Chapter Twenty
Hermione was woken the next morning by a commotion in her kitchen.
Throwing on a robe she hurried out to find Crookshanks on top of the counter, several pots and pans knocked off their hooks and several more on the floor. A small owl sat on top of her cupboards watching Crookshanks' attempts with a reproachful eye. She must have left the window cracked last night, luckily Crookshanks was far too fat to fit through the small gap but the owl must not have had any trouble.
It took her a few minutes to capture Crookshanks, who protested loudly, and close him in her bedroom. And then several more to convince the owl that he wouldn't be eaten if he came down to her.
Finally it fluttered down to the counter and held out its leg. It was a note from Blasie, asking her to meet him at a park if she was free that afternoon. She wasn't sure if she was more curious how he was getting owls past the wards of her apartment or why he had asked her to meet him at a muggle park.
Several hours later Hermione sat on a park bench in the warm sunshine waiting for Blaise. He wasn't late, she had been early, it had been too nice of a day to stay inside and she thought the idea of sitting in a park in the sun for a few minutes would be a pleasant way to start the afternoon.
"Coffee, bella?" Blaise sat next to her on the bench and Hermione opened her eyes to accept the paper cup he offered her. "Mi spiace, I didn't know how you take your coffee so I took the liberty of ordering you something I thought you'd like."
Cautiously she took a sip, she usually took her coffee black finding many of the fancier coffees too sweet but this one was delightfully bitter with just a hint of chocolate and cream.
"That's lovely!" She told him, genuinely surprised and Blaise smiled his dazzling smile, clearly pleased with himself.
"Most English shops don't know how to make coffee, they ruin it, but I have a few secret spots which are tolerable. But, if you want good coffee Hermione, you must come to Italy." He told her conspiratorially, taking a sip from his own cup. They were still using first names today it seemed.
They sat in comfortable silence watching the trees sway in the gentle breeze. In the distance a few children played on a playground.
"Do you ever think of having children?" Blaise asked her.
Hermione nearly scalded her tongue on a too large sip of coffee. Blaise didn't seem to notice his attention on the playground.
"I don't know." She said uncomfortably. After her and Ron had broken up she honestly hadn't thought much about children.
She liked children and several of her classmates had started families. She was fairly certain that Hannah and Neville were at least on their third or fourth already but she was too busy with work to even date much less think about having a baby.
Not that she had a particularly strong inclination to get a boyfriend either. Between her career, her role in the war and her closeness to Harry she seemed to be a magnet for weirdos. Ginny had tried to set her up on several blind dates. None of them had yielded anything but a stalker. And Ron had dealt with that.
"Do you want children?" She asked him.
"Non tutte le ciambelle riescono col buuco." He said ruefully. "But I did not interrupt your saturday to ask about bambini. I leaving England, I'm taking madre back to France."
Hermione didn't know if what she was feeling was relief exactly. At least in France though they wouldn't need her quite as much, a little bit of distance wouldn't be such a bad thing.
"When do you all leave?" She asked but Blaise shook his head,
"I am taking madre. Draco and Theo are staying in England." he clarified. "Being back in England has made things much worse for her condition, too many memories here. And it has proved to be far more dangerous than France. "
"But why you? Why isn't Malfoy taking her?" Hermione asked. Malfoy had barely allowed Blaise to attend to Narcissa when he was on the brink of death; she didn't think he would be eager to have her in another country without him.
"Draco" Blaise seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "needs to recover and care for himself right now. He is wasting away trying to shoulder this responsibility alone. Theo and I tried to warn him… he needs time to get his strength back, and he can't do that if every waking moment he is focused on madre."
"She may have only given life to one but she has three sons and it's time he let us help." He added.
"Alright" Hermione fidgeted with her coffee's lid. "I'm assuming you want something from me or you wouldn't have asked me here"
Blaise inclined his head. "Like I said, Theo and Draco are staying in England for a while, but Theo travels for his work. I had hoped you would be willing to help us keep an eye on Draco as he recovers."
Hermione began to protest but he put up a hand to stop her.
"We aren't asking you to babysit him or visit him every day, I think he would kill all of us if we tried that, we just need you to make sure he's alive and hasn't done anything stupid if Theo is out of the country." he told her.
"So what? How am I supposed to check on him if Nott is out of the country? I highly doubt he'd be pleased with me popping by everyday to see if he is still alive." She pointed out.
"You could just send him a note?" suggested Blasie.
"I don't own an owl, Crookshanks would eat it. Since he hasn't been plastered all over the tabloids I'm assuming no one knows he's here and you'd like to keep it that way. Sending a postal owl is a sure way to bring the press to his door." she argued.
Blaise sent her an exasperated look. "Hermione, you are the brightest witch of our age, I trust you could figure out how to communicate with someone without an owl."
"Fine." She begrudgingly agreed after a moment's hesitation.
She could just spell another notebook, like the one she had with Ginny. It would be easy enough to check it once in a while if Theo was away. "Send me your owl tonight and I'll send back a way we can communicate and instructions."
Blaise gave her one of his smiles and Hermione felt her heart speed up. That smile of his was dangerous.
"Has anyone told you lately how amazing you are?" He told her. "Thank you, it will give Theo and I some peace of mind when we aren't with him."
"It's fine, I guess this is kind of what I signed up for when I agreed to help you." she sighed. "But I am curious how you got Malfoy to agree to this."
Blaise didn't meet her eyes.
"Oh Merlin. You didn't ask him first?" Hermione shouldn't have been surprised.
"Draco is a touch dramatic about these things, I will be talking to him tonight." He said waving his hand in the air like this was the least problematic part of his plan.
"It's your funeral." Hermione muttered into her cup. She hoped Malfoy didn't kill Blaise, she rather liked him. Whether it was his easy charm or his candour she wasn't sure but out of the three Slytherins he was probably the one she felt the most comfortable around.
After they parted ways at the park, Hermione stopped at a bookshop on her way home and picked up a new set of notebooks.
Browsing their stationary section, she had found a plain black leather journal for her to charm for Malfoy. She was about to purchase it when a scarlet journal with gold clasps caught her eye. She smiled. Malfoy would no doubt try to alter the colour but a quick Unchangeable Charm would make sure it stayed vibrantly the Gryffindor colours. She couldn't resist.
Later that evening when Blaise's owl came, she had to crawl onto the counter to reach it since it stayed perched on the window, stubbornly refusing to come inside. It was no doubt remembering the incident with Crookshanks that morning and was unwilling to chance a repeat encounter.
She had carefully wrapped the charmed journal in brown paper and shrunk it for the sake of the owl, written a note explaining how to use it and that she would appreciate them testing it that evening to confirm it was functioning.
Hermione flipped open her own powder blue notebook, rather than charming a whole new set she had simply added a divider in her current journal with Ginny. On the header for his section she had added a small pictograph of a snake instead of putting his name down in case someone ever was to pick it up. She left the notebook open on the table periodically checking it as she cleaned her flat.
As the clock struck nine she frowned down at the blank page. She had tested all the spells before she sent it off, there shouldn't be any issues with it.
She grabbed her pen and sat down to send a note but before she could ink spread across the page in an elegant spidery scrawl.
Hermione, the talk with Draco took longer than anticipated but everything is fine. B.Z.
Another note appeared just as the first one was fading
Theo and I agree that this is amazing and that you really must tell us how you did it. B.Z.
P.S. Draco loves the colour
Hermione snorted and wrote back.
Glad you're alive after your chat. Tell Malfoy it's no use to try and change the colour, I put on an Unchangeable Charm. H.G.
A different handwriting wrote back.
Gryffindor colours? Has anyone told you what an eyesore those are?
There was no initials but Hermione would have recognized Malfoy's handwriting anywhere. At school it had been the one thing she had begrudgingly allowed that he did well, neat and elegant she had always admired his penmenship.
Confident the spells were working she closed the book and put it into her purse and prayed that they would never have to use the notebook again.