On the first floor of Bradford House there was a room that Mr Dobbson referred to as "Mr Malfoy's private parlour", that Blaise often denounced as a "juvenile, self-indulgent waste of space and money", and that Draco described to Hermione as having "a television that takes up half a wall, all the game consoles known to man, and more movies than anyone can conceivably watch in a lifetime. Next time you can't sleep just go there, and stop wandering the corridors like the ghost of Anne Boleyn. It's creepy and disturbing, and it messes up my sleeping."
"How can it possibly mess up your sleeping? I'm quiet. There's no way you can hear me in your room."
"I hear everything, Granger. Scorpius is quieter than you, and he cries half the night."
And so it had come to pass that very often, after everyone else in the house was down for the night, Hermione could be found in what had once upon a time been a guest bedroom, where the likes of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh (and if Mr Dobbson was to be believed, Nell Gwyn) had once slept. The thespians making an appearance these days were perhaps not as critically acclaimed, but Hermione was no snob.
"Police Academy 2?" Draco fell on the sofa next to her. "I'm embarrassed for you, Granger."
"Be embarrassed quietly."
"Why do you even have a movie on if you're reading a book?"
"I'm multitasking."
He leaned forward and turned the cover to check the title.
"You're watching Police Academy 2 while reading War and Peace? I don't even know what to make of that."
"I suggest you ponder the issue in silence."
But silence was not to be had.
"Do you think it might be easier to sleep if you multitasked a little less?"
"No."
"Do you think it might be easier to sleep if you were reading something other than complicated Russian novels?"
"No."
"No, you're right. Leo Tolstoi always put me to sleep."
Hermione smiled despite herself, which Malfoy took as encouragement to continue being an annoying git who thought he was funny.
"Do you think there's a universe where a sleepless you is watching Memento and reading something by Dan Brown instead?" Hermione grabbed a throw pillow and hit him over the head with it, but Malfoy only laughed, undeterred by either shame or dinosaur-shaped cushions. "Do you think there's a universe where you hit me with the book instead, and you're now wondering how to dispose of my dead body?"
"I'd just dump you in the river and let everyone assume you'd fallen in after a night out and banged your head." She closed the book, pulling up her knees and turning slightly, so she was facing Draco. "No one would ever question it."
"How would you even get my body to the river?"
"I'd get Mr Dobbson to help me."
"Dobbson would never. He's a loyal servant of the House of Malfoy."
"With what you put him through, I'm shocked he's never killed you himself."
"Nonsense, I'm a model employer. I even gave him a pair of socks for Christmas. Really nice socks, too."
"Well, if you gave him a pair of socks for Christmas, I see you have no reason to worry he'll ever be persuaded to help me hide your dead body."
They both looked at the table when the baby monitor suddenly came to life. Scorpius babbled something and sighed, before falling silent again.
"He's probably dreaming," Hermione said, settling back down.
"On that note, Theo and Abbott and Costello have met, and none of them should be left to babysit unsupervised. Ever. Specially not together."
"Fred and George are actually very reliable—"
"Fred and George are maniacs." He held up a hand, silencing her objections. "Don't get me wrong. So is Theo, and he's like a brother to me. A deranged, demented, less handsome brother who cannot be trusted with the welfare of small children."
Hermione sighed. "What did they do?" Because she had very little trouble believing they had done something, and that something had probably been dangerous and outrageous and hilarious. With Fred and George, that was usually the way the cookie crumbled.
"They found out that if you toss Scorpius up, he actually hovers for a few seconds before falling back down, so they were standing in a circle and tossing him to each other." Hermione covered her mouth with her hand, horrified. "Oh, he was loving it. He was laughing and waving his hands up and down. But he's seven months old, so I'm not exactly trusting his judgement on this one."
It was just like the time they had taught Scorpius to levitate things on command, but worse. At least then the worst thing that could happen was the worst thing that did happen, which was Scorpius breaking Blaise's Ming vase. She was still half expecting Fred and George to be the ones found floating in the river. If anyone could make it happen and get away with it, it was Blaise.
"I'll talk to them," she said.
"Do. I've already told Theo that if I ever find him playing 'toss the baby' with my kid again, he'll wake up without a kidney." Hermione quirked an eyebrow at his choice of words. "Other Draco's kid. You know what I meant."
She turned her attention to the screen, still smiling.
The baby monitor sprang to life again when Scorpius started crying. She made to get up, but Malfoy waved her down.
"I'll go," he said. "Need to go to sleep, anyway. The nursery is on the way. If you're going to be here all night, I beg you to choose something more dignified than Police Academy 2 next, because this is just sad." She threw a pillow at him, missing by a mile. He laughed, picking it up and tossing it back at her. "Violence is the last resort of the unimaginative."
She heard him walk into the nursery on the baby monitor.
"What's all this fuss about, mister? C'mere. Are you also upset by the shoddy attempt at comedy that is Police Academy 2?"
"Prat," she muttered, a smile on her lips. She grabbed War and Peace from the coffee table, and settled more comfortably on the sofa.
It was like a holiday, like a make-believe life — surreal and outlandish and not meant to last — and she found that she did not hate it as much as she thought she would.
Sure, there were parts of it that still made her wake up at night in a cold sweat, her heart beating too hard, her breathing coming too fast, because she had no earthly clue what she was doing. She couldn't be someone's mother — she absolutely, definitely, without a doubt could not — and what would they do if Other Hermione and Other Draco never came back? And more to the point, what would they do if they did? When they did? Because somewhere along the way, Hermione had started dreading the day they did, even as she panicked at the thought that they might never.
She was crazy about Scorpius. She adored the little boy who always looked for her when she walked into a room, who absolutely beamed when she smiled at him, who clung to her with tiny balled up fists and babbled back at her as if he could understand her, as if expecting her to understand him.
She wanted to protect him, and keep him safe, but mostly she wanted to keep him there, with her, with them. It was an ugly, greedy feeling and she hated herself for it. The other Hermione was gone — maybe hurt, maybe dead — and part of her, a tiny, treacherous, horrible part of her, was glad. Hermione didn't know what sort of person that made her, but probably not a very good one.
The silence of her dark bedroom would often scream at her the words she was able to silence during the day. Words like cheat. Impostor. Usurper. In those nights she didn't go to Malfoy's room of frivolous entertainment — partly because she could not make herself move, but mostly because she was a horrible person who did not deserve nice things.
She still dragged herself out of bed the next morning through sheer force of will, because there were things to do, and Scorpius to take care of, and it was one thing to be sad and pathetic in her dorm room, where no one was any the wiser, and a very different one to be sad and pathetic at Bradford House, with Mr Dobbson, and Malfoy, and — heaven forbid — Blaise Zabini for an audience.
So she made herself get out of bed and get dressed, and tried very hard to look human. Sometimes she even succeeded.
Those were the bad days, but there were also good ones. There were lots of good ones.
There were days when the house was full from morning to night with her friends — and a louder, more unruly bunch had never drawn breath. Theo and the twins got on like a house on fire, which was endearing and terrifying, and likely to sooner or later result in a house literally on fire. Blaise had hatred in his heart whenever he looked upon any of the three, but Luna was normally able to distract him from any murderous intentions with her unique Luna-ness, which to everyone's shocked surprise, seemed to work on Blaise. No one knew how. No one knew why. It just did.
Harry and Ron were engaged in a fierce competition to become Scorpius's favourite.
"I'm his godfather," was Harry's go-to argument, which in his mind made him the favourite by default. The fact that Scorpius's godfather was actually Other Harry was considered a technicality not worth mentioning.
To this preposterous claim, Ron invariably replied, "So? My godfather is my uncle Davey. Dullest man that ever lived. I'm funnier than you. Funny trumps godfather."
"I'm funny."
"You're really not, mate."
"You have a dry wit," George said.
"The driest," Fred agreed.
The argument would continue in a circular manner for hours, by the end of which Ginny would have had carried Scorpius off for an epic play session that involved puppets and mimicry and a light show (She was an Engineering major. She had ways.), thus turning herself into the de facto favourite.
Malfoy was no fan of this.
"I swear to god, Granger, next time the Weaslette riles him up like this, she can put him to bed." He slumped down on the sofa next to her, tossing the baby monitor on the coffee table. "What are we watching tonight?"
"Hook."
"Hook is for kids."
"It's a good movie. Good movies are good at any age."
"Says the woman who thinks Police Academy 2 is the pinnacle of comedy."
"Shush."
He fell silent and they watched the movie quietly for a few minutes, but Malfoy never did silence for long.
"No book tonight?" he asked.
War and Peace was lying on the table. Hermione had brought it with her, but had so far not managed to muster the motivation to open it, so it was just lying there, a nagging reminder that she was neglecting a masterpiece penned by one of the greatest literary minds of all time in favour of a movie where Robin Williams wore tights, thus bringing dishonour on herself, on her family and possibly on all the other Hermiones in all the other realities. That was an achievement of sorts, right?
She sunk lower on the sofa.
"No book tonight." Dishonour it was. All the other Hermiones would just have to deal. Hook was funny and charming, and Robin Williams was delightful. War and Peace would keep.
There was silence after that, and Hermione slowly relaxed — Tolstoi, her parents and the wrath of a thousand other Hermiones forgotten in the familiar paces of a movie that she had seen often enough that it had become comforting and soothing, like a lullaby.
She glanced at Malfoy and realised he had fallen asleep at some point, his head back against the sofa, his lips slightly parted. She couldn't help but smile fondly at the sight.
"Go to bed," she said, and his eyes flew open.
"Not asleep." His words were slightly slurred, and he ran his tongue over his lips in a gesture that should not have been as attractive as it was.
"Yes, you are."
"Lies." He closed his eyes again, either too lazy or too stubborn to get up.
"You realise I'll just leave you here all night and let your neck decide he hates you come morning, right?"
"Shush, there's a movie on." He laid down with his feet over the arm of the sofa and his head on her lap.
"What are you even doing right now?" she asked, half amused, half alarmed.
"Allaying your concerns over the welfare of my neck. 'Cause I'm swell like that." His voice trailed off, and Hermione smiled, resigning herself to the terrible trial that was having Draco Malfoy use her for a pillow. Unable to help herself, she carded her fingers through his hair and he hummed appreciatively.
Malfoy was nothing but trouble, and Hermione had no problem admitting it to herself, even if she would never have admitted it to anyone else. The Draco Malfoy she had known before — the one who gave her a headache every time he decided to honour Charlie's pub with his oh-so-generous patronage — was a spoilt, demanding, entitled git, whose education would have greatly benefited from hearing the word "no" a little more often. He was still all those things, of course, but it was harder to remember that while listening to him sing Scorpius to sleep at night, or when he dragged her out of the house and out of her head on days when the whole world existed in nothing but shades of grey.
It was harder to remember it just then, with his head on her lap, his hair silky and soft between her fingers.
Draco, who was so often abrasive and caustic and harsh, was also sometimes kind and sometimes thoughtful, and always far more charming than was good for her peace of mind.
Hermione could have lived a happy life without ever finding out that Draco Malfoy had hidden depths.