"Do you want to go to Madam Puddifoot's?" Draco asked her after they left Scrivenshaft's.
"I've never been," Hermione confessed. "I don't know much about it, other than that there's a selection of witches' things in the back."
"We'll walk by," Draco told her. "I'll show you."
Madam Puddifoot's, as it turned out, was a small tea house. It was so overdecorated for Valentine's day that you could practically choke on all the doilies and hearts, and it was stuffed full of older students, all sitting at tables for two, looking longingly into each other's eyes.
Hermione gagged.
"Let's not," she suggested. "We could go to Tomes and Scrolls instead, yeah?"
Draco looked relieved, though he quickly drew himself up to hide it.
"Excellent idea," he said, offering her his arm. "There are a few books I've been meaning to look for."
Hermione looked at his arm for a long moment, just long enough for Draco to start to look worried, before she took it.
Why not, she figured. She was on a date with the guy.
A happy two hours passed with them in the bookstore, Draco and Hermione going separate ways to look for different books. Hermione was looking for books about dementors, the Fae, and any information about other humanoid-esque magical creatures she could find – centaurs, merpeople, goblins, dwarfs, house elves. There wasn't much, but she did manage to find a couple books of old wizarding legends and myths, which she added to her pile.
"Look at this," Draco said, coming over to show her a book. "Personal Prediction Trees: How to Use Arithmancy for Protection and Profit."
"I have that one, actually," Hermione said, looking over the cover. "It's alright, but I don't think it does a good job of quantifying the variables you need."
"How about this one? Querying for Quidditch – it seems like it's entirely about using Arithmancy to help you strategize before a game…"
When they left Tomes and Scrolls, it was with smiles, each of them with a bag of several books.
"Is there anywhere else you wanted to go?" Hermione asked Draco. "We've hit up all the shops I wanted to go to."
Draco opened his mouth to reply, before he paused, hesitating. He looked at Hermione sideways, and Hermione blinked.
"…Draco?"
"There's… one shop I'd like to stop by," Draco said slowly. "If… you're okay with it, that is."
Hermione was curious. His hesitation was odd, his wording tentative.
"That sounds fine," she said. "What shop?"
Draco hesitated again.
"Dominic Maestro's Music Shop," he said finally, his silver eyes coming up to meet hers. "It's on the edge of town, across from the Hog's Head."
Hermione blinked.
"Sure," she said shrugging. She took his arm again, looking over at him. "Shall we?"
Draco stared at her for a long moment, before he nodded silently, leading the way.
As they arrived in front of the shop, Hermione took a careful look around. It wasn't that this part of the street was hidden, but the shops here were significantly less visited, she'd guess. The Hog's Head didn't see a quarter of the traffic the Three Broomsticks did, and the Wizarding Wireless Network Headquarters didn't exactly invite foot traffic or visitors. Other than that, there was dingy Herbology store called Dogweed and Deathcap, and then there was Dominic Maestro's Music Shop, a small stone shop with an enchanted violin playing itself silently in the window.
Draco paused at the door, looking at Hermione for a long moment again. Sensing she was about to learn something new, Hermione nodded, and Draco pushed open the door and went in.
The little shop itself was warm and smelled of wood and rosin. Different instruments lined the walls, violins and violas and cellos and flutes displayed up high, with accessories and sheets of music organized on the shop floor. It wasn't a wide shop, but it was long, and Hermione could see pianos going farther back into the shop.
"Buonasera, welcome to—Master Draco!"
An older man with a well-groomed white mustache and beard had come out. He was wearing plum robes of velvet, and if it weren't for his accent and dark eyes, Hermione might have mistaken him for Dumbledore at a distance.
"Maestro Dominic," Draco greeted him, nodding. Hermione watched as Draco's shoulders relaxed, and he gave the man a genuine smile. "How are you?"
"Haunted by dementors, and hunted by fearful zealots," the old man sighed. "Such is life."
Draco winced. "Still? Do you need—"
"It is what it is." The man waved off his concerns. "Now, Master Draco – what can I do for you today?"
To Hermione's astonishment, Draco withdrew a small black case from his robe pocket. A tap of his wand enlarged it, and he opened it, revealing a gleaming flute.
"I've damaged one of these keys," he told the man. "I didn't want to try and force it back into shape…"
"I see," Maestro Dominic hummed. "Let me examine…"
Hermione wandered about the store while Draco talked to the shopkeeper. The shop was starkly clean and well-lit, a contrast to the other dingier stores nearby. It was practically muggle in appearance – mounted instruments and sheet music were exactly what one would see in a muggle music store.
Curious, Hermione perused further, opening a file cabinet of sheet music.
At first, there was a fluttering – pages of music organized by composer moving around in an unseen breeze – but when they settled down again, Hermione was surprised to see an entirely different system of organization.
Healing
Physical Strength
Magical Potential
Unification
She paused, looking over the labels of sections in the file cabinet, before slowly withdrawing a small sheet from the Healing section.
It was two lines of music, on a handwritten staff. Above the music, the words 'for healing' and 'to slow the blood' were scribbled in tight script, with the label 'voice' written somewhat bigger, over the right side of the music bars. The notes had been penned with a quill, and there were only two words to the whole thing, sung over and over again to different musical phrases.
Vulnera Sanentur
"B, A, F; B, A ,F; B, A, E D E. B, A, F; B, A, F; B, A, E D E..." Hermione quietly hummed the tune to herself. "Vul-ner-a San-en-tur, Vulnera Sanentur…"
She put the scrap of music back, looking through the labels again. One section was labeled 'Weather', and she passed by a few papers for rain or sun to pull a song for storms. This one was written by hand as well, but it looked to have been done with a brush and ink, not a quill. She kept it out, intending to buy it, though she kept looking.
Hermione wandered her way back to the pianos. This part of the store had to have some kind of space-warping spell on it – there were comfortable aisleways and areas here, even around a few different baby grands. She glanced back at Draco and the shop keep before taking a seat at one of the pianos, smoothing out her robes
Piano lessons had never been Hermione's favorite. It required keeping multiple different lines of thought in her head at once and splitting her attention between her hands, and her hands weren't particularly large, either, so she'd had difficulty with certain fingerings and songs as a result. Her parents had let her stop after four years – long enough that she could read music and play passably well, and long enough that she'd learned and mastered about half a dozen highly-recognizable (but simple) classical songs that she could pull out at parties to show off for her parents' friends if need be.
She'd preferred the music lessons to her brief stint of chess lessons, at least.
Hermione tapped the keyboard of the piano a couple times, letting a note ring out into the store. It sounded like a normal piano, maybe with a slightly richer tone? But it had been so long since she'd played a piano in general. How was a piano supposed to sound? Would she even remember enough to notice if this sounded different?
Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Stretching her fingers and arms, Hermione straightened her back, set her posture, and began to play.
Für Elise had been one of the first things Hermione had wanted to learn, because it was so distinctive and highly recognizable, and it sounded very fancy and grown-up, to child Hermione. Her teacher hadn't let her try it for over a year, until she played countless other simpler songs to learn on, but once she had been allowed to, Hermione had studied the song and practiced with a gusto, and the finger memory now came back to her with ease.
The music sounded the same as Hermione remembered it, perhaps a little fuller-bodied in tone. It sounded like dramatic halls and romantic gothic architecture, like dark-tinged sophistication, and as she played, she realized Draco and the shopkeeper were coming over, Draco with wide, astonished eyes.
The piece changed tone for a lighter, more rapid part of the song for a moment, Hermione's hands dancing over the keys, and to her astonishment, Draco laughed, startled into an expression of bright joy for a moment until the theme resumed. Hermione was watching the second time the theme changed, and Draco's eyes took on a darker, more molten look for a moment as he watched her, the shopkeep nodding next to him in satisfaction.
As she finished the piece, Draco and Maestro Dominic applauded.
"Sublime instrument, isn't it?" the old man said approvingly. "Superb enhancement of emotion. Excellent for all uses."
"Enhancement of emotion?" Hermione asked, and the old man nodded.
"The strings are gold," he told her. "Enchanted and tempered, naturally, but with a high tensile strength. The gold brings out the magic of the player and the emotion of the piece, enhancing it for everyone present." He shrugged. "There wasn't much direct emotion in your piece, but the bits that were there, they sung."
Hermione's eyes flickered to Draco's. "Music can do that, huh?"
Draco's tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he nodded.
"Music can be just music," he said slowly, "but it can be magical, too." His silver eyes held hers. "In old times, rituals and songs were sung. They were powerful, like that – music can help you call up power and let it build more than a chant, if you're good."
Hermione was beginning to piece together why this shop was kept tiny, unassuming, and out of the way, and why Draco had been so hesitant to bring her here in the first place.
"And that scared people?" she asked, guessing.
Maestro Dominic scoffed.
"What doesn't scare these people?" he wanted to know. "Oh, just because it's powerful, it's dangerous? As if a wand isn't equally as dangerous in the wrong hand?" He shook his head in disgust. "It pains me, to see suspicion fall upon something like this. Especially when music and magic can do so much good!"
"Can you play anything else?" Draco asked her. "Something with a bit more flavor?" He gave her a half-smile. "You'll see what he means, once you play."
"Sure." Hermione cracked her knuckles, going over her limited repertoire thoughtfully. If the emotion of whatever she played was going to be enhanced, she would want to keep away from anything melancholy or angry-sounding…
Deciding to go for playful and mischievous, she settled on Rondo Alla Turca, and she put her hands back to the keys, beginning to play once more.
The piece started off fine, a bit playful sounding, like music with quirked lips and a raised eyebrow, encouraging you to join in on a prank, but as she finished the first theme and moved onto the bright quick chords, Hermione found herself getting more into it. As the music became louder and more playful, so did she, her fingers dancing over the keys with more skill than she'd ever had before.
The mocking innocence and stately sounds of the next theme had a tongue-in-cheek feel as she played, and the resumption of the bright chords afterwards had her grinning widely, her hair falling into disarray as she played, almost laughing herself. As she finished out the song, playing the original theme quickly followed by bright chords and a closing tune, Draco was grinning widely, looking heartened, and Maestro Dominic was smiling, his hands over his heart.
"That was excellent!" Maestro Dominic praised. "Could you tell? Could you feel?"
"I could," Hermione admitted, still grinning impishly. "I know music evokes emotion, but… that was so much more than just the music itself."
"It was your magic," the old man declared. "You – you are magic. When you use your wand, you work your will and magic on the world. It is a tool. So, too, is the magic piano. The wire and keys are your tools, here, and with them you work your magic on the world here, too."
Hermione paid for her one piece of sheet music while the man kept talking about how magical instruments were made or enchanted, Draco paying considerably more for the repair of his flute.
"—really expensive have bows or strings of Siren or Veela hair," the old man was saying. "A tune on them can have you follow the player anywhere."
"On Veela hair?" Hermione said in surprise. She fingered the protective bangle around her wrist absently. "Their hair is that strong?"
"Well, not directly, but it is once enchanted properly," the man said, shrugging. "The proper enchantments can even help you make an instrument out of your own hair."
Draco thanked the man and guided them out of the shop, Hermione calling out a good-bye as they left. As they turned and walked back up the street, Draco glanced at Hermione, who returned his look evenly.
"So," she said quietly, her tone conversational. "You play the flute?"
Draco winced.
"Yes," he said. "My mother… she enrolled me in music lessons, a long time ago. And I couldn't exactly take a piano to Hogwarts with me…" He glanced around. "The flute… is small. Easy to hide and conceal. Easier to practice with, with no one around hearing me by accident."
"What do you play?" Hermione asked, curious, and Draco blushed.
"Err… songs of motivation and encouragement mostly, actually," he admitted. "They're good on the flute, and they help calm me down if I'm upset or angry over something."
She smiled. She could imagine that – Draco hidden in some high up tower or the owlery, secretly playing Morning Mood on his flute to calm himself down or Bourrée Anglaise to psyche himself up.
"Would you play for me sometime?" Hermione asked. "I'd love to hear."
Draco choked, his face turning red.
"I—ah, Hermione, that's—"
Hermione sighed, but it was with a quirked smile.
"Is playing music for another person an extraordinarily intimate thing?" she asked. "Because of the emotion and magic involved?"
Draco's face was flaming.
"It's—it's generally done in public with many people around," he said delicately. "With two people alone—the songs that are generally sung in such circumstances—they're—"
Hermione was fascinated by Draco's embarrassment and the flush on his cheeks.
"Is that a 'no'?" she teased, and she smirked when Draco reddened further.
"Maybe," he muttered, not looking at her. "Let's head back, okay?"
"Not just yet," Hermione said. She took a deep breath, looking Draco squarely in the eye. "If I asked for your help with something, would you help me?"
Draco was startled. He looked at her for a moment, concerned.
"Of course," he said. "Anything, Hermione."
Hermione smiled grimly.
"Let's hope you mean it," she said. "This isn't exactly typical."
Draco snorted.
"Hermione," he said, his tone dry, "with you, it never is."