Heyyy guys...wow it's been a while, huh? Apologies. Life got weird again. Still not giving up on this story!
Love,
Cherry
However stupid Hermione had felt trying to decide which shirt to wear to see Draco last weekend was multiplied by one thousand on Saturday morning when she realised she needed to clean her flat before he got there at noon. She really shouldn't have cared what it looked like, since Draco had been there once before, but somehow that didn't matter to Hermione, so she spent the morning reviewing the list of charms Molly Weasley had sent her last birthday. With little effort, Hermione got a broom to start sweeping all the floors, a bottle of cleaner and a sponge to clean her bathroom, and a brush and rag to clean and dry the dishes that had accumulated from the last two late nights of studying. It took a little more effort to get the clothes to fold and hang themselves and find their homes in her wardrobe, but at least the living room and kitchen looked clean by ten. The coffee and dining tables and bookshelves were another story, but Hermione didn't dare disturb all the work she had done over the past few months.
At ten, Hermione showered and let her outfit pick itself, not willing to go through another indecisive process like picking her blouse colour after having spent the morning hemming and hawing over how clean was too clean (and how clean could she make the place without Draco picking up on the fact that she was doing it for him). By noon, she was casually putting on a kettle to boil while running her hands over her pink silk blouse, wondering if her wardrobe had thought she was going on a date. She hardly ever wore the garment, and yet there she was looking ready for a Valentine's date in her light pink camisole and matching cashmere cardigan. In a moment of indecision, Hermione rushed to the bathroom and yanked the tortoiseshell clips from the front of her hair, worrying she looked too polished. Oh, but now her hair looked frizzy, she needed to put the clips back in. But now the curls were losing their definition from all the tugging! Blast, her hair was cursed!
Hermione heard the whoosh of the fireplace and scrambled to find a hair tie, pulling her hair back into a bun. Hermione tried to appear casual as she made her way into the family room, greeting Draco with a smile.
"Hi." She said, nearly scurrying to the screeching kettle on the stove. She shut off the burner and turned to Draco with another smile. Was she always this awkward?
"Something seems off here." Draco commented, casually moving around the small space. Hermione tried not to note how well he suited her flat, especially when he dressed down. The Draco that wore suits belonged in the dark and minimalist environment of Malfoy Manor. The Draco that wore jeans with his button ups looked right at home in the warm, soft space Hermione had spent years perfecting.
"Oh?" Hermione queried, her voice higher than she had expected.
"Oh." Draco nodded, pausing by the door and pointing at the coat hooks. "Weren't there stockings hanging from this the last time I was here?"
Hermione's eyes widened and she could feel a blush creep up her chest. "There were absolutely not!" When he smirked at her, her resolve loosened. "There might have been," she noted with an ounce of shame.
"I thought so." Draco responded lazily. "I have an eye for those sorts of things."
"Women's undergarments?" Hermione teased, but she could feel the blush on her skin still lingering. "My, my, Draco, I think I just learned something new about you." She turned and poured the hot water into two mugs, offering Draco a choice of earl grey or green tea. He nearly scoffed at the options.
"What an insult, Granger, green tea? Are you trying to poison me?" He set a briefcase down on the only unused spot on the round dining table and opened it, busying himself as Hermione prepared their drinks.
"Now why would I poison you? I worked so hard to restore you to your former glory, and you think I would waste all that energy by poisoning you?" Hermione left the teabags - one black, one green - to steep and approached Draco, peering into the briefcase. "Is this what I think it is?" She asked. "No chance you've come for a beating, then?"
"Beat away, Granger, it's not nearly as much as I wish I could provide you." Draco began sorting through the papers. "My contacts in Seoul and Sapporo were of no help. The one from Tokyo put me in contact with a herbologist in Hiroshima, and when I reached out to him, he sent me these books and a letter saying he knew of several wizards who had noted its existence on some of the islands of Japan." He handed the letter to Hermione, who read it with careful eyes. Draco glanced down at Hermione as she read, and averted his eyes, all too aware that standing next to Hermione as he was allowed him a keen view of her smooth, white neck and collarbones with her hair pulled back. He was too much of a gentleman to take advantage of such a view, even if it was a splendid one.
"This one in Kagoshima sounds like it might be the same wizard who supplies Mahoutokoro with samples." Hermione pointed to the name and her arm brushed Draco's shirt. He tried to ignore it. She did too.
"What are the books?" Hermione asked, picking up the first from the pile. It was titled Herbology Translations: Japanese to English. "Brilliant, more translations." She muttered.
"Look at it this way," Draco suggested as she tried to translate the title of the next book. "If all your research and hard work fails, at least you'll be multilingual."
"Nyet." Hermione lamented. "I'll know every word under the sun for leaf, but nothing useful outside of an international herbologist's conference." She lifted one of the books labelled in English and pressed it to Draco's chest. She looked at him in a way that reminded him all too much of their time at Hogwarts, and gestured to the sofa.
"If you don't spill on the leather, you can read somewhere a little more comfortable than hovering over the table." She balanced her mug and two books in her arms, rounding the sofa and taking the adjacent chesterfield chair. Hermione set her cup on the coffee table and opened the translator, setting it to the left of the cup before opening the book on her lap. Draco followed suit and did indeed take the couch, opening the book Hermione had handed him. After some time of silence, he slapped the book shut. The sound made Hermione jump and she looked up.
"I don't know what I'm looking for." Draco confessed, staring into the fireplace. "I've been reading the same page for twenty minutes."
"Was it an informative page?" Hermione asked with a simper, taking a drink of her green tea innocently.
"It was the table of contents." He admitted weakly, and when he heard Hermione snickering, he looked over at her. She was trying to hide her grin behind the book, but failing terribly.
"Did it say anything about pond-dwelling plants? Or perhaps list Witch's Ganglion by its name?" Hermione asked, sniffling to keep from laughing too much.
Draco scanned the page again like he'd already forgotten what it said. "Pond-dwelling plants, page eighty four." He flipped through the book and settled into the sofa with his reading material. Hermione settled into her own position, immersing herself deeply into her research. When she realised she'd forgotten to bring something to write notes with her, she reached her hand out and a pen and notepad flew into it, and when she was about to start writing, she heard Draco clear his throat. She looked up and saw that while he wasn't looking at her, Draco's hand was outstretched. She smiled a little and held up her writing materials, floating them over to Draco. Reaching out, she managed to find another pad of paper and pen, bringing it to her lap.
The pair worked like that, in complete silence (save for the furious scribbling of pens to paper), for hours, before Hermione's left leg began to go numb from the position she was sitting in. She adjusted her position and moaned as the feeling returned to her toes, only to replace the numbness with a thousand sharp tingles.
Draco watched her curiously as she attempted to stand, only to act as though her left leg had been replaced with a useless block of wood. He quirked a brow at her and when she caught him staring, she straightened up, her cheeks reddening.
"I'm hungry." She decided, and gestured at the kitchen. "Should I order takeaway?"
"All right." Draco responded, stretching his neck. He blinked several times to clear his vision of text and stood, following Hermione to one of the drawers in the kitchen, which was filled to the brim with menus.
"Chinese?" Hermione asked, far too flustered by Draco hovering over her shoulder to dig through the drawer for a different menu. She wasn't fully prepared for the embarrassment she'd felt when Draco caught her stretching her sore leg, and something told her it wasn't just because he would tease her for it. No, these didn't feel like normal circumstances anymore, and Hemrione didn't know how to feel about that. And with all the work the two were doing together, now was not the time to be thinking about what Draco meant to her.
"So long as it's not seafood." Draco stated in reaction to Hermione's choice. "I can't eat seafood."
"Can't or won't?" Hermione asked as she used the phone in her kitchen to call the restaurant.
"Can't." Draco admitted. "I'm terribly allergic to shellfish, and any other creatures of the sea."
"Then I'll be certain there's not an ounce of fish oil near the food." Hermione placed the order for an array of vegetarian and chicken based dishes, confirming her address with the man on the phone before hanging up.
"It should be here in thirty minutes or so." Hermione turned and leaned against the counter, looking at Draco as he sifted through her notes on the table. He only nodded his head in response, and it made Hermione feel vulnerable. Like she needed to fill the empty space with something.
"You know, I never would've expected you to have any allergies." Hermione said, tucking a rogue curl behind her ear. "Hardly seems like something I'd expect of an elite member of society." That got Draco to look up, a flat look on his face.
"Practically all pure-bloods have health concerns due to our close knit family trees. I'm lucky my parents are only distantly related, any closer and I'd likely have to deal with more than being allergic to fish and nickel."
"Nickel?" Hermione asked, curious. "I've never heard of a nickel allergy."
"Didn't know until I was ten." Draco commented, glancing from the papers to Hermione. "Not to sound like a snob, but my silverware really is silver. My father gave me the family crest on a chain, and within a day, the skin on my neck and chest where it rested was red and lumpy. It's been platinum for me ever since."
"You've led the strangest life." Hermione breathed, hardly aware of what she was saying. But how could she not think about how different they really were? When Draco was telling stories of family crests, and expensive jewelry? The nicest thing she owned was her grandmother's white gold and diamond pendant, and she'd received that as inheritance.
"I know." Draco responded, almost sadly, Hermione noted. Had she done that? Had she made him feel alienated when in reality, she was the one who'd felt inferior?
"I didn't mean anything by that." Hermione bit her lip. "If anything, it just goes to show how far you've come. The things you've overcome to make you who you are today."
He smiled sourly, well aware of how hard he would have to try to work against the childhood he'd been provided. He'd thought he was doing an okay job of it, but if Hermione was pointing it out, he wasn't doing that good of a job. Not when she had been so careful to separate the Draco of the past with the person that stood in front of her now.
"We can only be as good as we want to be." Hermione spoke, aware that her words had negatively affected her friend. "And given your formative years and how simple it would be for you to continue on that path, I see how terribly you want to be good, and the strides you have made to achieving that goal mean more than whether or not your parents were Malfoys." Hermione saw his attitude soften just a bit, as though her opinion of him really did make all the difference.
"And if you're hoping to keep improving, I can think of just the task." That made Draco's expression shift and with a smile, Hermione raised her hands and wiggled her fingers. "I think I owe you a lesson in wandless magic."
Draco's eyes widened and he shook his head. "Oh I couldn't possibly. Not with so much going on."
"That's rubbish and you know it." Hermione smirked and stood up straight from her place against the counter. "I think you're just afraid you won't be able to do it."
Draco narrowed his eyes, well aware he was caught, but his fear was self-preserving. He couldn't possibly make a fool of himself in front of Hermione. Not when she was already so much more brilliant than him. No, he needed to maintain some sense of skill in Hermione's eyes, and if he couldn't successfully do wandless magic, what would she think of him?
Hermione ignored Draco's protests and set a knut on the counter. "The smaller the object, the easier the accio command." Hermione instructed. "I know a knut is a bit too gauche for someone like you, but if you have an attachment to something, it'll also help you feel the pull naturally."
Draco pursed his lips at Hermione but put his focus on the bronze coin laying on the counter. He tried to think the accio command, but the coin didn't even budge. Draco looked at Hermione, who raised her eyebrows in hopes of encouraging him again, and when he tried the second time for nothing to happen, Draco pinched the bridge of his nose frustratedly.
"This is pointless." He muttered, but Hermione shook her head.
"No, not pointless." Hermione argued, approaching Draco. "You know the feeling of casting accio, yes? It's a point. There's no finessing the movement, you just point to what you want and identify it. Try using your words to call for it, but just with your hand instead of your wand." Hermione pried Draco's hand from his face and reshaped it to point at the knut. She backed up and Draco looked at her like she was crazy, but when she nodded encouragingly, he couldn't help but try again.
"Accio knut." He drawled, hardly expecting anything to happen, but when the coin snapped from the counter and whacked him in the knuckle, he yelped and clutched his injured hand to his chest. He looked at Hermione accusatorily and nearly pouted when she grinned.
"You chose something hard on purpose, didn't you?" Draco rubbed his slightly pink finger with a dramatic sigh. "That was my favorite finger."
"Oh quit whinging." Hermione lectured and reached for the discarded knut, putting it back in the dish by the front door. She picked up the next object to practice with, a silicone trivet. She held it up to make it clear this wasn't something that would hurt Draco, before setting it on the counter in front of him.
"Try again." Hermione suggested, and Draco complied, putting the same hand up to try again with the larger object. The corner lifted at his command, and he looked to Hermione warily, who shook her head and encouraged him to try again. He did, with more gusto, and this time, the trivet flopped through the air before falling to the ground with a smack.
"And what did that demonstrate?" Hermione asked, sounding eerily similar to Professor McGonagall.
"That this was as pointless as I said?" Draco suggested and Hermione scrunched her nose at him.
"No, it demonstrates that pliable objects are more difficult to control than firm ones. Like a knut. Again." She pointed at the trivet and it returned to the counter.
With a grumble, Draco squared his shoulders and tried again, this time more sternly speaking at the trivet. It lifted from the counter with a wobble and weakly made its way toward Draco, dipping as it neared him. Draco caught it as it fell, and with a sigh, he placed it back in its storage place near the sink.
"Can we switch objects? If firmer is better, why don't I try a book?"
"No, you can't give up just because it's difficult. Life is too complicated to just give up if something doesn't go your way." Hermione fetched the trivet and set it down in front of Draco. "Again."
Hermione coached Draco through the process with stern encouragement, and when he was just about ready to give up, the trivet shakily lifted from the counter but sailed in a straight line into Draco's hand.
"You did it!" Hermione squealed, clapping excitedly as she latched her arms around Draco's neck. "I told you you could do it if you didn't give up." She gushed, unaware Draco had frozen under her touch. He didn't quite know what to do in reaction to her hug. Not only was he not accustomed to receiving affection, but he wasn't prepared for the close contact. He'd hardly expected Hermione to feel so warm against his chest, and he definitely hadn't expected her to smell like oranges and walnuts. It smelled far too similar to his version of amortentia to be a coincidence.
He rested his hands on Hermione's hips, and as she pulled away to congratulate him a queer feeling bubbled in her stomach. They were much closer than she had expected. Almost nose to nose, which was not what Hermione had intended to do. No, she had only been excited to watch someone learn a new skill, and especially one that had so clearly been trialing, but now she was distracted. Her enthusiasm had been replaced with a quiet, new emotion. Well, relatively new, as the last time she'd felt it had been the night she went to the Yule Ball with Victor Krum. Until Ron's jealousy had ruined it of course, but Hermione could safely say the hesitation and yearning she felt now was familiar, and if memory served her right, such a feeling had led to a kiss the last time she felt it.
It was like Draco was reading her mind, Hermione decided, when she noticed that he hadn't backed away, and was instead hyperfocussed on the way the slant of her chin toward him put them in quite the perfect position to close the miniscule gap between their lips.
It was as if fate had other plans for the two when the doorbell jolted the two apart, breaking their reverie.
Hermione cleared her throat and went to the front door, paying for their food with nearly all the muggle currency she could scrounge up from her purse before closing the door. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, willing her skin to return to a normal colour before she had to face Draco. She wondered if he'd think her forward. Or desperate, perhaps. She'd been single for over two months, and her ex was already engaged, so maybe she would latch onto the first person to show her favor. She hoped he didn't think that lowly of her. Hermione hadn't meant to put herself in a compromising position, and was hardly willing to entertain any sort of romance, so she hoped Draco would understand that without her having to say it. Even if some unknown part of her didn't want to say it because she didn't want to close a door that hadn't even been opened yet.
Finally, Hermione turned and carried the bags over to the kitchen and set them by the sink. She glanced over at Draco, who was combing over the papers on her table again, and began pulling the small containers from the plastic bags.
"I got a little bit of everything. Minus fish." She amended. "There's rice, chow mein, orange chicken, chicken curry, you're welcome to pick whatever you like." Hermione explained, reading the labels on the containers. "And I know there's hardly any room in here to eat, if it's all right with you, we can eat at the coffee table. I left off reading a particularly interesting chapter about growing conditions for Witch's Ganglion."
"That's fine with me." Draco nodded and Hermione noticed he wouldn't look her in the eye. She hoped she hadn't hurt him. Not when they were getting to be such good of friends.
Hermione took a fork and container of tofu and vegetables back to her chair, and quietly ate as she read. Draco did the same and continued reading the textbook Hermione had handed him, guiding his notepad and pen to take notes when he pointed at certain passages. Though she still felt terribly embarrassed, Hermione appreciated Draco's willingness to continue the task they'd begun before their...encounter. She didn't know what it had meant, nor was she ready to learn what it could mean.
It was when Hermione yawned for the third time that Draco closed his book. Hermione started at the sound and looked up, rubbing her bleary eyes.
"Do you ever sleep, Granger?" Draco asked, compelling himself to not yawn in response to Hermione yawning yet again.
"It's only seven." Hermione replied weakly. "I'll sleep soon."
"We've been reading these books for nearly that entire time." Draco continued, his mind blurry with anatomical drawings of pond-dwelling plants.
"And you learned a new skill." Hermione interjected, holding up her pen. "Want to keep trying?" She asked with a sudden wave of energy. Draco widened his eyes and stood.
"I'm going home." He said, walking to retrieve his cloak from the rack by the door. "Owl me as soon as you think I can be of help in your research."
"Only if you'll owl me the moment you hear back from your contacts about that list of names we put together." Hermione bargained, closing the book on her lap before standing. "And we'll have to plan a trip to Cantlebar Road. Just not too soon. I worry Mr. Borgin might have friends that he's alerted due to my pushy inquiries when I visited his shop last week."
"I promise, I'll owl you when I have something of importance." Draco agreed, though he knew it would have to be something of grand importance for him to be willing to override his ego, which had been greatly damaged today. He hadn't expected to want to kiss Hermione, and while it had come as no surprise, he'd still felt let down when she rejected him.
"Thank you." Hermione folded her arms tightly over her chest as she met Draco at the fireplace. "And thank you for all of this." She gestured to the papers and books he'd brought her. "I think it will be key in aiding my development of a concealing product, there's so much information about Witch's Ganglion from what I've read already."
"I'm more than happy to help." Draco looked at Hermione seriously, hoping she would understand how much he would do for her if she asked. He would give her anything he could if she wanted.
"My notes are likely far from perfect." He continued, not wanting to sober the mood too much. "I don't know exactly what you were looking for, but maybe some of it will be useful."
"I'm sure it will." Hermione gushed appreciatively. "If Harry hadn't been cheating during sixth year potions, I think Professor Slughorn would have noticed your natural skill for the subject."
Draco tried not to remember how their professor had once viewed him, and instead took the compliment and smiled tightly before nodding once.
"I think Slughorn would disagree but I appreciate the support. I'll be in touch." Draco disappeared in a cloud of green flames and Hermione sighed to herself, returning to her chair only to find that she was yawning yet again, so without reviewing her or Draco's notes, she slid into her bedroom, untying her hair and changing into pyjamas before she climbed into bed, and before she even knew it, Hermione's dreams shifted to a certain blonde boy and rewrote the afternoon's events, eliminating a pesky doorbell from interrupting their embrace.
Hermione bit her lip to keep from smiling too much. Hucklebee Street was the main road for wizardry shops in Edinburgh, and Cantlebar Road was one of its offshoots. It was time, Hermione surmised from the letter, to get into disguise and dig for information at a certain woodworking shop.
