Chapter 18 - Instincts and Eggshells
"Harry, he'd actually read that paper on the Peruvian Runes. Do you remember when it came out? I couldn't find anyone to discuss it with, it was so frustrating." Hermione was whispering across the table to Harry, despite being far enough away from the house to prevent them from being overheard. It had been a good five minutes since they'd gone outside and Draco was probably about to come out to join them on the lawn any moment now. A progress report of 'Project Malfoy' was needed, immediately.
She creaked forward on the old wooden garden chair, sitting right on the edge, her hands clasped around her wine glass on the wrought iron table, and continued on an even lower voice, wide eyes latched wholeheartedly on Harry's. "What did you think? He's so much better than when he was last over."
Harry took a swig of wine before answering, "what do I think about Malfoy? Yeah, he certainly seems a lot more together than before. And Scorp's been on great form this week."
"How was he when you two were working on the Runes this afternoon?"
"Um, he was fine. Well, he was great, actually."
"Was he patient? Did he explain things to you clearly?"
"Surprisingly so. Yes, to both." Hermione nodded but remained silent. "Hermione, what are you thinking?" Harry asked her. He looked bemused, if a bit wary.
She bit her lip and smiled, hearing him but not wanting to answer just yet. She needed to think for a moment, to assign appropriate, rational sounding words to where her thoughts had taken her.
"Hermione," he said, coaxingly.
Her eyes snapped back to him from where they had wandered across the garden, and for some reason, she felt herself begin to blush. She then took a great gulp of wine instead of answering, finding the alcohol was having the pleasant affect of strengthening her resolve.
"Hermione, you have that look. The one you get when you're planning something outrageous or completely insane."
"Harry! I don't have a look."
"Yes you do, you've got it now. Please, fill me in?"
Hermione snorted, shook her head and then pushed a stray lock of hair off her face and behind her ear. She began tracing around the edge of her glass with her finger, took a deep breath and reluctantly began to speak, already dreading Harry's reaction. He was right, it would sound insane said out loud like this. Well, it sounded insane in her head too, but she couldn't stop the bubbling, exciting feeling that she was on to something good.
"Well. You know how I've been working this summer to re-organise the syllabus for Burbage?" She glanced up to see him nod, and then fastened her eyes back down on the glass. "Well, History of Magic is being combined with a more general course of World History, and it's not going to be as insular as what we were 'taught' by Binns. Well, this leaves a slight gap in the curriculum for a subject that does focus on our own culture, and, well, wizarding culture as a whole."
In her periphery Hermione saw Harry frown and open his mouth as if about to speak, so she looked up at him from her glass and rushed on, "I know what you're thinking, but I'm not just talking about traditional pure-blood culture, their funny customs and rituals, although that of course has its place, but the deeper roots of our society. Yeah, we'll go into the usual topics like where the Ministry came from, the Wizengamot, and so on and so forth, but also something Malfoy just touched upon inside, the history of magic and spell casting itself. How Runes were once so widespread, but now are only used for specific things; how it came to be that the spells we speak are derived from Latin. Wand-lore is a fascinating branch of magic that you can bet an eleven year old pure-blood will know more about than any eighteen year old muggle born.
"You know that nearly all the students at Burbage are from muggle backgrounds, and how now, more than ever it seems that society is demanding that we respect their wizarding culture. Things have come a long way in twenty years but all that could change, especially with the current political climate... But even at Hogwarts today, none of that stuff is really taught, so how do we have any hope of succeeding? Who taught us, for example, about the proper etiquette for a traditional wizard's funeral? And, yeah, we were taught that Paganism was a common practice until the ministry outlawed it two hundred years ago, but we weren't told that pockets of isolated pure-bloods still practice it today and the Ministry just turns a blind eye." She paused to take a breath.
"I know, It's just like with Babbitty Rabbitty. Where are you going with this?" Harry said after a moment, frowning.
"Okay, I'm getting to that. You're right, no one told us about Babbitty Rabbitty and look how that held us back. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, I want to make the people stop seeing it as their culture and see it as ours. And so-" she took a deep breath and rushed out, "I'm thinking about asking Malfoy if he wants to run the class." Harry's glass paused on the way to his lips and he dropped it down slowly, looking, to her disappointment, not as excited as she had hoped. Well in fact, he looked down right shocked.
"But Hermione -"
"Hear me out, Harry!" She spoke quickly, her voice rising above a whisper, as if pure volume and speed would convince Harry to agree with her in the way she already suspected the content of her speech wouldn't. "No one knows as much about this as a pure-blood does, and we know he's passionate about the subject! He told me so himself at Scorp's interview! And of course, his current potion job is fantastic, but that will be finished soon, and then he'll be looking for more work. I wouldn't shove a whole school's worth of students on him at once of course. He could maybe start off as little as an hour or two a week, for seventh year students or whoever shows an interest."
Harry leant forward, bringing his elbows on to the table and clasped his hands in front of him. "Have you just come up with this idea in the past five minutes?" He spoke slowly and quietly, as if to counteract her urgent monologue. As if to instil sense into her. Instead, it just made her feel annoyed and a bit patronised. She made sure her next words were as deliberate as his.
"Well no. I've been thinking about it for some time. I'd never actually considered Malfoy for a candidate until today."
"Hermione, Malfoy was brilliant today, I'll admit that, but please, you have to be careful with him."
Hermione looked at him sharply. "I thought you were the one who wanted to help him in the first place? I thought you were the one to convince me he'd changed?"
"I did, and I still do! Of course, I know he has! But I don't think it's a good idea to shove a load of responsibly like that on his plate. He seems fine today, but we don't know what he'll be like tomorrow." He lowered his voice and pinned her with the directness of his gaze. "I don't want you to put all your hopes on him, Hermione. He's come a long way, but we can't assume he's up to, or even willing to accept such a challenge, just yet. We need to take things slowly with him.
"Also, now please don't take this the wrong way, but don't you think you might be jumping into what seems like a great idea, without giving it enough time to sink in? You were really upset earlier-" Hermione felt her annoyance with Harry crest to the surface with those words, and she sharply swiped her hand through the air as if she were casting a charm that could physically bar them from reaching her.
But Harry ruthlessly pressed on, still in that infuriatingly gentle voice, "and the accusations the press have been throwing at you may have made you think you need to do something to appease them. But you don't, Hermione. Don't feel like you need to make a whole new subject, just to make a backwards bunch of racist twats feel better about their old, mouldy traditions and quite frankly, boring lives."
Hermione glared at the table, unable to meet or acknowledge the earnest look she'd undoubtably find in Harry's eyes. She let out a breath through clenched teeth and picked up her glass to take a long, deep drink. Harry's words had been like an ornamental knife, his gentle delivery hiding their potential for devastation. They deftly pierced the delicate bubble of happiness that had begun to grow since she'd arrived that afternoon, and without that soft fantasy that she'd began to believe in about Malfoy, nurtured and given life by his words and his rare smiles, all the pain and humiliation of the past couple of hours, wrenched up by the article in the Daily Post, crowded back at her and she shut her eyes against it all, turning away from her friend.
She heard him murmur her name and felt his hand rest on her shoulder but she shrugged it off, but after a moment span back around to face him, unable to let him have the last word, her hurt causing previously unacknowledged thoughts to spit uncontrollably from the back of her throat like hissing bile. "This isn't about the bloody WIP, and this isn't about me feeling upset and lonely like some fucking spinster and thinking Draco Malfoy could fill the sad, weeping hole in my heart-"
"I didn't say that, Hermione! Why have you leapt to that conclusion!?" Harry exclaimed, raising his hands up in defence. Hermione quickly brought her fingers to her face and ran them roughly underneath her eyes, wiping away any tears before they could establish themselves. What was that?! You're becoming hysterical! Pull yourself together! If there's anything to convince Harry you're not all right, it's saying something like that.
"Fine, sorry. I know you didn't, I just mean -" but she was interrupted by Harry's hand pressing on her shoulder and a warning flash from his eyes. She turned in her chair, following the direction of his gaze and saw Malfoy striding across the garden towards them.
His formal black robes were billowing as he walked, and she was startled to see his face looking cold and impassive once again. He was not looking at them, but studiously at the trees behind. There was something in his posture and about his shoulders that was unnaturally ridged and Hermione experienced the horrible, sinking realisation that she may have been wrong after all. Harry squeezed her shoulder before he dropped his hand.
His comfort, however, only caused her tears to well back up. Hermione turned quickly back around to try and discreetly wipe her eyes again on the corner of her sleeve, furiously cursing herself all the while. She didn't see the way Malfoy blinked as he saw the action, or the way his eyes widened and the set of his jaw became softer as he tested murmured words of concern on his tongue.
But then he came to himself.
"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting anything," he drawled from behind her. She took a moment to fill her lungs with the supposedly peaceful air of late summer and turned around to meet him. He was watching her intently but with such an infuriatingly guarded expression Hermione couldn't read a single thing into it. The realisation crushed the air out of her in a rush, leaving her chest feeling tight and unstable.
She plastered what she hoped was a carefree smile on her face, a weak attempt to dissemble that was akin to trying to damn a flood with leaves and said, "not at all. Will you join us?" As she spoke her voice rose waveringly into an unnaturally high pitch and she winced. If her face hadn't done it, she'd certainly just been betrayed by her vocal cords.
Malfoy shook his head but flicked his eyes from her to Harry to address him instead, as if it hadn't been Hermione that asked the question. "I'm sorry, but Scorpius and I will have to be on our way." Hermione dug her nails painfully into her hands to try and stop herself from crying, and didn't dare look at Harry. Instead she continued to watch Malfoy, desperateto understand what was going on. "Potter, thank you again for taking care of Scorp over the last few days." He held out his hand stiffly and Harry leant over the table to shake it.
"It's been a pleasure. Did he tell you about the party we're having on Wednesday? It's a sort of send off for the boys and for the rest of the family, the evening before school starts."
Malfoy brought his arm back down with a snap and his manner became even more austere. What's happened to you in the last ten minutes to make you shut down like this? Hermione thought, wildly. What about our conversation? I wanted to talk to you about so much more.
"He mentioned it. Of course he may attend. I shall drop him off at six."
Hermione heard Harry's deep, steadying intake of breath beside her and realised, he was as bothered by Malfoy's sudden turn as she was.
"And did he say the invite's open to you, as well?" Harry said, a display of utmost patience.
For some unknown reason, Malfoy seemed to interpret the tone badly and his eyes narrowed as he answered. His voice was bitingly cold, the words as clipped as possible without them becoming staccato. "He did. And while I thank you for your invitation, I'm afraid my attendance won't be possible." Hermione felt whatever was left of that stupid, idiotic bubble wither. Still, he wouldn't look at her.
"Fine, well, we'll just see you at some point in the distant future I suppose." Harry drawled, just adopting enough of a hint of Malfoy's cut-glass accent for it to come across as mocking. He leant back in his chair, a cold smirk on his lips that was almost as awful as the one Malfoy used to wear, and raised his glass lazily to the blonde in the parody of a toast.
Malfoy drew himself up, and it was almost like the boy from Hogwarts was glaring at them from across time. His eyes narrowed even further, completely disguising any hint of the soft grey of his irises; his nostrils flared and the corners of his pursed mouth pulled down into the beginnings of a sneer. Hermione winced, looking back and forth between the two wizards as the sudden tension began to fracture around them.
But instead of spitting out whatever poisonous retort that strained against his lips, Malfoy brought them un-expectantly back to the present. He swallowed, and finally, his eyes met hers, and Hermione thought them tinged with regret, but a split second later his expression had dissolved back into impassivity and she knew she had imagined it. He nodded once, span on his heel, and with his back held impossibly straight, strode back towards the house.
Hermione let out a shaky breath, her shoulders slumped as she watched him disappear. She felt like an utter fool and bitterly wondered when she had become so pathetically desperate for Draco Malfoy to be the type of person who regretted his actions. That she'd actually just tried to project some kind of vulnerability on to a passing look that lasted less than a second and that almost definitely meant nothing, was a humiliating testament to her current emotional instability. She finally turned to face Harry, dreading and surrendered to his words.
He was grimacing as he polished off the rest of his wine. He turned to her and said, his voice still low but no where near as calm as before, "and that is why you can't put your trust Malfoy just yet." At least she could say he wasn't pleased to be proved right.
But Hermione Granger was nothing if not an optimist. It was what as a teenager had ensured her continued efforts with the doomed SPEW, what had powered her through the endless tedium and overwhelming hopelessness of the Horcrux hunt with Harry and Ron; what had convinced her that her seemingly ordinary seventeen year old best friend could defeat the most feared Dark Lord of all time, and what, to this day, still made her truly believe in her future success with Burbage and more remotely, within the wider wizarding world itself.
It was this determined optimism (often presenting itself as bravery,) that had landed her in Gryffindor, as oppose to the two other options for someone of her ambition or rationality, and it was this optimism that refused to allow Hermione to view the incident in the garden as logic dictated: a warning to back off from Malfoy. There was a reason she wasn't a Ravenclaw or Slytherin, and whether she was either consciously living up to the choice she had made during her Sorting, or subconsciously exhibiting the attributes that landed her there, was neither here nor there.
As soon as time had begun to do its job of making the remembrance of past events more bearable, rounding off painful truths and gently eroding the sharpness of certain feelings, she could begin to think about the memories of that day without suffering from the embarrassment she felt over her emotional behaviour post-article. And over how she had reacted to a simple, routine, phone call to her parents. Once those corrupting influences had been lessened and pushed to the back of her mind, she lived afresh the conversations they'd had in the kitchen and the moment in the garden.
In her eternal optimism, newly regained and combined with the gift of logical, objective hindsight, (a gift that she cherished certainly more than any other Gryffindor she knew,) Hermione came to the conclusion that it was almost definitely her own drastic mood swings that had made the situation seem ten times worse than it actually had been. Harry's own incivility had been understandable, given the amount of time and effort he'd invested in Scorpius, he had every right to expect a little more than icy politeness from Malfoy; but as for her reaction, Hermione decided it was all that bloody article's fault for making her extra sensitive.
And Harry had been wrong to attribute Malfoy's abrupt change in mood on a general mental instability. Something had happened to him in the time between they'd gone outside and he joined them, she knew it. Hermione could recognise that Harry had been attempting to appeal to her sense of reason, and of course she wasn't so far gone with her ideas that she dismissed Harry's concern out of hand. In fact, after a bit of time, and a disassociation from her muddled emotions from that day, Hermione decided that being left alone, was exactly what Malfoy didn't need. She had to know if he was alright, and he needed to know someone cared enough to check. Even if, god forbid, her logic was flawed, she couldn't ignore her gut feeling.
So Hermione got over her hangover on Sunday, went back to work on Monday and slowly but surely caught herself thinking more and more about Draco Malfoy.
He had been different that day. Different even to how different he had seemed in Diagon Alley a couple of weeks back. It was as if every time they met, she was meeting a new part of him, and as if he was keeping something back from her, to save for the next time.
Hermione loved a challenge, more than anything else, and Malfoy presented one perfectly. Each time she couldn't read his expression seemed to ignite her curiosity further, and every rare smile or laugh she caused subsequently felt like a gift. Almost out of nowhere, she found herself longing to receive more, and more absurdly, longing to find out how much more she could learn about him other than what he presented to the world.
Although these feelings were startling in their intensity, and while she couldn't pin point exactly the moment they had begun, she didn't let them worry her as it was easy to attribute them to the idea she had made the mistake of telling Harry about. The idea that she spent more and more time indulging in over the following days. It grew within her, and she fed it each time she remembered the way Malfoy seemed to say either exactly what she had been hoping for, or even better, something delightfully unexpected. In her mind, it made perfect sense that she should offer him this teaching position. It would benefit them both: his intelligence was surely being wasted and the amount of knowledge he had on the subject was crying out to be shared amongst her pupils. And despite what she remembered of Malfoy's impatience with ineptitude and bad temper at Hogwarts, she felt sure he had better control over it now.
However, she wouldn't ignore Harry's words of warnings totally. She would keep the plans to herself to the time being, see how things played out for a bit longer. In any case, what with school about to start in two days, her work load was large enough without having to organise and manage a whole new subject.
And so, it was the everlasting, burning Gryffindor within Hermione, that was unwilling to let her accept that she had been wrong over that flash of regret she'd seen in his eye, that made her leave Burbage High on Tuesday and travel to Bethnal Green instead of home.
Or perhaps it was just the air that day; some wind, some magic, or maybe even, just some sort of hormone that caused her to give into her instincts in the way that until now, the niggling voice of reason (that quite ludicrously sounded like Harry Potter,) had been preventing her from doing. There was a strange atmosphere that evening that made her feel wild, like there was a big, tightly wound coil of energy throbbing within her core. She felt capable of anything, even breaking through Draco Malfoy's icy defences.
She left the tube station and looked at the sky as she walked west, breathing deeply to control the pace of her heart, to calm the physical thrill and nerves she was feeling over taking such decisive action. As the sun neared the horizon it blinded her, having undercut the heavy, bruised clouds that sat over London. As a result the light seemed too bright, and the odd patch of clear sky seemed an unnatural cobalt blue. The air was still and yet simultaneously seemed to vibrate under the weight of those looming clouds, but just as she reached the estate the Malfoys called home, the first few fat drops of rain had begun to fall, landing heavily on the warm pavement like newly minted coins.
Hermione began the climb to the flat and as she went she willed the optimism and energy that had inspired this spontaneous visit not to leave her, as the tension in the air had on the arrival of the long awaited rain. She was determined to do this, to see him again. To confirm to herself that Harry was wrong. That she was right. She had to be. There was no way she'd invested that much time, or even thought in someone, to allow them to just distance themselves, without giving her any opinion in the matter. Not when they had so much potential.
He wasn't going to get away with thinking he could convince them that he was still above their company and drive them away with a closed off glare and cold civility. Not when she'd been on the receiving end of the other side to his personality. The glimpses of warmth, of love for his son, of strength and selflessness. Hermione felt nerves thrill through her body, her blood pumping ever faster around her veins, not just because of the stairs she was taking two at a time, though that was a good excuse.
Though as she stood at the door, catching her breath and rapping her knuckles against the wood, she realised she couldn't exactly tell Malfoy the reason for her visit! Hermione began to panic, the emotion rising suddenly to the surface with very little stimulation, the tension she'd felt outside manifesting itself in a prickling sensation in her palms and down her neck. Her heart continued to beat hard and fast, and with each passing moment she struggled for an excuse, it seemed to intensify. What do I say? What do I say? Would you like to be a teacher? Fuck, oh god no. Are you okay after Saturday? Though he didn't seem to react well to overtly obvious concern or god forbid, pity.
But no one came to the door, and Hermione's racing thoughts and pulse began to subside. After half a minute stretched out she knocked again, more loudly. She self consciously tucked a smooth curl of her Sleekeazy's treated hair behind her ears and stole a glance down the hall. Maybe they were out? She sighed, and tried to rally herself again the unexpected crush of disappointment.
One last try. She knocked, feeling completely foolish and stood back from the door, preparing to leave. But then it opened a crack, and her heart leapt. It was Draco and he squeezed his head and half his body around the door whilst keeping it as closed as possible. He was wearing a pale, blue-grey T shirt that brought out an previously unnoticed warmth in his silvery eyes, a dark, silky, comfortable looking pair of trousers, and his feet were bare. His widened eyes and the perfect 'o' his mouth made as he looked down at her was such a beautiful contrast to the last expression she'd seen him wear, it made Hermione smile widely.
And then a gust of air from a window somewhere inside swept around the door into the hallway the unmistakable scent of boiling nightshade, and Malfoy's head had disappeared back into the flat. He left the door open however, and Hermione hovered, lost at what she was meant to do.
"Please come in!" came his shout, so in relief she slipped inside. The evening sunlight that had seemed bright on the street, was blindingly direct up here in his flat, and back lit Malfoy so dramatically Hermione couldn't make out his features. He was stood at the kitchen table, back to the window, leaning over a large black cauldron. She noted with disapproval that his head was held within a potent looking plume of sunlit cloudy vapour that was snaking its way up to the ceiling before being swept along in the current of air from the open window.
Not wanting to distract him, she moved quietly to the side and as soon as the suns glare was lessened used the opportunity of his distracted attention to fully take him in, feeling a slight thrill as she did so. His legs were pleasingly long in proportion to his height, his hips were narrow and though he was a little stooped as he bent into the fumes, she could tell his shoulders were wide and his stature still proud. His skin on his upper arms was milky white and completely unblemished, and although he looked on the thin side of lean, the muscles underneath were solid and close to the surface as he stirred the potion. Hermione realised, in surprise, that she'd never actually seen Malfoy's bare arms. Then her eyes were drawn to his left forearm and the faded, twisted red scar of this Dark Mark and realised that of course, that was the reason why.
However, instead of the expected revulsion she actually felt guilt thrum in her chest, and she began to feel almost voyeuristic, leering at him while he had no control over it. She was suddenly aware of how her spontaneous act must seem to him: an insensitive invasion of his private space; the only place he felt comfortable enough to wear a T shirt like a normal person. At once, all her energy and assuredness in the fundamental rightness of her coming here and asserting her presence on him left her in a rush. Without it she felt as bereft and dirty as a crushed snail shell.
The Mark was the last thing on Malfoy's mind though what with the utmost concentration he was displaying over the brewing. He was mouthing silently as he dropped small black pieces of what looked like beetle shell into the potion at measured intervals. A long thin glass rod was held in his left hand and he was using it to stir a slow, complicated sequence of clockwise and widdershins circles. He glanced up at her and she grimaced, quickly mouthing sorry. "I'll just be a few minutes," he said quietly in reply.
Hermione nodded, squirming inside, debating how best to slip away without causing too much fuss. She wandered to a cheap looking bookshelf; the type that comes with a pre-furnished low rent flat, and ran her eyes along the spines, yet was incapable to give them much attention due to her anxiety.
Finally, she heard Malfoy clear his throat and she turned back around. He was placing the glass rod back down on the table and was frowning slightly as he looked at her. His blond hair was greasy from the fumes and it reminded Hermione for a split second of Professor Snape. Malfoy seemed to notice where her gaze had landed and he quickly dragged his hand through his hair, pulling the lanky strands off his forehead and back into a rough version of the style he'd used to wear at school. But he didn't say anything, either seeming to wait for her to speak first, or perhaps not really knowing how to deal with this sudden and unexpected visitor.
Hermione gave him a weak smile, and tried to ignore the fluttering of her nerves. She felt incredibly awkward.
"I'm so sorry for this, for interrupting you. I can go." she said, and made for the door.
"Oh, no - No, you don't have to leave," he said, hesitantly. Her steps faltered. They stood at opposite ends of the room and looked at each other. Unfortunately for Hermione this put her back in the annoying position of being blinded by the sun.
"I'm sorry for turning up here unannounced like this. I shouldn't have expected you to be free. It was really rude of me." Hermione couldn't make out his expression but she thought she could see his posture relax slightly.
"Not at all. I'm just not used to receiving visitors. And well-" he gestured to the cauldron. "This stage has to be finished tonight, while the waning crescent moon is still up." Hermione nodded, and made her way back over to the side of the table, her heart pounding fast, despite her relief.
"What are you brewing?" Apparently that wasn't what he'd expected her to say next, and he looked down to the cauldron with a frown, as if hoping it would answer for him. Hermione was reminded at once of a child who hadn't done their homework and she smiled to herself, relaxing slightly at the familiar gesture. When predictably it didn't speak for him she went on, "Nightshade, dung beetle shells," her eyes slid to take in other ingredients on the table. "newt liver, leech, lovage, and-" she sniffed the air, "is that mint? And-" she frowned. "Boomslang skin?"
"That was one of the first ingredients I added, days ago," he said, looking to her pleasure, somewhat impressed.
"You don't tend to forget the smell that easily. It tends to... linger," she said with a grimace. "I don't recognise this combination of ingredients from any textbooks. So not one taught at school?"
Malfoy shook his head and moved away from the cauldron. "It's quite obscure. Can I get you a drink?" he asked. "We don't have much, I'm sorry." And he genuinely did look sorry, looking for the whole world as if he expected Hermione to demand champagne or something. "I can offer you tea?"
"Do you have any herbal teas? I've rather overdosed on caffeine today, been in and out of meetings, and of course everyone always insists on coffee," she said, talking so fast that she immediately winced at how frantic she sounded and unconsciously brought a hand up to her head as if to smooth down any possible flyaway hairs. Malfoy caught the gesture and looked like he was fighting a smile.
"Well, I don't have any actual herbal tea but will fresh mint do? I have some left over from the potion. My mother used to take mint steeped in boiling water and she said it was the perfect - relaxant," he said, with the hint of a smirk on his lips. Hermione gave a nervous laugh and clasped her hands together to stop them from betraying her again. Get a grip, Hermione! He's never made you this nervous before!
"That sounds lovely, thank you." He nodded and walked to the small kitchen area.
Hermione lingered by the table, drawn to a heavy, slightly greasy looking, black leather bound book with 'The Evanescent Elixir' embossed down the spine in faded silver letters. The front of the book was simply adorned by a small, white inked etching of the full moon. Automatically, as was her propensity to, she reached out to run a finger along the cover, but her hand faltered mere centimetres above it. She frowned, for strangely, the book seemed to hold a kind of malevolent enmity against her and she in turn felt inexplicably repulsed by it.
"Dark Magic," she murmured. "Where did you get this book? If you don't mind me asking," she said loudly to Malfoy, while pulling her hand back to her side. She looked suspiciously at the potion which was bubbling away to her right.
He turned slightly to face her from where he was brewing the tea on the worktop. "That was left to me by Severus Snape. He left me most of his private collection of potion books." Hermione pulled her gaze from the book and just caught his slightly wistful smile before he turned back around. "It's not a Dark curse book, Granger, so you can stop looking so worried. I think it still has residues of the compulsion and anti theft spells he must have placed on his collection to keep away prying students. It's pretty handy, keeps Scorp away too." He turned back to face her, holding a saucer and cup in each hand, and gestured towards the sofa.
Hermione nodded, trying not to let his comment bother her. She wasn't worried by the thought of Dark Magic... Just correctly wary. Instead of joining him she walked back to the bookshelf and examined some of the books that she had failed to appreciate earlier. It was packed and practically groaning with the weight of a bizarre combination of ancient looking spell books, and the thin, bright spines of children's books. She was disappointed to see no fiction, though perhaps that was kept elsewhere. For some reason she was incredibly curious to know what Malfoy read for entertainment.
With that in mind, Hermione bent down and smiled to herself as her fingers brushed against some of her own well loved childhood favourites on the lowest shelves, imagining him reading to Scorpius, but she frowned as she straightened her legs and her gaze reached the higher ones.
While nothing actually physically screamed at her, she got the same feeling she had when she was in the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library, and in certain places in the Library in Grimauld Place. And the same feeling from the book on the table. Any feeling that caused her to be wary of books however, was something she deeply resented. She turned to Malfoy, who was watching her with that maddening blankness. She also saw, with a resurfacing of her previous guilt, that he'd donned a long sleeved, dark green pullover and his arms and the Dark Mark were once again hidden from view. She swallowed and tried to move on. What's done is done. I'm here now, better make the most of it.
"You should ask Harry if he can give you access to Grimauld Place. Judging by what you've got here, I bet the Black Family Library would hold a lot of interest for you," she said. Malfoy's eyebrows shot up, which was a sort of result. Any expression was better than nothing. "Harry renovated a lot of the house a few years ago, but left the library pretty much untouched. He said caring for the books gives something Kreature to do," she added, rolling her eyes. Malfoy nodded, looking thoughtful.
Hermione shot the books on the top shelves one last look and made her way over to the living room area. She took a seat on the armchair, in that split second feeling too self conscious to sit next to Malfoy on the sofa. "It's quite a collection you've got."
He gave a slightly bitter smirk and passed her her tea. Hermione lifted it to her nose and breathed in deeply. It smelt delicious and the water had turned the vivid green of new spring leaves. "Just what Severus left me and what I managed to salvage from my Mother's house a couple of years ago. It's not much. She sold a lot before I could get out in time. A lot of the more interesting titles ended up in Borgin and Burkes I believe." Hermione dropped the cup to rest on the saucer in her lap and winced in sympathy.
"Why did your Mother sell your books?" she asked without thinking, and immediately regretted.
"She has - some problems." He said with finality. There was a silence that plunged her back into her previous awkward tension. Malfoy however, had leant back into the sofa, looking utterly relaxed and was watching her appraisingly. She squirmed and feeling unable to hold his gaze any longer, shot a glance back at the potion.
"It's called the Baraniuk Potion," he said, his tone giving no clues to its nature.
"I don't know it."
He shook his head, taking a sip from his cup. "I wouldn't expect you to. It's-" he paused, "as I said, it's quite obscure."
"Is that another word for Dark?" she ventured, feeling brave.
"Not intentionally," he said evasively, "I didn't care to look up its Ministry classification." She heard the slight scorn in his voice and her heart sank a little.
"Go on?" she prompted. He looked at her directly, lips held in a tight, tense line and shifted in his seat a little. And Hermione met him head on, daring him to trust her with information on what was no doubt something illicit, the way he was skirting the subject. And no matter what excuse he gave for those books, she knew they didn't contain Light Magic. Well, the titles told her that much already.
She prepared herself to hear the worst, hoping it wasn't as bad as she presumed. What he was thinking accepting a job like this was beyond her, what with the risks involved, especially to one who had already spent so long in Azkaban. And she couldn't even begin to think about the moral implications. She knew she barely knew him, but to have their differences thrown in her face like this...
And then he smirked, and it was this, and his use of what she had dubbed his 'posh wanker', drawl, that bothered Hermione and made her triumph at gaining his trust feel hollow, rather than the potion itself, for by this point she had been expecting as much. A description of a Dark potion whose effects were horribly sinister delivered in that flat, bored, almost boastful voice made her skin crawl.
When he finished speaking he leant back, and surveyed her as if in satisfaction, as if she ought to be impressed. But that didn't make sense, and then something clicked and Hermione realised that of course Malfoy must be expecting her to at the very least be repulsed and at the most, storm from the room in outrage. Judging by his smug look it was as if that was what he wanted her to do. She felt frustration bubble within her at his continued attempts to drive her away. All his actions successfully managed to drive away however, were the nerves she'd been experiencing in his presence so far.
She straightened her shoulders and held his gaze with renewed vigour, noticing as she did so that he looked a little less sure of himself. If he wanted her to leave then that was fair enough, but he could bloody well say it out loud if he really meant it. He'd had no trouble with making himself clear in the past.
Harry was right, his behaviour was strange. Hot and cold, one moment to the next, but she wasn't going to let it put her off now she was actually here, talking to him and, if the sudden burst of inspiration she had just experienced over how to react worked, actually getting somewhere. Of course she wanted to rebuke him for this, but she knew you had to pick your battles.
"So it works in a similar way to Polyjuice then?" she asked calmly, carefully dissimulating her entire emotional journey into one arched eyebrow, though then she almost ruined it by grinning at the way his face twitched into a frown.
He sat up a little straighter. "You've brewed Polyjuice? Is that how you knew about the Boomslang skin?"
Hermione took a drink of tea to hide her smile, extraordinarily pleased he'd decided to go for that question. Because apart from having no desire to hear more about the Baraniuk potion, she had realised by this point that the only way to get through to Draco Malfoy was by treating him like an actual person, or through surprise. And she was about to steer the conversation in the direction where she could achieve the latter.
"Yes, actually. In second year at Hogwarts." She nearly choked with laughter on her next sip of tea as Malfoy's eyebrows raised dramatically in shock.
"What?!" he spluttered. Hermione did laugh then, both in triumph at his reaction, and because she was able to recall the incident where she was turned into a hairy mutant cat girl with fondness rather than horror.
"Yes, though my taking of it was rather, unsuccessful."
"Why? Why were you brewing that in second year!? And where? How did Severus not catch you?"
She decided to play it up further, leaning forward conspiratorially and talking quietly enough for him to have to lean to catch her words. She was enjoying this. If Malfoy wanted to play games with her, then he would find out she gave as good as she got. "I brewed it in Moaning Myrtles bathroom. And Harry and Ron took it in our quest to find the real Heir of Slytherin."
"You didn't. You don't mean-"
Hermione nodded grimly, leaning back and taking a long drink of tea, partly to make him wait for her answer, but also because she had found it to be delicious. "An infiltration to a lake side dungeon common room may have taken place where certain conversations may have occurred with a certain Slytherin..."
Malfoy didn't look like he knew whether to be outraged or impressed. "Trust Potter with coming up with something like that."
"Excuse me, It was my idea!"
He gaped at her. "Seriously?" Hermione laughed and nodded. Malfoy was looking at her then in clear admiration, and a smile came ruefully to his lips, the first proper one of the day. It wasn't as big or carefree as the smile he had worn as they laughed at Harry's severely inappropriate humour at the weekend, but the difference it made to his face was incredible and it filled Hermione with happy relief. Warmth and animation broke down the rigid lines caused by his high, fine bone structure and she smiled even more widely, abandoning her own posturing in the process.
Still smiling, he said, "you surprise me more and more, Granger. Don't tell me who they were impersonating. I think I can guess. And of course you thought I was the Heir?"
She shook her head. "Well, Harry and Ron thought you were, but well, of course I knew you weren't."
"Why not?" he asked, looking far to offended to be appropriate.
She laughed. "You were way too obvious. Going round, mouthing off the way you did. And of course part of me knew you'd never really be trying to kill me."
But Malfoy had lost his smile and as she spoke his eyes seemed to cloud over. Hermione knew she'd put her foot in it. "You don't know that," he said quietly. "When push came to shove, maybe not. Well, that's what I have to tell myself. Don't forget the truth of the past, Granger."
Hermione felt her heart sink as she took in Malfoy's complete and sudden change in demeanour. His eyes had darkened to resemble the storm clouds threatening the window and his shoulders were hunched, as if the now torrential rain could reach where they sat. She cursed herself for bringing the conversation round to such a morbid, abrupt finish. Don't talk about his past if it involves Voldemort with any sort of levity, she noted to herself for the future, (although such reminders were looking optimistic in light of how badly this conversation had gone so far.) Humour had become her and Harry's way of dealing with things over the years, but of course it was idiotic to expect it was the case with anyone else. Particularly someone who had lost so much, and was only just managing to piece things back together.
Hermione swallowed her guilt and held his troubled gaze, willing him to take her next words seriously. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't joke about things like that. It's incredibly inappropriate."
Malfoy shook his head and gave her a small, wry smile and the tension fizzled away. Hermione felt herself relax again, incredibly relieved she hadn't messed up so irrevocably. "No, I'm sorry, I mean, Merlin, that was twenty years ago. If i can't joke about it by now, when will I? I'm just not used to hearing it I guess. I can barely remember those days anyway, just pieces here and there. Though of course I remember what a nasty little fuck i was." He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair, tousling it further.
"Eloquently put," Hermione said, causing him to smirk.
"All right, Granger, how would you put it?" She frowned and made an exaggerated humming noise of deliberation and he laughed, "that was rhetorical, please don't answer, I doubt I'd like to hear it. Though you deserve retribution more than anyone else-" his voice trailed away and he looked like he was biting the inside of his cheek, bringing his high cheekbones into sharp relief. His eyes were intense once again and Hermione desperately wished she could hear his thoughts.
When he didn't continue she spoke gently, not wanting to push him back over the brink into the darkness she had just witnessed, but not wanting to lighten the mood either. She felt he was so close, she could almost taste the words- words she'd spent her teenage years dreaming of before giving up on as completely fanciful. "I don't seek retribution, Malfoy. I never have against you. We were just kids, after all."
"We were barely older than Scorp is." He grimaced and shook his head and Hermione felt a pang of disappointment as the moment for apologies passed. "I know he's been in a bit of trouble, but that's nothing to where I was at his age. Already deep in the mire of my father's poison." He brought his hand up to his mouth and squeezed his bottom lip tightly between his finger and thumb, and it was as if he was gazing through Hermione into somewhere else, or some other time. She held her breath, suspecting that he had been lying when he claimed he barely remembered his school days, and that was precisely where he was at present.
"Where is Scorpius?" She asked, wanting to stop him from dwelling on his past for too long. Malfoy's eyes snapped back on hers and he quickly dropped his hand to his cup, as if she'd caught him doing something wrong. Her eyes were drawn to his newly revealed bottom lip, she couldn't help it; It looked pink and soft and ever so slightly swollen from his anxious pinching. Suddenly, without warning, she experienced a very real, searing desire to know what that lip felt like.
"He's round at his friend Jake's. He lives down the hall, and isn't involved in that other group, the troublemakers. Scorp promised me. Anyway, I couldn't ask Potter to watch him again. There's a limit to how much you can take from someone without giving something back in return. And it's important he maintains at least one friendship outside the Potter's with them off to Hogwarts on Thursday."
She blinked and dragged her eyes from his mouth to meet his eyes. "He'll make new friends at Burbage, of course," she stammered, unnerved by how distracted she'd just become by his mouth, and hoping he hadn't noticed. Jesus, what was that about?!
"I hope so." Malfoy frowned and there was a few moments where he just looked at her with a renewed intensity. It made her squirm. "Is that why you're here? Is it about Scorpius?"
Hermione nearly dropped her cup in shock at his sudden and completely unexpected forthrightness and said the first thing that came into her head, her attempts to gather her wits obviously having come to nothing. In any case, her excuses and actual motivations for checking if he was suitable teacher material had been forgotten as soon as he'd opened the door.
"No, actually, I just wanted to see you," and although her answer took her by complete surprise, and Malfoy too judging by the look on his face, she found it was absolutely true. She glared at her lap, cursing herself and dreading his reply, but when it didn't come she forced herself to look up at him. What Hermione saw told her she'd finally achieved what she'd set out to do, but despite all her best efforts, she'd arrived there completely by accident.