After the last few days of cars, buses, and otherwise terrifying muggle travel, Draco is thrilled to apparate for the first time in years, even if he does have to side-along.
"Apparition is strictly monitored so even once you have a license you can't go just anywhere. Luckily, Diagon Alley has an apparition lot nearby." She reaches over and takes his hand. Draco swears he can already feel the tingle of magic course through him. "Ready?"
He nods but stares straight ahead. As much as he hates that sickening feeling of being pulled through a too-small space, he is quite excited.
Unfortunately, Draco does not anticipate that after so many years it is almost like doing it for the first time. The world collapses away then spits him back out in the middle of an empty space, devoid of anything save a small structure that looks like a ticket booth standing several feet away. He bends in the middle, hands on his thighs and nearly heaves his lunch back up on his feet, only just managing to swallow it back down. He feels Hermione place a soothing hand on his back and rub circles softly. Draco might relish in her touch under other circumstances but right now all he can concentrate on is trying to breathe and keep standing on his feet.
As the nausea fades, he is left feeling embarrassed and a bit angry. "I've done that a thousand fucking times."
"But not in quite a while, Draco. Next time will be a hundred times easier."
Straightening up, he sloughs her hand off his back and hardens his stare across to the little booth. "So what's that then?"
"Oh, that's the toll collector."
"There's a toll? To apparate? You're not serious."
"I'm afraid I am. Any public area like this has to be maintained so they collect a toll to pay for that."
"It's an empty space, Granger! How much bloody upkeep could it take?"
"Well… it also helps pay for… Sanctioned Magic Enforcement." She mumbles the last and Draco is sure he misheard.
"I'm sorry the what?"
She clears her throat and says with more confidence, "Sanctioned Magic Enforcement. The S.M.E. It's a network of wizards that detect unlawful magic use."
He looks at her in abject horror. Wizards who turn in other wizards… to muggles?!
"That's…" he feels a tirade start to build. His disgust is palpable. "How can any self-respecting wizard turn in his own kind?"
She looks at him with something similar to pity which does nothing to calm him. "Draco, we're all the same kind. Some of us just do magic and some don't."
"No, Granger, we're not the same. I'm not the same as them! You can blame me for bad choices and condemn me for being a coward but you will never convince me I am the same as a muggle." He spits the word at her in disdain.
He sees her flinch and can't bring himself to care. It's not as if he is insulting her or anything. He's not talking about blood purity. Just ability. Being better...more. She was born better just as he was. Why should she care what he thinks of some faceless muggle?
She takes a deep breath and he watches her bite her lip a moment as she formulates what she will say. "I know this is all difficult for you. I'm trying hard to remember the day I found out about magic. All of a sudden the world I knew was this different place with things I couldn't have imagined to be true. And I was at a disadvantage. It was all new but for people like you it was just where you live." Hermione tilts her head up to him.
"There are no 'muggles' anymore, Draco. I mean there are as you understand it but most people don't use that word. There are so few of us that use magic. They are not the 'other'. We are. They call us witches and wizards and sorcerers and warlocks and devils and any number of things, good and bad. It's a struggle to just have them refer to us as a person. As a man or woman instead of some label to separate us."
He can't hold her gaze and looks away, grinding his teeth.
"Hey." Her small hand is reaching up and rests on his arm. He doesn't want to look back at her but can't help his treacherous eyes from settling first on her hand, then on her open face. "I'm still like you, you know. I mean, I'm still a witch and I'm here with you."
Draco squeezes his eyes closed and sighs, trying to let go of his anger.
When he opens them, a smile has revisited her face and she gives his arm a playful tap. "Besides, my parents are muggles and we're having dinner with them tomorrow so be nice." He gapes at her as she sashays away and goes to pay their toll.
XXXXXX
Taking Draco to Diagon Alley is both nothing and everything like Hermione imagined. He is simultaneously comforted by the familiar store fronts and some faces, but also aghast at the muggle influence. After their shaky start at the apparition point, he calmed considerably watching her pay the toll with wizarding currency. Apparition points are one of the few muggle locations that still accepts knuts and galleons. The British government instituted that policy at the urging of her own department as a way for wizards to keep some sense of what her supervisor billed 'their lost heritage'. Wizard run shops and other businesses also deal in wizarding monies but the exchange rate to muggle currency is less than desirable.
Having arrived at two in the afternoon, the pair have a considerable amount of time to kill before making their way to the wand maker for their four o'clock appointment.
"There's no… I mean, you can just walk right… this is so fucking odd." He is referring to the fact that Diagon Alley is now like any other street. There's no secret brick to magically move and reveal the wizards commerce district. It's no different than waltzing into Chinatown.
"No need," she shrugs. "Muggles are welcome to shop here. Though many are still too nervous to do so.
"Bags of Holding! Real life extended bags. Carries up to two hundred pounds! Get your very own Bag of Holding!"
A peddler has a cart set up on the street, close to the beginning of the alley and is enticing the crowd to view his wares.
"What's a 'bag of holding'? Is it just charmed to be extendable?"
Hermione looks over at the peddler but keeps walking, unimpressed, having seen it before. "Yes, exactly. There is this old muggle book series. Well really it's a game too but that's beside the point. It was full of Dragons and Elves and things that muggles didn't believe in…and magic. And there was this thing called a "Bag of Holding" that was just a magic bag to carry more than it appeared. Someone marketed it to muggles a couple of years ago. HUGE hit actually, wish I'd thought of it." She chuckles a little.
"Why didn't you? I mean not that precisely but I bet there are countless galleons to be made using magic marketed to muggles."
She smiles and shakes her head. "Not my cup of tea. That's more for your sort. Now if you wanted to do something like that…I mean you're nearly as brilliant as I am and you have the funds to start up production."
"Nearly as brilliant? Granger you wound me."
"Hey brightest witch remember? I mean you get to be Slytherin Prince but royalty and brains, not always packaged together." She winks and walks on, noticing the little smirk rewarded for her cheek.
"Is that the Weasel's place?"
Hermione looks over at the garish purple store front and nods. "George's place. He still owns it too. Muggles increased his sales 50% the first year he was open after Integration. He closed for a little while you know, when it all had to shake out. But now he's franchising. Opening a place in the states next year. Paris just last month."
Draco whistles his approval. "That's impressive for a ginger."
"Would you like to go inside?" He stops walking suddenly and considers.
"I'm not sure anyone in that building would be happy to see me."
She takes note of the suddenly serious and apprehensive posture of her companion and steps in front of him. "Maybe don't call anyone 'Weasel' or 'ginger' then. I think they might surprise you. For that matter, I think you might surprise them. Afterall, you've not been unpleasant to be around."
She watches his face morph quickly to that sort of blank mask and then he changes to the smirking pureblood princeling. "You think I'm not unpleasant?" he asks with mock elation. "Why, Granger, that might be first really nice thing you've said about me."
Hermione starts walking to the Weasley's store and pulls Draco along by the hand, lacing their fingers together without hesitation. "Don't be ridiculous. Why just yesterday I told you your food didn't make me want to eat my own hand. That was nice."
At the door, Hermione enters first to get a lay of the land and see who she will have to contend with. Her confidence in the forgiving nature of the Weasley family is genuine, but maybe only if you remove Ron from the equation. On that, she is a little less sure. She makes a mental note that it has been some time since she visited with the more volatile one third of the Golden Trio.
"George?" She approaches the cashier's counter at the back of the store, weaving around a couple of groups of patrons. She's honestly not sure if they are wizards or muggles and it makes her both a little sad and a little happy she can't tell. She can feel Draco keeping close and hears him mumble an "excuse me" to a group she was able to easily glide by with her small frame.
"'Mione? That you, love?"
She beams at George who is emerging from the back room, a box of extendable ears in his hand. "Hey, George."
"To what do I owe this pleasure? You don't call, you don't write, you don't send me nude photo texts…" he wriggles his eyebrows and leers playfully.
"I can't imagine Angelina would much enjoy that."
"You never know. Great sense of adventure, that one." Hermione rolls her eyes and goes to speak again, caught up in their friendly banter, when George lifts his gaze from her and she knows by his expression where it falls.
"Malfoy. Can I help you?" To say he darkens, compared to the usual happy-go-lucky tone, is an understatement.
"I'm with her." Hermione doesn't have to turn around to imagine the scowl hiding his discomfort.
"Sorry, George, you remember Draco…obviously. We have an appointment at Ollivander's and thought we'd pop in. I hope… that's ok."
"Sure, Hermione, no problem. I was just… surprised is all. You don't wake up and expect…" He shakes his head and when he stops, his crooked smile is back in place. It occurs to Hermione that George's smile might be as much of a mask sometimes as Draco's blank expression.
She watches as the redhead reaches around her to extend a hand. His smile is tight but doesn't falter. "Been a long time."
Draco hesitates but grasps George's hand with his own and gives it one firm shake. "It has. I hear your business is very successful. Congratulations."
He shrugs and they drop their hands away. "I've been lucky. Got in at literally the perfect time. Who knew the end of the world could be so profitable."
Draco snorts and just like that, everything is ok.
"How many locations do you have now?"
Ticking off on his fingers, George mumbles numbers under his breath before he finally says, "thirteen, mostly in Europe. Just opened Paris in fact."
"Granger mentioned. And crossing the water next year she said."
He nods, the smile becoming more genuine all the time. "It'll be fourteen by April. But I'll always run this one. Feels like home you know? It's the original."
Hermione remembers when George and Fred opened the business, much to their Mother's disappointment. They had been incredibly proud. Thinking back on it makes her smile, but there is sadness too. Fred never was able to see…anything really. The business success, the integration with the muggle world, not even the end of the war. She chances a look at George and they lock eyes a moment, silently memorializing his fallen brother.
If Draco notices the exchange, he makes no comment and instead continues the conversation. "I expect your overhead versus profit is in a great position. What's your payroll percentage?"
Fred laughs. "I'm not the bloke to answer that. You'd have to talk to my accountant."
"You don't do your own books?" Draco looks quite surprised.
"Nah. Never did. Fred and I, well it wasn't really our bag, yeah? Hired a witch not long after we first opened. She retired during integration. Said she was "too old to learn all these newfangled muggle laws". I hired a muggle accounting firm once I secured all my permits to keep operating."
Seeming to remember suddenly that she is there, Draco turns to Hermione and gestures to George. "See? Someone still says muggle."
She rolls her eyes but with a grin of playful exasperation. "Yes, point zero one percent of the population. Mostly purebloods. To that degree I suppose you're right."
He places his cupped hand by his ear. "What was that again? George, did you make that out?"
George's eyes ping-pong between their familiar and comfortable exchange and his eyebrows raise but he doesn't answer.
"What? Point zero one? Too high a number?"
"No, no the other bit. The part where Hermione Granger was wrong."
"I'm not wrong."
Draco tuts. "I clearly recall having a disagreement regarding this conversation. And I even more clearly just now heard you say I was right. Which, one must infer, would make you wrong."
"You're insufferable."
"So I've been told."
A/N This is one of my shorter chapters I'll admit but I was ready for a scene break so it seemed a good place to stop. A bit of a fluff chapter but I was enjoying sauntering around Diagon a bit. Next chapter Gringotts and Ollivander's and another stop or two. I'm curious if there are other wizarding stops anyone would be interested to see. Next chapter is partially written and I hope for a shorter wait this time before posting. Thanks so much for the reviews. If you post anonymously I can't reply directly to you but I appreciate the comments and don't want it to go unsaid. As always reviews are treasured, faves are exciting, and follows are fuel to the fire!