Hermione changed robes three times, fussed with the diamond bracelet, and tried to figure out whether she wanted to fight with her hair to straighten it. She decided not in the end, and pulled the whole thing up into a knot that mostly contained her curls. The effect must have worked because Draco's eyes widened in subtle male appreciation when he saw her. He didn't say anything other than, "I hope French is fine."
She smiled and hoped it didn't look nervous. Why was she so nervous? This was a date, yes, but it was also Malfoy. It was Draco. They'd gone on pretend dates. She'd put him back together after he'd been tortured. He'd let her cry in his arms. Why was the prospect of sitting across the table from him in what was sure to be a perfectly nice restaurant doing things to her stomach? Why had she fussed so much with her clothes and her hair. She was being ridiculous. It would be fine.
The French food was fine. The bouillabaisse reminded her of trips abroad as a child and the bread brought to the table was perfection, with a soft white interior surrounded by a hard crust. The wine was excellent, but she was halfway through her glass before she even noticed how good it was. Living with the Malfoys had spoiled her. And while she might have expected the conversation to be strained, by now they knew each other well enough and had enough shared experiences that she found herself laughing at his self-mocking mimicry of the way he'd tried desperately to get Horace Slughorn to like him. In return, she told him about her mishap with polyjuice and the way she'd been turned into some sort of half-cat.
"Meow?" he said in disbelief.
"Meow," she admitted.
"How could you possibly confuse a cat hair with a human hair?" he asked. The smile was warm, though, and not mockery. It invited more confidences.
"In retrospect," she said, "I might have been a little over-confident in my abilities."
He shook his head. "The things that infirmary has seen," he said.
"Do you miss it?" she asked.
"The infirmary?"
"Hogwarts."
The school had been rebuilt, of course. McGonagall had been encouraged to retire and a tediously efficient administrator had been brought in. If it wasn't the nightmare it had become the year she, Harry, and Ron had looked for Hallows and Horcruxes, it also wasn't quite the place of whimsy that had enchanted their youth. Muggle Studies had been removed from the curriculum, Trelawney had retired and with her the idea Divination could be taught. Even Defense Against the Dark Arts had managed to keep a teacher for several years though Hermione suspected the weedy little man who'd accepted the position was a slightly less deranged version of Umbridge, teaching to the test, sure no one would ever need to face a Dark Wizard again.
"Do I miss Hogwarts?" Draco said the words slowly, then picked up his glass and took a sip. She knew he was stalling for time. At last he said, "No."
Hermione wanted to say she did. She knew Harry did. But she could feel the sadness creeping over her. It had been so lovely at first. Then it had been less so. And after that even less. Draco followed her thoughts. "By the end, all I wanted was to be away," he said. "I wanted to be free of it all."
"And home was no better," she said.
He flashed her a wan smile. "Well, it's better now," he said. "Voldemort's death made a lot of things better."
She nodded. "Not enough," she said.
"No." Another sip of wine, and he pushed some of the dinner around his plate. "But maybe this is as good as it gets."
"No," she said. She couldn't accept that.
"I'm tired," he said softly. Hermione looked down at her plate, at the food that she was sure cost more than Molly Weasley's weekly food budget, and swallowed. She knew that feeling. It became too much. Every day there was something else. Words that couldn't be used in Ministry documents. The announcement that a new member was joining the Wizengamot followed by protests because this one knew almost nothing about governance, because that one groped witches in the office then accused them of not having a sense of humor, because a third was reactionary and vile and closeminded. Every time the protests were held they were more sparsely attended. It was just hard. People argued and nothing changed and they looked around and decided maybe they didn't care that much how the government worded their memos. Maybe they cared more about the cost of chicken and, anyway, as long as you didn't do anything against the law you didn't have anything to fear.
"I am too," she said. "But we can't stop."
Draco nodded but his shoulders sagged a little more and he looked afraid and maybe a little broken. She reached her hand across the table and grabbed at his fingers. "We're in this together, right?" she asked.
He didn't answer so she squeezed a bit and said, "I mean, we're about to be married so if you want to back out -."
"I don't," he said. "Let's go look at that art you were interested in."
"After the wedding, I think," she said. "We have enough to do now."
They were interrupted by the waiter asking if they wanted dessert. They did, or Draco did and he ate so little on a daily basis she wasn't going to get in the way of any calories he wanted. The dark chocolate confection he selected was delivered along with two forks and tiny cups of espresso and she fumbled with the miniature handle as she picked it up. "If I drink this, I won't be tired," she said.
"There are worse fates," Draco said. He dipped his fork into the chocolate and held it out toward her. "First taste?"
Her mouth went dry. She wanted to protest she could feed herself but she didn't. She felt herself set the tiny coffee cup down and lean forward across the table, let him slip the fork between her lips, slid the bite of bitterness and sugar onto her tongue. Like everything else they'd been served, it was excellent. He watched her face and, when an inadvertent smile blossomed in response to the chocolate, to his gesture, to this whole evening, he said, "Well, I guess they didn't poison it."
The words should have been a slap in the face but they seemed more like an uncomfortable declaration of something neither of them were quite ready to acknowledge. "Might be a slow acting one," she said.
"True enough," he said. He dipped his fork down into the dish again and this time slid it into his own mouth. "I'll take my chances," he added after he swallowed.
"Risky behavior," she said. "After the war and the… after the aftermath, I'd think you wouldn't want to risk much anymore."
Draco took another bite. "Some things are worth it," he said. "Not many, but a very few things are worth maybe dying for."
"Like this dessert," Hermione said. She picked her own fork up and helped herself to another bite. "If it's poisoned, at least we die happy."
"That's something," he said. "An improvement."
They walked through the streets afterward. Witches and wizards moved around them, never seeming to quite bump into them. She could see a phoenix that someone had tried to paint over on a wall. Everyone ignored it as they passed.
Hermione went to take Draco's hand, then questioned whether that was too forward, and finally shoved her hand down into a pocket to avoid having it just hang there, dangling from the end of her arm, uncertain of what it ought to be doing. Draco seemed to have come to a similar conclusion about his own hands because down they went into his pockets, and his shoulders hunched forward. "It's getting cool," he said. When in doubt, talk about the weather.
"Autumn," she said, following his lead. "Winter soon. We're lucky it's not raining."
"Maybe there'll be snow on our wedding day," he said.
Was that good luck or bad? Hermione had no idea and before she could ask, a reporter emerged from nowhere. She forced a smile to her face as she looked at the girl, pointed hat askew on her head, quill held between shaking fingers. She looked young. She had to have been at Hogwarts when they'd been there. Had to have been there for the Carrows, though she'd probably been ordered away for the battle. Did she have nightmares still? Did she like the current peace, despite the cost?
"Did you say married?" she asked in a hushed tone. This had to be the gossip column coup of the year. "Could I?" She fumbled for a camera she had strung about her shoulder and the old-fashioned flash reminded Hermione painfully of Colin Creevey. He'd been so irritating the way he'd dragged that thing around, and then he'd been dead. Too brave under all that puppy dog enthusiasm. Too foolhardy. Hermione was about to tell the girl they'd make a formal announcement with pictures at the Manor and to please let them be when she saw a little phoenix on a chain around her neck.
She glanced back at the badly covered up graffiti.
"Pretty necklace," she said.
The girl paled for a moment, then said very carefully, "We wait to rise."
Hermione had no idea what the right response to that was. "All things burn and rise again," she tried. It had to be wrong, but the girl relaxed and held the camera up, a question in her eyes. Being Harry Potter's best friend gave you a little credibility, perhaps, even if you'd very publicly sent Percy Weasley off to jail. Or maybe the girl remembered her from school. Whatever the reason, she'd passed.
"Of course," Hermione said. She pulled Draco close to her. "Make us look good in the picture," she said.
The girl met her eyes. "If that's what you want," she said. Hermione nodded and the girl snapped three pictures in rapid succession. "People blink," she said by way of explanation. "Even with wizarding photos you can get the most awful faces."
"I appreciate the extra care," Draco said. "I'd hate to look like some kind of fool in the papers."
"You are," the girl hesitated.
"A man who loves wizarding Britain," Hermione said. "As it should be. As it will be."
The girl pressed her lips together and nodded though it was clear Draco Malfoy was a harder sell. If she remembered him from Hogwarts, it wasn't fondly or with admiration.
Hermione glanced back at the girl's necklace. "Why don't you owl Narcissa," she said. "I think we'd like to give you an exclusive to the wedding. It'll be December 24th. Tell her you're a special friend of mine."
The girl might be a fledgling insurrectionist, but she was a reporter too, and the possibility of an exclusive to report on a society wedding made her almost quiver even if what made it society was a man she wasn't sure she trusted. "You can't mean that," she said. "I'm not the best, you know. The paper could send over someone with… they'll want to. Not me. Someone else. Someone better." Someone with more seniority she surely meant.
"What do you think of Doreen Ficus' art?" Draco asked. He hadn't moved away from where he stood nestled up against Hermione's side for the photograph and she leaned against him. He was so quick to see what she was doing, so casual in the way he confirmed the girl's allegiance, and theirs. So clever in how he reassured her.
The girl began to smile. "I quite like it," she said.
"Be sure to mention that to my mother," Draco said. "I think she'll appreciate having a society photographer with a similar aesthetic sensibility to hers.
"Narcissa Malfoy?" the girl asked. She sounded as if she didn't quite believe it and Hermione couldn't blame her. "She likes Doreen Ficus' work?"
"She does," Hermione said. "I think Madam Ficus is poised to take the art world by storm in the new year, don't you?"
The girl took a small step back but her smile didn't dim. "I'm so glad," she said. "I'll owl her. And I can run this picture, right?"
"Be sure to send us a copy," Draco said.
The girl nodded with short, jerky movements and Hermione thought she might see the glitter of tears in her eyes before she turned and ran off, ready to develop her film, ready for the upcoming year. "Could this get any more complicated?" Draco asked quietly. She could feel his warm breath on her ear and the contrast with the cool air made her shiver.
"It's good to control the press," she said.
"One junior society reporter is hardly controlling the Prophet," he said.
"No," she admitted, "but it's a start."
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N - Many thanks to Salazars for beta reading. She is a gem.