Snippets

Chapter Thirteen

"Any chance that you have a Farmer's Almanac on one of these shelves?" Hermione asks quietly, about an hour after she arrives at Draco's for the evening. She's not sure why, but her last vision– the one with the bouquet of daffodils on her desk– has been irking at the back of Hermione's mind all day. As minor as it seems, she has a gut feeling that it might possibly be important.

Draco looks up from the book in his lap and removes his silver-framed reading glasses, dangling them from his fingers over the arm of his sofa.

"On the bottom shelf in that corner. There's a mix of books on potions ingredients and Muggle gardening texts," Draco responds, pointing over toward the far left corner of the room, behind the sofa which Hermione has been seated on for the past hour.

Hermione nods in thanks as she stands, heading over and taking a seat on the floor in front of the shelf which Draco had indicated. She traces the tips of her fingers over the spines of the books, reading the names until she finds a Muggle book which appears to be about gardening Spring flowers.

Hermione pulls that book off of the shelf and opens it in her lap, scanning the table of contents to see if there is a chapter on daffodils. When she finds it, she flips to that page.

"Thinking of taking up gardening?" Draco asks, his voice suddenly much closer than Hermione remembers him being.

Hermione lifts her gaze from the book, realizing immediately that Draco is now leaning up against the bookshelf to her left. His hands are tucked into the pockets on his trousers and his reading glasses are replaced back on the bridge of his nose.

"I– I had another vision yesterday," Hermione near-whispers, slipping her thumb into her book and closing the cover to hold her place. "I just wanted to– I don't know. I guess I'm just trying to see if anything means anything anymore."

Hermione still isn't entirely comfortable with Draco, and she has no idea why he has offered to help her, nor why he has given up two of his evenings now to research with her. She knows that he is trying to help her, and over a decade after the War, she isn't scared of him– perhaps she just doesn't understand him.

She also recognizes that she knows hardly anything about him. She wouldn't have even known that he had been married if he hadn't made that joke during their first (or second, depending on how Hermione looks at it) meeting.

Draco tips his head to the side, looking down at Hermione with interest– and then he surprises her. Rather than turning and walking back over to the sofa, he crouches down until he is sitting, his legs stretched out in front of him and his back resting against the bookshelf beside her.

"Would you like to tell me about it?" he questions, his voice soft as he crosses his arms over his chest and relaxes back against the shelf.

Hermione twists her body so she is facing Draco fully. Her legs are crossed as she leans her head against the bookshelf and meets the eye of the man in front of her.

"It was– I– the vision-version of myself walked into my office– it looked exactly like it looked this morning when I was actually there," Hermione frowns, cracking the knuckles on her left hand in frustration. "But in the vision, there was a vase of daffodils on my desk. No card– just the flowers."

Draco nods that Healer nod that it seems every Healer at St. Mungo's has perfected.

"Hence the gardening book," Draco infers, his eyes flicking down to the book in Hermione's lap before returning to her own. "What does it say?"

Hermione opens the book once more, returning to the page she had been reading before Draco joined her.

"Daffodils, or the narcissus flower, bloom in early-Spring," Hermione begins. "They're the birth flower for the month of December. They are so named after the Greek myth of the young hunter, Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection. Traditionally, the narcissus flower, or the daffodil, represents rebirth, new beginnings and forgiveness."

Hermione sighs. None of that information is helpful to her– or, at least, it is not readily apparent that it could be helpful to her. She's not sure exactly what she was expecting because it's not as if a random book from a shelf in Draco Malfoy's library could tell her who might've sent flowers which she has never received, but perhaps she had just hoped for more.

"Perhaps the obvious answer is the correct one in this case– Occam's razor, I believe is what the Muggles call it," Draco says, and Hermione can't help but furrow her eyebrows in confusion. She hadn't even realized that there was an obvious answer. "These flowers represent forgiveness and new beginnings. Who in your life might feel inclined to beg for your forgiveness?"

Hermione considers this question for a moment. She had argued with Ron the other night– because of Draco, but he doesn't need to know that– however, she thinks it would be highly unlikely that Ron would send her flowers or that he would have any idea of the meaning behind the flowers.

"You?" Hermione laughs, half-joking. She finds it perhaps even more unlikely that Draco would send her flowers, but at the moment, he seems like the most likely candidate, especially in light of her other visions.

The corner of Draco's lips twitch into a half-smile as he shakes his head.

"Unlikely," Draco smirks. "You've already forgiven me. You wouldn't be here if you didn't, nor would you be telling me about your visions."

Hermione opens her mouth to respond, but Draco gives her a Look– capital intended– which seems to imply that he isn't finished yet.

"Furthermore, despite my mother's insistence, I have never put much stock in the language of flowers. I've found much more success in sending the favorite flower of the particular witch I'm trying to sway."

Hermione laughs lightly, running her finger over the glossy page of the book in her lap distractedly. She blames this distraction for the question which she asks next.

"What were your wife's favorite flowers?" she wonders, snapping her mouth shut when she realizes how inappropriate that question is. "I– I'm sorry. You don't have to answer that. I shouldn't have–"

"Zinnias," Draco answers, staring above Hermione's head for a moment before he looks back at her. There's an intensity in his eyes which Hermione hasn't noticed before. "It's alright. It's– it's nice to talk about her sometimes. No one does– not even her sister. I see Daphne every day and she never mentions her."

"Daphne. Healer Greengrass?" Hermione asks. She had known that Healer Greengrass had had a sister because Ginny had mentioned it, but she wasn't aware that it was her sister who had been married to Draco. "Your wife was Healer Greengrass' sister?"

Draco nods a somber sort of nod, very unlike his usual clinical, Healer nod.

"Astoria Greengrass. She was a couple of years below us in school."

Hermione still isn't entirely sure what she is meant to say in a situation like this. She has never known someone who has lost a spouse before and she imagines that nothing she could say would put any sort of dent in the kind of grief that must come with that.

Hermione isn't sure why she says what she says next. She thinks that perhaps it simply boils down to the fact that as someone who has lost someone (two someones, actually– her parents) whom she did not imagine living her life without at this juncture, she wants Draco to know that he is not alone and that his grief is valid.

"Well, if you'd like, you can talk to me about her any time. I'm sure she was lovely."

"Thank you for watching her, Hermione," Padma smiles, reaching down and plucking her sleeping daughter off of Hermione's lap.

"Anytime, Padma– really," Hermione insists, turning to face Padma when she takes a seat beside her on the sofa in her sitting room. "Can I ask you something?"

Padma tilts her head as if intrigued before nodding keenly.

"Of course. Anything."

Hermione breathes deeply, unsure if she should really even be asking this question, but decides to go ahead anyway.

"Do you remember Astoria Greengrass? From Hogwarts?" Hermione asks, leaning her chin on her arm which is resting against the back of the sofa.

Hermione isn't sure what possesses her to ask, other than perhaps the fact that she herself has zero memory of the younger Greengrass sister. She recognizes that for the majority of her schooling, her focus had been decidedly not on most of her classmates, but instead, on staying alive, but even still, she couldn't have picked Healer Greengrass' younger sister out of a line-up if she tried.

"Vaguely. She was Daphne's younger sister, but she was a year or two below us, so we didn't have classes together," Padma responds, gently caressing the top of Priya's head as she cradles her against her chest. "Why do you ask?"

Hermione shrugs– not because she doesn't know why she's asking, but because she can't tell Padma the truth. It's none of Hermione's business who Draco's wife was and she is the one who talked to him about her– so it's certainly not Padma's concern as she had not been included in that conversation.

"I remember that she was beautiful– like Daphne," Padma continues, her eyebrow creasing when a thought seems to occur to her. "Her hair was much darker though. I remember thinking that she looked almost sickly. I remember Parvati saying once that if Astoria had had light hair like Daphne, that she wouldn't have looked so gaunt."

Padma's recount of Parvati's comment sticks with Hermione for the remainder of the evening, long after Padma and Priya disappear through the floo back to their own home.

Hermione knows that the passing of Draco's wife is none of her business, and that the reason for her death is also none of her business. However, Padma's mention of Parvati's statement back in school makes Hermione wonder if perhaps Astoria had been chronically ill in some capacity. She wonders if this assumption has had any bearing on the fact that both the sister and the widower of this particular witch have become Healers.

Hermione spends entirely too long– read: the entire rest of the evening– contemplating the minimal knowledge of Astoria Greengrass which she possesses. It isn't until Hermione is crawling into bed for the evening that a thought hits her like a punch to the gut.

There are few things about Draco Malfoy which Hermione understands– least of all why he has decided to sacrifice his time to research with her, despite not being her designated Healer. It had occurred to Hermione that Draco could possibly be trying to assuage some sort of guilt, though she had assumed that that guilt could be related to his previous treatment of her. Now, she wonders if this presumed guilt is in connection to his late wife instead.

That thought makes Hermione's chest tighten. On one hand, she's grateful for the help and for the access to Draco's library– but then on the other hand, Hermione doesn't want to be pitied or seen as some sort of charity case to be used to mitigate a feeling of culpability or responsibility.

Hermione decides that the next time that she sees Draco, she is going to confront him– she's going to ask him why in Godric's name he is helping her, and she is not going to leave without a response.

Hermione sighs, clapping her hands over her eyes in an attempt to massage away the tension which has arisen behind her eye sockets. She groans aloud, hoping to vent her frustration, although it doesn't work. As if Hermione doesn't already have enough to worry about– now she has to concern herself with whether or not Draco Malfoy is using her to make some sort of reparations to his deceased wife. Great.

Hi, friends! Happy Tuesday! (:

I hope you've all had a great week since the last upload. (:

Listen. This is one of my favorite chapters in the entire fic because it feels like the first time that we really see Draco and Hermione interacting. I dunno. It feels like a milestone, lol.

Also, gold star to you if you've figured out why I chose zinnias to be Astoria's favorite flowers. Like I said last week, flowers are always important in this fic. So, keep an eye out for when they're mentioned. :P

As always, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, and I look forward to reading all of your thoughts, theories and favorite moments of this chapter. It makes me so happy when I see a new review posted. (: So, thank you in advance for your reviews. I love them so much.

Thank you, as always, for spending a bit of your time here with me this week. Your support means more to me than you could ever possible imagine. Thank you. Thank you so much.

See you again next week. (: