It was in content silence that their second dinner of the evening had begun.
While she quickly opened the wards she noticed that Malfoy had turned around to face the ocean, and Hermione appreciated the polite gesture.
There was an odd sort of warmth that was mingling between them for the rest of the night, and she wasn't exactly sure how she was supposed to feel about it.
She had come here to escape all the noise. That was what her father had said when he'd announced over dinner one night that they were going to Italy for most of the summer. It was the summer before her fourth year, and it had been perfect. Her parents always trusted her enough to not wander in trouble, which she never did, and so she spent those glorious few months wandering the warm streets of Rome.
There was something similar about then and now that was making her chest tingle with content nostalgia.
With thoughts of Italy lingering in her thoughts, she proposed a white pizza with tomato and basil, with wine to drink of course.
"Malfoy?"
"Hm?" he sat on the edge of the island counter sipping at his second glass of wine, watching her cook. She wondered if it was conceited of her to assume that he was watching her.
"Do you like living here?"
She glanced over her shoulder while she spread the pesto over the crust. Regardless of how conceited she was, he was looking at her.
"Why are you asking?" one of his skills was dodging questions.
She shrugged and turned back toward the cutting board, "I dunno, I was just wondering. You've been living here longer than me."
There was a long enough silence for Hermione to finish putting all the pesto, mozzarella, basil, and ricotta onto the pizza and get it into the oven.
"I mean, you don't have to answer, Malfoy, I was just making conversation," she backpedaled once she had leaned against the sink and saw the somewhat discomforted look on his face.
Seemingly lost in his thoughts, he glanced up at her and fixed his expression, "You're never just 'making conversation', Granger," he smirked slightly.
She just raised an eyebrow and wandered into the living to get away from the looming awkward silence.
A slight tingling on her forearm drew her eyes to the slowly fading Disillusionment Charm. She was impressed it had stayed on through most of the day's excitement.
…
…
Draco didn't feel bad, eventually Granger was going to have to learn there were certain things he wasn't going to talk about - Most of them being answers to semi-personal questions.
Draco felt slightly bad. He stared at the ceiling trying to come up with a quick fix to rejuvenate the conversation and Hermione's seemingly endless high spirits.
He considered revisiting their Potions debate, because he'd finally concocted response worthy of her last rebuttal - which had pointed out his inferiority when it came to Polyjuice potions - but when he'd turned around to tease her about her Amortentia potion from Sixth year, he instead watched as she stood with her back to him, her wand moving in intricate patterns over her forearm. The forearm. There was a faint golden shimmer hovering over that spot as she mouthed incantations that he knew were far more advanced than anything they'd been taught at Hogwarts. He was straining to watch what she was doing, and he was entranced when the cloud settled over her skin, slowly disappearing.
He had to hand it to her, her magic had an ethereal quality he'd never seen before. To be fair, most of the magic he'd been exposed to was Dark, and wasn't exactly the most attractive to look at.
When she turned around he tried to spin back to his original position on the counter and somehow managed to slip off the edge like the idiot he was.
Feeling entirely disheveled and beyond embarrassed, he straightened himself as quickly as possible and risked a glance at Granger from the corner of his eye. He crossed an arm across his stomach and held his wine glass in what he assumed she would jokingly call, "posh and absurd".
This sort of pose was apparently expected from him, because she seemed entirely unfazed. He frowned at that thought. He was not posh and absurd.
Pull yourself together, you twat, he ordered himself. She hadn't even said any of those things and he was still feeling immensely flustered. He knew that very nearly, almost seeing her scar wasn't helping his ability to stay collected.
"What's up?" she asked, completely oblivious.
He just grunted, knowing that was really all she expected anyway. He would under no circumstances bring up her scar. She kept it covered for a reason, and he could imagine how she would react. He had a bad taste in his mouth, which he gladly swished away with the rest of his wine.
He had learned his lesson, it was time he start trying to be more forthcoming with these personal tidbits of information. Had he just answered the fucking question, she wouldn't have wandered off and he wouldn't have seen her fussing with her scar, which, for the record, was all he could think about now.
Staring at her seemed to be his only option at this point because that foul word was rattling around in his head and it was amazing how simple it had been to stop associating her with it.
The change had come just before those Snatchers had brought her to the Manor. His father, and the Dark Lord, finally considered him old enough to take part in Death Eater meetings, which at the time included torturing informants, prisoners, people suspected of having information, Muggles, and Muggle-borns. Once Malfoy Manor had become the headquarters for the Dark Lord and the heinous debauchery he brought with him, Draco was subjected to more than just the occasional punishment of a fellow Death Eater.
It was during those meetings that Draco heard the word thrown around so carelessly that it started to lose its meaning. These people weren't weak or inferior to him, they were victims of the War. They were abused and murdered, and it was then that it had finally washed over that every time he had said it what history and true meaning had lurked underneath it. It was a foul word, and the realisation that he had taken part, and was taking part in these abhorrent acts drove Draco even further into the depression that had taken hold of him during that time.
Even once he had made the decision to no longer believe the Dark Lord and his teachings, Draco still had no choice. If he defected the Dark Lord would not only kill him, he would kill his mother and father, and that was only if he was feeling merciful. Draco felt weak, he knew was weak, he was a worthless, powerless boy who didn't even have the strength to do what he felt was right.
Draco shivered and blinked away the haze that had settled over his eyes, refocusing of Granger who was humming an unfamiliar song and wiping down her counters. He couldn't let those memories consume him right now, he didn't want her to see that.
She still had her hair in the same predicament it had been in just before they'd left that afternoon, except now all of the excitement and humidity had loosened it. It seemed to Draco that she had forgotten that her hair had ever been up that day, because most of it was escaping in loose curls that were more frizz than hair. He spotted the elastic holding a small bit of hair in some remnant of her earlier hairstyle. He smirked.
He knew she wasn't talking because he hadn't answered her question. He hadn't asked her why she did that, but if he didn't respond when she said something she had no problem letting a silence stretch for as long as it took him to start another conversation. He suspected it was a challenge.
"Did you get everything done that you needed to today?" Good job Malfoy, small talk. Nice thinking. He may as well have just gone home. As per usual, Granger had thrown him entirely off balance.
He had expected sarcasm and some sort of remark that made him question his very existence, but instead she turned shut the oven door and turned around with one of those smiles that crept up on her - and him-, "I did! Thank you for asking!" That was it.
Everything was back to normal, and he could go back to trying to ignore the fact that she had that scar and the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled.
"You know, for someone as upstanding and an example to young witches everywhere, you drink an awful lot of wine," he joked when he spotted the rather impressive collection of empty wine bottles that had accumulated on top of her Muggle ice-box.
She laughed and held her hand against her chest, and his mind was torn between fixating at the way the "v" of her t-shirt was falling lower than usual, or the delicate way the tips of her fingers were just barely touching her skin. He forced himself to blink and redirect his gaze to the army of empty bottles, smirk, and then make eye contact.
"You don't think I'm living up to all of the expectations of being 'The Brightest Witch of Our Age'?" she made some dramatic fainting motions and Draco couldn't help but laugh at how silly she was. "Well damn, I guess I should see if I can get out of the contract I signed."
The realisation that being heralded as the Gryffindor Princess maybe wasn't all it was cracked up to was enough to silence Draco and prevent him from thinking of any sort of response. He hated the effect Granger could have on him with all her fucking honesty.
With her back to him as she opened the oven door she asked, "Malfoy, do think you I'm uptight?" A warm, delicious breeze coasted by him and he took in a deep breath.
He had managed to stop associating her with one thing, and now he had been assuming that she was in fact, the portrait of rigid perfection that had been her persona for nearly ten years. How he had continued to believe all those rumours and presumptions up until this very moment was rather absurd, and he sort of despised himself for it. Sometimes he wasn't as clever as he thought.
Granger continued to stare at the pizza, and Draco had no idea what she looking for, it looked fine to him. Maybe she was trying to avoid facing him until he answered the question. That seemed to make sense, although she also didn't seem like the type to avoid an answer just because she wasn't sure she would like it.
He took another deep breath and pondered her question for a few moments, "What do you mean 'uptight'?" He frowned, he could do better than that. Solid response, jackass, what a way with words you have.
Granger frowned right back at him, "Well, I don't know exactly," she paused, grabbed an oven mitt and blushed, "Nevermind, forget I brought it up." He could tell who she was more disappointed in.
Scrambling, he started talking without any filter, and he winced as he did it. "I-I mean, certainly at Hogwarts - We all thought you were bloody frigid, but none of us actually knew you. I'd always assumed you were proud and unapproachable because, to be entirely fair, that's how you presented yourself when I was around. I also just didn't like you. You were irritating. It would be foolish to say that that's a reflection of your entire personality. You are proud, but and how could I possibly think of calling you uptight when you're in this pi- bohemian… thing?"
He paused for a moment to try to gather any sort of coherent thought, but the tiny period of time between it being a reasonable pause and an awkward silence was looming over him, and so he just continued, "Well, you are uptight, or at least you were while we were at Hogwarts, but I think that that might have been because you felt you had to in order to survive… or something like that. You're Muggleborn, so when you started displaying your affinity for magic no one knew what it was or why strange were happening when you got upset. You were probably ostracized or teased… based on what I've read on the behavior of Muggleborn children and their early relationships…" he trailed off,"I mean, so when you got to Hogwarts you didn't really fit in here either, but you had your brains… your insufferable, know-it-all brain, and you used that. I guess my answer is no, you're not uptight, but I understand why you were."
Realising he had been staring at the floor, he raised his eyes to see what sort of reaction was going to be plainly displayed on her face.
There was a smile, a content, somewhat surprised expression, and as she finally matched his gaze with hers, she smiled even more. Life is strange, Draco thought.
…
…
While they waited for the pizza to finish baking they had strung lights around the kitchen and living room, giving everything a warm golden glow. She was glad they didn't any other light, the dim yellow lights were very relaxing.
They sat across from each other at the island counter now, each of them perched on a bar stool.
"I've spent the majority of my life eating bizarre foods, I think you can try a slice of pizza without it killing you," Hermione was already onto her third slice.
Malfoy wrinkled his nose, "No thank you, it looks positively grotesque."
"Positively grotesque," even with a bite of pizza tucked in her cheek it was a fairly accurate replication of the Slytherin's voice. After a few moments of chewing she looked up and saw that he was watching her. "What?"
"Am I not allowed to look at you now?" he asked wryly.
Narrowing her eyes Hermione replied, "Were you ever allowed to before?"
He laughed and as always Hermione smiled along with him. For some reason she loved the sound of his laugh. Maybe it was because she had spent so many years believing he didn't even know how to smile.
Hoping he wouldn't see how much she enjoyed hearing him laugh, she returned her attention to her slice of pizza. Something she found relatively strange was how easily he accepted the idea that she occasionally slipped entirely from a conversation, her mind aimlessly focusing on one thing. He was smart, and she was smart, and she knew he knew she was smart. He enjoyed rubbing it in her face with the "Brightest Witch of Her Age" shtick. While she had been busy pretending to be focused on eating pizza, or cooking, reading, cleaning, or any other number of trivial tasks, she hadn't realised he was doing the same thing. He had managed to trick her into thinking that he wasn't noticing and analysing everything. She quickly glanced up and caught him staring at her face, and she blushed. She sometimes hated that she was almost always right, and she wasn't a huge fan of blushing either.
"You think too much, Granger," he said as he daintily plucked a slice of pizza from the wooden serving plate.
Hermione rolled her eyes, "I'm just not as good at hiding it as you are."
Those arguments had really shifted their relationship to a different place, and she was feeling the disorientation now. Thoughts she would have kept to herself, and thoughts he certainly would have kept to himself were slowly revealing themselves in conversation. They were actually openly getting to know each other.
While it was strange, it wasn't wholly unpleasant.
She sighed and ran her fingertip around the rim of her wine glass, "Life is strange."
"You know, I had been thinking the same thing," Malfoy said before pointing to what was left of his slice, "This is good, Granger."
She leaned her head back in surprise at his admission, and decided to push him a little further, "What made you want to read up on Muggleborns?"
"Curiosity mostly," he answered brusquely, and she gave him a look of encouragement. "I started reading research papers about Muggleborns after the War, I mean, I'd been interested before then, but it wasn't exactly a great time to be found stashing away books about Muggleborns," he laughed dryly. "I didn't know anything about what it was like to be Muggleborn in any sense. All I knew was that I wasn't supposed to like them and that they were different."
"Can I ask another question?" She asked quietly behind her third glass of wine. She was feeling warm.
"I think you're supposed to respond to my answer first," he smirked and she rolled her eyes.
"Alright, well, thanks, I guess for you know, educating yourself. I admire your drive for knowledge. It's easy to stay ignorant when you're in a place of privilege," he nodded in agreement and she wondered how many glasses of wine he'd had, because even at their best they didn't go this long without bickering about something. She'd especially expected some argument on this. Christ, they had been in a War over this.
As he poured himself more wine he said, "What's your other question?"
"Oo, so generous tonight, Malfoy," Hermione grinned when he scoffed.
Quirking an eyebrow he replied, "And you're cheeky as usual."
Hermione flapped a dismissive hand as she giggled, "Okay, well, when did you come up with such an astute observation? It was very astute by the way."
She watched his face with rapt attention, smiling at the somewhat chagrined expression that crossed his perpetually pale features. Hermione thoroughly enjoyed when she could surprise Malfoy so much that he forgot to keep that bloody deadpan up.
"Literally just off the top of my head."
"You're telling me that Draco Malfoy never sat up late at night pondering the life and turmoil of me," she raised her hand to breast, "Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor Princess?" She wrinkled her nose at her own use of the stupid nickname.
…
…
Draco had been keeping track of how much each of them had drank so far, and Granger was very close to finishing her fourth glass, while he was just starting his third. She didn't mess around when it came to drinking, it was actually impressive. To be fair, she was getting a touch tipsy, as indicated by her continuous flurry of giggles and the flush across her nose and clavicle.
"Shocking, I know," he smirked sarcastically. "That was… right before the Dark Lord -" he shrunk in on himself, cringing at the realisation of what he had just said. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
A surprisingly somber look came over her, "It's alright, Malfoy."
"I'm sorry, I should have… I didn't think…" he couldn't find the right words. He'd referred to Voldemort as the Dark fucking Lord in front of her. What he was supposed to say?
"It's alright, really, please," she reassured him earnestly.
Draco had been talking about Skeeter's obsession with the two of them just before the Death Eaters had infiltrated the Daily Prophet and taken control, but trying to drag himself through to finish that thought really wasn't something he had any interest in doing. He finished his glass of wine like a shot.
He watched as Granger, who was resting her chin on her left hand, raised the other and used wandless magic to wave over the bottle of wine.
"Merlin's beard, Granger," he was gaping, he knew that she was a talented witch, but bloody hell. "Was that even difficult for you?"
She looked confused, and of course she did, why would his amazement at her ability to do wandless magic make sense to her? She was Hermione Granger.
"I mean," she was blushing.
He shook his head as he grinned.
"I'm actually a lot better at it when I've been drinking," she raised an eyebrow and nodded her head up and down as if that was assured expression was going to make that believable.
"And I'm better at riding my broom, come on Granger."
"I'm dead serious!"
He deadpanned.
"Actually," she said with such tantalizing emphasis that he leaned toward her, his elbows on the counter, "I'm the best at wandless magic when I'm under the influence of other… substances."
She was actually drunk, that's what this was - or Draco was having a very elaborate hallucination, because there was no fucking way that she had just said she'd done drugs.
"Excuse me?" Is what gracelessly fell out of his mouth.
Wrapping a curl around her finger she offered him a lopsided smirk that revealed a dimple he hadn't noticed before. "I haven't done anything reckless, obviously, but you know, I've partaken in certain Muggle herbal medicines."
"Are you serious?" He had no idea what Muggle shite she was on about, but Merlin, it's bloody hard to be so wrong about a person.
She nodded her head up and down slowly.
They stared at each other effortlessly while Draco jiggled his foot thoughtlessly, trying to figure out if she telling the truth. Hermione Granger had always fit very neatly into a very specific box.
Know-it-all, bookworm, Muggleborn, heroine, punctual to a fault, stubborn, arrogant, proud, Gryffindor. All of these belonged in the box too, they made sense and lived together in perfect, organised harmony.
Now he was fumbling to find places for all these new traits he had discovered. Witty, anxious, empathetic, sarcastic, angry, depressed, scarred, borderline culinary genius, wino, potential drug user.
Her eyes were so emotive and honest, and that was why he had always struggled to keep that stubborn eye contact she had always insisted on forcing on him. All through their years at Hogwarts they would have the fiercest staring contests across the Great Hall, the Potions classroom, the Quidditch pitch, everywhere they happened to pass each other. Every time her eyes bore one clear message, I hate you.
Now, he had no idea. They were just warm. Cinnamon, caramel, dandelions, honey… All there.
A delicate sigh from her delicately pink lips roused him from his thoughts and he blinked. "I'm drunk, I think." She said it with a cheerful smile and giggle.
Before he could respond in agreement, she jerked upright on the barstool and clapped her hands, "I think I still have some!"
"What?" She was already gone, and he reluctantly accepted the fact that he was expected to follow her. He really didn't feel like getting up.
He'd never seen any other part of her house, just the kitchen and living room, which to be fair, was probably half of the whole shack.
There was a doorway that he'd never noticed before, the door frame was painted pale turquoise and a sheer tapestry hung from the top edge to compensate for the lack of a door. The fabric was a deep blue and it was decorated an image of the night sky with a full moon in the top right corner.
He wasn't sure if the wine was finally hitting him, but it sure as hell looked like the stars were glowing. With as a gentle a movement as he could manage, he drew the tapestry aside and stepped to the other side. It was a short hallway, but Granger had certainly made the space her own.
He ran his hand along the wood-paneled wall, listening to the faint sound of Granger humming from behind one of three doors. Small white and yellow Muggle lights were seemingly floating along the edge where the ceiling and walls met. It was a small hallway to be sure, but he didn't feel closed in or suffocated. He was cast in a golden light and he wondered if this how Granger felt all the time, because this was how she looked. Warm.
The first door was to her bedroom, which was tiny and cluttered with books and papers, but he didn't take the time to nose around. He may be observant, but he certainly wasn't going to invade her personal space when she was just now opening up to him. The second door was the bathroom and it had the lingering scent of vanilla and other comforting things. He smirked at the cream tub that dwarfed the rest of the room. He could very easily imagine her in it.
He blushed.
At the end of the hallway, parallel to the transformative doorway, was the third door.
"Granger?" He knew she was there, she hadn't just disappeared into another dimension, but he felt he should let her know he was there just in case she was as easily startled when she was drunk as she was when she sober.
"I'm here," she replied, and he momentarily retracted that thought of alternate dimensions, because she sounded farther away than he'd expected.
He understood why once he was inside the room.
It bore a striking resemblance to the Room of Requirement when it was filled all of the antiques and ancient relics.
More interested in figuring out where the hell she was, he didn't take the time to appreciate all the things that had comprised the heap of… things before him.
The humming had resumed and he finally spotted her near the ceiling, and while it wasn't as if she were twenty feet in the air, the mere she had managed to scale the furniture mountain was frighteningly impressive.
"Are you sure you should be doing that?" He stayed right where he was, that wasn't anything he wanted to be involved in. He could really only see her from the shoulders up because there was a rather large armoire blocking his view.
"Should I?" She giggled and he winced when there was the sharp sound of something falling, "I am, so I'd say it doesn't matter."
With a sense of responsibility weighing on him, he pulled his wand from his pocket with a sigh of reluctance and stood at the ready, just in case she tumbled off this heap of junk.
Enduring at least three straight minutes of her delighted humming and various sounds of things being knocked over, she finally exclaimed, "I found it!"
She was absurdly nimble for someone who was getting more drunk as time went on, and before he could put his wand away she was standing in front of him, dangling a clear bag with some earthy green foolishness inside of it between her fingers. She shook it in front of his face.
"This is marijuana." She wiggled her eyebrows tauntingly.
He scoffed and shook his head, "Not tonight Granger."
"But a different night?"
"Sure."
She seemed skeptical, so he pinky promised the drunk Gryffindor and herded her toward the bedroom, all the while she apologised for being drunk and for making him eat pizza.
"I'm sorry, it's just so good, how could you go through life without having any?"
Finally, having after to assure her at least twice that he wasn't upset with her, she had sat down on her bed. "I've got it from here," she gave him a thumbs up before beginning to undo the button on her pants.
"Alright, sounds good," he rushed his words and felt his face get hot. He stared aggressively at the ceiling. "Night, Granger."
"Night, Malfoy!"
/
/
Thank you to everyone who is sticking with me through this adventure of a story.
- Lindsey