"Hermione, can you look over this for me?"
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Hermione looked up from her Arithmancy homework to see Neville grinning at her sheepishly. With a good-natured eye roll, she held out her hand without a second thought. "Of course." That was when she caught the equally sheepish looks of Ginny, Hannah, and even Robert.
Gathered around a long table in the library, surrounded by friends, and immersed in the most calming scent in the world, Hermione felt like her old self again. This is what she was best at. This was her element.
"Go on. Hand them here," she commanded. Instant sounds of shuffling paper followed, leaving the brilliant witch with a stack of parchment in a neat pile next to hers. She snorted at the sense of DeJa'Vu. All that was missing was the boys asking for her notes.
She started with the top paper, scanning for the basics: inconsistencies, spelling errors, a possible wrong answer here and there; that type of thing. She smiled as she reached the bottom. Only minimal errors. "Well done, Neville! You should be proud of yourself."
Poor Neville flushed beet red under her praise. "Th-Thanks, Hermione."
"Oh, come off it," she lightly scoffed. "You're quite capable of being brilliant, you know."
Hannah beamed at him. "I told you."
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Hermione proceeded to the next one, scanning it just like she had the one before. As she neared the bottom, her quill snapped. "Blasted thing." She glared at her writing utensil as though it could hear her.
Ginny was the first to speak up. "Here," she said, starting to reach for her bag.
"No, no," Hermione sighed, waving it off. "I have a few spares. Thank you, though."
Before anyone could say another word, she reached down into her overstuffed bag. Her fingers grazed against an envelope at the same time she found her quills. "Oh."
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She suddenly remembered the owl from the morning before. When had she put this in her bag? Hermione immediately decided to grab them both, opting to slip the letter under her own homework.
"What's that?" Ginny asked.
"Ginny!" Hannah scolded, though it held no real weight.
"What? It's not like I'm the only one who's curious. You lot are just too bloody polite to speak up."
The table unanimously groaned. Hermione patiently said, "It's nothing. More than likely just another update."
The girls shared a knowing look, to which Ginny instantly went contrite. "Shit. Right. Sorry."
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Robert turned to her with a silent question. Hermione shook her head in answer. This was a part of her life she didn't want to openly share. The residents (and part-time residents) of Number Twelve, Grimmauld place were the only ones in Wizarding England who knew.
It took approximately thirty minutes to get through proofreading the other's homework. In that time, her letter from the Australian Ministry was burning a hole in the back of her mind. With the last assignment proofread, Hermione hurriedly grabbed yesterday's mail.
"Excuse me for just a moment." Everyone nodded unanimously, except for Robert, who started to get up with her. Hermione held her hand out to stop him. "I'm sorry, but this is something I have to do alone."
Hermione had to work to not feel guilty when his face fell. Internally, she brushed it off as she made her way to the back of the library. She knew just where to go: the historical section was usually unoccupied.
.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a lone figure in black perusing a few of the books. They stood on the other side of the shelves, in full view of Madam Pince. It was this that made her decide not to pay them any mind. Her eyes were fully focused on the envelope in front of her.
In the corner, a small table and a couple of lounge chairs sat all but forgotten. It was perfect, really. Near-complete solitude was granted to her here. She took a deep breath. "Just open it, Hermione."
Shaking fingers ripped the envelope open.
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Miss Hermione Jean Granger of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London, England,
Per your request to be notified if there were any changes regarding Madelynn and Wesley Granger, also known as Monica and Wendell Wilkins, we are sorry to inform you that as of August 31, 2000, at 10:48 P.M., they were involved in a head-on vehicular collision.
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Hermione's stomach swooped and dropped out of her body.
This meant that while she had been absorbed in trying to prepare a year's worth of Draught of Peaceand Sleeping Draught, her parents...
The Gryffindor's heart jerked and drummed in her ears while she frantically dove back into the letter.
.
They were immediately airlifted to the nearest muggle hospital. We are incredibly sorry to inform you, Miss Granger, that they did not survive. Arrangements have been made
.
The letters slipped through Hermione's fingers.
Her world stopped.
Dead...
Dead?
DEAD!
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"No. It can't be! There must be some mistake!"
The words sounded barely intelligible to her own ears. She didn't care.
Her head hung low in a curtain of barely tamed curls.
Her mind felt numb. Her body felt numb.
.
In her panic, her train of thought came out in a hurried whisper. "It must be another Monica and Wendell Wilkins. A different Madelynn and..."
Her eyes squeezed shut against the onslaught. She couldn't think the names. Not now.
.
Another page on the floor caught her eye. She'd forgotten that there was another letter. Hermione carefully picked it up with trembling fingers, taking care to blink her vision clear. A single moment was all it took for her anger to flare up in full force.
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It was a Frequent Portkey User Medical Evaluation. As if she'd need to use another damned portkey after this! She furiously started scanning the page's contents. "Honestly," Hermione bit out, "what kind of bastard sends—"
What she saw toward the bottom of the page made her hands clamp over her mouth to suppress a scream. She didn't have long to get it together, however, as a patch of white-blonde hair came flying from around the corner. Hermione darted to the floor, gathering up documents she'd rather burn before the ferret could see them.
.
The words twisted through her mind like a sick, twisted mantra that she couldn't stop. My parents are dead. I'm going to die. My parents are dead. I'm going to die...
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"Granger!" Malfoy's demanding use of her name sounded like white noise against her ears.
Vengeful fury roared inside her. Despite the tears streaming down her cheeks, the distraught witch turned on him. "What, Malfoy? Have you come to taunt your favorite mudblood?"
The latest Defense professor slightly cocked his head to the side, surprised. "The fuck is your…"
Hermione pulled herself off the floor and held her chin high with defiance. Part of her dared him to insult her. In fact, she would even say that she wanted him to.
Malfoy's initial shock transformed into calculating calm. His eyes narrowed as they roamed over her. "…problem?" They eventually snapped back to her face. Little by little, the features Hermione knew so well settled into something akin to what she'd been waiting for since he barged back into her life on Diagon Alley. "I thought we were past this."
.
Why couldn't he, just once this year, be a git? Give her a distraction; something to fight against? Hermione angrily flew into his personal space and picked the first boundary to cross that she could think of.
"When did we really first meet, Malfoy? Tell me!"
Malfoy then managed to do something that took the wind out of her. He took her by the shoulders and turned her around. For the first time since his trial, his molten silver eyes truly came alive as he led her backwards.
The warmth of his mouth was perilously close to hers when her back harshly hit a bookcase. Internally, she celebrated the fresh sting rippling up her spine, between her shoulder blades. Her shattered nerves came alive. Her veins sang in relief over the increase of blood pumping through them.
Even as the decaying notes of grief tainted all of it.
.
Malfoy caged her between his arms. "September 19, 1987." The date came out laced with sandalwood, mint and a quiet, dark fire that sent a shiver down Hermione's spine. "Your eighth birthday. I was digging up daffodils out of my mother's prized flower garden when you apparated right in front of me. Like the brainy little swot you are, you were carrying a book that just so happened to have a picture of a field that looked like our backyard."
Hermione blinked rapidly to force her tears to slow.
Malfoy's irritated voice faded into the background. "You must have asked me a thousand bloody questions before McGonagall brought you home!"
.
Maybe it was shock over those letters. Maybe it was sorrow, knowing her own heartbeats were numbered. Perhaps it was guilt and grief for her family. Or maybe it was a combination of all those things that drove home a need for closure that was never granted.
Either way, the strong compulsion to confess, to make the wizard in front of her feel an ounce of what she carried all the years made her admit, "Muggles have a custom of making wishes while blowing out candles on their birthday cakes. That day, I wished for a friend."
Malfoy froze and finally granted Hermione his signature glare. "What. The fuck. Are you doing?"
.
The twenty-one-year-old witch glared back defiantly. All the while, she clung to this one shred of normalcy with every ounce of strength she still possessed. "Setting the record straight. And checking for Polyjuice, Professor."
Malfoy's nostrils flared and he leaned back. "If somebody started offering classes on the art of deception, maybe you'd finally learn how to stop being such a shit liar."
Hermione's lungs started working properly again. "How dare—"
"How dare I what? Accuse the world's Golden Princess of being less than perfect at something?"
The Hogwarts Library had likely never seen such an endless exchange of agitated silence before.
"Let me gladly be the first," Malfoy seethed.
.
Hermione's wand seemed to come out of thin air when the tip pressed against his throat.
"The better question is, 'how dare you, a Hogwarts professor, come in here and harass a student?' Furthermore, the only lies between us that need to be acknowledged are ones that you told, seeing as they directly affected the course of my life!"
"You aren't going to hex me, Granger."
Vaguely, in the back of Hermione's chaotic mind, she noticed that there was something different about this. His breaths were steady, unafraid. She pressed her wand against his neck a little harder. "And what makes you so sure? I have every justifiable reason to do so!"
.
That was when her best defense went flying from her hand.
.
"Because without the threat of a dark lord as an excuse, attacking me will get you expelled. We both know that you would rather die than get kicked out of school." Hermione fumed, watching Malfoy calmly tuck his wand in the pocket of his trousers. "Is it easier to fight with me, Granger? Is that what you want?"
Gravity had never felt heavier. Her body sagged against the bookcase, and she slid to the floor. No, she hopelessly thought. I want to live.
And the truth was that she was only truly angry at herself.
.
Malfoy's methodical stare scorched the top of her head. Hermione didn't care. She just resigned herself to wordlessly summoning her wand. The witch tucked her chin into her knees and stared at a pair of black designer shoes until they disappeared.
For a moment, she thought he was going to leave… until she felt a presence at her side.
.
"What's in the letter, Granger?"
Hermione shoved the letter into the pocket of her robes. It figured that a terminal brain tumor would succeed where Voldemort, Greyback, and Bellatrix failed. Internally, she hysterically laughed. All that fuss about her N.E.W.T. scores, and she'd likely never see them.
.
She turned her lead-weighted head enough to look Draco Malfoy in the eye. Odd thing it was, him sitting beside her on an old wooden floor with her. Moreso that he somewhat mirrored her pose. The only difference was that his knees were open with arms casually propped on them.
She noticed that he left a comfortable amount of space between them. Hermione was grateful for that. Her mind skirted to their last conversation in his classroom. If there was ever a time to start fixing things between them, it was now. There was certainly a lot of work to do before they could honestly say all was right again.
.
"I won't tell you, but I do want to ask you a serious question."
He arched one perfect eyebrow at her. "Well?"
"Did you mean what you said? About starting over?"
The words sounded lifeless, even to her own ears.
"Yeah. But not if you want to keep throwing our past up in my face. I won't be your punching bag, Granger. That's what Potter and Weasley are for." His hand roughly went through his hair when he looked for something on the ceiling. "I already know that a lifetime of trying to right my wrongs won't be enough. Especially..."
.
Hermione watched him carefully. It was in the dying of words on his tongue that, for a moment, she saw a glimpse of the little boy she once found in a field of flowers. That was what made the final decision for her.
"It's alright," she said softly. "I forgive you."
His gaze snapped back to hers in surprise.
Hermione shrugged. "We're not defined by our scars, remember? Only by the choices we make. And…" She took a deep breath to steady herself. "I'm choosing to apologize for taking my anger out on you. It wasn't right."
Malfoy started picking at his trousers. "I want to… apologize, too. For breaking my promise to you."
"Malfoy…"
"We called each other by our first names before Hogwarts."
.
Something shattered completely between them then. It was almost like a taboo had been spoken.
.
"If you tell anyone about this," he said firmly, "I'll call you a liar."
Hermione winkled her nose. "Don't worry. I'm not exactly looking to get admitted into St. Mungo's. Or worse: featured in the latest school gossip."
He nodded once in response. "I know I… promised to be your friend."
"Best friend."
Malfoy cut her a weightless glare before returning to his task of picking at invisible lint. "And that didn't exactly work out."
"No, it didn't. Instead, you pretended not to know me when I found you on the train in first year."
"You went to call me on my shit for it, and I've been a bloody tosser toward you since."
"That correctly sums it up, but what are you getting at?"
"That was my first fuck up," Malfoy muttered. "Between you and me, at least. And that led to everything else that happened."
"You've put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?"
.
The initial response he gave her was a snort. "Eight months in Azkaban isn't exactly like going on holiday. There's not much else to do but think."
"You know what I think?"
He shrugged. "What?"
"I think that it may be time for a clean slate." She fully straightened and extended her hand. "I'm Hermione Granger. And you are?"
.
For once, she didn't mind seeing that smirk of his. Without the malice or contempt behind it, it was kind of nice. Not that she'd ever tell him that.
The blonde immediately took her hand. "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."
For as long as Hermione lived, she would never admit to the uncomfortably warm feeling that spread through her from his touch. "Nice to meet you, Draco."
It was almost enough to make the chaos in her head manageable.
Malfoy reached back with his other hand and ran it through his hair again.
"Umm—"
"Umm—"
"Maybe we're not at first names yet," Hermione conceded.
He shrugged. "Let's face it. To me, you'll always be Granger."
"I think I'd be worried if you didn't call me Granger," Hermione said thoughtfully. "You'll always be Malfoy as far as I'm concerned."
"You know, I think I'm okay with that."
It was Hermione who looked down at their still-joined hands. "Oh!" She immediately dropped his hand. "Sorry."
It was puzzling to note that Malfoy didn't look bothered at all as he studied his knees again. That confusion, however, didn't detract from the letters in her robes. She gave her new friend a bitter smile.
.
"Hey, Malfoy?"
"Hmm?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
His face was scrunched with confusion when he looked back up at her.
"For helping me get out of my own head," Hermione explained. "I know we don't really know each other anymore, but this is one thing I'm positive you wouldn't understand."
With that, she cast a quick glamour charm and stood. It was time to stop procrastinating.
"I'll see you in class."
.
On her way back to the table where her other friends still waited, her mind raced to create a bucket list. Their mixture of curiosity, patient anticipation (and in Ginny's case, sympathy) made Hermione force herself to relax. "Hey, guys!"
"What is it?" Hannah asked.
Hermione took a deep breath. "I need help. From all of you. Before I ask, though, I have to inform you that discretion is of the utmost importance here."
"Finally, I get to be involved in an adventure!" Ginny crowed.
Hermione, Robert, Neville, and Hannah all turned their attention towards her. The other Gryffindors at the table wore matching looks of amusement. The Hufflepuffs, on the other hand, seemed puzzled.
"What?" Ginny laughed. "I never get to be involved in anything."
"At least you didn't get put in a full-body bind," Neville mused.
Hannah turned to Neville in wordless shock.
"Sorry, Neville, "Hermione mumbled.
To Hannah's unspoken question, Neville shrugged with casual nonchalance. "I'll explain later. It's a long story."
.
Hermione shook away the budding nostalgia. If she wasn't careful, she would wind up getting off topic completely. "Look, I need all of you to swear not to say a word."
Robert was the first to speak. "I think I can keep my mouth shut." He took a quick glance at the others. "What about you guys?"
Hermione felt a palpable measure of relief when they all nodded. "You see, I want to find a missing person. Someone who is currently believed to be dead."
"Who?" Hannah asked.
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Hermione gulped. "Lavender Brown. Time is of the essence."