Hello strangers. I'm back. Again. With two chapters actually done this time (saving one for later ;) ), so I'm hoping to build some momentum and get some chapters stockpiled so I don't take forever to update again (who am I kidding? I have a weakness for writer's block and youtube).

Thank you for the reviews! I appreciate that you all (or at least some of you) think I'm staying true to the source material and characters. I've never understood fanfics that rewrite the characters and change them so much they don't remind us of the originals we loved, so I'm glad I'm keeping pace with what we'd expect out of this pairing.

Please let me know what you all think! It really does help shape my writing, so I appreciate your feedback :)

Love,

Cherry


"I'm conducting research, Ronald." Hermione interjected, stepping between the two men. She smiled tightly at Ron, who glanced down at her before stepping back and giving a cursory sneer at Draco. "I had to purchase a book and ran into Malfoy."

"Oh." Ron seemed to calm down at that, much to Hermione's annoyance. What right did he have to police her choices? Especially when he was already with another?

"But we're on our way to dinner." Hermione looked to Draco, almost pleadingly, and his expression shifted into an almost evil-looking smirk.

"I'd never miss such a date." He confirmed, looking from Hermione to Ron. "I'd be a fool to pass up such an opportunity."

While Hermione turned red from embarrassment, Ron turned red from anger. He knew the dig was directed at him. A suggestion that he'd lost something great and that made him a fool. He went to speak (or more accurately, argue), when Hermione continued.

"Yes, it's a new place. In London." Hermione said, looking to Draco for support. He knew what she was doing; using him to get back at her ex, and Draco didn't mind. Mainly because he enjoyed making Ron squirm.

"It's French." He supplemented, hoping that Ron knew how much Hermione liked French food. "La Petite Cuillère." Draco used the French name, knowing Ron wouldn't be able to speak French. While it was juvenile, Draco was enjoying making the man feel inferior.

"I don't know how it will possibly compare to Mimmy's French food. That duck confit was divine." Hermione gushed and Draco raised an eyebrow. She was really going there, was she? Well, he could keep up.

"Well, Mimmy, just as I, love having you as a guest. You're welcome at our table anytime."

"Mimmy's a freed house elf employed by Malfoy. You haven't lived until you've eaten her cooking." Hermione turned to Ron to explain. He'd been standing there, mouth slightly ajar as the two shared in conversation. As if he was a bystander in all of this.

Well, two could play at that game.

"I've had some delicious meals lately as well too. Lavender's a wonderful cook." He held up the cookbook in his hand. "It's a birthday gift."

Hermione's expression soured at the book, but not for the reason Ron had hoped.

"Famous Family Recipes for the Family Witch? That book is absolutely barbaric, Ronald." She chided. "Not only does it condone the exploitation of fame, it promotes sexism."

Disappointed that she wasn't as jealous as he, Ron blustered.

"Mum's onion soup recipe is in here! It's heritage!"

"No, heritage is your mother passing the recipe down to you, not putting it in a book for all to see! That's just a publicity stunt." Hermione's eyes widened a bit as she realised she'd finally said what she'd always thought about Ron's desire for attention. It was never something she'd understood, as she wished for nothing but to fade back into obscurity, but Ron had always wanted more, and thus she'd been subjected to it. Now, no longer bound by his desires, Hermione spoke her truth, however unappreciated it was.

"Well excuse me for trying to buy my girlfriend something she might enjoy." Ron returned, his neck bright red with shame and frustration.

"By buying her something to show her how famous you are for being in a book literally titled with the word 'Famous'?" Draco muttered, agreeing with Hermione. While he wished to fade into obscurity because he'd been infamous, Draco had always found those that wished to be well known rather irritating. Maybe it explained why he didn't like Ron.

"Oh shut it, Malfoy. No one even wants to hear you speak."

Nope. Draco just didn't like Ron.

"I do." Hermione retorted. "At least he has something to say that doesn't just waste oxygen."

At that, Ron sputtered, and Hermione turned to Draco.

"Shall we make our purchases?"

"We shall." Draco confirmed, putting his elbow out for Hermione to take. "I'd hate to miss our reservation."

Without hesitation, Hermione looped her hand through the crux of Draco's arm and spared Ron a fleeting glance as they passed by him. "Lovely to see you, Ronald." She commented, not looking back as they descended the stairs.

"Sorry about that." Hermione breathed an apology as they approached the counter with their purchases. "I don't know what came over me." She smiled at Daniel, who responded with a shy smile of his own, looking between Hermione and Draco.

"Granger, you are by far the most competitive person I've met. Of course that's how that interaction turned out." Draco stood close to Hermione, enjoying how the man at the counter silently rang her up. Not so chummy now, are we? "But I'm a little surprised you didn't react to the whole 'girlfriend' thing. You only took issue with the book choice, not his having regressed to some twit like Lavender Brown." Draco chuckled naughtily as Hermione swatted his arm.

"You leave Lavender out of this. It's not her fault she's so simple." The two dissolved into giggles and Daniel handed the pair their purchases in two brown paper bags, too gobsmacked to speak. And here he'd been thinking that maybe now that Hermione was single, he'd have a shot with her.

Hermione and Draco left Flourish and Blott's together, knowing not where Ron was, but still together nonetheless.

"Thank you for going along with that." Hermione said, smiling up at Draco who nodded.

"Happy to be of service. No, really, any time you need to humiliate Weasley, owl me, I'll come as quickly as I can." He looked better - Hermione decided - than he had when they'd first run into each other that afternoon. Happier. Healthier.

They walked toward the Leaky Cauldron together, albeit slowly, knowing that they had no intention of going to a French restaurant in London called the Little Spoon. Draco was disappointed, feeling the high of spending time not thinking about his troubles for once. He didn't want it to end.

"Do you want to get ice cream?" Hermione asked hesitantly, pointing to Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour behind Draco. "I haven't had any in ages."

"Neither have I." Draco agreed, unable to recall the last time he'd had ice cream. His father had never cared for sweets or frivolity, and ice cream was both. The two walked into the ice cream parlour and Draco gestured for Hermione to order first. She gave him a sideways glare.

"Is it because I'm a woman?" She asked.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, Granger, your gender means you simply couldn't wait to order after me." Secretly, there was a little bit of gentlemanly manners fueling his deferment to Hermione, but mostly, he just couldn't make up his mind. Did he want strawberry ice cream? Mint with fudge? Cheesecake with bits of biscuit? The options were endless, and Draco didn't know where to start.

"I'll take a vanilla cone, please, Florean." Hermione addressed the owner, who happily presented her with the plainest option on the menu.

"A vanilla cone." Draco repeated. "Granger, this man has triple chocolate with caramel and nuts, and you chose a vanilla cone?"

"If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to pick your own." Hermione sniffled. "Not that I recall offering you any of mine."

"Fine." Draco turned to Florean, who looked just as confused as Daniel and Ron to see this pairing. "I'll take the triple chocolate please."

"Right away." Florean reached into the case to scoop the dark brown ice cream onto a cone, and Hermione gave Draco a pointed stare.

"Don't think you'll be getting any of this when you've decided that that monstrosity is too decadent for your taste buds."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Draco snorted and while he so desperately longed to pay for them both, he let Hermione to prove he wasn't a misogynist. They sat together at one of the tables in the back and as Hermione licked her cone, Draco took a bite straight into his. He regretted it almost immediately, unable to withstand the freezing cold of the dessert, and nearly spat it out onto the table. Hermione laughed and attempted to hand him a napkin, but Draco refused, bracing a hand on the edge of the table while he swallowed the bite. He moaned as the headache set in from eating an icy treat, pinching the bridge of his nose. Hermione continued to laugh, tears welling in her eyes as she watched Draco dramatically clutch his hand to his chest as though to make sure his heart was still beating despite almost dying from the ice cream headache he was enduring.

"Have you never eaten ice cream before?" She asked between laughing, wiping her eyes free of wetness. "You're an absolute mess." She leaned forward on her elbows, licking her cone casually as though to show Draco how a normal person would eat ice cream.

"It's been a while." Draco defended. "And by 'a while' I mean since I was a child and had a much greater margin to incur brain damage."

Hermione nearly guffawed, throwing her head back at Draco's joke. He nearly considered taking another bite of his cone, since it made Hermione so happy, but really didn't feel he could handle it.

"Oh come here, you have chocolate all over your face." Hermione ushered Draco forward, and he leaned over the table, waiting patiently as she wiped his face clean with a small stack of napkins. When she wasn't looking, Draco leaned down and licked her vanilla cone, much to her dismay.

"You little ferret." She gasped. "I said you couldn't have any of this!"

"And now I see why," Draco bantered. "That is the best vanilla ice cream I've ever tasted. Come, let me have another taste." He leaned forward playfully and Hermione yanked the cone away from him.

"Absolutely not, you thief!" She greedily licked and bit her ice cream so there would be none for Draco, and soon she was met with a pain in her head that indicated that she, too, didn't know how to eat ice cream.

"Oh...oh no." She whimpered, placing her fingers to her temple as her eyes fluttered shut.

"Is something wrong?" Draco smirked, leaning back in his chair to watch the sight before him. Hermione struggled to answer, holding a finger out to Draco as she swallowed thickly. Casually licking his (admittedly excessively decadent) cone, patiently waiting for Hermione to fight the pain. Well, not so patiently. He was a Malfoy, after all.

"Honestly, Granger, I think you're pitching quite the fit over something so nominal." He raised an eyebrow lazily, though if anyone looked closely, they would notice the quirk of his lip as Hermione's eyes shot to his.

"I'm pitching a fit? Weren't you the one, just moments ago, covered in chocolate and caramel whinging like a spoilt child who had never experienced any sort of discomfort before?"

"I think that's a bit dramatic." Draco tipped his ice cream toward Hermione. "Even spoilt children experience discomfort. I'll never forget the time Grobbel 'forgot' to press my robes and I had a wrinkle in my shirt that dug into my back all day."

"Grobbel?" Hermione asked, her headache finally subsiding. "Another house-elf?"

"Yes." Draco confirmed. "Absolutely hated anything related to children, so naturally, my father gave him to me as a gift when I was ten."

"He gifted you a living creature? That's barbaric."

"That's life as one of the sacred twenty-eight." Draco corrected, though Hermione noted he didn't say it with pride, just indifference. "Anyway, Grobbel despised me, not just due to my owning him, but additionally because I was the exact type of petulant child he loathed, so he never did anything quite right. My morning porridge was always lukewarm, my trousers always a little too starchy, the blankets on my bed tucked a little too tight, so I fired him."

Hermione paused, mid-lick, to look at Draco. "You fired a house-elf? How old were you?"

"Fifteen?" Draco shrugged indifferently, though he knew exactly how old he was when Grobbel left the manor. He'd done it out of spite for his father, who had begun parading Death Eaters through the house, praising Voldenmort's return. Frustrated and terrified for how his life was shifting out of his control, Draco did something he knew would anger his father if he ever found out: Draco took the one thing he was in charge of and destroyed it. Grobbel was thrilled, of course, to be fired, though he had been caught off guard by Draco's decision. Grobbel had watched Draco grow into his father's footsteps and assumed Draco would adore the attention of Voldemort's followers, but when Draco had broken the contract between them, Grobbel was pleasantly surprised, and swore to Draco the two would never meet again, as Grobbel planned to travel the world free of slavery. Draco had argued back, wishing Grobbel would never again have the pleasure of working under a Malfoy, and instead would really learn what it meant to be "free," something Draco solemnly realised he didn't know himself. The two had parted ways and true to their word, they hadn't crossed paths since.

"Whatever happened to him?" Hermione asked quietly, noticing the way Draco's attention had shifted from the present. She sincerely hoped this story didn't end with death or destruction.

"I'm not really certain." Draco responded, returning to licking his ice cream. "Thrump crossed paths with him once several years ago and said he was well, but I didn't ask for details."

"Hm." Hermione responded, now lost in her own thought. She'd known that Draco had struggled in their latter formative years, but she'd never known he was making progress toward being a better person during that time. It was...informative, to say the least.

"Don't hurt yourself thinking, Granger." Draco jested, less than comfortable with her curious stare. He didn't like the amount of thought and consideration she was putting into his admission. Firing Grobbel hadn't been some heroic act for a house-elf, it'd been a selfish attempt to go against his father in some microscopic way he would barely notice; something that gave Draco control, no matter how small it was. And for Hermione to look at him the way she was made him feel ashamed that he hadn't chosen defiance as the motivating factor for his actions.

"If I hurt myself just by thinking, I'd be dead." Hermione responded, knowing Draco wanted to moveLo away from the subject. "What kind of scholar do you take me for?"

"Oh, is that what you are?" Draco quipped. "I always just thought you were a swotty bookworm." He loved the way she narrowed her eyes at him. Like they were old friends engaging in banter.

"Is the next practical step for a swotty bookworm not to become a scholar?" She asked. "Because I think it is."

"Logically, yes, but I've seen your place of employment, Granger. The only scholarly work you've done in years was my case."

"And my Witch's Ganglion research." She responded weakly, well aware she really wasn't the scholar she wished to be. St. Mungo's was a well respected hospital, but her job hardly required effort on her part. Only a select group of healers got to conduct ongoing research, and it was not an easy board to join. It required fifteen years of employment as a healer at St. Mungo's, followed by application after application until a seat opened up. Hermione wouldn't even be eligible to apply for another seven years.

"And you're bored." Draco casually noted, though he was acutely aware Hermione's brilliance was being wasted. She was creative and quick-thinking, and her problem-solving skills were better suited for a field that required her to think, not just dole out spells she knew by heart.

"Yes." Hermione agreed. "But the work is predictable and in my area of expertise, so." She shrugged.

"Area of expertise." Draco snickered. "You're Hermione Granger, and your area of expertise is limited to healing?" He shook his head incredulously and Hermione privately smiled at the sentiment. She knew she was intelligent and her skillset diverse, but aside from her parents, Harry and Ron were the only two to compliment her, and it had always been when she'd solved one of their problems; it was never unprompted.

The two sat in relative silence as they finished their ice cream, both feeling warm inside despite the frozen treat. They returned to the cobblestone street, the sky now dark, and paused before parting ways at the Leaky Cauldron.

"Thank you for the help back there." Hermione nodded toward the bookshop and Draco smirked.

"Believe me, Granger, I got as much out of that as you did."

Though Hermione grinned, she couldn't quite get as much enjoyment out of the interaction as Draco clearly did. There were days she missed Ron, and days she wanted things to go back to the way they were; not because she wanted to marry Ron, but because things had become disjointed and awkward since their breakup. She hardly ever saw Harry, and when she did, he would bite his tongue when discussing his life's events if they included any interaction with Ron. She even missed seeing Ron. She didn't hate him, they were friends, and she wished for nothing more than for things to return back to normal.

Nonetheless, seeing him squirm had been enjoyable.

"I meant it, by the way." Draco spoke, pulling Hermione from her reverie. She looked up at him, wondering what he meant, and it was with a knot in his stomach that Draco spoke. "He's a fool for letting you go."

A strange sort of feeling washed over Hermione. Embarrassment? No, Hermione was rarely ever embarrassed by compliments. Humility? Maybe, for who was she that anyone would be a fool to let go of? Excitement? That Draco was the one paying her such a sincere compliment? Perhaps a tiny bit.

"It takes two to let go." Hermione conceded, knowing she was partially to blame for her failed relationship. "But that's kind of you to say." She leaned up and kissed Draco's cheek, hoping the redness in her cheeks didn't show as she waved goodbye and took the Floo home.

Draco, on the other hand, didn't even consider any redness in his cheeks, and stood blankly, staring at the place where Hermione had stood. His mind began racing, though part of it still lingered on the tingling of his cheek. Did Hermione do that often with other men? Did she do it with Ron or Harry or any of her other male friends? Was this a normal thing women did? Draco's mother had done it nearly every time she saw him, but wasn't that just a maternal thing? Did Hermione feel maternal toward Draco? That wasn't what he wanted. Draco had hoped his comment would be seen as at least sincere and at most, possibly just a little forward. But what did this kiss mean?

Draco groaned in frustration and Apparated home, aware that he might never get an answer to his questions. After all, running into Hermione that evening had been a coincidence. How likely was he to ever see her again?


"Just further proof my brother is an absolute muppet." Ginny said, stretching her legs out and noticing the time on Hermione's clock on the mantle. "Is it really that late already? I should be off. Family dinner at the Burrow."

The two stood and Ginny pulled her bag over her shoulder. "You're welcome to join us. I know mum would love to have you."