AN: Alright, hear me out. It's still Thursday in my time zone so technically I'm sticking to the schedule! Honestly, this chapter is a little shorter than usual because this week has just been rough (as I'm sure it's been for everyone). Remember to drink water, breath, and take time for yourself. Self care is so important, there's only one you and you matter 3 And on that note, here's chapter seven. Let me know what you think, love always!
-..-
Harry Potter had never thought he would find himself in a tattoo shop, and one run by Hermione Granger no less.
The space was neat and tidy, as would be expected, and had a cheery atmosphere. Decorated with warm colors, potted plants, framed artwork, and cozy seating created an open and welcoming shop that had 'Hermione' written all over it.
He was inspecting a particularly wonderful watercolor painting of a hummingbird when he heard a door in the rear of the shop open and then shut.
"Harry," Hermione called out happily. She wrapped him in a warm hug that felt far too short. "How have you been?"
"I've been well, you?"
She shrugged but still smiled. "As well as I can be. The shop has been busy, but I'm thankful for that."
Harry looked distracted as he nodded.
She knew that look. It was the expression he wore when he was troubled by something or completely immersed in his own thoughts.
"Is everything alright?"
"I came to talk to you about Rita Skeeter."
Hermione's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Are you here in an official capacity?"
"No, I'm not." He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned. "I'm here as a friend. I really should have come by sooner, but Ginny said you had a handle on things. You always have a handle on things, so I didn't think you would need my help or anything."
"It's alright, Harry." She lay a comforting hand on his shoulder and smiled. "I know you have your hands full with the Auror Department, and I appreciate you coming by to check on me."
"And you're alright?" His eyes were full of sincerity and concern.
"Very much so. Rita Skeeter is reaping her consequences, and her victims were given the voice they deserve."
He gave her a lopsided smile and said, "I was proud of you when I saw that first article. I knew you wouldn't let her get away with printing her lies again."
Hermione thought back to their years in school and frowned. "I should have exposed her sooner."
Harry shook his head firmly. "We can't live with 'should haves' and 'could haves', Hermione. Especially after everything we've…" He cleared his throat. "You helped all those people and exposed the truth. That's better than most."
"How do you always know just what to say?"
His cheeks reddened, and he let out a bashful chuckle. "I had a good friend in school that taught me. She was pretty smart."
Hermione rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Thank you for coming to check on me, Harry. I appreciate it."
"Well, I also came because I haven't seen your shop yet."
"That's true," she said with a frown. "I meant to invite everyone over for the grand opening, but life sort of got away from me for a bit."
"It happens." Harry looked around the shop and said, "It really is impressive, you know. I always knew you'd run something someday, but I always thought it'd be the Ministry."
Hermione laughed. "I get enough headaches without trying to run our entire world. I am much happier where I am."
"I can tell," he said with a smile. "You seem much happier now than you were."
Regrets bubbled up inside her, but she pushed them down again. "I truly love what I do, Harry. I am very happy here."
He nodded and looked once more at the artwork hanging on her walls. "Do you think I ought to get one?"
Hermione blinked in surprise. "Harry, you don't have to get a tattoo just because you came into my shop."
"That's not the only reason," he said with a shrug. "I want to support you, and I think they're really neat. Luna showed me the one you gave her on her ribs."
"Her mother's name?"
Harry nodded. "She told me it was special."
Hermione's smile carried tones of sadness as she explained, "Yes, I enchanted it to grow warm when Luna touches it. The ink recognizes her finger print; this way when she misses her mother, she can have a touch of comfort."
Harry's eyes took on a far off look, seeing through her and into a memory she could only guess at.
She waited patiently for several moments, and when his eyes began to focus again she asked, "Would you like something similar?"
"For Sirius," he said quietly. "And Remus."
Considering him and the names he mentioned, she said, "I think I have a few ideas, but I'll need to sketch them out for you to see. We can sit in my office while I do since it may take me a while."
Harry murmured his agreement and followed her through the back of the shop and into her cozy office. He flopped lazily onto the large sofa across from the fireplace and used his wand to light the wood she already had inside. He watched the flames dance while Hermione busied herself with finding her notebook and starting his tattoo design.
She kept the design on the smaller side, not at all the large pieces she was growing accustom to doing. With it being Harry's first tattoo she didn't want to overwhelm him, and he could always come back to add more later on.
The design was all black ink and rather simple. A crescent moon was drawn in the center of the paper with a black grim curled up beneath it. A small owl drifted in an invisible breeze and, with a little work, would come to perch on the lower point of the moon. Whips of pale gray shadows would drift around the moon and, every so often, would gather to form a faint silhouette of a stag.
When she turned the sketchbook around, her watery gaze was mirrored in Harry's green eyes. He brushed tentative fingers over the image, taking in every detail.
His mouth opened and closed several times before he merely nodded his head.
They quickly readied Hermione's equipment and sanitized one of the work rooms. Harry was surprisingly chipper about the whole process, asking her a hundred questions and chattering away about work. She let him talk, a contended smile on her face.
She loved the normalcy of it. Her years in the muggle world had been wonderful, but she had missed her friends deeply. Harry had always been such pleasant company, never afraid of comfortable silences or long conversations. Especially once he had grown comfortable in the dorms, she would have been hard pressed to find a situation in which Harry didn't have something to say.
When she had finally finished, Harry stood before a mirror and modeled his new shoulder tattoo. She had ended up adding the Sirius constellation above the crescent moon, and the entire image took up the majority of Harry's right shoulder. The magic in the ink was keyed into his finger prints and would grow slightly warm any time he touched it. She had added bits of blue ink to the design to give it more depth and texture, especially to the stag patronus.
"It's perfect, Hermione." Harry's grin stretched from ear to ear and was extremely contagious.
"I'm glad you like it." She pointed to the grim curled up beneath the moon and said, "I thought about adding some life to this bit here, sort of like the owl, but Sirius was always falling asleep at meetings and around Grimmauld Place. It only seemed right for him to sleep through a tattoo as well."
Harry gave a watery chuckle and, with tears in his eyes, said, "He wouldn't want it any other way."
The peace of the afternoon was shattered by the front door banging open.
"Oi, Hermione!"
Harry's eyes widened at the distinct sound of Ginny yelling through the shop.
Hermione only rolled her eyes and shouted back, "We're in here!"
Ginny burst into the room, a rumpled newspaper clutched in one hand and cheeks flushed with excitement. "Hermione, I have the best news!" She glanced over and said, "Hi, Harry," then turned back to Hermione and shoved the newspaper into her hands. "You have to read this immediately."
Taking the horribly wrinkled newspaper and doing her best to flatten it out, Hermione glanced at the title. Her jaw dropped open, and her eyes raced to take in every word on the page.
"What is it?" Harry tried to peer over Hermione's shoulder while pulling on his shirt.
"The Daily Prophet's front page." Hermione read aloud, "Rita Skeeter sentenced in private Wizengamot Court this morning, receives forty year sentence in Azkaban."
Ginny was bouncing on her toes with a wide grin and mischief in her eyes. "She'll be old and wrinkled when she gets out," she crowed. "Ugly and old!"
"Ginny," Hermione reprimanded.
"Oh, come on! You know you're just as thrilled as I am."
It was true. Hermione had hoped for a good outcome to their hard work, but she had never expected this. For once, the Wizengamot had done their job and done it well. It would be just as Ginny had said: Rita Skeeter would be old before she saw the outside of her Azkaban cell again.
And that suited Hermione very well.
—..—
Theo was startled from his book by the sound of his floo igniting. Pansy and Draco stepped smoothly from his fireplace, brushing off soot from their robes and each carrying a newspaper in their hands.
Pansy's smug smile made him immediately set down his book.
"You're welcome," was all she said as she handed him the paper.
Draco tossed his on the coffee table and went to pour the three of them drinks while Theo read.
Theo perused the article with slowly mounting shock, and when he finished, he shook his head with a bewildered smile. "You managed to get her arrested."
"Did you ever doubt me," Pansy asked with a satisfied sip of her drink. "It was child's play."
"I'm honestly just relieved you didn't kill the witch."
Pansy placed a delicate hand against her chest in a mockingly indignant manner. "Theo, I would never."
"Oh you would," Draco argued. "But we wouldn't read about it in the Prophet."
Her smile was devious with a hint of wicked. "Of course you wouldn't."
"I'm impressed you and Granger were able to get along long enough to deal with Skeeter," Draco observed. His tone was casual, but his gaze was calculating. "You never did like her in school."
"I was surprised as well," she agreed with a small smile. "She has changed, though; she's not as tightly wound as she was in school. She might grow on me."
Draco choked on his drink, surprise written across his features as he tried to correct his breathing.
Even Theo gazed at her in shock.
"Boys," she drawled with a roll of her eyes. "Please be adults about this."
"I am," Draco protested through choked gasps. "It's just that you hated her for so long."
"Hate is a strong word."
"And one you used quite often," Theo observed. "Especially in regards to Granger."
"Yes, well." Pansy inspected her nails carefully, her clipped tone of voice telling the two men that the conversation was over as far as she was concerned.
They knew better than to argue with her.
"Speaking of Granger," Draco said to Theo with a pointed look. "Have you been to see her again?"
Theo tried very hard to keep a neutral expression on his face. He couldn't lie to his friends, but telling them about his new apprenticeship did not seem like a good idea either.
"I have," he said carefully. "Why do you ask?"
Draco swirled his glass slowly, gazing at the contents with an unreadable expression. "Merely curious about those pictures Skeeter managed to take. As well as the magical tattoos, of course."
Theo skipped over the first half of what he said entirely and asked, "Thinking about getting one yourself?"
Both Theo and Pansy watched Draco's reaction carefully.
His expression didn't change, and neither did his gaze raise from the amber contents of his glass, but his cheeks became ever so flushed. Unnoticeable to an outsider, but his friends picked up on it immediately.
"I think they're rather interesting," Pansy commented casually. "Rumor has it they're becoming rather common place now."
Theo nodded and said, "I hear most of the major players from school have a few. Weasley, Lovegood, and possibly even Greengrass."
Draco's eyes were guarded when he looked up at them. His brow furrowed slightly when he asked, "Greengrass went there?"
"She's been rather carefree since her affair went public," Pansy said. "I wouldn't be surprised in the least if that rumor was true."
"Can you believe she and Tracey Davis?" Draco scoffed but the corner of his mouth pulled up into an amused smirk. "I knew they were friends in school but…"
"To each their own," Theo said with a shrug. "I like to think that as adults and war veterans we are all entitled to live our lives the way we please."
A quiet fell over them, thoughtful and reverent. They sat together for a while longer, talking quietly and sipping at their drinks, until Pansy and Draco finally decided to leave. Draco lingered behind as Pansy grabbed a bit of floo powder and vanished into the fireplace.
Theo observed his friend for a moment, taking in the tension that always lingered in his shoulders and the seemingly permanent clench of his jaw.
"No one would think less of you for getting one," he said quietly.
Draco didn't look at him. Instead he kept his gaze fixed firmly on the fireplace, his jaw clenching just a little bit tighter.
"Perhaps," was all he said as he snatched a handful of floo powder and vanished through the fireplace.
Draco stepped out of his fireplace and into his dimly lit flat. He released a long breath and made his way to his whiskey cabinet.
After the war, his mother had pushed him to live at Malfoy Manor. Lucius had been sentenced to Azkaban once more, and his mother had gone to France to stay with friends, so she had insisted he stay to look after the manor.
He had managed one night in the place before fleeing.
His flat was in Magical London, modest but still quite spacious. He had needed a blank canvas, a place without dark memories that lingered in every corner like ghosts. No shattered chandeliers, or dark dungeons, or demolished furniture. No floors haunted by the screams of classmates or bedrooms tarnished by cruel masters. Just a place with a bed for him to sleep.
Narcissa had understood and stopped asking.
Draco poured himself a generous glass of firewhiskey and sat before his unlit fireplace. The setting sun illuminated the space in a pale light, casting shadows about the empty room. He was still for a moment, letting the darkness creep in around him. But as the shadows began to take on familiar shapes, he snapped his wand towards the fireplace and lit the logs.
His gaze fell to his left forearm and lingered on the place he knew his mark lay beneath his sleeve.
He could let her hide it, he thought. He could let her inflict whatever pain she thought he deserved because he knew he deserved even more than that, and he could let her cover the physical evidence of the darkness that lived inside him.
But a whisper inside him knew he deserved that mark. He deserved to be branded and to live with the scars he inflicted trying to remove it. Those signs of weakness, those scars that showed his deepest regrets and darkest moments; he couldn't let her see those.
Theodore, in his opinion, deserved the beautiful artwork Granger had given him. He deserved happiness, and hope, and forgiveness. He deserved good, honest friends and a bright future because, in the end, he had never truly been a part of any of it aside from the mark his father had forced him to bear.
Nausea built in Draco's stomach and crept up his throat. He downed the rest of the glass and threw it into the fireplace.
Draco Malfoy didn't deserve such kindness.