13.
Hermione went to lunch with Malfoy; at that French café in Place Cachée he'd been telling her about. He was in fine form – teasing and witty and lightly flirtatious, shamelessly showing off by chatting to the staff in fluent French, and Hermione laughed more than she could remember doing in months.
The following fortnight passed by without any incident, except that Hermione noticed Malfoy and she had seemed to establish a pattern over that time. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. Every second day like clockwork, Malfoy would turn up in her office, blowing like the south wind – all charm and presence, filling the room and Hermione's thoughts. He would invite her to lunch; she would accept. They would have lunch. Over that period they frequented five different cafes – all Muggle or French, for discretion – and his home, twice. He kissed her cheek nine times, and the corner of her mouth again once – by accident, that time.
No one seemed to find out about the lunches for sure as there was nothing more in the papers or gossip mags, although Mariska certainly suspected that was what they were doing. Well, actually she probably thought they were having a full-blown affair, and with good reason to be fair. She'd learnt to keep her mouth shut though, had Hermione's secretary; Hermione had come out of her office one afternoon to find Malfoy having a private-looking word with the young woman, and after that not one word of gossipy chat had come from Mariska's lips. Hermione was rather certain Malfoy had bought the younger woman's silence, which was certainly preferable to him having threatened her into it, but still rather unsettling.
Hints of gossip still got around; Mariska wasn't the only person who had chance to notice Hermione and Draco's new routine. But the gossip was much less specific and reliable without Mariska weighing in. The prevailing opinion and one which they had deliberately cultivated, was that the pair of them were working on something related to work, thus explaining Malfoy's frequent visits to her office. The second most popular, far less boring opinion, was that Draco was bending Hermione over her desk and ploughing her thoroughly.
Hermione was dreading the day Ron got wind of that rumour. And if she was honest with herself on sleepless nights, she rather wished it were true. She wished it more and more with each lunch date, and every flower delivery. There were three bright, pretty posies – each composed primarily of daffodil, pink acacia, and oak leaf by turns – with rather sweet, classically flattering meanings, and one rather more interesting bouquet that made her smile when she'd needed it. A funny little arrangement of flowers tied together by a silver cord, delivered in the wake of a lost case. It was regarding a most severe and damaging misuse of magic against a Muggle, which Hermione knew she'd lost because of still-lingering prejudice against Muggles. Malfoy voted guilty, which provoked murmurs amongst the Wizengamot, but he had been one of only a few. Too few.
T he plain – almost homely – little posy was waiting in her office when Hermione returned to it, dejected from her failure, and its presence brought a curious smile to her lips. Shutting the door behind her, she got out the flower book she'd taken to keeping in her roomy handbag, and looked up the meanings of the names written on the little label tied to the bunch. Teasel and Sea Thrift; misanthropy and sympathy respectively, and Hermione smiled and sank her chin onto the heel of her hand, elbow resting on her desk and eyes dreamy as she stared at the flowers.
She did felt misanthropic too, after such a clear-cut case had been discarded, and that understanding combined with the expression of sympathy, was a balm to Hermione's battered spirit. Not only that, but Malfoy had placed meaning over showiness, and chosen flowers that were not necessarily pretty. And in a way, Hermione appreciated that. He forsook standard compliments for empathy. And he thought of her, in a way that made Hermione feel heady and dizzy, like a giddy teenager all over again.
Like Alice, Hermione was falling down the rabbit hole, and even though she was fully aware of it, she couldn't seem to extricate herself. Perhaps because she didn't really want to. Instead the pair of them kept toeing the line of propriety – everything carefully kept just barely this side of faithfulness – but like any tightrope walker, Hermione knew at some point they would come crashing down. What she didn't know was which side they would fall to.
Hermione still had no clue what Malfoy truly wanted from her if he could actually have it – merely a casual dalliance? A committed relationship? – and whether she could give him either of those things would depend entirely upon what happened between her and Ron, of course. And Hermione still had no idea whether or not she wanted to salvage their marriage – with each passing day, in fact, she became less and less certain. The fact that everyone who read the gossip page of the Daily Prophet knew her and Ron's marriage was on the rocks – and had written her, ostensibly to express sympathy, but really to dig for details – didn't help.
But aside from her lunch dates with Malfoy, life ticked on as normal for Hermione, or whatever normal was now. She wrote to the children every day, and every two days got a short note back from Hugo, and a slightly longer one from Rose. Rose and Scorpius hadn't gotten into trouble again, thankfully, but were still having issues with Scorpius being bullied, a topic that came up often at Hermione and Malfoy's lunches. In the end after all their initial flirtatious banter, they had found themselves talking about the children a great deal.
She owled Ron four times over that fortnight with updates on what the children were doing, and a reminder for him to write to them, and signed off with "Love, Hermione", because she did. She always would, no matter what. He didn't write back – nor, from what she gathered from their letters, did he write to the children other than a quick scribble – but he texted her often in the evenings, probably after drinking too much, unfortunately. Can I come home? he would ask her and she could sense the plaintive tone even via text.
Not until the date we agreed upon, Ron, now please stop asking me, she would text back, and usually receive in answer a variation of: I didn't want to anyway, you selfish prude.
It was all very disheartening and upsetting, and made her evenings seem long and lonely. Because of that Hermione stayed at work late often, and several times Malfoy surprised her with Muggle takeaways and a bottle of wine, although by unspoken mutual accord he never invited her around to his in the evening again. It was too...dangerous. Instead they ate their fish and chips, or Chinese, or Thai food in her office at her desk with the office door ajar; she wincing quietly over Ron's nastier texts and occasionally reading one aloud to Malfoy at his prompting, appreciative of his sympathy and anger on her behalf.
He told her she didn't deserve to be spoken to like that, and it shouldn't have, but it took him saying it, for her to believe it.
Aside from her late nights, work went on as usual, and she received a positive performance review from the Head of Division – probably thanks to the extra hours she'd been putting in. On one of the lunchtimes that she didn't spend with Malfoy, Hermione enjoyed a relaxed lunch with Neville at the Three Broomsticks, just the two of them, and he didn't ask her about the gossip piece on her and Ron in the Daily Prophet once. On another lunch, she met up with Padma Trifling (née Patil,) ostensibly to have a casual catch-up. Unlike Neville, the twin did ask far too many prying questions about the gossip flying around, and the meeting left Hermione with a sour taste in her mouth.
She also rang her dad several times and took him dinner one night, spending the evening watching Coro Street with him while they each drank an enormous mug of Ovaltine the way her mum used to make it – with two plump marshmallows floating on the top, and a pinch of fresh nutmeg sprinkled over. It felt like being thrown back into childhood; curling up at the end of the couch with her feet tucked under her and chatting to her dad in the ads, except there were cracks and fractures in their patchwork lives, and the aching hole of someone missing. They talked about her mum a little, remembering little things that made Hermione wobble smiles, and for once her father's voice didn't crack and shake when he spoke of her.
Hermione thought she knew why; there was a new digital photo frame on the mantelpiece. Mostly the photos it scrolled through were of the children, herself and Ron, and sceneries from her dad's holidays and the like, but one was of her dad sitting at a (restaurant?) table with his arm slung around a woman, his eyes crinkled with his smile. The woman was plump, bobbed blonde hair liberally streaked with grey framing her round face, her eyes faded blue and both warm and sharply intelligent at once, her grin infectious as she leant into Hermione's father. The woman reappeared in other photos too, Hermione soon noticed – popping up in group pictures of him with friends, always standing close to her father.
It felt bittersweet, seeing her father with someone other than her mum. Hermione wondered if it was something serious. What her name was, how long they'd been seeing each other. If he loved her. He didn't mention the mystery woman though, so Hermione didn't ask. She understood not wanting to talk about it – she didn't want to talk about Ron either. Not yet.
One thing Hermione didn't do was talk to Harry. It was too awkward with everything going on between her and Ron. She didn't want to put Harry in the middle again, and aside from that, she had the horrible suspicion he would choose Ron's side of things over her, especially because Ginny would of course back Ron up. He didn't owl her either; Hermione supposed that he was thinking the same sort of thing. She didn't let it prey on her mind though; between work, the children, Malfoy, and general life, Hermione had little time to sit and mope.
And then before she knew it September the 19th rolled around, time having flown by as if by magic.