The Promise
Two days later found Hermione mentally listing the many ways she hated her hair. She had already dressed in her "fanciest" dress, a black sheath which cost a fortune (to her) but managed to achieve an elegant simplicity; but she could not do anything to her riotous mass of curls. Her hair was her burden, she generally chose to wear it in a plait or bun, but found that both of those options distinctly clashed with her gown.
'Why I even care so much about what I look like tonight is beyond me,' she chastised herself. 'It's just going to be half people who have seen me at seven in the morning in messy robes and tangled hair, and half people I don't need to impress with looks." She threw a disgusted look at her reflection in the mirror, and then laughed at her ridiculousness. She opted in the end to simply run a defrizzing serum through her locks, and leave her hair down. Hermione rechecked the wards on her apartment, and apparated to Harry's.
She was greeted upon arrival by Harry and Ron, who both embraced her in enormous bear hugs, which threatened to counteract the hair potion, acting as though they hadn't seen her in years. She flushed slightly under what she felt was their unnecessary affections, but laughingly returned the embrace. The greeting was cut off, however, by, of course, Malfoy.
"The Golden Trio, my, this must be a touching reunion. How long has it been since you've all seen each other? Perhaps two days?" He smirked at their embarrassed expressions, though Harry quickly recovered, and offered him an 'Hello' and a handshake. Hermione simply shook her head at the men. She still could not fully wrap her mind around the dubious scene of Ron, Harry, and Malfoy greeting each other with the warmth of friends under the eternal mask of snarkiness.
After a bit more small talk with Ron and Harry, a little bit more with Ginny, she found herself being led into the dining room. Hermione had, of course, been in Harry and Ginny's home on multiple occasions, but always admired it. They had moved into an area that was not in a forest, per se, but definitely far enough removed from any town and cities that they had more trees as neighbors then people. Their home was spacious and airy, but not overly large. The dining room, where the company now sat, was Hermione's favorite room. The table, which had been enlarged magically, was a solid rich wood, with a panel of stained glass through the center. The same stained glass pattern was found mixed throughout the large bay window in the front of the room. The flames from the sconces on the walls gave the room warmth, which was offset by the twinkling of stars on the enchanted ceiling, much like the one at Hogwarts. She would have been very pleased that she was facing an evening spent mostly in this room, if she was not feeling instead, a sense of dread at the anticipation of interaction with her assigned dinner partner.
She was busily working at the first course, a light vegetable salad, having just registered how ravenous she was. She could hear Malfoy next to her speaking to the "Quidditch man" who sat directly across from him. Naturally, she tuned out the conversation, only to be jolted out of her own musings by Malfoy's voice.
"So, Granger. How many tomes are we dissecting this week?" he asked, his voice thick with amusement.
She turned, surprised by his question. While it was not in it's totality a polite, interested question, it appeared to hold only innocent amusement. She offered a small smile and replied.
"Er, only one actually. I've- I mean we've been so busy, you know. But it's terribly interesting. It's historical fiction, a rather new book. It's a fictional auto-biography of Henry the Eighth, told by journal entries. But what makes it so interesting is that interspersed throughout the novel are comments from his court jester. So you get different sides and viewpoints of the same events. It's a light reading of course, more for entertainment. But I find it quite enjoyable and a nice release." She blushed as she realized that she had been babbling.
He smirked lightly at her. "A Muggle book?" he questioned.
She bristled under his question, wondering if it was just curiosity or a barb. With the interest of maintaining peace, she answered it as she would a normal question, from a normal person.
"Yes, Muggle. I mean it's on a Muggle king. But it's still a very interesting book. Besides, I've always been fascinated with history," she answered.
"Yes, of course. Which explains the "Hogwarts: A History" obsession. And, of course, the time you feel asleep in Binn's class seventh year." He laughed slightly, and she found herself being drawn to watch his face as he laughed, entirely against her will. It was not the first time she had seen him laugh, but it was rare.
"You know perfectly well that the only time I feel asleep in his class, or any class for that matter, was not entirely a fault of mine. That was the morning after we had that horrid time searching for the Boggart during our rounds." She smiled as she recalled that night. It had been horrid at the time, she had been tired, he was put out that they were being forced to search for it. But, in retrospect, it was quite amusing, until they had to actually face it. Watching the Boggart turn into a towering Lucius Malfoy had not been pleasant. Even less pleasant for her was when it had turned to her, and, as she attempted to rid the Boggart, it had flashed between the dead bodies of Ron, Ginny, and Harry. And even, much to her chagrin at the time, Malfoy. She blushed once again as she remembered how embarrassed she was to have a Boggart show the dead body of Malfoy directly after her best friends, without a mention of her parents, even. At the time, he was already on the side of the Light, but they were certainly not friends. She wondered if he remembered that incident, she recalled the shocked glance he gave her as she banished the creature after his image appeared.
She looked at him and saw that he was gazing at her curiously. "Yes," he murmured. "The Boggart."
Hermione cleared her throat, and was grateful when Harry drew her attention from where he was sitting, two seats down and at the end of the table. He had apparently been speaking to the man directly to the right of him, part of the couple seated next to she and Draco, about the future of medicinal potions. Hermione snorted slightly, trying to imagine Harry, who never had much predilection when it came to potions, carrying on a conversation while attempting to maintain a knowledgeable and interested viewpoint.
"Hermione," Harry's cheery voice rang out. "Brown here says that he's met Snape on several occasions and found him to be a very pleasant man, once you get past his caustic tones." Harry raised his eyebrows at her and grinned in amusement.
"Well, I know Malfoy here is close to Professor Snape, and you know that the Professor and I have no serious hard feelings after the fall of Voldemort," Hermione replied. "I suspect that you'll find most of this table who know him either stuck on their preconceived childish views of Snape, or share Brown's feelings." She smiled at Harry, and set back to drinking her champagne.
Ginny laughed from the opposite end of the table, having heard Hermione's reply. She winked at Hermione and offered her opinion. "Oh, Hermione, you know that you would feel the same as Harry about Snape if you weren't coerced into a truce with him because of Re-mus." She stressed the man's name, drawing it out in the sing-song way that Hermione had become used to when hearing his name in reference to her.
Hermione heard Harry and Ron laugh in reply to Ginny's comment, and flushed under the old tease. Remus had been her tutor during Auror training, and they had become rather good friends. She found nothing wanting in the soft-spoken man, he was intelligent and kind, and she thoroughly enjoyed his company. She did not appreciate, however, the constant running joke that apparently existed still today, that she and Remus were having some sort of an affair. The joking had carried on enough that her ex-boyfriend, Lucas, had been jealously paranoid of Remus, though Hermione assured him that it was just a friendship.
"Remus? As in Lupin?" Hermione cringed as she heard Malfoy pop into the conversation. If there was one thing she did not need, it was Malfoy getting in on the joke. She was surprised that in all their time spent together, Harry and Ron had never filled him in on this new way to tease her. The fact was that Harry and Ron seemed to enjoy Malfoy's treatment of her, when he was being strangely gentle to her in his teasing. They would laugh whenever he poked fun at her in a harmless way, though she suspected that they would not be so appreciative of the majority of his "jokes" which occurred at work, or when they were alone.
"Oh, yes. Didn't you know?" She groaned out loud when she heard Fred answer him. Fred looked over at her, and winked roguishly at her. "Yes, dear old Hermione and Professor Lupin, the love story of the century. How long has this torrid affair been going on for now, Hermione?"
She laughed when she caught sight of Malfoy's face. He looked entirely displeased, and she could only assume that it was due to the idea of a werewolf and a mudblood producing offspring. She decided to play along at that point, it was worth it just to ensure Draco's face remained the same.
"Hmm, Fred, when you're that in love it's hard to keep track. Every day feels like a lifetime when I'm with him." She smirked at Ginny who laughing out loud at this point. 'Success!' she thought. Malfoy looked positively green at this point. "It started with Auror training, so I'd have to say, going on five and half years now. Oh, yes, Remus Lupin, the love of my life."
"You can't be serious!" Malfoy finally spoke out. "You're not in love with him!"
She looked at him with a bemused expression. "How do you figure that I'm not? Do you think you know me well enough to know who I am in love with?"
He glared at her. "You aren't, and I do. And besides, Hermione, you dated Luke and that Muggle man during that time period. You would never have cheated on them." By the end he was not quite shouting, or really raising his voice, but his words were coming out with such vehemence that she was taken aback.
She cleared her throat and stared at him. She was surprised enough to hear that he recalled the name of her old boyfriend (of course he wouldn't deign to retain the name of the Muggle man. Lucas and he had not gotten on very well at all, and the several times that they met it was uncomfortable for them all. Amazingly, something happened that she had never really seen before, nor imagined possible. He was blushing. Draco Malfoy was blushing! She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at him. She was well aware of the delicacy of this situation, though she had never been in it before, and she really didn't want to start a verbal war over his pink cheeks. Instead, she turned her attention to Ginny, who had a wide smirk plastered across her face, and gave her a look which clearly said 'What the hell is going on?'
Deciding that she should put Malfoy out of his misery, and turn the attention back to her self, she finished her wine glass and answered him.
"Er, yes. You're right. I wouldn't have done that to any of them, and no, I'm not in love with Remus. I mean I love him, he's a wonderful person, but we're just friends. The relationship between he and I is something Harry and Ron made up back when he was working with me for Auror training." She gave him an easy smile, and was relived to see that he was back to normal color, and normal self. "I'm surprised you'd never heard them tease me about it before," she remarked.
"No. No, I've certainly never heard that before." He gave her a long look before turning to his own drink.
Hermione shook her head, wondering what exactly had just happened. She looked up at Ginny, who took that opportunity to mouth something at her. Hermione squinted and mouthed back. 'What?'
Ginny rolled her eyes, and, waving her wand, a piece of parchment appeared on her plate. She picked it up and unfolded it. It contained two words, 'he's jealous'. She gasped in annoyance and quickly vanished the paper. She turned to glare at Ginny, who was only smiling at her.
Jealous? Draco Malfoy jealous over hearing that she and Lupin were in love? It was laughable, it was outrageous, it was, in a place in her heart that she didn't wanted to admit existed, very pleasing to think of. But when Hermione turned to look at him, she shook her head. 'There is no way that he was jealous. Ginny was only trying to rile me up. He'd sooner marry Harry than want me'.
She drank a little more champagne, finding that the situation had become far too strange for her to handle with a sober mind. Thankfully, the conversation turned away from her love life, and she was allowed to enter back into her own little world. It was a pleasant party, she supposed she had to admit, and the conversations weren't limited to just between couples. At one point, a wild debate had broken out, over new procedures Aurors were using. Hermione was surprised to find that she and Malfoy were on the same side of the debate. When she stopped to think about it, she grudgingly admitted that while they had different values, they had many things in common, and this was far from the first time she had found herself arguing with Draco against Harry and Ron.
'In fact, it's also one of the many times when I am speaking of something about which only Malfoy is really familiar,' she thought to herself.
Towards the end of the night, Hermione found that she was slightly tipsier than she thought, when she found herself taking a big bite of the desert. She winced from the cold of the sorbet, and blushed when she heard Malfoy snicker next to her.
"Gods, Granger, look at your face. It's just a little cold, you'll live. You look like Weasley just tried to snog you."
She scowled and answered back sharply. "Well, at least I have an excuse for the way my face looks, ferret."
She smirked at his expression, and in her alcohol hazy mind she applauded her superior verbal volleying. She leaned over to finish her champagne glass as congratulations to herself, when her arm was stopped. By Malfoy's hand. She turned to glare at him when she registered, in surprised shock, a look of concern on his face. The look quickly faded into a patronizing smirk as he opened his mouth, however.
"Granger, give it a rest. You're acting like Pansy at the Yule Ball. Don't you think you've had enough?"
She flushed under his words, and promptly shook off his hand and downed her glass in one swig, just to spite him.
"Malfoy, need I remind you that one, you are not my father, nor are you a close, concerned friend, and two, considering that I have just sat next to you for close to two hours, I think that I have not drank nearly enough. In fact, I hypothesize that if I had consumed a full glass for every year that I have known you, I will still be nowhere near the point where your company would be one that I would appreciate and enjoy." She widened her eyes after that statement; it really wasn't what she had meant to say at all. Instead she had found herself reflecting on what Ginny had said to her in her office, and she found herself reacting to both his unexpected concern, and the confusing and irritating part of her that flourished in his concern.
The other guests had stood up from the table by now, and started mingling with each other. Draco and Hermione were the only ones who were still sitting at the table, their eyes glued to each other in vicious glares.
"For God's sake, Malfoy, I'm sure your tongue is just itching to spit something really foul at me. Will you just do it so I can get on with the night?" She rolled her eyes at the emotions that were quarreling in his usually blank eyes. He looked amused, but also very furious. A furious Malfoy is one that she learned long ago not to tamper with, unless she was properly prepared to face the consequences. Hermione thought that five glasses of wine, and that the dinner they had just finished was all she had eaten that day, made her properly prepared. She was not, however, prepared for what came next. She eyed him curiously, and then with growing anger and outrage as he picked up his champagne flute, brought it over her lap, and then quickly dumped the contents out onto her dress.
She sat there for a minute, mouth hanging open like a fool, trying to process what had just happened. He hadn't smirked at her, or attacked her with words she would just tune out. He poured champagne on her! 'Of all the childish, ridiculous things to do!" she thought, blinking back tears of frustration and anger that had quickly formed in her eyes. She took a deep breath, stood up from the table, sent him her darkest glare, and swiftly marched out of the room in search of the loo.
When she entered the room, she proceeded to dry her dress with a charm, after cleaning spell she had attempted had not worked. She sat down on the toilet and glared down at the faint outline of the alcohol stain on the black silk. It was just unfair of him to have done that. Yes, her words might have been harsh, but she wasn't a Malfoy. This was her nicest dress, and if the stain wouldn't come out, then it was a rag. Hermione might not have cared about material things like that, but she did recognize the waste of money, and the fact that she would have to replace the dress for the various Ministry charity functions she was required to attend. She didn't have money to throw away on frivolities, especially due to something Malfoy had caused.
'Damn Malfoy!' her mind grumbled. 'Why can't I just get away from him.'
In a very non-Hermione moment, she determined that this event justified a cigarette. It was fortuitous then, that she had chosen this particular bathroom, and that she was Ginny's closest girlfriend. She reached under the sink and pulled out the box of Muggle tampons, reached inside, and stole the lighter and a cigarette from the stash. She walked out to the back porch, the farthest away from the party as she could get, and stood next to the railing.
It was, by all accounts, a very pretty night. Cold, but mildly so, and the moon was bright, the stars were, shining, and it was only about 20 minutes away from the new year. She should have been inside, at least attempting to enjoy herself. Instead, she was standing alone, in the dark, in a ruined dress, and smoking. She never smoked! She really, really, desperately wanted to hex Malfoy at that moment. She held her cigarette the way she would her wand and thought of all the curses she could send to him. She was so busy in her contemplation that she didn't hear the door to the porch open to know someone was approaching until she heard movement behind her.
"And you call yourself an Auror, Granger? Really, I'm disappointed in you. You could be dead by now if I was someone else." She cringed as she heard his slow drawl cut through the quiet of the night. She could hear the slight clattering of glasses and laughter of the party within, but it was vague and muted. His voice, the hooting of owls, and the sound of the slight wind through the trees were the only sharp, definable sounds in the night.
"Perhaps that was the plan, Malfoy. Really, you are the last person I want to speak to right now. Maybe I was hoping you would be "someone else". I have a distinct feeling that I would prefer their torture to this torture here." She had not turned around yet, nor had he moved to the front of her to speak to her face. She could tell he was closer, though, she felt him move, and heard his quiet breathing coming closer. Something was handed to her, and she turned her head to the side as she accepted the glass of wine.
"Oh, is it poisoned?" she asked. She turned to face him, and smiled at him with a fake sweetness. "Really, Malfoy, how kind of you. I never thought you would be supportive of mercy killings." He rolled his eyes at her, and her breath caught as she watched him in the moonlight. He looked almost inhuman, like a statue. His beauty and perfections that were always there were highlighted in the glow, and she forced herself to look away.
"Granger, I didn't come out here to kill you, though if you keep it up, I may change my mind. I came out to apologize to you."
She blinked up at him; her eyebrows raised high in her forehead. "Apologize? To me? Malfoy, I am all astonishment. But what exactly are you apologizing for? Ruining my dress, or my night? Or perhaps, we could even go so far as to say you are apologizing for every horrible thing you have ever done to me? Now, that would be lovely."
He glared at her. "For every horrible thing I've done to you? What about you? I am not the only one who starts things, in fact I remember very distinctly being uncommonly kind and patient with you directly after the war, and you spurning my every attempt!"
Hermione sucked in a deep breath. "Uncommonly kind? Are you joking? Everything you said to me then so obviously fake, I couldn't believe you were even saying it. God, Malfoy. Just saying something isn't enough. You really should work on trying to not kill me with your eyes while you do!" She was angry, so angry that he was bringing this up. True, he had gone out of his way to be pleasant to her, but he had also been glaring at her and sneering through everything he said. Once, they had been helping Ron move some things into his new flat, and she had taken his hand by accident while groping to open the door, and he had dropped the vase he was carrying in his attempt to get away from touching her. And he was here calling his behavior then, uncommonly kind?
"Aside from the times when we have set aside our differences as Head Boy and Girl, during the War and as Aurors, you have never treated me in any way which I could label as kind. You are always rude and condescending, and treat me like I'm some awful burden that you've been asked to carry. Do you think I like being with you again after all these years? I never got a break from you, Malfoy, from your taunts and your Pureblood attitude, and you think I'm the one who's been treating you badly? Even when we did work together like I mentioned before, you could never treat me fully as a person, you always acted like I was putting on a show for you," Hermione's eyes flashed, and she took a large drink from her glass. "Oh, look at Granger, acting like she's worthy of anything. Isn't she funny?"
She looked up at him to see his eyes were wide, his mouth open as he tried to formulate some response. "And, it's not like that even matters now, we were children. But the fact that you are still so condescending to me, and that you can't even resist the opportunity to make some hurtful remark about me, I just don't understand why! Why is it, Malfoy? Is it because I don't drape myself over you when you enter a room? Is it because I don't act like you're the new Harry? Because, I'm sorry, you aren't Harry!"
She paused for a moment, to drink some more (this time straight from the bottle which Draco had brought out with him), and to catch her breath. Unfortunately, Malfoy chose to interrupt and defend himself.
"Well," he spat. "I'm sorry that I can't be your perfect Potter. And it's not like I am trying to be him, I don't want to be him. I don't ask people to treat me like this-" His speech was cut off by Hermione's hand over his mouth.
"Shut up," she ordered. "That's not what I mean. I don't want you to be Harry. You aren't Harry Potter, you're Malfoy. I've known and despised you for nearly six years, and then known and I don't know how I feel about you for seven more. You're different than Harry. You entered the War for different reasons, you have completely different attitudes. And I'm not going to act like you're the new Harry because I don't want you to be. I want you to be Malfoy, that's who I know. Malfoy, I am comfortable with, Malfoy and I have a history. I know where I stand with Malfoy, even if I hate it. This new public Draco," she grimaced. "That's another story."
She watched him wearily as she took another swig from the champagne bottle. Inside, Hermione's feelings were ranging from absolute terror that he was going to take this as the final straw and kill her, and pride that she had finally gotten it all off her chest. How long had she wanted to say all that to him? There had been no planning, no "Let's sit down Malfoy, we have some issues to work out", no urging on from Ginny. She had just done it, just like that! But she also felt a bit of guilt, as she watched him pace across the small porch. He had just come out with a peace offering and an apology, and she had launched into a rant, releasing almost thirteen years of built-up anger and confused feelings.
"Hermione," he began, and she immediately widened her eyes at the unfamiliar address. By this point, she was royally pissed, and afraid that she had perhaps passed out, and this first name wielding Malfoy was part of a familiar dream. "I am sorry. For everything. But I can't help it. I like arguing with you." He turned to her again, and grabbed her by the bottoms of her elbows. "You rise to the occasion like no one else can, Potter and Weasley just sputter and threaten, they always have. But you, Granger, you have wit, and intelligence, and reflexes. I don't mean it to hurt as it does, but you make it so easy to fight with you."
He was still looking at her, and she felt that she must have passed out. It wasn't surprisingly, really, she'd never been drunk enough to reach the point where she was unconscious. The dream was not unexpected. And, though she'd hate to admit it to anyone, this seemed like the perfect setting for a dream she'd had since the end of sixth year, one which consisted of an apology very similar to this one. Her brain was working quite slowly now, and she determined that if this was a dream, then she best get some things off her chest.
"I don't think I hate you, you know? You're too much like me to hate. And…" here, she leaned in closer to him, breathing in the scent of him, which had always reminded her of the coriander fruit, mixed with some sharp citrus, and whispered, "you don't really look like a ferret." She heard him exhale an unexpected laugh, before she promptly passed out for real.
*********
Okay, second chapter. This chapter ended up being longer than I had planned, so I am splitting it up differently than I had planned. The next two chapters (I think, depending on my revisions) should be up in the next four days. I'm out of town tomorrow, so probably #3 won't go up until the day after tomorrow.
Oh, and yes, I totally stole what Hermione sees with the Boggart from the Molly/Boggart scene in OotP. But it worked here, so sue me. No, wait don't. I already wrote a disclaimer!
Thanks to all my reviewers! Feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome!