Draco was livid. It was already half past the time that he'd agreed to meet that Mudblood bitch. He gingerly took a sip from the martini glass the bartender had hastily cleaned.
Merlin's beard I'm in a bloody Muggle bar.
Draco sighed, setting his drink down and uncharacteristically slumping so his head lay against the top of the chair. He stared up at the ceiling, and his thoughts drifted to the unfortunate incident that led him to the dingy muggle bar.
"Granger!" Damn it did my voice really just crack? With a loud cough, Draco tried again, hurrying after the bushy headed brunette stepping into the lift. "Granger!"
She turned, and she even smiled at him as he barely beat the lift grilles closing. He tried not to huff as he smoothed his hair slightly over his left ear.
"Sorry, Draco." She pressed a number on the panel before turning to him with what seemed to be a teasing grin. "I didn't see you at first." She gestured toward the panel, "what floor do you need?"
"Uh… well yes. Uhm." Draco cleared his throat again.
"Floor?" Granger was starting to look at him with some concern.
"Yes, I'm going to the lobby." Taking a deep breath, he continued before he lost his nerve. "Youknowhowtheresthatrumoraboutme?"
Her laugh startled him. "Yes, I did hear that."
"Well it's not true!" Draco didn't mean to sound so indignant.
"Draco, you know it really doesn't matter if you are, right?"
"It might not matter to you." He sighed, "but the world doesn't change very quickly sometimes. My father…"
"Your father is a pretentious ass." She sniffed and crossed her arms. Her pose softened slightly though, and a slight furrow in her brow made him wary. "Why are you asking me about this anyway?"
The lift opened at that moment and a witch and wizard stepped on arguing loudly about the Holyhead Harpies chaser, Ginny Weasley.
Granger gave him an appraising look, "why don't we meet later?"
He nodded stiffly once and stepped off the lift when the doors opened once more at the lobby.
He sat up with a deep breath. He could still see her encouraging smile as he had stepped off. So, where was she? Didn't she know how difficult this was for him? .
"Hermione, tell me again why we're heading to this small muggle bar on a Tuesday?" Harry adjusted his glasses as he followed his friend down the sidewalk on a dreary and misty evening.
Hermione smiled at him over her shoulder and pulled her coat at the collar to cover the smile and ward off the chill.
"Hermione, don't fucking smile at me like that. What the ruddy shit are you up to?"
She stopped suddenly and glanced behind him suspiciously. Harry's defenses immediately went up. It was an old mechanism from being in near danger constantly throughout the age of 17-18 and now had translated to a more specific fear of photographers and paparazzis.
"I thought I saw…" she trailed off and shook her bushy curls. "Ah, never mind." She started walking forward briskly again, and Harry pushed his stride to catch up.
"Look, you haven't been happy lately." She spoke in a low voice that Harry could barely hear and her pace was relentless as she walked through the dimly lit streets. "I have an idea or a hunch rather, and I would like to see what you might make of it. It makes me a rather bad or good friend, but I think it's worth seeing if I am right?" Her lilting voice squeaked up at the end, as she stopped at the entrance to a small muggle pub. She turned and her hand reached up gently to rest on his cheek, "I think it has the opportunity to make you happy. Do you trust me?"
He nodded. Because more than anyone, Hermione knew what he needed.
Draco lifted his head again when he heard the door groan open. He sat up swiftly and straightened his spine into its normal steely posture. Granger was taking off her coat and glancing up at a tall form next to her. Fucking Potter. Fucking mudblood, he knew this was a bad idea. Draco watched intently as Potter removed his glasses, wiping them on the hem of a pale grey long sleeved shirt. The top was the only thing that looked different about Potter. Draco's appraisal noticed the long, too baggy jeans that Potter still did not seem to pick out for himself, the beat up trainers several seasons out of style, and the always present glasses that Potter was setting back on his nose. Draco smoothed his own hair as he took in Potter's rumpled look, as if he had just stepped off a broom. It made his hands itch. However, the shirt was a different look for Potter. It appeared soft and well made, fitting against Potter in a loosely elegant way. "Granger or Weasly must have picked that out." Draco muttered to himself, before draining his drink, "but again what the bloody hell is he doing here." Draco smoothed his hair again, then raised one hand slightly to encourage the two to see him. Sighing when that didn't help, he stood up and waved with slightly more animation.
Harry had just got his glasses back on and was looking around when he saw Draco Malfoy waving at them in annoyance…. In a muggle bar… in this muggle bar… on Tuesday.
"Hermoione, what in the flying -"
"Ah, yes. We are meeting Draco." She smiled too brightly up at him. "Why don't you head over there, and I'll just pop to the bar and get us drinks." She was gone before he could protest. Harry made his way over to the table where the icy energy seemed to have kept anyone from sitting near. As Malfoy folded himself back into the chair, Harry realized with a start that Malfoy had grown and filled out since Hogwarts. Malfoy had crossed his long legs, encased in trim black trousers, at the ankle and sat scowling at everyone nearby without ever really looking at Harry. Harry drug his feet over and forced his face into a smile or what he imagined was a smile.
However, Malfoy did not seem to reciprocate, and when Harry approached, gestured quickly at the seat next to him. "Potter." Was his only cold remark, before his long fingers picked up a toothpick with olives, and his thin lips closed around the olive at the end of the toothpick.
"Malfoy." He matched the cold intensity and pulled the chair out roughly and then proceeded to awkwardly scoot it in. Malfoy's smirk made it apparent it was just as awkward as Harry had thought. He sighed and looked around the bar, studiously ignoring his tablemate.
"Did Granger say why you're here?" The remark came quickly as if Malfoy had forced himself to say it.
"No." Harry sighed, "Just said to trust her."
Draco stopped himself from once again running his hands through his hair. He knew his question had been too forceful, and he knew just as Potter was avoiding his gaze, he was avoiding Potter's. This was not what he had expected at all. He just wanted to talk through this problem, err, this nothingness with an intelligent individual that wouldn't report to his father. He flexed his fingers to stop them from moving through his hair.
"This does not get back to my father." He looked over at Potter, the command softening to a question at the last minute, "understood?"
Potter's green eyes were filled with bright questions that Draco was saved from answering by the arrival of Granger.
She placed a new martini in front of Draco, a beer in front of Potter, and then hoisted herself into the seat next to him after placing a steaming mug of something on the table.
He scoffed, "Did you really get tea at a bar?"
She smiled, "Hot Toddy actually, it's freezing outside!" She wrapped her hands around the mug and glanced between the two of them. "Also I am literally the only one of us that has muggle money, so I paid, but I expect this back in galleons when we leave."
"I have muggle money." Draco found himself saying, "the exchange isn't so hard as you might think."
"Wow, you actually exchanged the money yourself?" Granger had angled her body toward him and was smiling brightly with an interest that was so vastly different than he was used to with his conversations.
"Of course, I can't have it getting out that I'm out here slumming it or what have you. Things aren't quite as bright as you make them out to be in the Ministry."
"I agree," Granger said while taking a sip of her drink. "It's definitely a work in progress and there are still so many views that are not aligned with integrating with muggles. I am surprised you think so as well, Draco."
Potter sat stiffly across from her but snorted at her words. "He just doesn't want to be banned from the club."
"I'll have you know that I am trying to persuade change, I just can't go about it as baldly as you." Draco sneered, "Chosen One." He didn't know why Potter's words seemed to sting, nor why he felt the need to defend himself.
"Ok, well before we get too off track here," Hermione paused and took another sip, smiling happily at her drink and then each of them in turn. Her face moved smoothly into a more solemn appearance. "I have been studying some interesting information that I think applies to you both. Now, if you don't agree or feel my instinct is wrong, please tell me. However, I know you, Harry." Here her angle shifted, and she rested a hand across the table on top of Potter's. "And I really want you to find what you feel is missing. This might be it."
Potter's smile quirked in one corner of his mouth, and his hand wrapped Granger's while she continued. "I think, and please stop me if I am wrong," Granger's hand reached out toward Draco's on the table, and he thought about allowing her to touch it, but she paused, and so he covered for her and reached for his drink. She allowed her hand to rest near him on the table, as she pressed forward with her stumbling explanation, "I think you both might be attracted to both girls and boys or what's called bisexual." Her words fell like heavy stones onto the table, and the shockwave exploded into Draco with an unexpected force.
"There's research that explains that sexuality is a continuum, and I just thought with what you've been telling me, Harry," Granger looked beseechingly at Potter's shellshocked face before turning toward Draco, "and the rumours that you wanted to discuss, I thought this might be a safe place for you both to speak. But I might have overstepped. I shouldn't have thought… I mean I meant…. Oh my, I am so truly sorry."
Draco slid his hand across the table into hers, "What do you mean bisexual?"
The door groaned open with a bang the wind pulling it outward as a new patron entered the bar. Draco gave them a cursory look, but both Potter and Granger turned to fully appraise the person, before settling back into their seats.
"I just think, there has always been a tension between the two of you, that might be more than just rivalry." Granger tried to reach out Potter, who had pulled his hand away when the door banged open. "Harry, please say something," she pleaded.
"So, I pour my heart out to you, about feeling empty since…" Abruptly, Potter stopped, then gestured forcefully in short controlled bursts at Draco and then the bar, "and you bring me to meet him and here?" He snorted, "fuck this, Hermione." He pushed up. Reached into his pocket and pulled out a battered leather billfold. He proceeded to pull some bills out before throwing them on the table, "for the drinks." He sneered, before turning and stomping out.