war. Draco realized that after all was said and done, Blaise and the Greengrass sisters might be the only real friends he had ever had.
When Draco stepped out of the floo and brushed the soot from his robes, Daphne put the back of her hand to her forehead and swooned dramatically. "Sweet, good night! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet—"
Blaise walked in from the kitchen. "Draco, we were just talking about you."
"You and the rest of Wizarding Britain," Draco said with a scowl.
"Europe," Daphne corrected, kissing him on the cheek. "Don't underestimate the allure of an ill fated love story. It will sweep America by the morrow."
He looked at Blaise, confused. "The morrow?"
"She's been reading too much Shakespeare," Blaise said, kissing Daphne's temple.
"There's no such thing as too much Shakespeare," Daphne replied.
Draco was barely listening.
He pushed his hand through his hair. "And what makes you think it's ill fated?"
Blaise and Daphne exchanged looks that held an undertone of pity, like they had already discussed each scenario amongst themselves and concluded that it was doomed before it began.
Blaise clapped him on the shoulder. "Do you know what Daphne's parents did when she told them she was dating me?"
"I don't think you told me that story, no." Draco's eyes moved between his friends.
"They fabricated evidence to have me thrown in Azkaban and blackmailed me with it."
Draco scratched his chin. That was… drastic.
Daphne made a sound in her throat, choking back her regret. "It's a good thing I had enough dirt on my father to retaliate, or I'd be married to Graham Montague right now."
Draco nodded, a small gesture of his appreciation for their honesty. These were the sorts of family secrets that usually remained within a selective group.
"Astoria said your father was over this morning," Daphne continued, hesitantly.
The world spun, and Draco dropped slowly into a brown leather chair. His father had been to both Gringotts and the Greengrass estate before Draco had even pulled himself out of bed. He had no doubt what his mother said was true — Lucius Malfoy would disown his only son.
"I like your sister well enough," Draco said, "but I'm not marrying her."
"My father said the same," Daphne replied quietly, as if ashamed. "He's asked Astoria not to see you again."
Draco rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a knot of tension that was tightening by the second. It didn't change anything and yet it felt like he'd just had a safety net pulled from beneath him. The lead weight in his stomach had rarely felt heavier.
He returned to the manor that evening in time for a silent supper with his parents. He was uncomfortably aware that it could be his last night in his family home, and wondered if it was worth broaching the topic or if he should let the meal pass in quiet tension and barely touched brioche; a moment of silence for a future that had died with the arrival of the morning paper. He'd thought he was a son — their son, but it turned out, he was only an heir.
Blaise had extended an offer to live with him at his flat. He had four rooms and after being quartered together at Hogwarts for seven years, they weren't strangers to sharing space with one another. It wouldn't be ideal, but it would give Draco the space he needed to find steady work and… himself.
He lifted his napkin from his lap and looked across the table at his mother, her glassy eyes conveying an apology he wouldn't fully understand for several months to come.
Hermione hadn't returned his owl.
Running into Auror Weasley in Diagon Alley was a particular low point in his completely horrendous Saturday. He moved to step around the redhead in his tailored black uniform, but Ron sidestepped, effectively blocking his path. "Keep your distance from Hermione and Ginny," he said.
Draco was keenly aware those were the first words Ron had said to him in more than three years.
Fiendfire ignited in the periphery of his mind.
"I don't take orders from you, Weasley."
"There are bigger things going on than your crush on Hermione," said Ron. He wasn't as ghastly or as loutish as Draco's memory had him believe. In fact, his tone lacked the cruelty his words might otherwise convey. "Make this easier on you both and stop trying to reach out to her."
The flicker of anger Draco felt was snuffed out as Ron walked away. Everything else he'd suffered had been more manageable when he thought he had a chance with Hermione, but a lead weight told him that it was already over.
This was madness. Their date was bloody perfect — he'd never been so sure of a person. Why would she break it off without a word?
His arrival at Flourish and Blotts that evening was almost perfunctory. He was unsurprised and nearly unfeeling as he strolled through the isles alone. Each chime of the door felt like a personal insult.
His parents had done something to dissuade her.
At the start of the second hour, the woman at the front counter conjured him a chair. "She hasn't been in since Thursday," she said, patting him on the shoulder as he sat down. "If you want to head home, I'll floo call you when she comes in next."
He shook his head. "This is it, I think. If she wanted to see me she would have been here."
The woman, whose name tag read Sarah, seemed almost as disappointed as he was.
"I couldn't understand why the two of you kept coming in here and circling around the same four isles. Strange business."
He looked up at her curiously. "She did? When?"
"A few times a week for the last two months. All that while, you were looking for each other," she said with a sad smile. "When I saw that article in the paper here yesterday morning, we all celebrated. Trisha even brought custard cakes from next door. She saw you both Thursday."
Draco scratched his forehead, baffled that there were people in the world celebrating their almost romance. He'd been so preoccupied with Hermione, he hadn't thought much about the attention they'd attracted.
"Oh, and those papers just flew right off the shelves! We sold out by ten. I've never seen that many women giggle and swoon at a photograph," she said.
"You're joking surely."
"That was quite a kiss," said Sarah, like he should have known it. And he did know — he was there and it was even better than it looked on paper. "And between such an unexpected couple..." she said, patting her hand over her heart. "But I'm surprised you don't know that. I thought you'd be flooded with owls."
Draco laughed mirthlessly. "Howlers. Dozens of them."
"Not a single kind word? Seems a little funny to me."
The door chimed and she looked around the corner for him, shaking her head. Draco adjusted his collar, terribly disappointed and frustrated he'd been foolish enough to underestimate his parents ability to filter his mail.
It didn't matter though, did it? She wasn't there. She'd received his owls, if Weasley's remarks were any indication, and she still hadn't come.
He excused himself politely and walked out the glass front door, looking up at the passing clouds in the sky. Whatever tomorrow brought, he would no longer reside under his parents roof. It was time to press against that seemingly unstoppable force that had ushered him back into formation his whole life.
"Bick," he called when he arrived home at the manor. The elf appeared before him with a sharp pop. "Is there any post you haven't delivered to me?"
"Bick answered that question yesterday."
Draco dropped down to his level. "You said, and I quote, all the mail was delivered as instructed. How were you instructed to deliver the mail, Bick?"
The elf pulled at his ears.
"Don't do that," Draco bit out, and the elf wrung his hands instead.
"Missus said for Bick to give her the mail to sort," the elf said in a rush of words. "She said Bick was doing it all wrong. Bick doesn't know how to read!"
"You read fine, Bick," Draco said, standing up. He wanted to feel angry, but instead he felt a wave of nausea. His parents had cost him Hermione, but more than that, they had demonstrated again their willingness to manipulate and control him. "Summon my parents to the drawing room."
That night, Draco Malfoy kissed his mother goodbye and left the manor with no intention of returning. Whatever his parents had done, they wouldn't confess it and he wouldn't forgive it.
Blaise slid a tumbler of firewhisky across the counter to him later that night. "Never trust a Malfoy, my mother always said."
"Your mother can rot," Draco replied sharply. After a minute he added pensively, "She was mostly right though."
Draco didn't feel much like drinking, but he took a sip anyway — and then another, and another — hoping to feel something aside from his old friend — regret, and his newest companion — betrayal. He listened to Blaise recount the first dress rehearsal of Dagworth Derelict, Daphne's stellar performance, magical spotlights and a barely trained augury; but through it all, Draco's mind was never very far from Hermione.
The next morning, after taking a hangover potion and while listening to Daphne sing in the shower, he gathered the courage to send another owl.
Hermione,
I'm not sure what post you've received and what you haven't. The ill timed article about us led my parents to intervene. I'm not sure what they've done or how you've been affected, but I wish you would tell me. I would do anything to make it right.
Draco
He fell back into Blaise's brown leather sofa and put his head in his hands, feeling utterly hopeless.
Living with Blaise and sometimes Daphne meant guaranteed entertainment. If Daphne wasn't singing, she was bugging one of them to read lines with her.
"You know your lines, Daph," he said, trying not to be annoyed.
"I need it to be instinctive," she said, shoving the script into Draco's chest. "Especially this scene."
"He's hurt you, Dora," Draco said for what felt like the twentieth time. He barely had to read the words at this point. "Invite him here to Newham and we'll sort him out."
"But don't you see? They've set him up!" Daphne projected. The irony that they chose this particular book after Blaise was nearly framed was not lost on Draco. "The potion made him lose his conscience!"
"There's no potion in the world that would make a good man strike a woman. It's brought out the worst in him, surely, but the worst was already there," Draco said, not nearly enough inflection in his words.
"We're all capable of horrible things, Bernard," Daphne said, poking a finger into Draco's chest. "I've known you your whole life. Don't pretend you're a saint with me."
"Not a saint, Dora. A gentleman! And that blackened eye tells me more about him than any fancy title."
Draco ran through the act three more times before Daphne relented. Her acting skills were impeccable, but he had a feeling the raw worry in her eyes belonged to her and not just her character.
She'd sacrificed everything for this. He had a glimmer now, of what that felt like.
Draco and Astoria walked separately into the Montrose Theatre on opening night, both wanting to avoid the gossip. However, once they were indoors she rushed to his side.
"How did she seem?" Astoria asked.
Draco hesitated to speak honestly, but finally replied, "Nervous."
They stood at the side of the stage, watching anxiously as a crew member tested his levitating charms. Another crew member stood on a beam above and with the wave of his wand, he lit the stage with strange orbs of light.
"Hermione's here," Astoria said.
Draco's heart stopped entirely, eyes sweeping the isles as people took their seats.
"I saw her walking up the east staircase. Did Blaise give them a box?"
"Them?" Draco asked.
"She was with Harry, Ginny and Ron."
Draco looked up at the box on the east side of the stage, across from his own. When he found Ginny staring down at him, he looked quickly away. He thought he might hex Blaise, if it wasn't such an important night. This was obviously arranged.
His own box was shared with Astoria, as well as Theo and Tracy Nott. They were all pleasant enough company, yet he couldn't help but imagine a world where this was his and Hermione's fifth or sixth date.
She looked lovely in her deep red cocktail dress with her curls swept up off her neck.
After reading Dagworth Derelict and then living his last few weeks with Blaise and sometimes Daphne, Draco hadn't expected the play to take him in so completely. It was well-crafted and visually stunning. Daphne gave an incredible performance.
At the end of each act, he looked up at Hermione. Once, he found her whispering with Ginny. Another time, staring directly at him with an indecipherable expression. Toward the end, he watched her wipe tears from beneath her eyes.
When the curtain closed and everyone in the theatre rose to their feet in a standing ovation, Draco looked across at the woman who had forever changed his life and found her smiling at him widely as she clapped her hands. Even if they were a theatre stage apart, he had the strange feeling they'd been together through each scene — riding the highs and the lows, seeing the drama through one another's eyes.
The moment disappeared quickly as Ron put his hand on her arm and Astoria simultaneously pulled him into an excited conversation about how incredible her sister was. He couldn't agree more, really.
If there were any justice in the world, Daphne Greengrass would be on the front page of every paper the next morning.
He moved strategically down the stairs, navigating the crowd with Astoria at his side, and his eyes met Hermione's surreptitiously, uncertain why he was so sure she wanted to speak to him. They walked down the stairs, just feet behind her and Ron. As he studied the way she walked and her hands swayed — close to Ron's but not reaching for him as she had Draco's—
He saw it. A scar on her palm, neat and pink. The sort a person self-inflicts during an oath and then heals with magic. But, she hadn't healed it.
She turned left at the end of the staircase and so did he and Astoria. When they were close enough to reach out, Astoria touched Ron's arm.
The two turned around and… Hermione… the way she looked at him made his insides flip. It couldn't be over, not when they both felt this strongly.
"You're Ron, aren't you?" Astoria said from beside him. "I'm Astoria."
"I remember you," Ron replied.
Draco touched Hermione's hand and brought it up to inspect the pink line. It was like a quill had been dragged across her palm, but for the glossiness of the freshly healed skin.
He met her eyes again and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. Her lips parted like she wanted to say something and couldn't.
"What happened?" he asked, annoyed at the raw emotion in his voice. Anger and disappointment and something that felt suspiciously like love twisted at him.
"She can't talk about it," Ron said, breaking the quiet tension. "We've tried."
Draco's stomach coiled in a knot as he dragged his thumb over her scar. "I'll make them pay for it," he said quietly, his voice barely audible with the crowd bustling around them.
"She made me swear to leave it alone," Ron said. "She'd ask the same of you if she could. Whatever happened... she made a choice. It wasn't forced on her."
Hermione pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and he understood that speaking to him, owling him, they were probably violations of whatever oath she had made.
With his parents.
He was so furious he could scream.
Draco set her hand down at her side. "It's not a choice you should have had to make," he said bitterly. "And they'll pay regardless of your wishes."
"They already are. They've lost their only son," said Astoria.
He glared at her as Hermione's eyes widened, distraught, desperate to say what she couldn't.
Did she regret it?
"Let's go, 'Mione. Astoria, it was good to see you." Ron met his eyes, and there was no anger, just pity. "Malfoy."
Draco didn't respond. He wasn't sure how to.
Hermione stepped backward, brows knitted, and she walked away.
The vision of her in deep red velvet with an apology in her eyes would torment him for months to come.
Draco found a way to punish his parents, though it wasn't nearly what they deserved. Because they hadn't disowned him, he had simply left, he was legally able to settle any debt owed to his family. And he did. From Caractacus Burke to the Steward family — eleven debts in total were cleared for nearly half of the original principle.
He'd warred with using what was, essentially, his family's money, when he had set out to prove he could take care of himself. A swallowing of pride would be required, no matter what path he chose. In the end, he decided that his parents were no more entitled to their fortune than he was, and since the Malfoy name had proven to be such a disadvantage in finding employment, he required a starting point.
More than that, the amount of interest his father charged was reprehensible. If that was how the Malfoy's had amassed their fortune, he was happy to be rid of it. Happy to get the people of wizarding Britain out from below his father's thumb.
He finally had enough money to buy the business he'd had his eyes on — Obscurus Books — but old man Stroff wouldn't sell his publishing company to a Malfoy.
"Men like you shouldn't have the power to publish books. To write history."
Draco sat expressionless in the chair across the desk from Silas Stroff, the man who had owned Obscurus for more than a half-century. The bustle of the alley below was almost deafening as they stared at one another.
"I'm not looking to write history. We don't need 'The Life and Times of Albus Dumbledore' or a twisted biography of Pius Thicknesse or the Malfoys for that matter."
"What then?" he asked sharply. "How do you expect to make a profit on this business without selling your soul?"
Draco considered the very name of the business. Obscurus.
Dark, repressive magic.
How many books on Dark Magic had been printed in this building in the eighteenth century? If his father had told him the truth, nearly all of them.
"My preference would be literature or textbooks approved by the Hogwarts governors—"
"Are you an idealist? Or do you take me for a fool? The Hogwarts governors approve a new text every ten years, at best."
"But they sell annually. You're still making a profit on 'The Monster Book of Monsters', Mister Stroff, and it was published forty years ago. I've done my research."
"Then you also know sales have declined every year. There's a flood of used books on the market now." He glazed over Draco like a puzzle he'd already put together but was ignoring the missing pieces. "Only your sort are interested in brand new things."
"Your impression of me is founded in rumor. I'm not the man you think."
"May I see your left arm then, Mister Malfoy?" asked Silas. Draco stiffened. The deep lines carved in the old man's temple said his mind was made up when Draco walked in the door.
After a long silence, Silas continued. "You're not the first young entrepreneur to come in and offer to buy me out. You're not the first Death Eater either. You're not even the first Malfoy."
Draco stood up and looked around at the old office with its round window overlooking the Alley, and its spiral wooden staircase that led downward toward the offices, the parlor, the printing rooms.
Why did he want this so desperately?
He studied the crescent moon carved into the front of the Victorian mahogany desk. Books lined every wall; books that had been bound in that very building.
"I'll work as your apprentice," said Draco.
Silas was shocked into silence. Whatever he expected Draco to say next, it wasn't that.
But for the first time since Draco had left the manor, he understood the cost of his independence. The trades that would be required to attain the life he wanted. And he understood how far he was willing to go to distance himself from his mother and father.
"The hours are long, Mister Malfoy. Not for the faint-hearted," Silas said, testing him.
Draco tugged at the high collar of his black robes. "I have plenty of time on my hands."
Before living with Blaise and Daphne, Draco had attended two types of parties in his life. Those hosted by the Pureblood haut monde, with their stiff dress robes and tatting lace, alternating garden parties and galas that had the same essence in a different setting, and those hosted by seventeen year old Slytherin students in the dregs of the Hogwarts dungeons.
He had hated both with equal fervor.
Blaise's parties in the weeks after opening night were neither, but a brand new sort of chaos that Draco both hated and also loved, depending on the evening.
He found himself subject to a completely different lifestyle that he didn't want much more than the former, but it did provide a level of freedom he'd never had. The only control Blaise wielded over him was related to his diet, which consisted mainly of pizza, pasta, sandwiches made with his own two hands, and rotating hors d'oeuvres.
And wine. Lots and lots of wine. Sometimes ale or firewhisky, depending on who they were trying to impress.
The guest lists were carefully cultivated to match Blaise's goals, which ranged from promoting their theatre production, to spoiling the cast and crew, rubbing elbows with his favorite quidditch players, or occasionally, to get very, very drunk and experiment with unusual potions. Draco liked those evenings the least being a man who liked to keep his wits about him — especially in a crowd of people.
Especially with a job to go to on Monday mornings. The hours Silas kept were unlike any Draco had ever endured. He was at his desk by six in the morning and sometimes still there at supper.
He wondered sometimes if Silas was working such long hours just to see how far he could push his new apprentice — how much work a spoilt aristocrat could endure before he gave up.
Despite appearances, Draco Malfoy wasn't afraid of hard work or long hours. Even if Silas was impossible to impress, Draco was proud of himself. Of his endurance and his competence, which he was more certain of with each passing day.
He wasn't entirely sure when Daphne made the flat her permanent residence. She just sort of stayed over often enough that it became a normal thing. And he had to admit, she was tolerable enough most days.
"Pansy's angry she wasn't invited," Daphne said as she handed Blaise the society page of the newspaper.
"We can't invite her if we invite Tremlett," Blaise said indifferently. "She gets all weird around him and I need Tremlett to like us."
"Pansy's one of our oldest friends," Daphne argued.
Draco laughed lightly. "You think she wouldn't do the same if the situation was reversed?"
"Thank you," said Blaise, passing the paper to Draco, who also didn't care what the society page contained.
Until he saw the photographs.
He did his very best to stay out of the newspaper, not wanting his parents or anyone else to know what he did with his time, but there he was — sipping firewhisky with Percy Weasley and his girlfriend. Draco's arm was slung around Astoria's waist. The angle made them look intimate, when it couldn't be further from the truth.
Draco watched himself laugh and a familiar lead weight fell in his stomach. He looked deceptively like he was having fun.
"Who gave this to the Prophet?" he said as he read through the article.
"Me," Daphne said absently. "Astoria consented."
Draco folded the paper and set it down on the table, having read enough. He swept a hand over his jaw. "I didn't."
She had the good sense to look ashamed.
"You've been working so much… I just… I didn't..."
Blaise looked between them and cut through the burgeoning tension. "Go get ready Daph. Witch Weekly in two hours."
Draco saw Hermione in the Alley not two days after that. She pretended she didn't see him, but he felt her eyes on him when he wasn't looking.
His parents sent him an invitation to dinner which he formally declined. They only did it because they thought he might be courting Astoria again — might have a chance at repairing their precious reputation. That he might fall in line and live his life on their terms.
He wouldn't.
"You're a good editor," said Silas one afternoon. It was the second book Draco had edited independently and the first compliment Silas had paid to him in all the weeks they had worked together. Draco waited for a 'but', assuming Silas had the usual brutally constructive criticism to offer, but it never came.
"Terre Terrible — have you read it?" Silas asked. Draco shook his head, confused. "I'd like to know if it's worth translating to English." Silas peered at Draco over his glasses and passed across a stack of papers.
Sales figures.
Draco held back a smile.
A week later, he woke to a pecking sound that never seemed to end. It sounded like an owlery outside his door. He walked out to find their terrace inundated with the birds.
Daphne attempted to shoo them off, not having nearly enough treats for all of them.
Draco ran a hand through his messy hair, stifling a laugh as he watched her fret about feathers and bird droppings.
"Fan mail?" he asked Blaise, who was making breakfast in the kitchen.
Blaise pushed the newest issue of Witch Weekly across the counter. The woman on the cover was picture perfect, a stunning contrast to the loon on their balcony waving off owls and vanishing excrements. There was a dab of it in her morning hair that she hadn't found yet.
He looked down at the cover again.
Daphne dishes on Dagworth Derelict and why Draco Malfoy is her hero
(page 22)
He shut his eyes tight, wishing it away, but when his eyes opened his name was still there on the page. He looked up murderously at his two flatmates.
Daphne was scared stiff at the doorway, pinned in place by his glare.
"It's not as bad as you think," Blaise said in her defense. "Not bad at all, really."
Draco opened the magazine hesitantly to page twenty-two and read through an entire page of rubbish before he found what he was looking for.
WW: What's it like living with the notorious Draco Malfoy?
DG: Oh he's the best of flatmates. He spends all of his time working, reading and silently brooding. Or plotting. [Daphne smiles] It's impossible to tell really.
WW: Plotting?
[Daphne shakes her head silently.]
DG: I'm kidding of course. He's a really good man.
WW: Good enough for your sister? They seemed cozy in some of the recent photos.
DG: Good enough certainly, but they're just friends. [Daphne holds up her hands and laughs.] I swear it.
WW: There's been a flurry of rumors about Draco this year. His apprenticeship under Silas Stroff... his relationship with Hermione Granger... his estrangement from his parents... a rumored battle over his inheritance...
DG: It's really not my place to answer questions about Draco. He doesn't like the spotlight.
WW: What can you tell us? Does he blame his parents for raising him to be a Death Eater?
DG: [After an unusually long silence] Our parents' generation, like the last few generations before it… they value conformity above all else. It's not just about who we date or marry, though that's a big part of it. It's our careers, hobbies, the establishments we frequent, the causes we support. We're given a false message that we're free, and it isn't until we step out of line that we realize what a facade it all is. I'm lucky that my parents are learning to embrace my choices. Draco's… well, he has done something that no one else I know personally has been brave enough to do... He's chosen his independence. His principles. Not just for a career or for a woman. Not for any single thing aside from his desire to choose his own path in life and to do what he thinks is right. He values those things far more than money. It's almost unheard of.
WW: That's — wow. He sounds like a remarkable young man.
DG: He really is. He might be my hero, really.
Draco closed the magazine, looking down at Daphne's photograph, which was almost ridiculous compared to the girl who now stood across the counter from him beside Blaise, with her messy bed head and a Weird Sisters tee shirt that barely covered her arse. She sipped a cup of coffee with both hands, waiting for him to say something.
He rubbed his hands down his face and stared at the pile of mail between them. Literally half of it belonged to Draco, and more owls were swooping down onto the terrace every few seconds.
"Your hero?" he said, voice thick.
Daphne cringed. "It was too much. I know."
"Daphne just made you the hero of an entire generation of rebellious purebloods," Blaise said.
And then Blaise opened the pieces of mail, one by one.
"You're my hero too," he said in a sarcastic tone. "Draco you're so brave. Draco, I love you. Please marry me. Honestly—" Blaise looked at him with a sinister smile that Draco had grown very familiar with. "Can you imagine the post your parents are receiving right now?"
Draco slowly smiled, imagining the sight. "That's certainly a bright spot."
While he was returning from Gringotts later that morning, Draco peeked in the window to Flourish and Blotts out of habit. Sarah, the shopkeeper, waved at him through the window and he tugged the door open, not sure he really wanted to enter but determined to be polite.
"Draco!" the witch said with a bright smile as the door chimed closed behind him. "Just in time for custard cakes."
"Do I need to ask why you're celebrating?"
"You're a hero, dear," she said. She leaned in and spoke more quietly. "She bought one on her way to work this morning."
"A magazine?" Draco asked, with a wave of discomfort. "I wish she hadn't."
"Rubbish," Sarah said. "You haven't given up, have you?"
But Draco had given up. As soon as he learned an oath was involved, he was absolutely certain his chances with Hermione Granger were zilch. There in the middle of the bookstore where their short relationship began, it felt like it had just happened. His heart felt heavy, like his familiar weight, but behind his ribcage.
"It was over before it began," he said, brushing a hand over his lapel to dispel the feeling.
She shook her head.
He had to leave it. Continuing to obsess over a woman who wasn't available to him was a waste of time. But even as he thought it, he remembered what her hand felt like in his. Deep red velvet and glassy eyes, a scar that set them apart for a lifetime.
Sarah handed him a custard cake with the word hero charmed onto the frosting.
"How do you expect to pay for this business if you have no inheritance?" Silas asked, with what appeared to be genuine curiosity.
Draco wasn't sure he should explain how he had come into his money. Suddenly the wizarding world thought he had principles, something he'd never been accused of in all his life. He didn't want to ruin his good fortune.
"I settled the debts people had with my father," Draco admitted. "Half the original balance."
Silas sat back in his chair and for the first time since Draco had started working with him, he laughed. He laughed so hard it turned into a cough.
When he settled down, he said, "Very good, lad."
Draco wasn't sure if he'd be pushing his luck by asking the question that had plagued him, but this was the first time he'd seen the man in a truly good mood.
"Mister Stroff, I've wanted to ask about what you said a while ago — that another Malfoy had offered to buy Obscurus."
Silas looked at him pensively, still smiling a little. "Your grandfather made me an offer at the height of the first war. And when I turned him down… oh, he didn't like being told no. The building was ransacked a month later by Death Eaters."
Draco felt a wave of shame and not just for his grandfather's actions. When he was a Death Eater, he'd been ordered to do the same to Olivanders. And he'd done it. "You weren't captured?"
"Mmm… I snuck out the back window. The one that overlooks the music store. They took me in and let me floo to safety. I reopened at the end of the war."
Draco blinked and looked past the old press in the next room and toward the back window, imagining what it must have been like. Remembering the burst of fear and adrenaline he felt as Rookwood bound Olivander in ropes and ordered Draco to destroy his equipment.
"It was poetic justice, I thought," said Silas. Draco looked up, confused. "I was one of Grindelwald's acolytes," he muttered, scratching his gray stubble.
From his expression, Draco couldn't help but wonder if they were feeling the same lead weight.
For the rest of the day, his mind wandered over the ideas of poetic justice, divine retribution, and karma.
His own life had taken such poetic twists that he'd often believed any unfortunate thing that happened to him was probably deserved. He went from being a bully at Hogwarts to being bullied by Death Eaters. From shunning good witches like Hermione to being shunned for the mark on his arm.
And sometimes, he caught himself inflicting his own punishments. Being hungry and not eating. Tired, but not sleeping. Exhausted, but working anyway, even when he had no looming deadline.
He remembered his conversation with Hermione and he knew what she would say — that we choose how we perceive the world; that what we think becomes our reality because we create the conditions to make it so. Nothing divine — just a fallible human mind that makes connections between things that have no link and bends facts to confirm our existing beliefs.
A mind that reacts as it's conditioned to until someone or something disrupts the loop and a new path is forged.
Draco looked out the round window and over the Alley. Three months and they'd only passed each other twice.
A few weeks later, Silas Stroff retired and sold Obscurus books to Draco.
The next time he saw Hermione, it was during a Christmas festival in Diagon Alley. It was cold but the weather was good, which meant street performers were everywhere. He was exiting his office into the southside of the Alley, and she was standing across the street watching dancers leap with swords and sticks. Every thought in his mind vanished to make room for her presence. He was frozen in place.
His heartbeat was punctuated by the beat of nearby drums.
"Oi, Malfoy!" said Oliver Wood, as he and Percy Weasley walked past. Draco shook hands and greeted them, exchanging smiles and laughs that felt surreal alongside two Gryffindors. They'd all become acquainted at Blaise's parties, though he had been fairly sure the ale had something to do with the friendly ease with which they'd spoken before.
He was uncomfortably aware that Hermione was watching.
"I heard old man Stroff sold, finally. So what's it like to own a publishing business?" Oliver asked.
"Good. A fair bit of work—"
"Don't you have employees?" Percy asked.
"Three," Draco replied. "'Fraid I'll need a fourth if I ever want a good night's rest."
"Dennis Creevy is out of Hogwarts this year, isn't he?" Percy asked Oliver.
"He's a bloody good writer. I bet he'd do well in publishing."
Draco scratched his temple, trying to shut out the memory of a dead boy with the same last name. "Send him in if he wants it," Draco said. "The sooner the better."
Oliver clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. "I never thought I'd say it, but you're a good man."
It felt uncomfortable to be called such a thing when he didn't quite believe it. But… he wanted to be a good man.
"Who would have thought?" Percy continued with a laugh. "You were such a little prick back at Hogwarts."
"Truer words," Draco said, scratching his temple awkwardly.
"Grab a pint with us?" Percy asked.
Draco gazed across the street at Hermione, meeting her eyes unexpectedly. She didn't look away and neither did he.
"I'll meet you at the Leaky," Draco replied, barely looking at the two men as he walked around them. "I have a few things to do before I bend the elbow."
"Ah… good luck to you, then."
Draco stepped around the performers, eyes still locked with Hermione's. He watched her cheeks flush that pretty shade of pink as he approached and when he stopped in front of her, the rest of the world slowly faded out of existence.
The apology still dwelt in the roundness of her eyes, sadness lingered in flecks of amber and cinnamon.
He reached up and tugged one of her curls.
"One date with you and I'm forever smitten," he said, just loud enough that she could hear it and no one else. She reached up and her hand hovered over his, not quite touching him. He closed the distance, knitting their fingers together, keenly aware of her stillness.
If she moved, if she spoke to him, what would happen? Was he putting her at risk, touching her like this?
He pushed her hair behind her ear and her eyes fluttered closed for a second.
"Stay still," he whispered. And then he leaned in and brushed his lips against her cheek. "I miss you."
She made a noise that sounded pained and miserable and he thought maybe it was wrong of him, to dredge up old things and make them new again. He removed his hand from hers, reluctantly, already missing the warmth of her.
He walked away glad he'd taken the risk. Having her close just for a moment was worth the agony of a reopened wound.
By the end of the evening, most of the people in the Leaky Cauldron were clobbered. He'd watched from a distance as Hermione said farewell to her friends and took the floo home. At about the same time, he had his first shot of firewhiskey. Yet, of the six men at their round corner booth, he was certain he was still closest to sober.
"I'm done," Draco said, scooting his glass to the center of the table.
He was met with shouts and insults about what a lightweight he was, but he didn't care much. Impressing a bunch of drunken wizards wasn't high on his list of priorities.
"Floo's that way!" Cormac shouted as Draco walked back toward the Alley. Draco waived him off and continued out the back door toward Obscurus, passively inhaling the scent of buttery ale and smoked meat.
"You're not going to try and apparate are you?" he heard from behind him. He turned around to find Ginny Potter, who had stepped away from her husband and three red-heads to call after him.
The unmistakable roundness of her stomach shocked him into silence for several seconds, but it didn't seem appropriate to comment on her condition.
"I'm headed to my office," he replied.
"You work drunk?"
"I'm not drunk—" he scoffed.
She stepped forward, waddling just a little as she balanced against the weight of her unborn child.
"You're drunk," she said and with an amused look, she handed him a tiny potion vial. "Here. To sober you up, if you need it."
He had no idea how he'd ever earned her kindness. Their only interaction since Hogwarts had been that one brief conversation at Gringotts.
Don't make me regret it.
Didn't she regret it? Surely she had heard whatever Hermione endured at his family's hands.
And yet, Ginny Potter, one of Hermione's very best friends, was trying to protect him from his own perceived lapse in judgement.
"Between the two of us, I live at my office," he said quietly.
Her eyes widened. "You — at Obscurus? I thought you lived with Blaise and Daphne?"
"Too many parties. I'm an old man at heart, Ginevra."
She laughed lightly at the use of her given name. "You can have this anyway, if you want," she said, opening her hand to the potion. "If you're a fall risk."
He couldn't hold back the wide grin, the almost laugh.
"You'll be a very good mother," he said, the ale loosening his tongue.
"Time will tell," she said, tapping her fingers on her stomach. "I had a good example or two."
"Well if that's what it takes, I'm truly fucked." And then, blanching at his drunkenness, he added, "Pardon my language."
"I have a feeling you'll be alright." A few seconds passed, just long enough for a foolish, drunken hope to seize his chest, and then she added, "You should talk to your mother."
He shook his head, the words sounding like a foreign language.
"You should know what happened," she continued.
Desperation coiled his nerves with the unexpected words. "Tell me," he implored.
"It's not my place."
Her expression betrayed her own conflicted feelings, and Draco considered how he might convince her to say what she wouldn't. His curiosity was stronger than it had ever been and his fear of being seen as pathetic was unusually absent thanks to the alcohol.
"She was really happy for a minute," Ginny said.
He rubbed his hand over the lapel of his coat unconsciously.
"So was I," he replied, truly incapable of handling another word of this conversation. "Goodnight Ginevra."
"Goodnight."
Draco wished he had taken the sobriety potion she had offered on his walk toward the office. Being drunk and also depressed was the worst of combinations, and he wasn't the type to wallow.
He'd gotten something incredible out of his single date with Granger. Courage and freedom to live his life free from his parents manipulation, unexpected friends and allies, and the will to forge his own path. He opened the door to Obscurus and looked around at his office — at the rows of books along the walls, the parlor behind the reception desk, the carved wood spiral staircase that led up to sales and marketing, and his converted loft overlooking the alley.
A tickle in his shoulders told him he would trade it all for her, but that wasn't a thought he was willing to dwell on. She'd made her choice, supposedly.
Yet, his conversation with Ginny stuck with him for weeks after that, his mind returning to her words, to Hermione and to his mother anytime he allowed it to wander.
She was really happy for a minute.
Yes, he'd seen it reflected back at him when she looked up in the light of the street lantern, that perfect night. Freshly kissed lips, rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes.
Is tomorrow too soon?
Merlin. If there was any one thing he could go back and change, it would have been his response to that question. Or perhaps his mistake was in letting her out of his embrace at all. He imagined them curled up together in a bed when the morning post arrived. Standing beside her when his parents approached.
Maybe he could have done something to fix all of it.