The rest of the week seemed to rush by and drag terribly at all the same time. There was a sort of tight mix of anticipation and dread in Hermione's stomach as her long days seemed to somehow coalesce into a short week, and before she knew it, Sunday morning was swiftly upon her. Getting ready was a task, as Crookshanks seem to sense her agitation and had determined that somehow being underfoot and in danger of being trodden upon would improve her mood. He blocked the bedroom door, the kitchen, and sat upon her vanity as she pinned her hair with a challenging look each time she moved him.
"My dearest Crookshanks," she said affectionately as she moved the huffing cat out of the way for the last time, reaching for her shoes. "I would love to spend the day with you as always, but I'm afraid our usual Sunday appointment is on hold. Indefinitely." As his flattened squished face seemed to scrunch up more Hermione scooted him to the side with a sigh. Despite his uncanny intelligence conversing with a cat, even a half kneezle, like this had to be a sign her friends were right. She needed get out more. Pulling on her coat she headed for her floo with a wry smile. Hermione couldn't wait to tell them that they all finally got their wish, and she would be seeing Draco Malfoy every Sunday like clockwork.
Stepping through the emerald flames, her mirth at picturing the looks of shock and dismay on their faces as they got exactly what they asked for put a spring to her step as emerged at the hospital. Dusting the small amount of ash off her shoulder, Hermione looked up to see one of the caretakers looking at her bemused, a bevy of self-sweeping brooms around him.
"Coming in to work on a Sunday? You never rest, do you Healer Granger?" he asked with a laugh. Flashing a small smile she left the employee floo landing, she waving as she passed him by.
"Yes well, medicine and health hardly keeps a 9-5 schedule." Laughing again as he shook his head, the older man turned away to herd his brooms, tutting whenever they began to crowd each other out.
"So dedicated," the caretaker said swatting a rebellious broom away. "If I ever get sick, I hope I get you!" Hermione could only grimace in response at his carelessly well meaning words as she walked towards the lobby.
'Goodness I hope not… then that means something is really wrong.'
Checking her watch, Hermione was pleased to note she was 10 minutes early. She would have a little more time to compose herself and find her head before Malfoy showed up. All thoughts of that were quickly dashed when upon pushing through the doors to the lobby, she found him already perched on the edge of a chair across the room. His elbows were on his knees, hands clasped as his chin rested upon them while he looked around, agitated and tense as people walked by, memos and notes darting, floating, and fluttering overhead. Taking a step back, Hermione considered slipping though the doorway again to try to take that extra bit of time before he spotted her, but sensing eyes on him, Malfoy's head snapped up and tagged her from across the room. Lips pressed thin he quickly unfolded and stood, straightening his black overcoat before heading towards her. Taking note of his short sharp steps, and the aggressive set of his shoulders, Hermione made it a point to lower her expectations of how this first session was going to go. Perhaps the fact they had room to fall any further was evidence that she had been too optimistic in the first place.
"Good morning Malfoy," she greeted. His eyes narrowed and the twist of his mouth was unpleasant as he opened it, but then he paused. Visibly swallowing whatever it was he was going to say, he instead gave her a curt nod.
"Granger." Strolling past her headed straight for the front door. "Let's get this over with, shall we?"
Staring at his back Hermione followed with an arched brow. While it wasn't the ideal response, it absolutely was progress; he had to walk before he could run and well, he was barely crawling. Baby steps. Very tiny, small, baby steps. Jogging to keep up with his long loping stride, she slipped through the doors to find Malfoy already on the sidewalk just outside the anti-apparition wards, squinting into the sunlight. Turning to face her, he held his arm out for her to take, shaking it impatiently at her when Hermione paused for a split second before lightly placing her hand on him.
"Oh come on Granger." Grabbing her hand firmly, he tucked it more securely into the crook of his arm before turning on his heel, the familiar squeeze and darkness of apparition washing over them.
Their landing in a small alleyway was soft and graceful, and Hermione was quick to tug her hand away, the movement punctuated with a roll of Malfoy's eyes. Wordlessly he stalked forward towards the street and sharply turned the corner, heading straight for the nice, but unmistakably muggle buildings, to their right. Glancing behind him as if to check she hadn't run off, Malfoy drew his wand and stretched it towards the space between two buildings that soon grew larger as a gleaming white brick building pushed its way forward. Squeezing between the two apartments, shoving them aside, the door presented itself just as Malfoy's wand touched the polished metal, swinging it open. It reminded her remarkably of Grimmauld Place only… faster. Smoother. And much better kept, as evidenced by the lush patch of grass and flowers in front of building despite the fact it was autumn. As Hermione hurried under the wine-colored awning to follow Malfoy's retreating figure, it was clear from just the exterior that this place was posh. And when the doorman greeted Malfoy by name with a smile and herself with a curious, but dismissive glance, touching the next door with a wand of his own, the interior certainly lived up to her impression. Her perusal of the elaborate grey and white marble design inlaid with gold on the floor was cut short when a sour looking man in heavy black robes stepped in front of them.
Looking first to Malfoy he wordlessly stuck his hand out, his expression flat. Malfoy scowled, his shoulders briefly tensing, before handing him his wand. After a short inspection and tapping Malfoy's own wand on his shoulder, resulting in a shower of green sparks, the man nodded before handing it back, giving Hermione a terse smile he clearly didn't mean. Hermione's own was tight and rang just false when he held his hand out towards her. When she arched an eyebrow and opened her mouth to inquire as to why he needed HER wand, Malfoy nudged her with his shoulder.
"He's from the ministry just hand it over, no one wants your bloody wand for keeps Granger."
"Shouldn't he already know why I'm here?" she whispered back indigently, her hand hovering over her pocket.
"Of course he does, I have to notify them of every guest, but this is just protocol. Don't be difficult." Finally giving in Hermione plunged her hand into her robes to give it to what she assumed was an auror, her smile still plastered fiercely on her face. After taking even longer to inspect her wand, the man glancing up at her every so often, perhaps hoping to catch a look of impatience, a feeling of discomfort, Hermione decided she wouldn't give him the pleasure. She serenely caught his eye every time, privately wondering why it even mattered. At the end of the day this man was simply doing his job.
'It was the phony smile,' she decided in justification, and patiently waited for the examination to be over. When finally, the man tapped her wand on her shoulder and the green sparks fell around them, he grudgingly handed back her wand and melted into the shadows, leaning against the wall next to the door. Sweeping past him without a second look, once they were out of earshot Hermione wrinkled her nose.
"Is he always so…" she gestured helplessly, struggling for the right words as Malfoy pressed the lift button.
"Bastardly?"
"Cold?" Hermione finally settled on as the doors open. He laughed as they stepped on, but there was little warmth to the sound.
"Not all of us ended the war as heroes. Since we already know each other," he echoed her previous words with an arched brow. "I'm sure you're well aware of my family's standing with much of the public. So yes, they generally are cold. Unless they're angry. I'd wager you can guess which I prefer."
Nodding, noting to herself that the question may have been a touch thoughtless, Hemione tried to look away. But as the lift began to move, upwards and occasionally leaping left or right as wizarding lifts tend to do, between the polished wooden panels and the gold that gilded the small room, were mirrors that allowed her to catch her own pensive reflection, and Malfoy's unmistakable amusement. Silently, she wondered if this was his life; constant insistent reminders of his past actions, resentment from people he had never met. Would it ever stop? Would he ever be able to atone? She didn't think he was a monster, his actions and the disastrous consequences that followed had to weigh heavy on his mind, if not the heart. And yet the anger he inspired from others was not misplaced. Whatever his reasons were, Malfoy had supported Voldemort in one way or another and it cost others dearly. Hemione had nearly lost herself in thought when she saw his reflection tilt his head at her before breaking the terse silence.
"Anyways Granger, that is how you get to my flat. Unfortunately for the both of us, you will have to present your wand every time, and I will have to come down to meet you and do the same. It's tedious, overbearing and well," he carelessly shrugged, stuffing a hand into his trouser pocket. "It's part of the price of freedom, after everything I did. While Azkaban is a sight better without the dementors, I still think I'd rather pass." Hermione had a strong suspicion, but she couldn't resist asking anyways.
"What exactly are they checking our wands for?" The smile she got back was thin and humorless.
"Unforgiveables and dark magic done within some span of time. I don't know why they bother. I'm neither stupid enough to perform them, nor sloppy enough to get caught like that." Privately Hermione agreed, she didn't have to like him to give credit where it was due. Draco Malfoy was many things, an absolute idiot was not among them.
With a gentle ding the lift came to a stop, opening to a short hall with a single door at the end. Stepping forward curiously, Hermione glanced about at the distinct lack of other doors, while Malfoy quickly moved to the end of the hall.
"Well," he held the door open with one and swept the other out towards his home. "Come on then, let's get this over with."
Upon crossing the threshold of the flat Hermione halted, hesitant as she looked about the space curiously, suddenly realizing the reason there was only one door was at this hall. Malfoy's "flat" could very well be the whole floor. The door clicked closed and Malfoy came to stand beside her, looking around the spacious flat with an air of pride.
"Pretty cozy eh Granger? And don't worry," he said as he brushed by her casually, slipping down the marble steps. When she continued to stand at the top of the short stairs descending into luxury, taking in the dark wood covering the floor and the coffee colored coffered ceilings with a critical eye, he turned to look back at her slyly.
"I don't keep the muggle children you lot seem to think the Malfoy's eat on site." He began to walk away with a wave for her to follow. "I get them shipped in fresh every evening."
"That's not funny. And slow down, I don't like trailing after you like a lost puppy all the time!"
"I thought it was hilarious. Grow a sense of humour."
Though he outwardly ignored most of what she said, Hermione noted that his steps were a touch softer, a little slower, as he lead her through the flat, gesturing to closed door after closed door in a sort of parody of a proper tour.
"That's the kitchen down there, and this one is none of your business, none of your business, that's the guest loo, none of your business, don't be nosy." Stopping in front of a set of dark oak and glass pane doors he pushed them open, revealing a gorgeous airy library soaked in sunlight. "And this is where you'll be treating me. Should be familiar territory." Stepping forward, the sight of so many books magnetic as Hermione took a deep breath, she felt some of the tension leave her shoulders at the familiar scent of ink and leather. "Acceptable?" Malfoy asked, lightly touching the small of her back to urge her forward, gesturing towards a leather chaise and a plush matching chair across from it. Thankfully, both of pieces of furniture looked utterly unfamiliar, everything had so far. It seemed no furniture from Malfoy manor had departed with the young heir.
"Malfoy," she said, pushing a lock of curly hair behind one ear. "You know you don't actually have to have a chaise? It's just a muggle stereotype." The pressure at her back faltered for a moment before returning.
"Yes well," he cleared his throat. "According to my research it's part of the set. If I'm going to try muggle nonsense, I'll do it right." He said airily, leaving her behind to drape himself across the chaise after they crossed the room. Hemione observed how it was carefully angled to avoid the direct sunlight, sitting close to the high windows lining every wall so that the light arced over it, but would never touch, not at this time of day. Mercurial eyes flashed up and away as she settled into her chair and withdrew her notes and pen for their first session.
"Whatever makes you comfortable Malfoy. I'll need a moment here to collect my thoughts, and then… Well, I suppose we can get started." He sat up fully and picked at the edges of his seat in an uncharacteristic show of nerves as Hermione began to shuffle her papers, their soft rustle the only sound between them.
Raising his head Draco stared at her, the quiet becoming overbearing. He would never admit it, but he seldom ever let his flat stay silent, he would have the radio playing something, anything at all. To do otherwise left his mind with too many reminders of silence of another kind. Ones that had been filled with tension and fear, rather than the placid sense of contemplation others receive from a silent home. Unable to take it any longer, Draco leaned forward to interrupt that maddening whisper of paper on cloth as Granger sorted herself.
"Tell me something about yourself." Hermione paused and looked up sharply.
"I beg your pardon?"
"As you should," he said absentmindedly, twirling a bit of hair about one long finger. "And I know you heard me, but I'll say it again. Tell me," the twirling finger stopped to point at himself. "About you." That same finger flicked around to her. Hermione pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.
"Since when have you cared? And I'm sorry Malfoy, that isn't how this works. You tell me things and we work through them, not the other way around."
"Says who?"
"Says every text I've read on the subject!"
"That's how it works with muggles," he pushed his button up to the elbows and crossed his arms, mirth dancing behind grey eyes. "Maybe it's different with wizards." His head tilted curiously to the side as he observed her. "Maybe it's different with me." The dry, vaguely irritated expression she had was almost comforting. It made her look more like the swotty suck up he remembered, and less like a magizoologist peering down at a new creature from behind a magnifying glass. This, he could handle.
"Perhaps. I thought you said you wanted to do this 'muggle nonsense' the right way." She bounced her leg a few times as she made a show of thinking it over, her heel clacking rhythmically against the floor. "And I doubt it. Muggles and wizards are more similar than different, especially in how they think."
"That's still had to believe," he shrugged. "But I suppose I'm open to the idea." Hermione opened her mouth to speak again and he cut her off, the humor tempering his voice previously gone. While vexing her was a small pleasure, he had a purpose here. "You will be asking a lot of me," he said seriously. "If this goes where I think it will, you'll learn things about me that I've told no one else. The price of this treatment is steep, you're asking for secrets, both mine and others. For my pride." Granger's stony face softened for a moment as she hummed thoughtfully, folding her hands in her lap.
"But," she began softly. "The reward is greater. If this works, I'm going to save your life, maybe more afterwards, isn't that enough?" But he was already shaking his head.
"Not for a Malfoy it isn't."
"Your pride matters more than your life?" she asked, the doubt thick in her words. Granger didn't get it, she really, truly didn't get it. Draco felt, not for the first time since she burst back into his life, the taste of something bitter in his throat. She was a muggleborn, a war heroine, Potter's Pet, and above all else beloved, regardless of what she did. He would bet she could kill a wizard, stash the body, and get help smoothing the whole thing over if she had a sufficiently self-righteous reason for doing so.
It hardly came as a surprise to Draco that she wouldn't understand.
"In some ways," he agreed cryptically.
"Like what?"
"Like the ones that matter." Draco neatly side stepped the question. "Listen, my pride has had a rough go of things as it is, and I'm looking to regrow what I have to its former glory, not prune it. If you are to get," he gestured uselessly as his words failed him and he skipped over the unknown word with a growl of frustration. "I don't know, all these bloody things from me, I need something from you. I need a trade." He thought hard for a moment and curled his hands into his dark slacks as he argued his case. "In my experience, it's a terrible idea to give something for nothing."
The air was still between them as she regarded Draco quietly, her eyes roaming from here to there, touching on a new place on him each time, like she was looking for something. For what he didn't know, but as she sighed gustily, carelessly raking her hand through her hair he supposed that she found it.
"I don't think saving your life is nothing," she said, casting him a frown filled with doubt. "However, I would simply have to tell you something new each session about myself? Anything?" Rosy lips tilted up, and he reflexively smiled in return. This had been much easier than he thought it would be.
"Absolutely."
"And you promise you'll cooperate?"
"Slytherin's honor," he held up his right hand. "And contrary to popular belief, there is such a thing." When her face broke into a full-blown beam of her own, he faltered, his hand drifting down, feeling as though he had missed something.
"Indeed…" she murmured before picking her notepad with a new cheer. "Excellent, excellent, now we can truly start your treatment." She scribbled something in it before glancing up. "Oh, and my favorite flowers are orchids, to start things off." Draco just stared at her baffled for a moment as she quickly ducked her head again, the feeling of mischief in the air. Surely, she didn't think that would be enough? He started to demand something better, something worthy of the ruinous secrets he kept so close to his heart that she was going to try to pry away, before pausing.
He rolled the last few sentences of their conversation around his mind, his mouth forming phantom words before he realized his critical mistake. He told her she could tell him…
"Anything," he breathed aloud.
She looked up from her writing, before wagging one those ugly muggle quills in his direction, her face sly.
"Phrasing Malfoy. Phrasing." He was incensed, barking out a disbelieving laugh, as she gnawed her pen before returning to her notes. Knowing Granger, she was writing the terms of their agreement down.
Smoothing his slacks down and watching the folds melt away in the shadows of the study, he was almost impressed and angry in equal measure, and nearly told her as such.
"Is that really what we're going to do Granger? Follow the letter and not the spirit? I really am putting myself out here." She wavered for a moment, her expression clouded with doubt, and he liked to think a touch of guilt for being such an underhanded bint about a perfectly fair trade, as she looked at him with a wrinkled nose. Then with a firm shake of her head, she set her jaw and tipped her chin up.
"Yes. Because if you were in my shoes would you have done differently?"
"Hmmm no, but I thought you were always so sure you were better than me," he sneered, annoyance at being bested sharpening his tongue. She sat up straighter and rolled her shoulders back before giving him an almost dangerous, frustrated, scowl.
"You know nothing about me or how I think, not truly. And I know that makes it hard to trust me. But you're going to have to have some faith, and I promise you you'll see it wasn't misplaced." Acrid words died on his tongue at the determination her eyes, flashing like fire in the sunlight. He could see Granger meant it. She was serious about this, more than he thought. Draco pushed away the odd echo of shame he felt at the idea of someone pouring so much time into him. Dying was less than ideal, but he wasn't worth the effort of saving, not really. However, he had to let his healers, Granger, or anyone else that even pretended to give a shit, move mountains for him. Otherwise his mother would have no one left, and he couldn't do that to her. After everything she did, Draco owed it to her to cling to this life, however worthless and wretched it was. He owed her that much at the very least.
"Now stop deflecting." Her sharp gaze flicked over his face and her scowl deepened. "Or do I need to remind you our schedule is rather tight." Finding his tongue again, pushing those dark thoughts deeper, Malfoy tutted at her and looked away.
"You just want to dive in, no warmup? Don't want to talk about the weather and take tea before we cover the chaos?" At her flinty silence he sighed, and collapsed back onto the chaise, throwing one arm dramatically over his face to block the light burning his eyes even in the shadows. Draco almost regretted picking the library, but he thought her favored terrain might soothe Granger's no doubt frayed nerves and make this who ordeal easier. "Alright fine, let's get to it then? Where do we start, the tragic disappearance of my favorite trousers? The trauma of missing a snitch to Potter?" He raised his arm to peep over to where Granger stiffly sat, her muggle quill tight in hand. "My love life?"
"No Malfoy," she said before curling her impossible hair behind her ear. "Again, stop wasting time, those things can't possibly be bothering you to any significant degree-"she paused and squinted at him for a moment. "Can they?"
"Merlin!" Draco shot up, his arm falling completely off his face with the motion. "I need a drink."
"No! It's barely the afternoon and- wait have you been drinking? You shouldn't be drinking!" Hermione admonished. "Who knows how the alcohol would affect all the potions in your system?"
"Perhaps it might kill me quickly," he muttered thoughtlessly and the pity crashing onto her face was almost too much to bear, that shame rearing its ugly head again. "Alright, you need a drink then," he said quickly, curving the conversation around again, and she blinked at him owlishly.
"Are you mad?" she asked disbelievingly. "I'm not drinking while treating a patient!" Draco gave an inelegant snort.
"Well if we're going to get through this, I feel like one of us needs something."
A/N: Hmmm this is where I would love to put some sort of dramatic bit detailing why this was so, so, late but… don't really have anything to say, this story was always at the back of my mind, but I had a bit of a time sorting out the scenes. I have a many, many, pages of material written for this story though, I just need to figure out how they all fit together. As always, a review on what you liked or constructive critique is always appreciated! As a lovely reviewer pointed out my dialogue punctuation was wonky and I'm working on it, but it's a work in progress. I am trying to smooth out the update schedule for this story, and hope to see you all again soon!