Chapter 11: Paper Moon

Hermione sank into her chair, trying to hide behind a menu as George and Lee belted out a marvellously off-key rendition of 'Happy Birthday.'

"You've been very naughty, Miss 'I Didn't Want to Make a Fuss,' so you'll have no birthday spankings from me," George said once they'd finally finished the song.

"And that's supposed to be a punishment, is it?" she asked.

Her actual reason for not telling George about her birthday had been so silly, she hardly wanted to own up to it, even in the privacy of her own mind. She'd wanted to see if he would remember on his own. A ridiculous test, really. Something straight out of Lavender's arsenal.

"Of course it is. I have your birthday on my calendar now, so if you're very well-behaved you might get some next year."

"I can hardly wait."

"If you two are quite finished," Lee said with a grin, "I believe presents are customary on birthdays."

The gift he produced from beneath the table looked as if he'd wrapped it with his feet. The brightly coloured paper had jagged edges, and the whole thing was covered with enough tape to stretch from one end of Diagon Alley to the other and back again. Twice.

"You didn't have to get me anything," Hermione said.

Lee scoffed. "Just open the damn thing."

She did so, slowly. Working through the mounds of tape almost required the use of her wand. Inside, she found six vials of Hangover Relief Potion and a box of Honeyduke's chocolates.

"To keep at George's," Lee said, gesturing at the potion. "Just in case, since he's such a sodding Muggle. I've charmed it so he can't nick any."

"Thanks," Hermione said with a laugh.

"I do not get hangovers, sir," George, sticking his nose up in his best impersonation of Percy.

"Right." Lee chuckled. "You forget I shared a dorm with you for nearly seven years, mate."

"Yeah, yeah." George produced a gift from his coat pocket. "Open mine now, Carl."

Hermione expected a book. It was what people usually gave her, and the present was the right shape. Underneath the inappropriately Christmas themed paper (where had he found that in September?), she found a black velvet box. Inside that was a silver necklace with a delicate, owl-shaped pendant.

"I was going to give it to you for Christmas," George said. "Saw it when we were in Camden, and I went back to get it after you'd gone home."

Beaming at him, Hermione fastened the chain around her neck. "It's beautiful. Thank you."

"No problem. It reminded me of you."

"Really? Why?"

"Don't you remember the first time we met? You were helping Neville search for his toad on the Hogwarts Express, and when you opened the door our compartment, Alicia's owl swooped down and got its legs caught in your hair."

"Oh, my God. I can't believe you remember that."

"Like I could forget. You made quite the impression. Eleven years old, a demented bird flapping around your head, and you scolded the bloody thing." George shook a finger at the necklace in what Hermione suspected was a far-too-accurate imitation of her eleven-year-old self. "That's what you get for dive bombing innocent people, Mr. Owl. Now you're stuck, and it serves you right. I hope this teaches you a lesson. And if you don't stop pulling my hair, I'm going to write to your mother."

"I did not say that!"

The scowl shifted into a lopsided grin. "Might be mixing up other memories with that last part. I reckon you would've written to his mum, though, if you'd had her address."

Hermione gave him a half-hearted shove that somehow turned into a hug. "Thanks," she said again.

Laughter rumbled through his chest as he brushed a kiss over her temple. He rested his hands on her hips, his thumbs rubbing light circles on her sides. "You're welcome, love."

-oOo-

"Well?" Draco said, propping his elbows on the cubicle wall.

Hermione spared him only the briefest of glances before returning to her work. "Well, what?"

"Did you drop the Hufflepuff act?"

"Aren't we supposed to be back to bickering now that it's Monday? Wasn't that the deal?"

"Oh, right."

With that, he disappeared into his own cubicle. After a few minutes, Hermione smelt something that usually didn't belong in an office: a metallic sort of burning. A strange, intermittent whooshing noise accompanied it.

For the first time ever, she was the one to peer over the cubicle wall.

"What are you doing?" she asked when she discovered him hunched over his desk, welding a chain of paperclips together with his wand.

"Fashioning a poking device. If I annoy you while we talk, it counts as a fight. There. All done."

Standing up, he extended the now rigid string of paperclips and jabbed her shoulder at half-second intervals. "Now," he said with a satisfied nod, "did you tell him?"

"No."

He poked her harder. "Hufflepuff."

"It's complicated. I used to go out with his brother, and he and I are still friends, and he was completely horrified by the idea of me being with one of his brothers, and—"

"Losing interest."

Hermione shrugged. "I told you before, I'm not sure this guy is even in a place where he's ready for a relationship." This elicited a particularly harsh prod. "Ow! Will you stop that?"

"No." His sneer slowly morphed into a contemplative look. "Who is he, anyway? It's not Percy Weasley, is it?"

"No. You wouldn't know him. He's a Muggle."

Best to keep her story straight. The chances of Draco talking with any of the Weasleys was slim, but better safe than sorry.

"A Muggle? A Muggle?" Poking device cast aside, he stared at her. "Granger, I know you're just a Mud—" He slapped a hand over his mouth, cutting off the almost-slur. The conditions of his parole barred him from using hate speech at his place of compulsory employment.

There it was: the reason Draco and Hermione would never be friends. The reason he would never let himself be her friend. He might trust her enough to share a personal secret and think she was clever enough to act as his verbal sparring partner, but deep down, he still saw her as lower in some way. Hermione wasn't sure if she should feel sad, angry, or indifferent that it seemed like they would only ever be coworkers who exchanged barbs and occasionally had meaningful conversations. They would be acquaintances, she supposed. Their interactions would be confined to gossip over cubicle walls, greeting cards, and brief chats when they met in public. A polite mask to conceal his true thoughts.

Maybe it was better this way. Maybe she wanted to keep hating him too, just a little.

Clearing his throat, Draco stared at his fingers as they swept back and forth along the edge of his desk. "I know you didn't grow up in the Wizarding World, but come on. You have a wand, don't you? Just Confund the ex. Or Obliviate your relationship from his memory. Problem solved."

She rolled her eyes, torn between laughing and frowning. "Get back to work."

-oOo-

Hermione stretched her arms overhead, yawning as she wriggled closer to George. For the past hour, they'd been curled up on his bed, half-dozing in between hugs. He had yet to explain why he'd rang and asked her to come over in the first place.

"You okay?" she asked, melting the silence that had settled over them like the hush of snow.

"Yeah. Mostly. It's the first of October today. Our half-birthday. Stupid, right? We started celebrating it when we were kids. See, our actual birthday was always about us going all out, playing pranks on everyone else. April Fool's Day and all. How could we resist? Our half-birthday, though, that was just about us. Our own little secret celebration for playing pranks on each other."

"That sounds nice."

"It was." He toyed with a lock of her hair, twirling it around his finger and watching it bounce back when he released it. "This one year he tried to glue my arse to the toilet seat. We were going through a bit of a fascination with Muggle pranks at the time. Charlie ended up getting stuck instead of me, though. It was quite the sight to see. Him chasing after both of us, toilet seat still stuck, trying to cover himself and hit us at the same time. Fred very nearly got a photo of it, but Mum caught us."

He rolled onto his back, still smiling at the memory. A sigh passed through his lips as they turned down.

"I miss him." His voice cracked on the last word.

"I know." Hermione pushed his shaggy ginger hair back from his forehead. "I realise it's not the same, but I miss him, too."

"Oh, you just miss his smooches, you little hussy."

His laugh found a louder echo of itself in hers: involuntary and irresistible.

"I only kissed him once, and you know it," she said.

He shifted onto his side again, his face so close to hers that their breath mingled and his features looked blurry. "You never wanted to kiss him again?"

"Not really."

"Why not? Didn't you like it?"

Good Lord. Did he have to be quite so close to her while talking about whether she liked kissing his identical twin, of all things?

"Yes, I liked it. But it was a one-time thing. And it was just a friendly kiss."

Unfocused as his face may have been, she could still see the teasing half-smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Friends kiss with their tongues? You and I have been going about it all wrong, then."

His gaze moved from her mouth to her eyes and back again, just as it had that afternoon on Primrose Hill. When she realised his breath was as shallow and rapid as her own, a warm thrill sprang to life in her belly and quivered up to her chest. One of his hands settled over her cheek.

"Why do I feel like it should be raining right now?" he whispered.

When Hermione let out a gasp of laughter, her nose touched his. Instead of pulling back, he let his hand drift down her body, his fingers tickling her arm on their path to her waist. He held her tight.

"I want to, you know," he said.

"Want to what?"

"Kiss you." The arm he'd wedged between them moved up so his thumb could trail across her lower lip. "In case it wasn't completely obvious."

She thought he was grinning, but he'd moved so close that she could no longer see his mouth at all. He had to be; that tone in his voice practically formed a smile in the air between them, like the sound waves became something she could touch. Hermione's heartbeat raced, setting a faster tempo for this dance they'd been caught in for months.

"I think about it a lot," he said. "Way too much, really. Sometimes I think I've reverted to the age of fourteen, given how often I dream about being back at Hogwarts and taking you up to the Astronomy Tower. You'd probably slap me if you could read my mind."

"I doubt that." She touched his mouth, just to make sure the smile was really there — to make sure it was fuelled by affection rather than a desire to tease her. "What's stopping you?"

At first, she thought he wouldn't answer. The lips beneath her hand pursed, kissing her fingertips again and again as the quiet of easy companionship crept in. When his voice came, it was lower than a whisper — just a breath.

"Give me a little while longer, okay?"

Hermione nodded, her forehead nudging his. "All right."

"I mean, I'll completely understand if you can't restrain yourself and you just have to snog me before you explode from an overdose of lust. Won't blame you at all. Few women could resist as long as you have."

"Pft. I think I'll manage."

This time, she saw his smile. He backed up far enough to show her the slight curve of his lips, at once both fond and rueful.

Shaking his head, he laughed. "Damn."