They're already an hour into macaron prep – Hermione is going very slowly with him, since the recipe is so demanding – when Draco blows a loose hank of white-blond hair out of his eyes in a puff of frustration.
Hermione gnaws at her bottom lip, a habit she never managed to break even after her front teeth shrank. Perhaps she's thrown him too quickly into the proverbial deep end. Macarons are, after all, notoriously difficult to create, exacting the most precise measurements and movements from their baker. Especially when that baker works wandless. But there's a method to Hermione's madness.
First of all, this prep work is no more difficult than what Severus Snape required of them, and Hermione distinctly remembers Draco excelling in their Potions courses. (From favoritism and from merit.) Furthermore, Draco has an unknown audience for these treats once he masters them, in the form of his mate Theo Nott. And finally, macarons can't really be shaped by shaking hands. Thus his need to sober up. Eventually. If he really wants to.
Fortunately, he hasn't taken a single drink this morning, and his hands seem relatively steady. But the fine features of Draco's face have started to shift into a scowl.
"I thought you said these were supposed to be pistachio macarons?" he asks, with an edge of irritation in his voice.
"Yep."
"Then why did I sift a million grams of almond flour, and not pistachio? I don't see a single pistachio anywhere in this kitchen."
Hermione grabs a tiny bottle of green, gel-based flavoring – the only kind of additive that doesn't ruin the consistency of the macaron batter.
"I cheat," she says plainly, handing him the bottle.
He studies it, frowning down at its label. Then his features soften as he hands it back to her.
"Huh. Hermione Granger, cheating. There are wonders left in this world after all."
His statement pleases her immensely, for reasons she cannot fathom.
"Why pistachio, then?" he presses. "Why not almond?"
"Given your previous history with almond biscuits, do you really have to ask?" That earns a small, if begrudging, laugh from him. Feeling strangely victorious, she admits, "Theo, actually."
"Theo? Theodore Nott?"
"One and the same. Pistachio is his favorite flavour, and I remember how you liked to show off to your Hogwarts' housemates, so…."
Draco finally grins and turns back to his mixing bowl, where he's stirring the dry ingredients together. After a beat, he says, "So you and Theo really are friends now, huh?"
She hums, cutting several chunks of butter for the filling. "I had drinks with him and Erik last night, actually."
Without stopping his work, Draco asks, "Erik?"
"Theo's new boyfriend."
This information makes Draco pause. "You know about Theo's new boyfriend?"
"I should hope so. I introduced them."
He makes an indeterminate noise and she shoots him a glare.
"What?" she asks testily, wondering if she's overstepped some invisible boundary. Preparing to be angry with him if that boundary involves anything short of whole-hearted acceptance of Theo's love life. Draco, however, doesn't take the bait. He continues to work at his mixing bowl, with his lips quirked up at the edges.
"What?" she repeats.
"Wonders, Granger," he says softly. "Wonders."
In less than two hours, they've successfully prepped both the batter and the filling, which they'll pipe between the two halves of each cooled macaron. Thankfully, Draco's mood has improved with every step of the recipe, and Hermione finds that she's…oddly enough…enjoying herself.
As it turns out, Draco Malfoy is smart. Not just "My Daddy's rich and probably buys my marks" smart, as she suspected at Hogwarts. He's truly smart –a quick learner who's good with instructions and wand and wit, sometimes all at once. By the time Hermione uses her own wand to draw the outline of rings onto the silicon mats (where they will pour each of their macaron halves), she's concluded that Draco might be almost as intelligent as she is.
Almost.
Beaming down at the evenness of her rings, Hermione unconsciously places both fists upon her hips. She's so caught up in admiring her handiwork that she doesn't catch Draco side-eyeing her stance with his own, inscrutable smile. A smile that drops away as soon as she faces him again.
"We're ready, I think," she says.
"For?"
"Dolloping."
Draco snickers. "Dolloping?"
"Creating each of the small circles that will form half of every biscuit," she explains, picking up a plastic piping bag. "We'll cut a small corner of this bag off, add a pastry-tip to it, and fill the bag with batter. Then all we have to do is pipe batter into the rings, tap out the bubbles, and bake."
"And sit back to see what horror I've wrought upon food?"
"Yep." She hands him the piping bag and one of her ultra-sharp knives. "Here, cut a corner off – just so – while I pick out the pastry-tip that'll serve us best."
"Alright," he agrees, taking the bag and knife from her. Hermione picks up a small kit filled with tiny, metal baking tools and begins scrounging through it for the right pastry-tip. She's so intent on her hunt that she almost misses the hiss of pain beside her.
"Fuck," Draco yelps. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Her head whips toward the swearing, and her nostrils flare when she looks down at his fingers. Two of them – the index and middle fingers of his left hand – are bleeding profusely all over the top of the kitchen island. Hermione watches as Draco raises the dripping fingers and, inexplicably, pops them into his mouth. Like a little boy who thinks every injury can be healed with a bit of spit and a kiss from mother.
The childlike gesture shakes her out of her horrified trance. "Draco!" she gasps, dashing to his side with her wand at the ready.
Alarmed by her speed, Draco pulls the fingers out of his mouth, leaving a trail of bright red across his lower lip. "It's nothing," he protests, but she doesn't stop to argue with him. Before he can retreat, Hermione snatches his injured hand and cups it, cut-side up, in her left palm.
"Oh, these are deep," she whispers. "Almost to the bone."
She pauses long enough to position her wand correctly. Then she starts to murmur Vulnera Sanentur over the wounds, repeating the set of words three times. With each utterance, his blood seeps further inside and his sliced flesh begins to knit back together.
The sight of the retreating blood is so miraculous, the incantation so hypnotic, she doesn't see him grow paler upon hearing the words of her spell.
"Who…who the fuck taught you that?"
The strangled quality of his voice causes her to jerk her head up from her work, wand still pointed at his mending fingers. Draco's lips, stained arterial red, are trembling. With either rage or fear, she can't tell. She gives his hand what's meant to be a reassuring squeeze and then winces apologetically when his fingers twitch.
"Harry," she answers. "He told me what happened that day in the prefects' bath, our sixth year. When Snape used this spell on you. I memorized it for the…the War. Just in case."
Draco's face is void of emotion for a beat, maybe two, before he yanks his healed hand away from her and sneers.
"So. The Boy Who Lived happened to share a healing spell with you. Did he also tell you what he did to me that warranted healing?"
"Yes." Hermione can feel the colour flare in her cheeks but she refuses to remove her eyes from Draco's, no matter how angry his have grown. "Harry did. And I yelled at him for so long that I practically went hoarse. Which was probably for the best, since we didn't talk for a while after that."
Draco's snort is far less refined than usual. "Oh? And why on earth would you give Saint Potter the silent treatment for delivering such a fine blow to the big, bad Death Eater?"
"Because he was in the wrong."
Draco glowers skeptically at her. She compels her expression into something impassive, despite the pounding in her chest. It's taking a lot of effort, so she finally averts her gaze to dig around inside her extended handbag.
"Harry hurt you, and it was wrong," she goes on. "Not just in the way it happened, but that it happened at all. You two were just boys. Children."
Still rummaging, she mutters, "We all were."
Draco doesn't respond. So she asks, softly and with her eyes still trained on her bag, "Were your hands shaking just now? When you cut yourself?"
He still doesn't answer, and that's confirmation enough. Finding what she's been searching for, Hermione pulls it from her bag. She crosses the space between them, ignores the backward step he takes, and forcibly grabs the healed hand that he's clasped to his chest.
"Essence of dittany," she explains, rubbing a tincture onto Draco's fingertips. "For scarring."
He snorts again, but doesn't pull away. "Madam Pomfrey used it on me once. Who knows? Maybe it will actually work this time."
Hermione quirks an eyebrow at him. In lieu of reply, he reaches up with his free hand and pulls down the collar of his jumper to reveal a gnarled white scar, roping across his collarbone.
"Oh," she half-whispers, half-moans. So this is what Sectumsempra looks like.
Unconsciously, she reaches out to touch the tips of her middle and fore finger to the jagged line of tissue. In response to her touch, Draco's eyes widen and his mouth falls open. But he doesn't recoil from her, even when she traces the scar lightly, back and forth. Even when she leaves a trail of gooseflesh in the wake of her delicate fingertips.
"There's about four more," he says roughly, breaking into her sad reverie. "This one extends to my sternum, and the one over my heart goes down to my waistband. The other three are relatively small."
The information jolts her, and she pulls back at the sudden realization of what she's been doing: holding onto Draco Malfoy with one hand while stroking his Sectumsempra'd collarbone with the other. Unsure of where to place her traitorous hands, she decides to bury them in her hair. A safe location, given the immensity of her curls.
"I'm…I'm sorry," she whispers.
Draco releases his collar and shakes his head. "Don't be. You didn't do it."
"No, but I—"
"Endured far worse in this very house."
Her stomach flops. "Are you…do you want to talk about—?"
"Not yet," he interrupts, but not unkindly. "We should, and we will. Just…not yet."
Hermione nods, feeling a little nauseated. And a little lost. In a sort of trance, she reaches up with her thumb to wipe away a smear of blood from his lip. She regards the red and then holds it up for him to see.
"And here I thought your blood would be blue," she jokes weakly.
Draco wins her eternal gratitude when he releases an unaffected laugh and says, "So, Granger – macarons?"
That night, the two glasses of red wine Hermione usually indulges in every Saturday become four. Given the sheer amount of laughing and snapping and bleeding that occurred today, no one would blame her. High drama indeed, for their first-ever baking lesson. The day's events should rattle her nerves, and they do.
And yet….
And yet she can't even pretend not to out-and-out beam as she pops a misshapen but delicious macaron into her mouth.