Chapter 15
Hermione was slowly sipping her coffee outside of a small cafè that she and Ginny liked to meet up for coffee every so often. Hearing of Hermione's date the previous night, Ginny insisted they get coffee the next morning, hoping to hear the fresh details. It was a wonderfully warm morning again as the breeze swept through the trees, making the sunlight glitter off their leaves. Hermione loved this time of year.
"Mione!" Ginny called, walking with her was the silver blonde Luna dreamily looking at the trees as she greeted Hermione.
"Gin!" Hermione stood up and hugged Ginny and then in turn hugged Luna. "Luna, how wonderful to see you. It's been so long!"
Luna smiled wistfully. "Well yes, I was in South Africa looking for the snub nosed knockeral with my father since May. There was a reported sighting, but we didn't find any. They only appear once every 10 years."
Hermione giggled, when she wasn't writing for the Quibbler Luna took off to foreign lands to search for strange creature that probably didn't exist. So it wasn't uncommon for her to just leave without letting any of her friends know. "I'm sorry, Luna. Maybe in another decade." Luna smiled softly and nodded.
"Well, let's go get something to drink, Luna." Ginny prodded Luna in to the cafè. "Then I want to hear about the date!" She called back over her shoulder as jostled away.
Hermione smiled and sat down again, taking a long sip of her macchiato. Luna and Ginny returned several minutes later and joined her. Ginny started regaling the story of the guy that stood in front of them, who had one of those impossibly long complicated drinks that just frustrated the baristas. "I'd bet anything he was an American," she said in a huff. "They always complicate and bastardize such simple things."
"Really, Gin? And how would you know this?" Hermione chuckled.
"I've been to America several times with the team, for you're information. And we always do bit of touring around whenever we go. Believe me, it's not the first time I've waited on a picky American."
She sighed. "All that aside, how did the date go last night?"
Luna's eyes drifted to Hermione's. "Ginny did say you had a date last night," she hummed sweetly.
Hermione chuckled, she never got over Luna's wistfulness. "I did, and I'd say it went surprisingly well. I got a lot of answers and the food was amazing as he promised it would be."
"Oh come on!" Ginny threw a paper napkin at Hermione. " You went on a fancy date with our Hogwart's rival, and the best you can come up with was it went well. No. More. NOW."
Hermione laughed, she loved that Ginny was fiery. "Okay, okay. It went really well. He was a gentleman, truly. I was not sure he could ever be that.." She paused waiting for a good word to come to her. "Kind, I guess. I don't know. He was very open about everything, answered all of my questions without getting upset or irritated. He's really grown up." She paused to play with her drink, thinking hard about what to say next. "I went in to this expecting him to fly off the handle and be rude, and he just wasn't. It was a side I've never seen before." She slowly stirred her almost finished macchiato. "I really wanted to hate him, I really wanted him to be the Malfoy we knew at Hogwarts, but the more he explained the more sympathetic I was for him." She sighed. "He never stood a chance living in that house with Lucius."'
"He was always civil with to me." Luna said airily. "I never really understood why you guys hated him so much," her voice dreamy.
Ginny looked at Luna as if she had sprouted a second head. "Luna, he was atrocious at Hogwart's. He said horrible things all the time to us, Hermione in particular." Hermione nodded, agreeing with Ginny.
"He was not always so kind, but Ron was not always so kind either." Her breath still moony. "We all knew the home Draco came from. All the pureblood families are hard on their children, well, at least the sacred twenty-eight families at least. The Malfoy's were always rumored to be the worst."
"How do you know all this?!" Ginny demanded a little roughly.
Luna was unaffected by her tone. "I'm friends with a quite a few Hufflepuffs, and their common room was in the dungeons too, so they saw the most of the Slytherins. Hufflepuffs are kind to everyone so it wasn't uncommon for the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs to befriend each other. Seeing as the rest of the houses hated the Slytherins and called the Hufflepuffs duffers."
"I'm pretty sure the Slytherin's called them duffers and much worse." Hermione chuckled.
"They did, but the two houses had an understanding. During the battle the Slytherins kept Hufflepuffs who were trapped safe until after the battle." Luna took sip of her tea.
"You know about that?" Hermione asked.
"Oh yes, Eleanor Branstone, was one of the underage Hufflepuffs, and her group got stuck. She said a bunch of the older Slytherins pulled them into the dorm and waited out the battle with them, fighting off a few Death Eaters even." Luna softly smiled.
"How did I not hear of this?" Ginny asked reproachfully.
"Like I said, the Slytherins and the Hufflepuffs have an understanding. If the Hufflepuffs keep up the Slytherin reputation, the Slytherins are willing to befriend them," Luna said simply.
"I had no idea," Ginny said, dumbfounded.
"Malfoy told me about the battle but I didn't know of this house truce." Hermione shrugged. Luna simply smiled and drank her tea.
"Well, that's still not an excuse for being a twat all those years," Ginny said gruffly.
"No." Hermione sighed, "but it certainly explains a lot of things. Gin, we were all very lucky to have parents who loved us and let us be who we were. Imagine your parents telling you what to do, who to be, how to think and being disciplined for not following that exactly."
Ginny now looked at Hermione horrified. "Did someone Imperio you two?"
"I'm sorry, weren't you the one who said that I needed to give him a chance?" Hermione chuckled.
"Yes, give him a chance, but excuse his awful behavior does not encompass that." Ginny gave Hermione a stern look. "Look I'm thrilled that he's matured and changed, that's great, but you two justifying him bullying us, letting the Death Eaters in Hogwarts and fighting against us during the final battle. That's what I'm saying is crazy." She shrugged.
"I'm not justifying anything he did. I'm just saying it's not as black and white as we'd like to think."
"I love shades of gray," Luna hummed, seemingly off in her own world again.
"Yea, charcoal gray." Ginny scoffed in to her coffee.
Hermione laughed and told them about the rest of the date, strolling through the park and then kissing him on her doorstep.
"Wait, you kissed him this time?" Ginny questioned
"Yes, on the cheek." Hermione answered simply.
"Why?" Ginny's brows knitted together.
Hermione thought for a moment. "I truly did have a nice time. After we got over the initial part of explanations, I found it easy to talk to him. He's actually very smart." Hermione smiled. "He was second behind me in all of our years, and he was a close second. So we talked a lot about potions, magical theories, and we even talked about some muggle science things. I actually really enjoyed myself, and I guess I kissed him because I wanted to," she ended, her smile softening.
"Oh no," Ginny whispered.
Hermione's eyes shot up and panic started to settle in. "What?"
"Ron is going to flip when he hears you're dating Malfoy."
It struck Hermione then just how badly Ron would react to the news. While Ron had grown up quite a bit, he still resented Malfoy. It irritated Ron to no end whenever they went to the Malfoy Manor for events, he complained and complained. Though that never enough to stop him from engulfing the buffets. He had come to terms with Narcissa, but whenever the topic of Malfoy came up Ron glared and spat venom. "Well, lets not put the carriage before the horse. It was one date."
A whoosh of green flame erupted from the only open floo in the Malfoy manor, and as smooth as a panther, Blaise stepped out of the fireplace. "Draco." He nodded. "Theo shou..." Another green swirl engulfed the fire place and Theo stepped out with only slightly less grace the Blaise. Being raised within the pureblood families meant the men spent a lot of time when they were boys learning demeanor, poise and an unwavering facadè.
"Draco." Theo nodded, mimicking Blaise
"Gentlemen." Draco nodded. "Come on." He shrugged, leading them to what use to be his father's study but, since his arrest, Draco had inherited it. He threw open the large oak doors to reveal what may have looked more library than office. Blaise and Theo took seats in the black leather arms chairs while Draco poured them fire whiskey. He handed them their drinks and sat across from them.
"Are we done with pleasantries?" Theo stretched out. "I know we're the "Next generation of highborn purebloods" but this B.S. is exactly that."
Blaise chuckled into his drink. "Careful, Theo, you just barely got to keep everything after your fathers imprisonment, we may still kick you out."
Draco leaned back in to his chair, his free hand cradling his chin as he watched at his two classmates. He enjoyed watching their verbal sparring. If there was one thing you could say about Slytherins, their ability to verbally battle was always entertaining. Everyone's skills were carefully honed during their Hogwarts years. Often, tallies would be kept by the Prefects, and then the winner would gain a title, Draco had won his fifth year and earned himself the Dragon's Bite title, one that he was fiercely proud of in the years to come. Blaise had won their sixth year and earned his title as the Steel Shark. Theo had come close to Blaise that year, but since Slytherins have a strict sense of winning and losing he never gained a title, which to this day they he was still a little sore over.
"Why are you so stoic today?" Theo shot at Draco, breaking Draco from his side thoughts.
Draco chuckled. "Just enjoying your battle of wits."
"Yea, uh-huh. Hey, didn't you mention something about a date?" Theo asked cocking and eyebrow.
"Yes, I recall this as well. It's why we didn't come for drinks last night, if I remember correctly," Blasie drawled out.
"I did." Draco gave a nonchalant shrug.
Now Blaise peaked an eyebrow. "With whom? Anyone we should know?"
Draco shrugged again. "Perhaps."
Blaise's smile turned devilish. "Heard that it was with a one Miss Granger."
Theo choked on his whiskey. "Gryffindor's Princess, Granger? Golden Trio Granger?"
Draco's eyes were unwavering as he stared at Blaise, wondering if he should confirm his suspicions. "Where would you hear such a thing?"
"Well, after the way she stormed out of the battle ball, I knew you two weren't through." Blaise sipped his drink. "And I have connections."
Theo looked simply floored. "Wait, what happened with the pretty little princess at the ball?"
Draco opened his mouth to disregard the question but Blaise beat him to it. "You see, Draco and Granger were dancing and then for some reason Draco stormed off and so naturally she went to chase him. Several minutes later she stormed out of the ball without farewells and Draco came skulking back a few minutes after she left with a bruised ego from rejection." Blaise grinned evilly. "Or am I mistaken?"
Draco scoffed. "Number one, there was no skulking, I merely returned to the party. And two, you are over analyzing." Draco took a long sip.
A cocky smile crept at over Theo's face. "Merlin's beard. You tried to hook up with Granger and she turned you down."
Draco glared at Theo. "Just because you have a rejected list longer than a Basilisk."
"You're defensive, so it must have been bad," Theo taunted.
Draco took a deep breath, it was probably better to nip it in the bud than let these to idiots get a hold of it. "It was Granger." Draco looked at Blaise, his eye calculating Blaise's reaction. "It was just dinner, and we agreed to keep it quiet because we don't want the presses running off with it." There was an understanding between purebloods families to never release unwanted information without repercussions. Their lives were always under constant scrutiny by the public that a common respect for personal information had become a necessity to maintain friendships and partnerships. This, however, did have a caveat, you never shared information outside of your friendships because these rules did not extend to those without a shared mutual destruction. Draco knew Blaise and Theo would keep quiet, because he had enough dirt on them to ensure it, just as they had enough dirt on him, pureblood relationships were extraordinarily delicate things.
Blaise chuckled. "So it went well?"
Draco leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and swirling his drink as he stared at his feet. "Well enough, I think. Dinner, strolled around the park then I took her home. Though I wasn't as impressed by the dessert as I am accustomed to." He looked at Blaise. "At the ball you said we had a spark. What did you mean by that?"
Blaise thought for moment. "There was something fiery between you two. When you two bickered, something could have spontaneously combust it was so fierce. It always seemed like you two fought with more than just words."
Theo nodded. "There were so many rumors going around sixth year that you two were shagging."
Draco looked appalled. "Why would anyone say that?!"
Theo laughed. "Exactly what Blaise said, you two were so combustible around each other, like flint and steel."
Draco turned that thought over in his head, combustible? What did that mean, that they just set each other off all the time? Were they a hazard to all those around them? Combustible could have another meaning though, fiery, passionate. Was all that fighting and taunting just misdirected passion? It certainly was for Draco. Granger, however, maybe she just wanted to burn him alive.