Disclaimer: not Rowling, not claiming to be: after all, a cat can't appear in court!
She waited night after night for her phone to light up and play the silly tune she assigned his number. She never heard it, but she waited all the same.
Some nights, she fiddled with it, and tried to assign another melody, but the tune refused to escape what she originally intentionally labeled it for.
One night, she laid it on her kitchen counter and drew her wand on it, but the "what if's" played her heartstrings, so she kept the little phone charged in her house, in her car. The time was almost coming to a pass
Occasionally Ginny called her, trying to draw her out to lunch in Diagon Alley, saying that the boys were in international competition, and it would be safe to watch and wait, wizard-watch...and sometimes she said yes, and at Fortescue's, she would eat her vanilla ice cream, waiting for a certain someone, her ear half attending to the conversation.
Ginny would always shake her head, lay a galleon and a knut, drag Hermione away from her watching and waiting, and try to interest her in the shop windows, but even the bookstore would not hold her attention for long.
The day would be over shortly, but she always waited for him. Waited for him to accept she was muggle-born. Waited for him to dial the number she left burned into his wand, if he were to accept her ancestry and just call, it would disappear. She loved him enough to wait. She wasn't a patient waiter, she periodically sent owls to him carrying cell phones with pre-paid airtime, and they were returned, but the last one wasn't. Ginny always dragged her around, and their day would end with a dinner and they would part when dusk appeared. Night turned into morning, into another day of waiting.
Ginny came by for another "Drag Hermione Out Day."
They were walking down the busy cobblestone, and she was trying to tell Hermione of a new bookstore that was opening.
Hermione however was lost in thought.
She always wondered if Draco loved her, why wasn't it enough to call. Since he didn't, she wondered if Hedwig got lost, which would be an insult to the dear bird, who had the phone and who would call. Her number was programmed in, just as she placed it on his wand. At this point in time, after the war, and all this time she waited, she suddenly started walking with her head high, knowing that as much as she loved him, the next morning she was going to live without him and start again. Witches didn't live forever, and she wasn't going to wait on a wizard who didn't deem her worthy of his time. He said he needed time, but come the sunrise, his sand would have run out.
Ginny noticed a slight misstep in her friend's gait, then saw a sparkle in her eye that was long missing, the straight back, head tilted forward. It had been a year, but now, she can see the best remnants of her oldest girlfriend.
"Hermione?"
"Ginny? Where can I get my hair cut?" Hermione remembered that when Native Americans lost a loved one, their cut hair was their sign of grief. While she had decided that she wasn't going to wait, she should at least honor the feelings she once had for the ferret, for her emotions were real, and she was going to do it with style.
Draco held a death grip on the elder man's elbow. "Uncle, wait a moment."
He saw her hair, long and curling, falling from beneath a ridiculous purple hat, but his heart pinged when he realized how long it had been since he held her.
His godfather let the younger man hide behind his robes, like he did when he was five, and sighed as the two young witches ambled on past the apothecary.
"Draco, this game has gone on long enough."
"Uncle, I love her."
"Then just go to her for Merlin's sake."
"Only when she yields. She must understand that I may have changed some, but not enough to bow to her wishes."
"Draco, would it be so terrible to live partly in the muggle world?"
"It has been terrible just living without her."
Severus Snape pondered the younger man's words with a sneer. He was not going to classify what Draco did as living, nor as loving. "I don't think she will wait much longer."
"Well, I won't go crawling to her. She must understand, I AM a pure-blood of an OLD family, I WILL NOT live as a muggle part-time to please her parents!" Draco finished with a huff, dragged a battered phone out of his pocket and chucked it at his uncle. Severus let it fall to the ground in front of him. He then heard a muttered "Accio". The phone whizzed back to its owner. Draco spun on his heel, hands stuffed into his pockets, and walked out of the apothecary away from the woman who pulled him from the dark into the light and left him there, feeling she left him without staying by his side to help him breathe.
Severus Snape felt too old to know anything about love. He stood there in the shop's window, looking out, while the last of his purchases were being wrapped.
His godson was a damned fool. Not knowing what love fully entailed, he idled away his time, waiting for Hermione to come to him, while it should have been his pride to be dented while he crawled to her.
Hogwart's graduates should be of no concern to him, yet he was involved because it was his godson, and because the young lady in question had even dared to approach him seeking aid.
"Professor Snape?" Hermione's voice was husky, and fully of respect due to a person of his stature, yet not one due to one of her own. She was amongst the several highly revered witches of her time, if not the last few generations, and the apprehension in her voice irritated him.
"Miss Granger," he gravely answered. "You requested this appointment?"
"It is your godforsaken godchild that lead me to request it." Good, he thought, some of the fire was still there. Time to see exactly how much. He spoke.
"I have little time to be embroiled into your spats!" standing angrily, he finished with, "Get out!"
She stood up with him and showed that Gryffindor spine somehow gone missing when she developed her attachment to young Mister Malfoy.
"That is why I am here. Time is what I have to give him, and a year it shall be, but no longer."
Severus' curiosity was piqued. "Humor me, Ms. Granger, and leave, I will not get tossed as a knut, one spender to another."
He did not growl his order to leave his office overly loudly, so she began to pace the confines of it.
"Professor, sir, that is all you have to tell him. He has a year. He will have a method to call me, and he definitely has the number to call," she stated with a smirk. Severus now knew how and what the numbers were on his godson's wand. Hermione waved a flighty hand, "Ollivander himself taught me that trick, before you lead that direction, he had a good laugh about muggles conveniently forgetting numbers that they do not want to call."
He just raised an eyebrow.
"Like at bars, taverns, approach a girl, get her number and never call?"
The eyebrow stayed raised.
"Asking where the nearest apparation point or portkey station is and never showing?"
"I know what that meant Ms. Granger, but once again, what does that have to do with me?"
"Just tell him a year, I refuse to wait longer. I thought we have been through enough together, lived together enough, loved each other...a year that we had, another I will give, but that is it."
"They still kill messengers."
"Don't worry Professor, you'll just owe me a dinner."
She was gone with that last sentence and he ended up rubbing his forehead wondering why Draco was being stubborn over a somewhat small issue for so-called people in love. He poured a double of firewhiskey and let the glass sit filled while he waited. He actually hoped they would not have that dinner. How a pathetically human thought.
Draco Malfoy did indeed love her, he always have, and hoped he always would. She made him feel all that muggle fluff, whole, complete, and safe. The passion, he did not know if it was the same, after all, the wait was inching into a year, but he would not yield.
She would marry him, and become his wife, but she would yield to him, and him only. He loved her enough to make her understand how the old magical world worked. He was not stupid, for peace to be present in his home; she would yield, and come to him. He would wait.
Severus Snape walked into the stuffy confines of Diagon Alley once more, carrying a small parcel. The headmaster sent him on a fool's journey into muggle London, into that tourist's trap of Harrod's, for what? "Little teddy, Severus, dressed like the Queen's own guard, even one of the feet has the name embroidered on it."
Severus glanced to the deputy headmistress, so called queen of transfiguration and waited for her explanation.
"Severus, I know that you need to get a few more supplies before term. Truly, it will be a hop and skip," Severus snorted at McGonagall. "Please?"
"This is going to be the last bloody gift that I will pick up for one of your grandchildren." He eyed his two bosses. "Could be filed under 'Bloody Cruel and Unusual Punishments.'"
Said teddy was wrapped in two layers of parcel paper, should even a hint of the fake fur be tucked out.
In front of the apothercary, he noticed stepping his way to Gringott's, a familiar purple hat beckoned his attention.
He walked and stood behind the petite witch in the funny hat, and waited.
She noticed his reflection in the window, not to mention the feeling of being in his overbearing presence. She turned and faced him, her newly shorn curls making her look pixieish.
"You owe me dinner?"
"Then you must allow me to escort you now, term starts soon, if after then, you would have to wait."
"I am tired of waiting."
He tucked Hermione's hand into his elbow and led the way to the apparation point.
Steely gray eyes watched from a distance, a phone in his hand, but the battery was dead.
A/N:
What do you think? Does this one-shot deserve more?
the cat