Chapter 3
Once she was out of the view of the restaurant, Hermione allowed herself to think about the newly appointed head of the Malfoy family. She wondered what he was doing in Hogsmeade; why he was eating at Puddifoots instead of some extravagant 5-star eatery; why he hadn't taken the chance to say something to her. Anything at all. Something snide, or even a "Happy Holidays".
She supposed he may have been asking himself some very similar questions about her. Puddifoot had announced Hermione's walk from the school. Why hadn't she just stayed put and eaten in the Great Hall? The studious witch had also failed to give the blonde man any salutations; not a snide remark or a season's greeting from her to him, either.
Draco Malfoy really had no reason to be in Hogsmeade so late in the evening, in Hermione's opinion. The shops were all closed, save The Broomsticks and Puddifoot's. Pubs were everywhere in England, possibly even in Wiltshire. She guessed Malfoy Manor had its own bar in at least one of the many rooms.
So why was he there?
She thought on these things, and many more, as she walked back towards the school; past the shops and the pub, past the thestral livery and the tracks, and truly began her journey back to the school. The storm blew the beautiful snowflakes straight into her face. Even her hair, which she'd left in its usual mane of curls, couldn't block the windy ice as large flakes blew into her hood, past her hair and down the back of her neck.
For a moment, she thought of returning to the stables and requesting a carriage, but she was stubborn, and recently in the habit of not caring too much about herself. She knew that, if push came to shove, she could use a warming charm on herself and make it back to the school without issue.
So she trudged on.
'I wonder why he was there?' her mind speculated, some meters past the tracks. The witch wasn't too keen on the idea of her mind going back to him repeatedly, but she couldn't help it. 'Why Hogsmeade? He could be literally anywhere. This place,' she thought selfishly, 'is better off without him. He's the reason Hogwarts and Hogsmede were almost ruined.'
Hermione shook her head.
She hated how back and forth she was when it came to Draco.
When she sat before the Wizengamot to give her account of the events of the war, she could admit with pride that she told the truth, unlike the damn Death Eaters. Every bit of the truth has left her mouth every time she appeared in court.
However, when it came down to it, she'd admitted aloud that she did not think Draco entirely responsible for his actions. She'd been forced to admit to herself that Draco was a Slytherin, and he was motivated by self-preservation. She was a Gryffindor, which usually meant she put herself in harm's way quite often, without even thinking of the consequences. They were different people, but she had to admit that she may not have done anything different if she and her family had been the ones to be Voldemort's "willing hosts".
When her tale was up, something she'd told many different people over the months since the war ended, she had, in some roundabout way, told the gamot that she did not blame Draco.
The Malfoy heir had not lifted his head to look at her the entire time until she finished, and he'd glanced at her with a number of different emotions showing in his eyes: confusion, surprise, gratitude. But the look didn't last long before he cast his face down to his shoes, hiding all further expressions behind lengthened, shaggy blonde hair.
Even though she didn't think he'd deserved prison sentences, like his parents had received, she also didn't think he should be allowed to leave his house for a while. But she wasn't the Wizengamot, and in the end they had only charged the heir a large amount in fines (which she suspected didn't dent his family's coffers), and didn't award a single day of house arrest.
She still assumed that, since she hadn't heard anything of it from friends or the papers, Draco hadn't left his quiet mansion since he'd been released. He'd put himself on house arrest, and she wished that he'd stayed there instead of leaving his mansion to haunt her haunts.
Hermione was haunted enough. She didn't need a reminder of a certain pale, platinum ghost.
The witch raised her head towards the location she knew the school sat, but saw not a single sign of life or light. It was a whiteout. She could see a meter ahead, that was all, and this of all things was what took her mind from Draco, setting it it back onto the track it had been on before she'd entered Puddifoot's, back to the darkened, dingy snowfall that was her mind.
In her mind she imagined becoming lost in the storm, forced to using the warming charm to survive until morning. The thought of it brought her back to the days of the Christmas passed, and how she and Harry had been in survival mode, and how the concept consumed their thoughts every day, all day. Survival, as well as saving their loved ones, the rest of the world, and, ultimately, ending Voldemort's reign.
But for the better part of a minute, the war heroine imagined herself truly surviving again- instead of just within her mind- and a large part of her wanted to exist in that state once more. Definitely not in a war setting, but perhaps, when school was over, she could take a break from her plan for a year or two, and live out in the woods. Perhaps become some Muggle stereotype and scare the children who happened upon her cottage while she lived off the land; surviving on only what she could grow and raise, and take some time to herself.
It sounded nice⦠And she lived in this fantasy for a while longer until she heard the dulled clop of hooves coming up from behind her, accompanied by the sound of carriage wheels that were all but drowned by the wild gales.
A/N: There may be a fourth chapter up tonight. Happy New Year!
