At Hogwarts, Draco could admit he'd often wondered what it was like to be part of Potter's little gang.
He didn't think it involved this much research and paperwork.
He did think it would involve a swotty little overlord.
Because gods if Granger wasn't still so fucking annoying.
Everything had to be done by the book. Everything had to be checked not once, not twice, but thrice. Every affidavit, every statement, every bit of research or evidence copied in triplicate.
She had the audacity to give him a Merlin-damned schedule. Like he worked for her or something. Three days per week he'd Floo directly to her office and fold himself behind his designated research desk and read through the mountain of prison paperwork.
However, the more meticulous and studious side of Draco could appreciate this quality in Granger. Instead of barrelling into the prison, wands raised, demanding answers (Potter's chosen course of action if he had his way, Draco guessed), Granger would have everything done above board. On parchment at least. He'd remembered a fair few times at school when she'd employed her more cunning and cutthroat side to achieve her end goal. He wondered if Marietta Edgecombe still had the pustules on her forehead.
She made a show of introducing Draco to the little cadre of advocates and legal aides employed by the firm, giving him a far-too flattering introduction as a major benefactor behind the initiative and so interested in being hands-on he'd be personally working with her to ensure it got off the ground.
She had him greet every one of these bleeding-heart minions and Draco promptly forgot all of their names and faces.
Draco knew she had her own cases to work on in addition to this clandestine project, and so quelled the urge to interrupt her every few minutes. She had a rather important court appearance in the upcoming months—the parole eligibility hearing for Gregory Goyle.
Draco silently congratulated himself on this quiet peace that reigned in her office in the name of civility. He read through delivery reports, infirmary reports, redacted psychological evaluations, medical and potions supply lists, visitor logs, disciplinary records. Draco combed through them all separately; he'd begin cross-referencing once he had a better idea of how the information was organised and where he could sense discrepancies.
After two weeks of practically breathing down his neck and making sure he knew how to perform a simple Duplication Charm on any relevant notes, Draco finally snapped.
"Did you want to do this yourself?"
"I'm just making sure you have a proper organisational flow of the information."
"It is organised Granger, if one knows how to read."
"And have you made sure to—?"
"Yes, and if you ask me one more time whether I've made sure to keep the reports separated by type, I won't think twice about throwing a Slicing Hex at your hair."
She didn't respond to his childish threat but to narrow her eyes.
"This needs to be done right, Malfoy and I—"
"So trust me to do it right then! Actions over words, isn't that what you said on the first day?"
Spitting her own words back at her successfully shut her up. Draco filed away that observation.
She tossed her hair over her shoulder and let him carry on without interruption after that.
She would clear her throat and inquire about his tea preferences at exactly two points during the day and lunch at exactly 12:45.
Perhaps not so annoying.
Perhaps more than a little pleasing to the eye.
The Weasel stopped by in the beginning of his working relationship with Granger. They flipped each other off a few times behind her back. He'd loudly ask Granger if she felt safe and tried to get her to take early lunches. She always huffily waved off his concern and said she didn't need a minder and that Malfoy behaved himself.
"We're not at Hogwarts anymore Ronald, leave him be. He's been perfectly tolerable," he heard her whisper-argue at a volume he clearly wasn't meant to hear. Draco had smirked at the Weasel as he'd taken this leave.
Eventually he'd begrudgingly said "Malfoy," in greeting. Mostly he ignored Draco entirely once he'd determined him a non-threat to Granger's well-being and that suited Draco just fine.
As it had after his father's death, the dream caused by Theo reared its shimmering, hazy head. The Granger in this office would never be that version of Granger. Not that she ever was, but Weasley made damn sure it wouldn't happen.
But while Draco used to wonder a lot about that woman in his dream, he now found he only harboured a burning curiosity for the attractive woman he shared a workspace with thrice a week.
Questions he couldn't ask constantly lingered on the tip of his tongue:
"What's making you sigh like that?"
"Why do you always ask if I want tea or lunch?"
"What do you do outside of this office that seems to comprise your whole world?"
"Did you really mean all those kind things you said about me to the legal peons or was that all puffery for our real work?"
"How come Weasley no longer drops by? Did you scold him for being an overbearing cretin?"
Towards the end of Draco's required time for the day, she'd put aside her own, paid work, and ask him to summarise his findings for the day.
The first time it happened, Draco didn't know how to handle her full attention. He'd expected Granger to lay down her quill and snappily demand he deliver a report.
Instead, Draco faced a keen pair of eyes, focused on nothing but him, eager to hear of his contribution.
"What did you find today?"
He didn't have much for the first few weeks while they waited for the proper clearance to grant visitation access to Azkaban and set a schedule.
But he dedicated a good amount of brain space outside the hours in Granger's physical presence turning over possible motives and connections in his mind. What should they even be looking for in that daunting pile of parchment?
His other adult activities continued to be so dull that his mind had no choice but to be occupied by his conversations with Granger. Because when he wasn't employing his cover as "overly attentive benefactor," Draco's hobbies outside of this little covert operation were: tie up loose ends with his father's death, ensure the Manor didn't fall into ill-repair with him residing elsewhere, and attend charity galas.
Hardly anything as mentally stimulating as the hours he spent in a legal office, embroiled in a clandestine investigation and trying to ignore how loud one woman sounded in his head even when she didn't speak.
He heard the tinkling of feminine laughter coming from his mother's favoured parlour. An odd sound, Narcissa's laugh; not because the laugh itself was odd, but rather the oddness resided in how often it occurred these days.
The cause for the new frequency of this sound bouncing off the richly panelled walls of Malfoy Manor sat at her side. Andromeda popped round a few times a week resulting in the aforementioned laughter and less requests from his mother for Draco to join her for either dinner or tea.
His cautious steps led him to a further hesitant state of facing his aunt. She always regarded him with a warm curiosity, while Narcissa seemed to suffer from a tense excitement at every banal interaction between aunt and nephew.
"Hello Draco," said Andromeda, as if he would bolt at the sound of his name.
"Hello," he replied. He kept it brief with this new regular presence in his mother's life, unsure of how to establish a relationship with someone he should have two decades' worth of memories with already.
"Hello dear. To what do I owe this visit?" asked Narcissa.
"I only stopped by to see if you needed any help with some of those artifacts from the chamber below the drawing room. And to grab some documents from Father's study."
"Did you oversee your new advocacy project today?"
"I did."
"And how is Hermione?" piped up Andromeda.
"Hermione?" asked his mother and raised a brow.
Draco wasn't sure how to answer his aunt's question. How truthful should he be here? Bossy, prissy, irritating, so fucking loud, and for all her frustratingly brilliant traits, also happened to be rather winsome and inspiring?
"She's um, ambitious, I suppose. She is very passionate about her work."
"Yes, I find her a rather admirable young woman," Andromeda said carefully. The air grew stilted, thick with all the missing years between sisters, lost to a pointless war and complications of family pride.
"I didn't mean to intrude," Draco offered, rescuing the room from perhaps a conversation they'd either not yet had or avoided having. "I only came by to… well I'll just see to Father's study. I'll leave you to your evening."
He didn't hear any laughter on his way out.
Draco received an anxious visitor in the form of Blaise when he returned home from another day of life as a common working stiff.
"Firewhisky?" Draco greeted upon seeing the other man seated in an armchair and bouncing a knee in agitation.
"If you'll join me."
Blaise did not immediately reveal his reason for the impromptu evening intrusion. Apparently, he needed to work up to this task by imbibing liquid courage and then irritating Draco.
"Pansy says you're working with Granger now."
"Temporarily. I haven't been by to see Pansy in a bit, how is she?"
"She's better now. This thing with Greg has been good for her."
"If a bit out of nowhere. I didn't think they had much in common."
Blaise shot him a puzzled look. "You know, for having him almost joined at your side for years, it's a wonder how you never really knew Greg at all."
"Why are you actually here?"
"Are we not going to discuss this sudden cordial Granger association?"
"Not sure what we'd need to discuss. I'm well over my little meltdown from years ago, thank you."
Blaise gave him a searching, sincere look that made bile rise in his throat.
"Do you need a friend or–?"
"I don't need a bloody Mind Healer, and if I did, I wouldn't use you."
"Thank you."
"Please. It's because we're friends, not because I doubt your skills as a quack."
"Lovely. Such confidence in my abilities."
"So did you actually come here to just drink my liquor and regret your career choice?"
Blaise fiddled with the tumbler.
"I'm worried about Theo. He's not been himself. Acting odd."
"All Theo ever does is act odd. It's his perpetual state of existence."
"Ha bloody ha. He's more… withdrawn. He doesn't… confide in me like he used to."
Draco hated the feeling of needing to dispense advice. But alas, it was an unfortunate side effect of having friends.
"Look I know you're one of those nauseating couples who share literally everything. But he's an Unspeakable. What do you think he's not telling you?"
Blaise stared forlornly into his drink. "I don't know but something is going on and not only is it bothering him, I think he's… afraid. He has this look. The one he'd have at school when he knew he'd be going home. To his father. And fuck, how do I help him? If he's in trouble and he won't tell me, how do I help him?"
The prickling envy. Draco hadn't felt it in a while, but it emerged now; brought on by that open desperation in Blaise's eyes: How do I help the one person I love more than anything?
How did one come to earn such devotion?
"Look, I'm… I'm a pretty terrible person to ask, if I'm being honest. But, if I were Theo, and I felt stuck, if I felt like I had run out of options… backed so far into a corner and the only way out was a truly terrible act… then I suppose what would help is knowing I had a safe place to land… when it all inevitably fell apart."
Blaise tilted his head in concern, but Draco cut in before he could give voice to something sentimental and shove it in Draco's ungrateful direction.
"I'm sure whatever's on his mind he'll eventually give some cryptic, convoluted explanation that only you can decipher."
That didn't stop Blaise from being kind anyway.
"You're not, you know."
"Not what?"
"A terrible person."
Draco instigated an immediate subject change. "So, this charity event thing at the Avery estate. You'll both be there right?"
"Absolutely. Is this the one for orphans?"
"I thought it was the one for dragons?"
"Maybe we're both right and it's orphaned dragons."
"Doubtful, it's never that exciting," Draco sighed. "Well, I'll observe Theo if you want and let you know if I think he's being... less Theo, I suppose."
After Blaise had left, Draco poured himself another glass and wondered at how he seemed to constantly miss the stray threads of those unravelling around him. He couldn't piece together Pansy, his mother, and now he'd add Theo to the list. Just like this fruitless endeavour of Potter and Granger, Draco existed in a constant state of staring at a puzzle with too many pieces and no defined border.
He'd already seen the insistent speculation in the Daily Prophet about when the world at-large could expect an engagement announcement for Granger and Weasley. The gossip columns this morning were simply adamant that the pair had definitely declared their intent to wed, and had included a blurry photo of Granger with a pair of gloves on, claiming it a tactic to hide her ring finger from public view.
Draco kept stealing covert glances at her hand all day, but had yet to actually see her finger to confirm if it did indeed have some gaudy, tacky bauble adorning it.
"Can I help you with something?"
Draco smirked and leaned back in his chair.
"Are congratulations in order?"
"What?"
Draco held up his own hand and tapped on his ring finger.
"Oh, that ridiculous article. No, of course not."
The decisive and huffy way she'd dismissed the thought surprised him. As well as the notion that she apparently considered the idea of an engagement to her long-time boyfriend "ridiculous."
He lowered his gaze to his research instead when a tentative question broke the silence.
"It's strange isn't it?"
Draco merely stared back up in reply.
"Not strange just…" She looked conflicted at how to define just how exactly this milestone perplexed her. "Strange in thinking about being married, I suppose. As a concept. And at this age."
He shrugged. "I don't think it's strange."
She fiddled with her quill.
"Well either way, that article is completely false. I'm not engaged."
He had no idea why he asked in the first place. He had no idea why she felt she had to answer him at all. Draco returned to his work, but Granger spoke up again.
"May I interrupt you for a minute before you leave for the day?"
"It's your office Granger."
She came round her desk and stood to lean against the front.
"I've heard from Azkaban and the Ministry this morning. We can begin our in-person interviews next week."
Draco frowned and rubbed the back of his neck, wondering why she'd saved this reveal for the final minutes of their time together. "That's good news I suppose. But we've yet to find anything relevant and…"
He gestured a hand over the pile of inconclusiveness on his desk.
"And it means we'll be flying a bit blind," she finished.
"We won't know which questions will get us the answers we need."
"Exactly," she agreed grimly. "I was thinking the best course of action, provided we don't have any working theories before the visit, is to develop a script of questions. We'll ask the same ones of each inmate and at least that way have something that looks like a proper survey for reference."
Draco nodded thoughtfully and returned to the document in front of him. If they could just find something, some thread to pull, then they wouldn't be wasting their time next week and he'd be one step closer to repaying Potter this favor.
"There's one other thing I wanted to address," piped up Granger.
"Yes?"
"Will you be all right when we visit the prison?"
"Of course, Granger, why ever not?"
"I wasn't sure if you… well you must have some unpleasant memories of visiting your father there."
She'd get one warning.
"I said I'd be fine."
She blew right past it.
"I'd understand, you know, if you were uncomfortable. Especially after… after he was murdered there. You don't need to be embarrassed if it's too much. I'd understand."
Draco stood and leaned forward, resting his palms on the hard, wooden surface.
"You'd understand?" he repeated hollowly.
The desk beneath his hands was not enough to keep him there. Especially with the pity lurking in her eyes, the nervousness in her stance, the mere thought that she had any concept of his past suffering and how it might affect him now.
Before he could control himself, he strode to where she stood. Closer than he should. Especially when he felt that burning beneath his skin that boiled over then erupted in a disproportionate fury he hadn't felt towards her, towards anyone, in so long.
"You'd understand?" He spat again when she said nothing to his initial echo. "What is there for you to understand? You don't know, how could you fucking know? What it was like to have him as a father? What it was like to visit him? How could you even begin to understand how it felt to lose a parent? Don't talk about what you don't understand. You always did think you know everything," he finished in a sneer.
He expected her to cower. To whisper out a hurried and embarrassed apology.
But he'd attacked her and so she'd defend herself.
"Excuse me? I don't know what it's like to… ?"
She stared up at him, just as challenging, just as angry. He'd inspired a fury within her too, it would seem.
"Do you know what I did to my own parents before the war? I had to Obliviate them, had to completely wipe my existence from their minds. So yes, Malfoy, I know that feeling of losing a parent. I didn't even say goodbye, just took their memories and made sure they were happy and safe. I never thought I'd live long enough to see them again. And when I did? It took three different specialists to restore their memories. So don't you dare tell me I can't relate. I almost lost both."
"Have them back now, don't you?" he retaliated harshly. "My father is gone, he's dead, and I can't ever—"
His breath hitched. Suddenly, his anger at Granger decided to take its leave of his voice, the room, the universe.
The great swamp of Nothing he'd mired in for months inverted itself. It spat him out and hurled him straight into a freefall of Everything.
Hurt. Betrayed. Confused. Shocked. Remorseful. Exhausted. Sad. Properly fucking sad.
A crushing, clenching sensation in his chest. That powerful, sneaking punch of a feeling.
Grief, he thought, he identified, once he let the swirling emotions coalesce into the Something he'd been avoiding.
He staggered back from her and sat in one of the plush seats in front of her desk. After a beat, she sat in the one next to him.
"I think there's probably nothing worse than carrying around regret," she said, a simple and soft acknowledgment of a terrible ache. "Especially when it concerns unsaid things."
"Tell me what it's like."
"What?"
"Always being right."
She let out a weak chuckle. It sounded of a despondency, of the shared sadness of letting lingering guilt fester into something consumptive and chronic, and it propelled Draco to lean forward and rest his forearms on his knees.
It then propelled something far too honest out of his mouth.
"I was optimistic, I suppose, before it happened. Before he was murdered. Those last few times I visited… things were better. There was a… a thaw, I guess I'd say. He seemed more humble, more human. Like perhaps he was more willing to try. I don't know what our relationship would have looked like, but I was robbed of it. And maybe he… maybe he deserved it."
"Oh, Draco—I mean, Malfoy, I—"
"Draco is fine," he cut in. Eager to accept both her goodwill as well as his given name from her. Not the way he'd heard her say it in his dream, but just as alluring, if not more so, to hear it now. Imbued with a softness, a tentative caressing of the two syllables that spoke of care. Not just pity for a fellow human on the verge of a breakdown, but a legitimate concern for someone she held in some regard.
It made him throw out another confession.
"I haven't known how to feel about it all."
"There's no right way," she said simply. "Though I find talking about it is as good a start as any."
Another one couldn't hurt to divulge.
"My mother seems to think having me immediately fill his role as head of the family is good for me. Or maybe it's good for her. She can retire from society as a widow and I must make the requisite appearances at every charity function ensuring our name remains well-regarded."
"What do you want to do?"
"No bloody clue," he confessed again and straightened up to run a hand through his hair. "But to address your initial concern, I promise I can handle the prison visits."
He'd hit his emotional honesty limit for the day. He'd also reached his tolerance for prolonged eye contact.
Draco blinked and looked at his watch. "It's rather late isn't it?"
"Oh! Yes, I suppose it is. Sorry to have kept you."
"It's fine, I wanted to look through the supplies reports from last year once more anyway."
When he returned home that night and retired to bed, Draco stared at the curtains of his four-poster, wondering what had made him unfurl like that in front of Granger. He'd had plenty of people in his life try to get him to open up about his father. Theo and Pansy, some of his closest friends since childhood. Blaise, an actual, licensed Mind Healer. Even his own mother had made a few stilted attempts. But he'd rebuffed them all.
Maybe Granger made sense because they'd known the same horrors. They'd fought the same fight, cared enough to risk their very souls for those around them, and now felt left with nothing but a confusing feeling of: now fucking what?
As he rolled over and tried to sleep, Draco realised he hadn't asked himself that question once since he'd started working with Granger.
This, this having a purpose. It felt good.
Draco found himself staying later and later in her office, desperate to find some logical reason for their need to uncover a wrong-doing.
Granger also stayed late, though he didn't expect anything less of a workaholic like her.
Draco swallowed all the personal questions for that, too:
"How can you be so dedicated to this job?"
"Doesn't Weasel miss your presence?"
"Are you enjoying this too? Should I be enjoying this at all?"
"Is it strange that we make a good team?"
Wizards and witches mingled all around them in the grand ballroom of the Avery Estate, but a quick scan of the crowd told a different tale.
"I feel overdressed," complained Theo.
"More like unfashionable," countered Blaise.
"The next time we have to get all gussied up for potions research, I'm wearing a suit instead."
"I thought this night was for orphans?"
"I heard dragons," Draco asserted.
"I'm sure we're all right and it's orphaned dragons with lofty aspirations of researching potions."
The trio wore their nicest sets of custom dress robes, yet the majority of the attendees tonight had opted for Muggle style formalwear.
"Seems to be the new trend. Mind you, I think it'd do wonders for our physiques. What say you Draco? Should we join the masses as they further blend our two cultures into one?" asked Theo.
"I'm perfectly comfortable in my dress robes," said Draco curtly.
"I think it's a rather nice shift. Wondrous to see it on a pureblood property."
"The younger Avery married a half-blood," explained Blaise.
"Interesting. Speaking of interesting, not that it does anything for me, but Draco surely you can appreciate the female form and how these dresses seem to accentuate it."
Draco snorted into his firewhisky. "Theo, I will pay you many Galleons to hear you say that to a woman tonight."
"Granger has a nice female form."
"And you would know this how?"
"Because she's just arrived in all her divine femininity," noted Blaise.
Draco whipped his head towards the estate entrance.
Theo's blunt statement proved correct.
She'd arrived with Sterling and Draco couldn't help the curiosity about both their respective romantic partners being absent. Her employer guided her gamely down the staircase, snagged glasses of champagne for the both of them, then with a quiet word in her ear, set her loose upon the room of potential benefactors.
He expected something entirely different from Granger. He anticipated an awkward, nervous thing. Surrounded by wealth and trying desperately to fit in, to prove herself, like she used to do at school. She'd vie for the attention of everyone around her to notice her brilliance, to put her stamp on the world. So fucking loud in her opinions, her answers in class, her assertions of how to right an injustice.
Now her loudness manifested in an entirely different manner. When Draco regarded her from a distance, he saw an attractive woman, in command of her beauty and wit. She knew how to bend a room to her will, she would not be cowed by any person at this event no matter their status, net worth, or lineage. One had to prove themselves to Hermione Granger, not the other way round.
Draco watched group after group of people approach her, and he wondered if she had any idea of the power she wielded. A cunning woman like her, she had to know, yet to an outsider she accomplished it all with such an impressively artless air. Draco noted the perfect posture, the humble smile, and when the din of conversation around him reached lower volumes at various points, he heard the familiar prim, carrying affect: "Actually, I think you'll find the statistics are rather shocking. It's a simple matter of resource allocation and it's within the power of the Wizengamot to restore balance. My firm recently embarked on an endeavour to—"
"Well, this is intriguing," piped up Theo. Blaise shot him a look of fond exasperation.
"Care to elaborate?" asked Draco, less fond.
"Not particularly. Whether it becomes more or less intriguing will reveal itself shortly."
Draco shot him a blank stare.
"She's spotted you and I think would like to say hello."
Draco resisted the urge to again whip his head in her direction and instead took a measured sip from his glass and performed a slow half-turn.
She approached in all her self-possessed grace, wearing a black silk gown with the subtle gleams of gold jewelry shining at her wrists, neck, and ears. Pansy, were she present, would probably have some quip at the ready about Granger dressing far too modestly for a woman of her career trajectory and current social standing. But Draco had already mentally agreed with Theo's original assessment. Her gown spoke of refinement and a not insignificant number of Galleons, yet the understated silhouette meant one noticed the woman, not the garment.
What the hell could Weasley possibly be busy with tonight?
"Hello, Draco."
Granger spoke confidently as a general rule of thumb, but his given name she hesitantly offered the air, as if unsure the two syllables formed a name at all, but rather some obscure concept she'd yet to grasp.
"Good evening, Granger."
Her hesitant smile at him turned into a more genial one when she spotted the other two wizards.
"Hello Blaise, Theodore."
"Theo, please."
"More drinks?" inquired Blaise. Theo and Draco nodded but Granger politely declined. Blaise pecked Theo's cheek before heading towards the bar.
Granger turned to Theo with a bright smile. "How long have you two been together?"
"Since Fifth Year."
"That's lovely, congratulations."
"Thank you, we're very happy."
"Yes, yes, everyone in a 100-kilometre radius is aware of your happiness," said Draco wryly.
Granger let out a light laugh.
"Is Ronald not escorting you this evening?" asked Theo, snuffing out her laugh.
"No," Granger said flatly and offered no explanation for her boyfriend's absence. She expertly took the focus off her relationship by asking a returning Blaise about his work.
"Congratulations to you as well, I read your paper on the intersection between neuroscience and psychology as it pertains to dream states in magical beings. I was particularly impressed with the amount of Muggle journals you cited. Most of your contemporaries don't bother."
"Their loss, really," replied Blaise. "They're missing out on so much ground work already there."
"Well, if you ever need any Muggle scholarly journal recommendations, I'm happy to provide some."
"Interested in dreams, Hermione?"
It was Theo who spoke. Theo who deployed his penetrating stare on Granger. Theo who then shifted it to Draco, then back to Granger again. Theo who seemed to actively want to die by Draco's hand tonight.
"Not particularly," she said. "Though I enjoyed Blaise's paper on the subject. I think you covered it quite well enough for my taste. Are you planning on publishing anything else?"
"I have some case studies on trauma and recovery."
"That would certainly be a welcome addition to the field considering recent events," she enthused, then blanched, perhaps remembering her present company.
"A war will do that," stated Theo, increasing the discomfort level of the conversation by ten-fold.
"Ah yes, I suppose so," replied a disarmed Granger. The first time that night Draco had seen her flustered.
"Well, if you'll excuse me, I have a few more groups I'm hoping to speak with before the night's out. Enjoy the rest of your evening. I'll see you Monday, Draco."
Theo had that stupid, singular stare that attempted to convey some great meaning and he directed it at Draco as Granger took her leave.
Draco rolled his eyes. Yes, the woman was gorgeous, but not only was she unavailable for Weasel reasons, she was perpetually unavailable to Draco regardless of the Weasel association.
He had strange, disruptive dreams that night: of his father waltzing around the Manor's ballroom with his mother, of house elves playing violins, and a surreal third act of Granger locked in a cell in Azkaban.
Disruptive enough that he almost called a house-elf for a few drops of Dreamless Sleep when the idea slammed into him.
Dreamless Sleep potion. Or rather, an almost complete lack of its use during a several month period for many of the prisoners.
It was a controlled substance and monitored very carefully, especially at Azkaban. Draco knew of the detailed logs kept on medicinal potions, he'd seen the reports with his own eyes. Though many prisoners had it noted in their medical charts that they'd experienced trouble sleeping or severe insomnia, the Dreamless Sleep supply remained untouched for a significant length of time.
It might not be much, but something was better than nothing.
Draco woke the next morning to a very curious story just opposite the society pages of the Sunday Prophet. The orphaned dragons' potions research party not being a particularly notorious affair, gossip reigned supreme instead.
Namely, one bit of gossip.
A black and white moving photograph of Ron Weasley with a suitcase and levitating boxes, moving out of the home he shared with Hermione Granger.
A/N: thanks for reading! And thank you to my beta mrsbutlertron. Find me on tumblr: heyjude19-writing. Next chapter on June 15.