32 Mightbewriting

He reached for her hand, “I’d like—” he started, finding himself dangerously close
to honesty. “I’d like to try and make it special—if I can.”
That seemed to be an acceptable answer. Her eyes softened. And for the rest of
their date, they engaged in conversation he might have called interesting. Interesting,
that is, if he hadn’t spent the entire morning watching Granger resist the urge to
forcibly liberate his family elves.

It was only as he stepped back through the Floo that Draco realized what he’d
done. He’d bid Astoria farewell, a perfunctory kiss to her cheek before he doubled
back to Fortescue’s, tapping his fingers against the pocket watch in his trousers.
Granger had lined all the artifacts and antiques along the far wall of the parlor in
cascading size order. An honestly impressive amount of organization considering
Draco hadn’t even been gone for two full hours. She didn’t glance back at him as he
stepped through the Floo; she just kept staring at the glowing red rune in front of her
face.
Draco took a step towards her. The click of his shoes on the stone floor must have
caught her attention because she jolted, just enough to give away her surprise.
He held out the takeaway apple caramel ice cream he’d brought her.
“You fixed my grandfather’s pocket watch.”
She blinked, then cautiously reached to take the bowl, chilled by a stasis charm to
Beginning & End
prevent melting.
“And so you’ve”—she glanced down at the bowl of ice cream in her hands—
”brought me the ice cream I said I liked?”
Well, it sounded downright idiotic when she said it like that. He glanced at her left
arm, thankfully covered by a sleeve today. He had to stop looking for it, as if he
expected to have any other reaction than abject horror at the sight of it.
Instead, with his molars practically ground to dust in the back of his mouth, he
nodded, mouth flat and tight.
She cancelled her diagnostic spell and walked to the sofa—his sofa—that he sat on
literally every single day while he pretended Hermione Granger needed supervision.
As if her compulsive tendencies towards righteousness would allow her to do
anything unsavory to the estate.
Draco stood in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, before he opted to sit
in the armchair opposite her.
Granger took a bite of the ice cream and made a happy sound Draco knew he
probably shouldn’t find so interesting. Then she started to laugh.
“It’s better than I remembered,” she said through a giggle. Draco didn’t see how
that was funny.
“You’re probably hungry. You never stop to eat.”
She swallowed a laugh, frown taking over her face for a moment. She tapped her
spoon against the edge of her bowl.
“So is this—some kind of Slytherin quid pro quo ice cream, or something?”
“Excuse me?”
“Fixing the watch. You’re—paying me in ice cream?”
 Beginning and end 31

He met with Astoria outside Florean Fortescue’s. She looked lovely, per her usual.
Every ounce the aristocratic breeding he expected. Her dark hair shined,
astonishingly smooth and reflective despite its dark shade. It was honestly a laughable
comparison to the nest he’d just been facing on Granger’s head. Astoria smiled when
she saw him and it was nice. It was pleasant.
She was very pleasant.
He took the hand she offered, bringing it to his lips. The formality of it felt so
misplaced, so out of step with the real world that he almost wanted to laugh. Should
he have kissed her cheek instead? Offered her a hug? He had no idea; everything
between them felt backwards, antiquated, out-of-order.
She blushed and it was pretty. This could work; it had to work. Words he repeated
to himself every time he saw her. It wasn’t as if he had any other choice.
And yet, as they enjoyed their ice cream—Granger was right, apple caramel was
delicious—Draco had trouble recalling a single thing they’d discussed in the last
hour.
“Your mother has several opinions about the floral arrangements. I worry mine
might hex her soon if they can’t agree on something.”
Draco offered her a tight smile over a spoonful of his ice cream. The whole
scene—being in Fortescue’s, on a date with Astoria Greengrass, amidst the bustle of
Diagon Alley—it all felt so surreal, even with the surreptitious stares aimed in his
direction.
“I’m sure whatever they choose will be lovely,” he said, careful with his words, with
his tone, with his everything.
Astoria pulled her spoon from her mouth, delicate fingers looking like they barely
had a grip on the thing. Her brows fell. Draco took that to mean she wanted him to
say something else.
“But,” he tried, “I’m sure if you had an opinion on it they would be willing to
listen?” He hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question; he’d wanted to sound sure of
himself and whatever authority he got to parade around as his own.
She set her spoon in her bowl, resting in the soupy remains of the vanilla ice cream
she’d ordered.
“I don’t—care about the flowers.”
“The—color palette, then?” In truth, Draco had tuned out almost every
conversation about wedding planning he’d been subject to.
“Could we try something?” she asked instead. She pursed her lips, watching him.
“What would you like to try?”
“Would you kiss me?”
Draco didn’t let his face flicker. He fought against the urge to stiffen. It wasn’t that
he didn’t want to kiss a pretty witch. In fact, he was practically starved for such
touch. But something about the idea of kissing this witch. He just knew, even without
having done it yet, that it wouldn’t go well. That felt ominous, damning, like an
inevitability he had to delay.
“Do you want me to kiss you?”
She ran a hand over the smooth hair at her temple, soothing flyaways that didn’t
exist.
“At some point, yes. I think that would make sense.”
 30 Mightbewriting

might have been responsible for. If asked to conjure an image of Granger in his mind,
in present day, the buck teeth would be there. But her mouth now, just slightly parted
as she watched him, looked perfectly normal—objectively attractive, even.
He remembered her face making him feel angry, annoyed, inferior, but that had
never felt right. He’d had no reason to feel inferior to her .
The curiosity on her face slipped into suspicion. He’d been caught staring, but to
be fair, she’d been staring, too.
“Astoria is your girlfriend?” she asked. A casual, simple question, perhaps the first
personal one they’d ever shared.
He tried not to roll his eyes, or—even worse—outright laugh.
“Astoria is my intended.”
She had to know what that meant, he hadn’t used an obscure pureblood term, but
her face wrinkled regardless.
“Intended?”
“Betrothed. Affianced. Intended by way of a marriage agreement forged between
our two families.” The spike of irritation shooting from his chest should have
concerned him. Instead, it was almost pleasant to feel something outside of his
Occlumency that didn’t taste of anger or disgust.
“Oh.”
“So yes, you’ll be working alone for a couple of hours. As long as my father abides
by the Ministry's orders and leaves you alone, he’ll never know that I’ve been away.”
Despite the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, he pulled out his pocket
watch, only belatedly remembering he hadn’t said anything to her about it. Not a
thank you, not even an acknowledgment that he’d found it. He cleared his throat.
“He doesn’t know?”
“He doesn’t know, Granger,” he smirked. The expression felt easy and welcome.
“So if I have your promise not to defile my family home, or carry out any other
nefarious plans you’re storing in that hair of yours, I’m needed at Florean Fortescue’s
in four minutes.”
She didn’t look offended. Merlin, she nearly looked amused. He could work with
an amused Granger. If amused Granger just kept that fucking shirt sleeve down,
maybe he wouldn’t have to occlude every minute of every day. Perhaps they could
even try their hand at conversation or a dash of civility.
“Oh. Well, have fun,” she said, dropping her gaze to the collection of objects
surrounding her.
Draco pulled a handful of Floo powder and dropped it in the fireplace, but her
voice caught him before he stepped in.
“They have a new flavor, apple caramel. You should try it if you get a chance. It’s
really quite good.”
He didn’t know what to do with that, what to think of it. His head tilted. So did
hers.
He disappeared in a flash.
 Beginning and end 29

Instead of shouting, instead of feeling any of that emotion, he let his Occlumency
calm him, cool him, freeze what might have been fire in his veins.
She’d tried to be nice, he knew that. He managed a nod, giving her the
acknowledgement he’d avoided earlier.
His head throbbed; his stomach churned. He didn’t want to occlude this much. But
even when she attempted civility, he felt like he wanted to snap. He picked up his
book, eyes and head aching as he tried to focus on the words; his seventh attempt at
this same chapter.
He counted his breaths in lieu of retaining a single word in front of him. When he
got to three hundred, he paused.
“Thanks for trying, Granger,” he said from behind his book, refusing to look up
until after she’d stepped through the Floo at the end of the day.
Beginning & End
MIGHTBEWRITING
Part TWO of FIVE in the World of Wait and Hope series
Summary:
Years. Broken into months into weeks into days—into hours, minutes, seconds— A week later, Granger declared the parlor fully free of dark magic and curses.
into moments. Simple at one end, complex at the other. In Draco’s experience, Rather than allowing her to move to another room, Lucius had a veritable museum’s
moments, even when simple, had a habit of becoming irretrievable. Moments grew, worth of objects delivered to them via house elves, which of course Granger couldn’t
stretched, multiplied into ages and eras that defined whole stretches of measurable stop eyeing with a pitiful mixture of sympathy and distaste.
time. Draco regretted several moments in his life, some within his control, some Draco had to hold in his sniggering; the scene was so unwillingly comical, he let his
without: all of them irretrievable in nature. At a certain point, wedged between ‘what-
Occlumency drop. He watched as Granger’s eyes practically twitched at each crack of
ifs’ of his own devising, he’d stopped trying to keep track of those regrettable
moments: now and then, pushing and pulling, coming and going, beginning and end. house elf magic dropping off more and more objects from the Malfoy family past:
Moments were only moments for just as long. After that, he had no control. cursed, warded, jinxed, and hexed, a full tea service of nasty trinkets.
Rating: Explicit By the time the last elf vanished—after dropping off a truly hideous jewelry box
Category: F/M once owned by Draco’s great, great someone or another—Granger let her arms fall
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling to her sides, eyes closed as she drew a deep breath.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy background Harry Her eyes snapped open at the laugh he failed to contain. She’d been effectively
Potter/Ginny Weasley encircled by all variety of potentially dangerous knick knacks.
Additional Tags:, POV Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Epilogue What Epilogue She narrowed her eyes at him, which only amused him further.
| EWE, Romance, Angst, Fluff, Slow Burn, Arranged Marriage, Weddings, Co-
“How I wish I could stay to witness you work your way out of this,” he said.
workers, Marriage Proposal, Time Turner (Harry Potter), Explicit Sexual
Content, Explicit Language, draco isn't exactly smooth Her eyes widened, head tilting.
hermione isn't exactly sure what to make of him, theo is a ray of sunshine, blaise “Am I finally being trusted not to defile this prestigious estate?” She crossed her
does what he does best, pansy shows up late in the game but with purpose arms in front of her, making no attempt to escape the ring of cursed objects.
[In which Draco is forced to work with Hermione, falls in love, makes many Draco snorted indelicately, standing, “Hardly. But Astoria wasn’t available for
mistakes, and eventually becomes his own man. A Draco POV prequel to Wait and dinner this evening, so we rescheduled for lunch.”
Hope.] She seemed to soften, loosening the grip on her crossed arms. Without the cloud of
Stats: Occlumency fogging him, Draco could really see her, look at her. It wasn’t often that
Published: 2020-07-31, Completed: 2020-12-26, Words: 241977, Chapters: 48/48, she fully faced him, intentionally looked at him.
Comments: 3673, Kudos:7172, Bookmarks: 1947, Hits: 384573
The hair might have remained the same all these years later, but the rest of her
Translation into Italiano available: Beginning and end- Traduzione italiana by
Emune hadn’t.
Translation into Español available: Beginning and End Traducción by Sharlee He remembered her eyes being boring, plain, muddy as the blood his family
This story is also available in audiobook format through etl.echo.audiobooks on insisted ran through her veins. But it was richer than that: a deep chocolate like his
spotify! favorite type of truffles, almost offensively expressive as they regarded him with open
curiosity.
He remembered her mouth only by way of her teeth. He knew, somewhere in the
recesses of his memory, that she had them fixed after an incident at school that he
 28 Mightbewriting

He slipped the watch in his pocket and sat back on the sofa, leaning his head
against the curved arm. He sought sleep without nightmares, without the sound of
screams he knew as well as his own.

Draco did everything in his power not to look at Granger, speak to Granger, or
otherwise acknowledge Granger the next day. She stepped through the Floo at nine
in the morning as she always did, but instead of waiting nearby, nodding a greeting,
and then sitting on the velvet sofa as he always did, Draco had already sat down,
opened a book, and occluded out of his mind.
He held his breath in the bottom of his lungs, ice cold from Occlumency, and
resisted the urge to peek over the top of his potions book. He wanted to know if she
even noticed his shift in behavior; if it mattered to her. Did that make him selfish?
Self-obsessed? A narcissist desperate to know if the lack of his usual greeting had
registered?
A warm, orange glow illuminated the room. Draco glanced down at the floor where
streaks of light told him that Granger had cast her diagnostic charms, already set to
work. “What we call the beginning is often the end
He read the same chapter in his book six times before finally giving up, setting it And to make an end is to make a beginning
aside and pointedly not looking in Granger’s direction. Instead, he pinched the bridge The end is where we start from.”
of his nose, trying to stave off a headache from all his occluding and wishing he
hadn’t slept through breakfast that morning. He’d barely woken with time to shower, — T.S. Eliot,
change, and be present and disinterested for Granger’s arrival. He shifted his fingers Four Quartets, Little Gidding
to his temples, eyes closed, rubbing slow circles against his skull.
“Do you have a headache?”
His eyes popped open, drawn to her voice despite his attempts at avoidance.
“I usually have a headache.” Dull voice. Dull emotions. Something dull inside his
chest.
She raised her brows as if to challenge his statement.
“Do you get enough sleep?” she asked, waving a hand through her diagnostic runes
as she cancelled them.
“You’re here to figure out what’s wrong with the manor, not with me.” Draco ran a
hand down his face, trying to lower his Occlumency enough to unclench his stomach
and relieve the pressure in his head without also having to face the fact that he might
have just admitted he’s not, generally speaking, alright.
“Fixing you is definitely outside my job description. I just—I have trouble sleeping
sometimes, and it often leads to a headache.”
Without his mental wards keeping him carefully contained, Draco might have
shouted at her, made her hear how his lack of sleep, as of late, was directly related to
that slur she kept needling him with, always on display. Sure, there were the old
classics: any time he had to see The Dark Lord face to face, the astronomy tower, the
blazing heat of Fiendfyre, the entirety of his seventh year. But more often than not,
since Granger had shown up and forced him to relive one of the very worst
moments in his life, his nightmares had a habit of returning to that drawing room.
 Beginning and end 27

He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and dropping his head into his
hands. He massaged his temples, ran his hands through his hair, shook his head. He
hated waking like that, feeling like he’d barely escaped a trap in his own head.
Draco straightened, isolating the heat still prickling beneath his skin. He tried to
ignore his dry, tight throat. He willed his magic to freeze it out and pack it up. Draco
rose, careful not to occlude himself too deep. He felt some of the fear subside, some
of the heat waver under his will.
Barefoot, and ignoring the searing chill from the cold stone floors, Draco let his
feet carry him through his family home in the dark.
The darkness didn’t scare him—many worse things had lived inside these walls
than a little darkness—but it didn’t soothe him, either. The prickling under his skin
returned as he walked by the drawing room, unaware he’d even headed in that
direction. He couldn’t bring himself to stop there, not again.
He finally paused outside the parlor door, the room he’d spent the past three weeks
occupying for most of his day. He cracked the door and slipped inside, settling on
the sofa with inexplicable ease.
He felt like he could breathe again, like some unseen magic had thinned the
suffocating weight in the air around him, leaving only the voluntary fog of his mental
wards. He let them fall, incrementally, warming himself and bracing for a potential
rush of panic, but none came.
This room felt different. Loathe as he was to even entertain the thought, he had to
admit that perhaps the Ministry was onto something, effectively scourgifying his home
of the dark magic that soiled it.
He couldn’t live at Malfoy Manor anymore. Something about the manor felt sick,
fetid, sour in his stomach. Spending a year in a different place had desensitized him
to the creeping sensation of unease that lived inside these walls. That thought
barreled through him at the same time he noticed an object sitting atop the bureau.
He stood from the sofa and approached it. He groaned, picking up the pocket
watch he found there.
Granger had gotten into the bureau drawer. He’d only been partially serious,
certainly not expecting her to manage it so quickly, so easily. The watch had belonged
to his grandfather, Abraxas. It had been gifted to him for this thirteenth birthday and
later shattered under his Aunt Bella’s heel in a fit of rage over his inability to
successfully cast a killing curse, even on a peacock. She’d tossed the broken pieces in
the bureau drawer and flung several layers of curses on top of it, isolating him from
sentiment, as she’d called it.
But the pocket watch in his hand ticked quietly, the subtle whirr of gears pulsing
through the metal against his skin. He sank back onto the sofa, staring at the object
in his hand.
She’d found it, and she’d fixed it, and he’d been—disagreeable, as Theo would
say—an arse, was probably more accurate, seeking to insult purely out of reflex, out
of the comfort of familiar contempt.
He brushed his fingers across the initials engraved in the metal, memories of his
father’s father: another blood zealot, another follower of lost causes. Another twist in
Draco’s stomach, incapable of sorting feelings of kinship from feelings of disgust.
 26 Mightbewriting

Draco had to search his brain, remind himself what he’d even asked through his
occlusive fog. Her job .
He pulled back on his occlusion in an effort to sound more like himself, but the
moment he did his eyes wandered towards her arm, almost obsessively seeking his
stressor.
“Weasel too boring at home? Need a little more excitement in your life and opted
for the professional?”
That sounded better. She frowned; he must be on the right track. Lost in his own
head, he wondered why he’d even wanted to annoy her to begin with.
“Nice, Malfoy. Very classy. I thought you were meant to have pureblood manners.
Isn’t that what your father accused me of lacking?”
“I do have manners. Excellent ones.”
“Just not with a mudblood?” she waved her forearm like a weapon, and he
slammed his eyes shut as a sudden rush of hot, unwelcome discomfort melted his
control. He froze it out—harder, deeper—until he couldn’t feel a thing.
He lifted his head from the arm of the sofa, no longer feeling the slightest bit
relaxed. He sat, staring at her, holding her gaze as he wondered why it had to go
wrong. What test he’d failed that he couldn’t fake a civil conversation, even if it was
with Hermione Granger. He should be able to do it. His mother would expect those
manners of him. His father probably wouldn’t care. But Draco, he didn’t know what
he wanted or expected of himself.
“I’m not—” he started, failing. “I don’t—” he gave up.
P ART O NE : 2002
His voice carried flat, syllables sour, so lifeless, and this time he wasn’t sure the
Occlumency had anything to do with it. His skin crawled; he felt exposed, raw. He
wanted to leap to his feet and capture his fractured attempt at speaking before it
could reach her.
She dropped her arm, no longer brandishing it.
“I know,” she said, quiet, as if she understood exactly what he meant. “I did testify
for you, after all.”
This was where he thanked her for that. He never had. But his jaw sealed shut, a
sticking charm between his teeth, clenching them together.
The day was almost over, she could manage another hour by herself.
He stood, limbs feeling foreign, drowsy.
He left without another word.

He dreamed of Granger that night. And not in a pleasant, dreaming of a pretty

witch and waking with the urge to fist his cock, close his eyes again, and remember
whatever intimate scenario his unconscious mind had supplied him with, sort of way.
But more in a way that reminded him that the closest thing to intimacy he had with
Granger was an uncomfortable familiarity with the sound of her agony, screams
scraping her throat and lungs to shreds.
He couldn’t occlude in his dreams, which is where it all caught up to him.
Draco gave up on trying to sleep after waking from his second nightmare, flushed
and burning hot, mouth pulled open in a silent scream he couldn’t seem to vocalize.
 Beginning and end 25

the piano. “If you can ever get that piano to stop biting you, there’s another drawer
in the bureau desk that won’t even let me open it.”
Granger’s shoulders, which had risen when she tensed, fell. She didn’t turn around,
but she surprised him by speaking.
“I’m sure I’ll get to it eventually, Malfoy.”
“It’s just,” he started, and nearly smirked at the small puff of annoyance that
slipped from her mouth. He stared at her back and the halo of hair surrounding her.
He let his Occlumency melt a little further. “I’m fairly certain something of
sentimental value ended up in there, years ago. I wouldn’t mind having it back.”
She finally turned to look at him. He’d been wrong; she had pushed her sleeves up,
just enough that blood peeked out from her sleeve. Draco took a breath, his throat
tightening. He willed the ice back into his veins, sealing up the openings he’d made
for attempted conversation.
“What is it?” she asked.
“None of your business.”
“Well I’m going to see it anyway if I have to break it out of a bureau.”
“That doesn’t make you entitled to anything here, Granger.”
He’d wanted his words to have more bite, to sound as annoyed as he felt at the
sight of that fucking scar she kept flaunting. But instead they fell flat, disinterested
under the weight of Occlumency. She narrowed her eyes; he did the same.
“You don’t have to be here if you can’t stand me, you know,” she said.
“Would you like to revisit that with my father? He doesn’t trust the Ministry not to
rob us of everything we have left on a good day. He doesn’t trust you on any day.”
Granger flinched as one of the keys clamped down on her forefinger. She winced,
sticking the tip of it between her lips, sucking as she made tiny mollifying sounds to
herself.
Draco’s gaze lingered on the action, too long—he knew it was too long—but he
couldn’t seem to pull himself away. Annoyed, he chipped away at that shard of
frustration, that unwelcome bubble of intrusive lust, sinking into an even more
heavily occluded state.
She pulled her finger from her mouth.
“This is my job, Malfoy. I’m sorry your father doesn’t like it. I’m not especially
pleased to be here, either.”
“And I’m not pleased I have to babysit you,” he said, but he could hear the lack of
punch, dulled by slow senses and frozen veins.
She let out a strangled, disbelieving sort of sound he might hesitantly label a laugh.
She covered her mouth with her hand almost immediately. He tried again. Boredom
might be preferable to anger, but verbal sparring was better than boredom.
“How did this become your job anyway? I thought you were destined to liberate
house elves and tame werewolves, or some other bleeding savior rot like that.” He’d
hoped there was an insult in there, somewhere, laced inside his tone or woven within
his words. But it still sounded flat to his ear, almost polite under his occlusion.
She sighed, canceling the diagnostic runes glowing angrily around her face. She
waved her hand through the air where they’d been, as if dispeling any residual magic.
It struck him as an odd motion, and slightly ridiculous; it made her seem so painfully
muggleborn, and she probably had no idea.
“I needed a change,” she said.
 -2.916, -3.000, -3.083
MARCH 3, -3.166, -3.250
JANUARY

t
OCK
Draco sat on the tufted green velvet sofa in the Floo parlor, recently

Y
removed of its lingering dark magic stains, and nearly occluded himself
into unconsciousness. EARS. BROKEN INTO MONTHS INTO WEEKS INTO DAYS—into
Granger worked on the other side of the room, letting out occasional huffs of hours, minutes, seconds—into moments. Simple at one end, complex at the
frustration that would have annoyed him if he hadn’t whittled his emotional range other. In Draco’s experience, moments, even when simple, had a habit of
down to nothing more than an eerie placidity. She’d been stuck working on the piano becoming irretrievable. Moments grew, stretched, multiplied into ages and
for nearly three weeks. Every day, she arrived—slur carved in her arm on full eras that defined whole stretches of measurable time. Draco regretted several
display—and worked non-stop until she left. Draco sat and read, or lounged and moments in his life, some within his control, some without: all of them irretrievable
read, or pretended not to nap while he read, as he supervised her efforts to avoid in nature. At a certain point, wedged between ‘what-ifs’ of his own devising, he’d
being bitten by piano ivories. stopped trying to keep track of those regrettable moments: now and then, pushing
He felt a little sick, stomach unsettled from the fog in his brain, a cross between and pulling, coming and going, beginning and end. Moments were only moments for
willing confundus and an exceptionally strong Calming Draught. It was a strange thing, just as long. After that, he had no control.
he’d realized, not being annoyed by Granger, not feeling anything towards her at all. He’d wanted it to happen something like this:
She’d been such a source of irritation for so long that he could never have imagined A confident knock on his father’s study door—a pause, just for a beat—enough to
being able to sit in the same room with her for multiple weeks without wanting to acknowledge that Draco had engaged in the formality of it, before he let himself in
throw insults or pick a fight. Instead, he spent a great deal of time staring at the back anyway: poised, sure, a far cry from his former self so desperate for Lucius Malfoy’s
of her head, marveling at her hair’s ability to simply exist in the state it did, and impossible approval.
occasionally experimenting with pulling back on his Occlumency to see how His father would recognize the shift; Draco had been in Europe apprenticing for
instantaneously his anger surged. his potions mastery for just over a year. Time heals all wounds and other such rot.
That feeling of nothingness towards her could only exist when he’d frozen out Lucius would offer him a seat, and maybe even a drink of something forbidden and
every other emotion. But Occlumency exhausted him, literally and figuratively. He expensive from his personal stores. He’d ask Draco about his mastery with reluctant
tried pulling back on his shields again, releasing some of his hold, letting the freeze pride that Draco had taken initiative to make himself employable, respectful—a
thaw, just a bit. potentially productive member of a society that saw the Malfoy name as something
Granger’s frustrated sigh tore through him, rippling through his veins. He couldn’t actively unproductive. And all of this despite the fact that Draco didn’t have to work
even see the mudblood scar, but he knew it was there, in the room with them, taunting and never would: not so long as his inheritance, every last drop of his money tied up
him. At least she’d worn long sleeves today and hadn’t pushed them up; the barrier in the family name, continued to pay his way in the world.
helped. Draco would share his thoughts with his father, more than he normally did. He’d
They’d barely spoken a word in the weeks they’d spent in this parlor. Between share just how beautiful he found Sarajevo, how refreshing it had been to be nearly-
Draco’s occlusion and her general reluctance to even look at him, conversation topics anonymous on a day-to-day basis. How he’d stopped needing a Calming Draught
were scant. every night before he went to bed. How he’d tried dating, women who had no idea
He let out a sigh of his own and fell back against the arm of the sofa, propping his about his money or his name or his family history. How the dating hadn’t gone very
legs up and committing to a true lounge as he relished in the tiny relief that letting go well, but the shagging had been a welcome change after two years of probation
of some of his Occlumency gave him. chained to the manor.
“You know,” he said, testing the waters. Boredom had leached normal impulse And that little detail, oversharing and a touch inappropriate, well, that would make
control from his brain. Predictably, her shoulders tensed at the sound of his voice. Lucius laugh. He’d really laugh, in a way Draco hadn’t heard in years, certainly not
She didn’t turn towards him, just kept staring at the angry red and orange diagnostic since the war, maybe not since Draco started at Hogwarts. The sound of Lucius’s
runes floating around her while she massaged what must have been sore fingers from laughter existed—bound by time—in Draco’s memories before he’d started school,
 2 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 23

before the ominous creep of a new war had started making its presence known, rising “Fine, Mother.”
like bile and tainting the taste of any laughter that might have come later. His mother’s eyes were blue, disbelieving. Her eyes surprised Draco sometimes, so
Lucius would listen, be interested. He’d still be stern, stoic, stubbornly aristocratic used to his own shade of gray, almost identical to his father’s. Why couldn’t he have
in the way he sat with his back straight and expression schooled. But somewhere inherited hers instead? She watched him, a touch of a frown curling at her lip. He
behind his gray eyes, a near mirror image of Draco’s own, would be a glimpse of the knew she saw his occlusion.
father figure Draco had so desperately wished to please, to impress, to emulate with “And you?” she asked. “How are you?”
every drop of the magic in his blood and bones. “Fine, Mother,” he repeated, voice sounding flat even to his own ears.
It would be a short conversation, but meaningful. It would be representative of a “Your father wishes to speak with you.” She reached her hand out again, not
change in their relationship: healing after their respective time spent in Azkaban, making contact, merely an attempt at a gesture. “Are you available now?”
under house arrest, and then apart for a year. Draco would leave the study No .
reacquainted with his father, cautiously hopeful that, man to man, they might be able “Yes, Mother.”
to find a way to see each other again now that the fog of war had dissipated. He let her steer him away, through the halls of his childhood home, clinging to his
Instead, things went awry from the very first moment. Occlumency with every shred of mental energy he had left.
Draco didn’t even have the chance to knock on the door, and he certainly didn’t
feel confident or sure of himself. He mostly felt tired, exhausted from several
international Floo connections ferrying him from the Balkans and all the way back to
Wiltshire.
“Enter,” spoken through the heavy wooden door stopped Draco’s fist in its tracks,
a centimeter from contact.
Draco took a deep breath through his nose, lips pressed together. He pushed the
door open.
Lucius Malfoy looked tired. Draco’s thoughts stalled on that observation as he
approached the desk, watching Lucius as he scanned the parchment in front of him,
evidently much more important than the son he’d not seen in a year. Lucius hadn’t
looked much like himself since Azkaban in Draco’s fifth year. He’d looked even
worse after a second stint while he awaited trial after the war. He’d steadily withered,
whittled away, in the years of house arrest he’d been ordered to endure without the
use of his magic. A year apart had not changed any of that, only made it more
apparent as Draco’s eyes caught on the sunken pallor of his father’s skin and the dark
circles beneath his eyes.
He was out of practice, Draco realized. The muscles had atrophied: the ones
required to shove aside and sort through the complicated web of emotion and
attachment he felt for the partially unravelling man in front of him, a man who’d
once been his idol, his entire world.
“Sit, Draco,” Lucius said, still not looking up.
He’d forgotten how that felt. With a year of time and distance and very few owls
between them, Draco had managed to forget how paralyzing an order from his father
could be. He’d forgotten how closely it reminded him of all the other orders he’d
received in his life: the ones he’d tried to follow, failed to follow, and hated to follow.
No, I’d rather not , Draco wanted to say. He’d rather his father look up from his
fucking parchments and actually greet his son.
Instead of demanding any of that for himself, Draco sank into the seat, stiff and
forward, spine nowhere near making contact with the back of the chair.
Finally, Lucius looked at him. Years and circumstance might have weathered him,
but that uncanny feeling of being lesser under his father’s appraisal still remained.
Draco stiffened, muscles along his back snapping his spine even straighter,
determined not to recoil.
 22 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 3

here won’t be. It’s leeching magic, darkness that takes up residence and doesn’t let Lucius offered him the parchment.
go.” “Your betrothal agreement.”
She didn’t look at him when she spoke; she merely kept working, delivering her He’d wanted this conversation to represent the potential for them to move on, to
facts with an annoyance coating her academic tone. That might have upset him, rediscover some kind of father-son relationship after they’d both had time apart.
irritated him, if not for the forced calm freezing his blood. He hadn’t expected, not for a single, inconceivable moment that this was what his
She worked for hours. He watched for just as long, standing by the fireplace, back father had intended. Draco had been back in the manor, back in the country, for less
aching and stiff, but somehow unable to move. He had to unclench his fists on than an hour and already a marriage contract was being dropped in his lap? Draco
several occasions, remind himself to breathe, keep from passing out under the force wanted to laugh, and he nearly did. He could feel the sensation bubbling at the base
of so much sustained magic managing his mind. of his throat, latching onto sheer absurdity. It was hilarious how ridiculous it was,
Slowly, the runes from her diagnostic spell turned purple with more frequency, one how insulting, how utterly indifferent to anything Draco might have possibly wanted
by one, as she moved from the sofa, to several books, to a clock, to a desk drawer or had planned for his own life.
that kept stinging her, until Granger declared her work done for the day, wiping a No, he wanted to say, I don’t have a betrothal agreement.
thin sheen of sweat from her brow, hair fluffed even bigger than it had been when He could taste the words, knew the shape of them, could say similar things to just
she arrived. about anyone else in his life. But here, in front of this man, he simply reached out
Draco looked to the clock in the room; it neared seven in the evening. She’d and took the parchment. He couldn’t bring himself to read it.
worked through lunch and the end of a normal workday. And he’d occluded straight He supposed he had Aunt Bella to thank for his feigned composure, for the fact
through all of it, barely moving in hours. His knees ached at the realization. that he hadn’t choked on his indignation. He found the shard of shock inside his
She looked at him, brows drawn together. She opened her mouth, paused, and then mind and flaked it away, a forceful removal from the spaces in his brain required to
barred her teeth around words she ultimately swallowed back. Draco tensed, process complex thought, to speak. In the absence of shock, suppressed by
prepared to employ however much Occlumency it took to survive this encounter. Occlumency, Draco located his ability to engage in this conversation.
She pocketed her wand and left through the Floo without a word. “Who?”
The moment the green light faded, Draco crossed the room in several purposeful He hated that he asked. But his only other option was no , and he’d already failed to
strides, throwing open the doors that had remained closed the entire day. They say that.
hadn’t even made it out of the room she’d been received in. “Victor Greengrass has been exceedingly generous by even entertaining a union
He strode down the Manor halls, still heavily occluding and only tangentially aware with our family, sullied as the name may be.”
that his father probably expected him to report on what the Ministry had touched. The words fell out of Lucius’s mouth like ash, something foul and fetid and
Dimmer still, in a deeper part of his mind and struggling through his occlusion, decidedly vile, puffing and pluming and choking the air around them with his
Draco wondered why removing residual dark magic from furniture was such a distaste, with his disagreement.
problem? Why did his father resist it so much? And all Draco wanted to do was throw that rotted thing back at him, demand
He stopped in front of a set of double doors, belatedly realizing where his feet had Lucius elaborate on exactly how their family name had been sullied, identify in
carried him. excruciating detail every step, every decision he made that brought them all to this
He lifted his hand against the wood, crackling wards stinging at his skin, warning point.
him to keep out, to stay away, shouting that this room was off limits and always But instead, “Of course, Father.”
would be. But if Draco closed his eyes, he could see through the magic, through the Another breath through the nose. Draco had his own sense of something decaying
ebb and flow of it, the push and the pull. He could slip between the charms and inside his throat.
sidestep the hexes, wedging himself between the wards and into the drawing room he “The older Greengrass girl would not agree to a union with you.”
hadn’t seen in years. He could imagine it, perfectly, just as it had been that day. Draco’s first instinct was relief. He and Daphne weren’t close. She’d had a thing
Heavy drapes, deep purple walls. A shattered chandelier and carpets drenched in with Blaise for a couple of years, and she’d effectively stolen Pansy from Draco’s life
blood. Where everything changed, the first time he’d almost said no . after the war with words like healing , and space , and bad influences . Which would have
A surge of fear seared his lungs. With a deep breath through his nose, Draco forced been a hysterical assessment of his character if not so wildly hypocritical in the face
it away, forced it down, froze it out. of Pansy fucking Parkinson.
“Draco?” his mother’s voice pulled him from the door. He let his hand, prickling Draco’s second instinct was confusion. He didn’t even realize Daphne had a sister.
and stinging, drop from the wood. Narcissa stood next to him. She reached out, a He couldn’t bite his tongue this time; the question slipped out with far less decorum
brief touch of her hand against his own before she retracted. “How was it?” she than Lucius Malfoy required.
asked. “How much younger is she—the other one?”
Draco respected his mother too much to laugh at her; he just looked at the door
next to them. They both knew what lived on the other side.
 4 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 21

That feeling of decay in his throat slipped lower, souring in his stomach at the idea He was almost grateful. He didn’t know what he would have said, if she’d let him.
of being betrothed to a child, of planning a wedding and a life along a timeline that She waited a moment, perhaps to see if he intended to fight her assessment. When he
required she come of age first. didn’t, she pocketed her wand and pushed up her sleeves, preparing to dig into her
“Two years your junior. Not that it matters,” Lucius said. work.
It absolutely, positively, unequivocally mattered. As that thought careened to the He froze when he saw it, focus latched onto eight letters carved into her arm: no
first position in his queue of bewildered thoughts, Draco wondered what Lucius glamour, no attempt to hide it, nothing.
would say or do if he actually voiced it. But Draco could more easily be buried in a Draco went from pretending his arms didn’t exist to feeling like his entire body had
mountain of words he wished to say but didn’t, than actually work up the courage to dropped out of existence: unwilling disillusionment as if someone had cast a spell on
say them. Self-preservation at its finest; avoidance of the issue was the only way to him without his consent. In a faraway corner of his mind, he heard her screaming,
survive a conversation with Lucius Malfoy. begging, crying.
“Her name?” he asked instead, hating himself more than a little bit for it. He isolated the panic seizing his veins and lungs, freezing it out, slamming down
“Astoria. You’re meeting her tomorrow,” Lucius said. His lip curled, then softened his Occlumency, shattering shard after shard of unbidden memory forcing its way to
before he spoke again. “Your mother insists that you meet her—that you be involved the forefront of his mind.
in the planning process.” He blinked, flaking away every last fleck of rising panic that struck him. What the
Draco didn’t need him to elaborate. Lucius’s distaste for the fact that Draco might fuck was she thinking? Anger joined the panic, a fresh flush of heat beneath his skin.
have any involvement in planning his own wedding, his whole future that had just He cooled that too, forced it down, flaked it away. Fuck .
been handed to him on a sheet of parchment, was evident in his clipped tone. Draco He generally made a point not to think about the consequences of the cursed blade
took a deep breath, incapable of looking at his father, of looking at the contract in his Bellatrix liked to play with, what it meant for the skin of someone subjected to it. His
hands, of doing anything but focusing on the slice of serenity he’d made with his jaw ached from the force he used to grind it shut: tooth to tooth, tongue smashed
Occlumency. He leaned into that, feeling calm, feeling something adjacent to bravery, against his palate.
and asked a question for himself, avoidance be damned. Finally, as a sense of calm numbed the horror, numbed the memory darkening the
“Do I have a choice?” Draco asked, as close as he could bring himself to edges of his vision, Draco tore his eyes from the letters on her arm. He met her gaze
something that looked like defiance. and found nothing but confusion and suspicion reflected at him. She looked like she
Draco clenched his jaw, muscles grinding his teeth together when his father might say something, fight him on his reaction, or question him on it. Surely it hadn’t
released a short, sharp laugh, sealed with a heavy stare. gone unnoticed. He might have stopped breathing for a full minute, now that he
“I’m informing you as a courtesy,” he said. “This is your duty to your family, thought about it.
Draco. Your independence has been tolerated long enough.” He drew in air, a tingle of relief emanating from his chest.
Draco tried to ignore the itching reminder of his other duty born by him for his She kept watching him, brows pulled together, hair wild around her face, sleeves
family. The one on his left arm, seared into his skin and in his mind, echoes of still pushed up. Without a word, she pulled out her wand again and cast a spell.
scorched flesh and strangled screams. These duties, they were the price he paid in Several runes appeared in front of her, glowing in varying shades of orange, red, and
exchange for vaults full of gold, a name that—even sullied—opened doors, and the yellow, with a few purple symbols hovering at the edges.
promise of a family that protected its own. Draco had never seen a spell like it; even through the cloud of Occlumency forcibly
But he couldn’t say it, couldn’t voice an agreement to the enormity of a marriage holding his nerves together, a type of spell-o tape for his broken pieces, he found the
dropped on him as a welcome home gift. So he nodded, a quick dip of his chin, jaw novel magic mesmerizing.
muscles barely allowing the movement. He stood, almost wincing at the liberty he Granger sighed and cancelled the spell, looking at him again.
took by not yet having been dismissed. But he’d already committed to this little act of “We’ll start in this room, then,” she said, gesturing to the velvet sofa behind him.
defiance, this moment of disrespect. “That green monstrosity is drowning in residual dark magic.”
“If that’s all,” he prompted, holding his father’s stare, wondering when it stopped Draco stepped away from it, confusion crystalizing from behind his shields. He
feeling like looking into the future and started feeling like a window to the past, opted to stand near the fireplace, observing with his arms limp and heavy at his sides.
tainted and fogged with bad decisions. “I sat on this sofa today; it did me no harm.” His voice came out even, if a little
He didn’t wait to be dismissed; he couldn’t escape the study fast enough. His lifeless.
Occlumency wavered and his chest tightened like it might crack, ribs reduced to Granger approached the sofa and cast another charm, working with enviable ease
rubble. He fought to breathe against a throat insisting that it seal itself shut. and precision as she consulted the various diagnostic runes around the piece of
That wasn’t how he’d wanted their reunion to go. And, even if given the chance to furniture.
do it again, to somehow right the series of wrongs that tumbled one after another “It’s not offensive dark magic.” Her tone lacked the level serenity his Occlumency
over the course of a few stifled minutes, Draco didn’t think he’d know how. There provided. She sounded irritated, on edge, riled. “Most of what I’ll be dealing with
had been moments, several of them, and he’d wasted every last one.
 20 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 5

duty to his name: whatever transgressions he’d flaunted by interrupting his father in
front of a Ministry employee, even if that employee had been Hermione Granger.
All the while, he couldn’t help thinking how much he preferred the original version
of the future—present, past, whatever it was now—before he’d stumbled into
disrespecting his father, his name, his legacy. “Care of Magical Creatures?” she asked with a hopeful, guarded tone.
Draco couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from Astoria’s delicate fingers, almost
surreal looking, fine bones encased in pale, flawless flesh. Everything about the
movement in her hands felt purposeful and planned, executed with intent as she
gripped her soup spoon, elegant but with a tiny, almost imperceptible wobble.
A Ministry owl arrived later that evening, delivering a strongly-worded letter from She was trying. He was trying. And yet, he could already feel the cloud of failure
the head of the Dark Artifact Decommissioning Task Force, undersigned by the settling around them. Draco fought a grimace, forcing himself to look at something
Minister of Magic himself: Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were to have no part or other than her spoon as she took careful sips of her soup with perfect pureblood
presence in the decommissioning of the Malfoy Estate. If—and the if was heavily etiquette.
emphasized—the family required a representative for the process, Draco would be “Hated it,” he said. “I don’t like animals much. I was, ah—” Draco couldn’t
the only one permitted in the same room as Granger. remember getting to know another person ever being this painful. Every inquiry into
And thus went any hopes Draco had of avoiding her altogether. He’d been toying the others’ interests landed like a misaimed charm, miles from its target. “I was
with the idea of finding employment as a means to escape the manor and Lucius’s attacked by a Hippogriff in class once.”
financial will. Instead, he’d been tethered more closely to it. His father would insist There. He’d shared something personal, that’s how people did this, right? He felt
Draco observe Granger every second she worked in their home. rather like throwing himself off a bridge.
That night, Draco fell asleep cursing Granger’s hot headedness. If she hadn’t been “I’d heard about that,” she said. “I was a first year.”
so difficult, so contrarian—as if Lucius wanting to supervise the gutting of his home He made a noise of acknowledgment. He already knew that. They’d already
could possibly be a surprise—then Draco wouldn’t be stuck babysitting her swotty suffered through stunted get-to-know-you’s like age, and house, and had now ended
arse for the foreseeable future. up on favorite subjects.
Draco went through the motions the next morning: taking breakfast with his He watched her wrists this time, as she lowered her soup spoon. Something about
parents, finding he had nothing to say to them, listening as his father listed the things her fingers, her hands, her wrists, they seemed so fragile, so birdlike. Draco didn’t
the Ministry was under no circumstances allowed access to, and finding he had know how to act around breakable things. In his experience, he had a tendency to
nothing to say to that, either. break them.
He left breakfast already exhausted, apprehension weighing him down by the time “Are you going to eat?” she asked. It wasn’t accusatory. It wasn’t unkind. It mostly
he closed the parlor door behind him, only marginally confident his father had retired sounded curious, a little timid. The muscles around her mouth had tightened, just
to another wing. His mother, he knew, had decided to spend the day in the gardens, enough that he noticed, but her eyes remained relaxed as she glanced from his soup
well out of sight and out of mind. to his face. He wondered how much social training had been poured into her to
Draco stood in front of the Floo, felt out of place, and opted to sit instead. He result in such grace. It was impressive. She was lovely. And he felt nothing for her.
leaned against the back of the sofa. Crossed his arms. Uncrossed them. Tapped his He looked down at his bowl.
foot. Forced himself to stop. “Right, of course.” He picked up his spoon but made no move towards his bowl.
The Floo flared green and Granger stepped through. She held her wand in her “Flying?” he asked. “Fan of Quidditch?”
hand as he watched her survey the room with a cautious efficiency. When her eyes She wrinkled her nose and then blinked, eyes widening. They were a pretty shade of
finally landed on him, he stood. Draco didn’t know what to do with his arms, blue. She was a pretty girl. Draco had known her for all of ten minutes and he already
troublesome things: hands that kept flexing, limbs he didn’t know whether to swing suspected that classic beauty and fine manners wouldn’t be enough.
or cross or pretend didn’t exist at all. She was the bird, but he felt like he’d been put in a cage.
He opted to pretend they didn’t exist. Instead, he inclined his head, a small nod, “Flying is not—my favorite,” she said with a slight hesitation, just enough that he
mouth tight as he forced a simple nicety through. could see her effort, still trying so hard. “Was it yours?”
“Granger.” He tried to smile, to give her a kindness that said he was trying, too. The muscles in
“Malfoy.” his cheeks fought against him: tight, resisting the disingenuousness.
He opened his mouth to say something else, but she cut him off. “Potions, actually. Though flying was a close second.”
“Don’t, Malfoy. I know you hate this—hate me.” A pause, a sigh, a scowl. “The Astoria set her spoon down, letting her hands rest in her lap.
feeling is mutual. But we’re stuck here so just—don’t.” “I didn’t take potions past OWLs,” she paused and he could feel her searching him.
Without her tiny hands in view, Draco focused on her dark hair instead: shiny and
 6 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 19

smooth, a brunette version to Daphne’s blonde. “Astronomy? I would imagine you Lucius snapped his attention to Draco, and Granger did the same; both watching
were well versed before school with your Black lineage.” him. It was a sharp, short order, and it cut straight to the child inside Draco who’d
Draco laughed, a small burst of it. heard that tone more times than he could count. Don’t interrupt your father. Your
“My knowledge of celestial bodies is—extensive.” father knows best. You must respect your father. Your father has your best interests
He smiled. in mind. You must take this Dark Mark for your father.
She smiled. Granger’s fury seemed to melt under the heat of curiosity, while his father’s only
The moment passed. grew.
Astoria let out a small breath, her fragile hands reappearing from beneath the table Draco folded under the pressure. He wanted to say more, say something . But his
to rest atop it. throat closed up, panic creeping in, guilt washing him out.
“This is—uncomfortable,” she said. Draco nearly sank into his soup, so glad he “I was raised by muggles, Mr. Malfoy, not animals,” Granger said, looking away
hadn’t had to say it. from Draco with only a flicker of distaste.
“Extremely.” Lucius laughed, that same toxic-laden laugh Draco had heard in another version of
“Do you suppose your parents have elves listening in?” these events, in another timeline altogether. Was it overlap, coincidence, or
“Almost certainly.” convergence? Draco resisted the urge to shiver, to acknowledge the discomfort that
“Well that’s a bit of a relief,” she said. enveloped him, whispering of paradox avoidance, broken timelines, and the power of
Draco raised a brow. He couldn’t fathom how having his family elves listen in on a single change.
one of the most painfully awkward conversations of his life, with the intent to relay it Lucius brought the tip of his cane to the floor, less of a click on stone than a stake
to his parents, could be anything even remotely resembling a relief. in the ground, a crack in a facade.
Astoria released a small giggle at his confusion, delicate like her bones. Only two Draco winced, watching the cane, intimately knowing the force it could wield.
years his junior? Gods the sound of that giggle, she seemed so young. “I suppose you are correct. The current Ministry leadership does seem quite
“I would imagine the only thing worse than participating in this conversation is concerned about terminology these days. For example, the term I’d use to describe
having to hear about it.” you has fallen out of favor. Pity.”
He leaned back against his chair, momentarily stunned. Not by her assessment of Lucius didn’t say it outright, but he’d thrown the word at her, hurled in the space
their conversation—objectively, it had been awful—but more at the touch of between them. Mudblood. Draco’s ears rang with the echo of something that hadn’t
schadenfreude she’d just admitted to. He supposed some birds were carnivores, and even been spoken out loud.
she had been a Ravenclaw after all. He hated that word. Truly hated it. His entire life had once centered around it,
He tried to smile again, tried to find something he could offer the girl in front of around hating those to whom it applied. It had been a disease introduced to his
him. But he couldn’t shake the niggling reminder that it hardly mattered what he system at a young age and given every opportunity to grow and spread until it nearly
offered her; he’d already have to give her his name, an heir—his stomach dropped. killed him. Even now, his life still revolved around it, constantly fighting off the
Gods this was a nightmare. after-effects of infection, never knowing how he should react to hearing it, to saying
“I think it will get better,” she said, a curious pull between her brows as she it, to thinking it.
watched him. He reached out to place his hand over hers, cautious in case she Granger had gone pale, breathing heavily, wand pointed at Lucius. And while the
wanted to pull away. She didn’t, and for a moment, he wrapped his fingers around threat to his father should have offended Draco, it didn’t. Nevermind that she could
hers, trying not to focus on how brittle they felt in his grip. have avoided this confrontation altogether if she didn’t insist on such self-
“Of course it will,” he said, finally forcing that smile through, reaching his eyes. righteousness.
“We have—quite a while to figure it out.” “I will not work with you, Mr. Malfoy. You’ll be hearing from the Ministry.”
She smiled back at him and it looked nearly as forced as his own felt. She sounded shaken. Draco felt something of the same. The air in the room
suddenly stifled, brimming with anger and magic and disappointment in three distinct
flavors, all of them stale and sour in his mouth.
Granger turned to him, nostrils flaring, lips pursed, eyes flashing. She lowered her
wand, infinitesimally, but enough. She looked like she might say something. He felt
“Are you pouting?” Draco asked. like he should. Neither of them did.
It was the first thing he noticed as he stepped through the Floo to Nott Manor; She just looked at him, and he at her, until she spun around, helping herself to a
Theo had a frown firmly in place as he lounged on a chaise, a large sigh signaling that handful of Floo powder and disappearing in a green flash.
he’d heard the question. Draco knew what came next. He sighed, sitting on the nearby sofa and prepared
for a lengthy lecture on family loyalty, on speaking out of turn, on respect, and his
 18 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 7

screamed of fury, of barely contained rage battling against her bones. Draco had “You’ve been back in the country for two full days and I’m only just now seeing
almost forgotten the amount of authority the bossy little witch could force into such you,” Theo said, swinging his legs to the floor, frown shifting into a scowl. “Of
a small package. course I’m pouting.”
His father merely blinked, unfazed. Draco dusted a mote of cinder from his trousers, trying to withhold the laugh he
“I will not allow unsupervised access to my home,” Lucius said, voice dripping with knew Theo expected for his antics.
a venom Draco knew well. That tone still made Draco tense, holding his breath in his He’d spent his first day back in the country exhausted from travel, tense from
chest, just for a beat, while he waited to see what came next. having to see his father again, and reeling from an unexpected and especially
“And I will not allow interference in a Ministry-mandated process being executed unwelcome betrothal. He’d spent the next day mentally preparing for, living through,
per the terms of your family’s probation. This manor is unsafe—infested with dark and then decompressing from the uncomfortable experience of meeting his
magic and dark artifacts. It’s being addressed regardless of your wishes.” betrothed.
Draco suppressed a smirk. She might be an obnoxious swot, but he could Finally with his friend and out from under his father’s thumb, Draco relaxed:
appreciate anyone who went toe to toe with his father. His smirk sank, though, when shoulders dropping, chest unclenching, breath reaching the bottom of his lungs. He
he realized she’d spoken to his father in the same way Draco wished he could. could be himself, he could feel normal; he needn’t obsess over every word he spoke
Careless, indifferent to the response. Not bound by familial duty or a near literal yolk and every action he took.
of financial dependence. Theo stood and rolled his eyes.
“You will not be granted access to a single room of this home without my “I’m going to hug you now,” he said, advancing.
presence,” Lucius seethed, hand flexing on the head of his cane where a wand once “Must you?”
lived. “A year is too fucking long. I’m giving you a hug.”
Granger released a strangled sort of noise, halfway between a frustrated groan and Draco allowed it. He couldn’t even bring himself to feign annoyance; he’d missed
a growl. Draco failed to hold back a laugh. his friends. He’d missed this part of his life in England. The rest of it, the parts he’d
She spun on him. Her right hand jerked, one quick motion away from raising her had to endure during his first two days here? He could do without all that.
wand at him. He hadn’t seen Hermione Granger in the flesh since his trial, when “Yes, yes. I missed you, too,” Draco said, disentangling himself and landing in the
she’d testified on a stand in front of the Wizengamot and he, bound in chains behind same spot on the chaise Theo had just vacated.
bars, had been only partly lucid from months spent in Azkaban. “You don’t owl enough,” Theo said.
She looked the same as he remembered from Hogwarts, enormous hair overtaking Draco laughed, “My mother says the same.”
everything else one might notice about her. It looked alive, spirals flying away from “Narcissa is a smart woman. Marriage to your father notwithstanding.”
her face at the momentum in her movement. He wondered, in a dim, snide corner of “Yes, well. It would seem no one is perfect.”
his mind, if she’d even notice if pixies moved in and made a nest. He might have said The following quiet reminded Draco of the many moments when he realized his
something equally as sneering, too, if her furious gaze hadn’t so thoroughly pinned father was not, in fact, perfect. He knew Theo had surely experienced something
him in place. similar with the late Nott patriarch.
“I don’t want to hear a word out of you, Malfoy,” she said, right hand still flexing, “Get up,” Theo ordered.
wand ready for a fight. “This is the first real chance I’m getting to relax since I got back.” A pause. A plea.
Draco wanted to say something clever, or at least modestly so, about there being “Don’t make me.”
two Malfoys in the room: surely the ambiguousness would annoy her precise, detail- “Sleeping in your Manor still troublesome?”
obsessed brain, but Lucius cut in, forcing her attention away again. “Isn’t yours?”
“You will not speak to any member of this household in that way. Being raised by Theo smiled, the face of opposition, “A literal nightmare. But we won’t let that
animals does not excuse your lack of proper manners—” stop us, will we? Get up.”
It happened before Draco even realized it. “I hate you.”
His heart flipped, or sank, or otherwise made its machinations known in a way “No you don’t. I’m your best friend.”
wholly unusual to its normal operation. Then the heat flooded him, from the center Theo drew his wand.
of his chest to the tips of his fingers and the balls of his feet. It crawled up his neck “Planning on jinxing me, best friend? “ Draco asked with a lifted brow.
and face, likely painting visible streaks of red across his skin. “If you don’t get up.”
As if by imperio , he spoke two little syllables, expelled from his lungs before he “I pick Blaise as my new best friend.”
could even consider taking them back. Theo tilted his head, wand not exactly pointed at Draco, but certainly not not
“Father—” pointed at him, either.
“Don’t interrupt me.” “That’s fair,” Theo conceded. “Blaise is probably my best friend, too. Speaking of,
he’ll be here soon.” He sent a stinging jinx at Draco’s shoe.
 8 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 17

“Shite, alright. I’m up,” he said, giving up on the idea that he might have a relaxing Draco nearly scoffed. He couldn’t remember the last time Lucius expressed
lounge, maybe even a nap. He should have known better; a welcome home from genuine appreciation for anything. False appreciation, a pureblooded aristocratic
Theo was never going to be an understated affair. version laced with a sense of expectation nullifying any actual gratitude: that, Lucius
“That’s the spirit. Now come on, I want to show you my progress.” had in droves. Did relief that Draco hadn’t died in a battle they’d been on the losing
Draco sighed, forcing himself to stand and follow Theo through the manor, side of count as appreciation?
stopping in front of an enormous floor-to-ceiling portrait of one of Theo’s long dead With a sigh and a shrug and a one minute warning from Theo, Draco stepped into
ancestors. They bore almost no resemblance to each other, severe where Theo was the corridor.
not, and whatever familial traits they shared had been long since diluted by the His stomach dropped; he realized they’d already changed something. Before, Lucius
centuries and a torrential flooding of forward time. hadn’t arrived at the parlor until nearly the time Granger was meant to arrive. But
Theo stopped at the far edge of the gilded gold frame and, with great fanfare and now, they’d somehow spurred him into action, into arriving early.
an enormous, shit-eating smile, pulled the frame away from the wall, sending it “Father,” he said, greeting Lucius from several feet away, nearly at the door to the
swinging on a hinge, and revealing a door behind. parlor already. Draco held up the cane and immediately froze, brain grappling for a
“You got past the painting,” Draco said, brows lifted. lie to explain away why he had it. Lucius stalked forward and took it in a single swipe,
“I did,” Theo said, a near jump in his step as he approached the freshly revealed eyes narrowed at Draco. “Thought you may want this,” Draco finally said. Not
door. “And now watch this—” he placed his palm flat on the door. exactly a lie, technically the truth, and the best he could come up with on such short
Draco leaned against the opposite wall, fighting the urge to yawn, not from notice as the dying remnants of euphoria sizzled through his brain. Lucius watched
boredom, but from true, bone dragging exhaustion. him, eyes still narrowed, and then his shoulders dropped.
“What am I looking at?” “Come, Draco.”
“I’m still alive,” Theo sounded thrilled, disproportionately so, at that statement. He He thought he’d imagined it at first, the nod Lucius made towards the door behind
tapped his fingers against the stone door, knocked it once, and then patted it fondly a them, and the heavy implication that Draco should follow. Suddenly, he’d been
few times. invited to the very thing he’d been formerly banished from.
“It was warded, I take it?” Then the panic gripped him.
Theo nodded, reaching for the portrait and swinging it closed again. What would happen when his father opened the door and found another version
“I might’ve been a touch eager when I finally got the portrait to open. Melted most of Draco sitting and failing to read?
of my left hand. Blaise wasn’t happy.” He launched himself forward, but not fast enough; the door to the parlor swung
Draco had no room to judge, there were several similarly warded rooms and open. Draco closed his eyes, opened them again, and found he was the only version
objects in his own family’s estate. But nevertheless— of himself in sight. Paradox avoidance barreled through his brain.
“Your family was fucked up.” A valid assessment, either way. Then time lurched, that feeling of cotton over his ears, a film over his eyes, the
Theo shrugged, still inordinately pleased with himself. world blurring and spinning. Five minutes had passed in what felt like a blink, a
“I’m going to get into that vault even if it kills me. Who knows what kind of Nott breath.
treasures are hidden in there.”
“And fuck your father very much for not teaching you the wards before he died,”
Draco supplied.
“Precisely. Also, while you’ve been off refining your skills on the continent, I’ve
been doing the same.” Draco wasn’t standing in the same place anymore. He now stood near the sofa, by
Draco arched a brow. the Floo, slightly behind a mass of brown curls practically alight with furious magic.
With a quick accio , Theo summoned something gold and glittering, flying down the He knew that bush of brown hair. He’d been subjected to it for years at school; it
long manor hallway. was all the confirmation he needed that Hermione Granger was indeed the Ministry
“Please tell me it’s not another portkey,” Draco said. “I think I’m still dizzy from representative handling his family estate.
the last one you made me test.” From the looks of it—opposite whatever span of time he’d just skipped forward
Theo rolled his eyes and held a chain up between them: dangling from it, to—it wasn’t going well. He shook his head, trying to dislodge his disorientation.
something that looked suspiciously illegal, but damn if it wasn’t interesting. Draco took a small step forward so that he could see Granger in profile, his father,
“Theo is that a—” Draco took a step closer, feeling his eyes widen as he stared at too, towering across from her at his full height, posture so forced that Draco nearly
the tiny hourglass enclosed in a golden cage. cringed.
“Time turner,” Theo confirmed, giving the chain a tiny swish, letting the turner “I will summon an auror if I must, Mr. Malfoy.”
sway between them. Granger spoke quietly, voice barely wavering, but everything about her posture—
“I have questions,” Draco said. from her wide stance, to her lifted chin, to her fingers flexing around her wand—
 16 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 9

“Yes, Topsy—” Theo laughed.

“If you’d be so kind,” Theo interrupted. “Thought you would. Isn’t this better than a nap?”
Draco gave him an elbow to the ribs as the elf disappeared. Draco opted to ignore the jab.
“You can’t override elf magic with charm,” he said. “Where did you get it?”
Theo sighed, “You know, the Department of Mysteries said I couldn’t make a “One of my father’s studies, wild repellent wards around it, so of course I had to
portkey precise enough to travel inside buildings, too.” look.”
“Yes, you’re very impressive.” Of course.
Theo laughed, feigning humility with a half shrug. “What have you done to it?”
“Mostly I just have a lot of time.” Theo frowned, retracting his arm that had been holding the time turner out
Crack . between them. Draco hadn’t even noticed how close he’d walked until it was
Topsy returned with Lucius’s cane in her hands, comically huge compared to her snatched away from his reach.
tiny frame. “What makes you so sure I’ve done something to it?”
“Thank you, Topsy,” Draco said, taking it from her. “You may go.” Draco arched a brow and engaged in an impressive display of restraint by not rolling
The elf vanished, leaving Draco holding his father’s cane, staring at Theo. his eyes.
“Three minutes,” Theo said, holding the turner up to examine. “Alright, I’ve done something to it.”
“Well, now what?” Draco’s brow stayed arched. Theo wouldn’t be able to resist showing off for long.
They looked at each other; a nearby grandfather clock ticked away the remaining “It can change things. At least I think it can, I haven’t tested it yet.”
seconds of their time in this experiment. Draco burst out laughing. Draco took a small step back, both in awe and reasonable concern.
“We’re idiots. This is the stupidest thing we’ve ever done.” “When you say change…” Draco said.
Theo doubled over, clutching the time turner to his chest, laughing just as hard. “It doesn’t take you in a loop. It takes you somewhere else, restarts a timeline,
“He can walk without it, can’t he?” he asked, gasping through his laughter, gesturing probably breaks several laws of time travel Merlin himself would take issue with, but
blindly towards the cane. I’m almost certain that’s what it’ll do.”
Draco tapped it on the floor, feeling ridiculous. He had to wipe a tear from the Theo didn’t seem to notice Draco’s disbelief; he just stared at the hourglass on the
corner of his eye. His skin felt stretched, something like pinpricks beneath the chain as it dangled in the air, swinging back and forth between them, a literal and
surface, surging with each gulp of air, smile cracking his face wide open. figurative pendulum. Theo tore his gaze from the time turner.
“Yes—he can.” It felt like a dam breaking, flood waters rushing in; he hadn’t “I’ve been waiting for you to get back—I didn’t, well, I haven’t told Blaise about
laughed like this in years. Not while he studied for his potions mastery, relegated to it.”
Europe’s far edges to find someone—anyone—willing to mentor him. Not while he No, Draco couldn’t imagine he would have. As a side effect of having a touch of
avoided his parents during his second year under house arrest, or while studying for Sight, Blaise tended to be exceptionally cautious about the future and the things that
his NEWTs during his first. Not during the three months he spent in Azkaban could impact it.
awaiting his trial. Certainly not anytime in 1998, broadly speaking. How long ago was Draco let out a long breath, shaking his head from side to side, mostly out of
that now? Years. And not a moment of laughter, not like this, that he could find disbelief. He ran a hand through his hair.
inside them. “Shit. Theo. The Department of Mysteries has no idea what they missed out on.”
He held the cane up, examining it and all the absurdity it represented. Theo’s smile dropped, twisting—just for a moment—into something resembling a
“It’s just for show,” he said. “It used to hold his wand but since he can’t use magic frown.
during his probation it’s just—a prop, I suppose. A habit.” “Well, since they didn't want to hire me, I’m putting my talents to personal use
Draco’s ears piqued at the sound of footsteps in the adjacent corridor. instead.”
Theo clutched his side, laughter dimming. His eyes went wide, chest still shaking “I have another question,” Draco said, throwing caution to the wind, feeling
from tiny bouts of suppressed glee as they silently decided what they might do next. reckless. “Are we going to test it?”
“I supposed I’ll just—give it back?” “Can’t. Not yet,” Theo said, looking genuinely disappointed. “Still have a bit of
Theo rolled his eyes, “You’d think between the two of us—actual Death Eater, son fiddling to do. But soon,” he sighed through a smile. “I knew I could count on you
of a Death Eater—we’d be better at causing trouble.” to do something stupid with me.”
“Well, we were always the reluctant sort, weren’t we?” Draco knew it was a stupid thing to do, downright idiotic, to be honest. But if he
The footsteps in the corridor grew closer. was meant to carry on a family legacy, marry a stranger, and rot in the mausoleum of
“Think he’s wondering where it went?” Theo asked. “Perhaps he’ll appreciate you a manor he had the honor of calling his own, he could at least permit himself a sliver
returning it?” of idiocy, powered by intense curiosity.
 10 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 15

“Well, if you can get it working before next month maybe you can get me out of Draco stared. All three were probably accurate, and then some.
the Ministry’s fucking decommissioning project.” “We won’t change much,” Draco said. “Something stupid, inconsequential.”
“Malfoy Manor is up?” Theo smiled, youthful and mischievous. For a moment, Draco didn’t feel like a
“Starts next month.” twenty-one year old wizard on the other side of a war, financially bound to an estate
Theo wound the time turner’s gold chain around the broad surface of his palm— and a family failing to modernize, and saddled with a fiancé with whom conversation
once, twice, three times—until he held the tiny hourglass in his fist. It looked so floundered and died like rotted fish.
much smaller there, more like a toy and less like the exceedingly illegal experimental Instead, he felt a bit like an idiot. It was wonderful.
bit of magic it actually was. “We’re stealing his cane,” Theo said, not waiting for confirmation or agreement.
“So—they found someone willing to take on your estate, then?” Theo said. Then, He held the time turner at eye level between them. Carefully, he rotated a small gear
with a scoff, “Only took them four years.” on one side. “It has two orientations,” he said. “Years and hours. We—definitely
The time turner disappeared into Theo’s pocket. Draco couldn’t break his gaze don’t want to accidentally turn back years, not this time, at least.” He winked, and the
from the glints of gold as it moved. flippancy felt forced.
Draco snorted. They’d certainly found someone to tackle Malfoy Manor. Draco drew a deep breath as he watched Theo flip the turner a single time, a single
“I take it Lucius isn’t pleased either?” Theo asked before he summoned a house elf, hour.
requesting champagne. The elf appeared and disappeared in a crack . The world shifted, blurred, buzzed. Pressure like cotton in Draco’s ears, dulling,
“I could hear him yelling through the Floo from a different wing when they told and then suddenly removed, bringing sound back into focus. Draco blinked against
him who’s working our estate.” the gossamer quality in the air around him, a film he couldn’t shake. Then it
“Well?” Theo prompted. “Who is it?” dissipated, and everything looked and sounded perfectly normal.
“Hermione Granger.” “Where are you right now?” Theo asked and Draco’s brain flipped, calculating the
Theo didn’t say anything, not at first. He shifted on his feet and Draco heard the meaning of that question.
chain from the time turner sliding in his pocket, reminding Draco of its presence. He glanced at the door behind him, now closed again.
“What the fuck are they thinking?” “In there, pretending I’m not nervous about seeing Granger again.”
Draco didn’t know. He’d wondered the same thing when his mother told him, Theo made a tiny noise of triumph.
explaining away his father’s ire with excuses about surprise, and stress, and disrespect “I knew that’s why you’ve been extra agitated lately. We have five minutes until it
of their family home. But it made no sense that they would send a witch who’d been pulls us back and we see what’s changed.”
tortured there, who had such an unfortunate and intimate history with the property Draco tugged the chain from his neck and grabbed Theo by the elbow, pulling him
and the family tied to it. into another room.
While, quite unfortunately, the number of people who experienced torture in his “Right, okay—” he started, not knowing what to do now that he’d landed in the
home was decidedly more than zero, all three current occupants included, it didn’t past.
seem like it would be an impossible task to find a competent soul who had not Where Draco felt like he might panic, Theo looked downright elated, an enormous
experienced such a thing at his home to do the job. grin splitting his face and more animation behind his eyes than Draco had seen in
“Hermione Granger,” Theo parroted, something wistful, awestruck in his voice. quite some time. Theo laughed, then immediately covered his mouth, stifling the
“She’s going to be at it for years.” sound.
“The thought occurred to me.” “We should call for an elf,” Theo said, barely containing his joy as it teetered
“No, really,” Theo continued, “between how much insane shit your family has towards mania. He bounced on the balls of his feet, pacing circles in the small sitting
collected over the years and her—let’s call it attention to detail—it’ll be years before room, regarding their surroundings with a kind of wonder, as if their hiding spot
the Ministry let’s the manor go.” looked any different an hour in the past.
Draco flexed his jaw, completely aware of all these things. They were some of the Draco shook his head but called for the elf anyway.
first he’d thought, too. Crack
“Think she’s still as awful as she used to be?” Theo asked. “Yes, Master Draco?”
“I doubt she can be worse.” Theo stepped forward, extending an overdramatic hand as he bowed to the elf.
Draco’s nails dug into his palm, stinging: a fist he hadn’t even realized he’d made. “Topsy, lovely to see you. Mopsy sends her regards from the Nott Estate.”
“We’re not as awful as we used to be,” Theo said. Topsy’s eyes, already impossibly huge, widened. Draco merely sighed.
“I don’t have any plans to call her names, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” “Could you do us a favor and bring us Master Lucius’s cane?” Theo asked.
“I know that. Maybe you could—tell her some of—” Topsy trained her enormous eyes on Draco, awaiting confirmation that this was his
“Not happening.” wish. Try as Theo might to endear himself to the Malfoy elves, family magic
Theo gave a small smile, forced and stiff. He nodded. prevented them from following his orders without approval from a Malfoy.
 14 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 11

Theo slackened, “Thank gods. I knew you were my best friend for a reason.” The elf reappeared with a bottle of champagne. Theo let out a relieved noise as he
“I thought Blaise was your best friend?” accepted a glass, thanking the elf profusely, and then forced champagne into Draco’s
“Only when you’re being disagreeable. Which is usually. But right now, you’re hands.
definitely my best friend.” “Well—welcome back,” Theo said with a small lift of his glass in toast, face
“We shouldn’t go far,” Draco said, trying to force something reasonable and twisting towards pity. “Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think?”
mature into what was already shaping up to be an extremely irresponsible decision. Draco laughed, downing his champagne in a single gulp, wincing at the assault of
But he couldn’t stop looking at the time turner, curiosity eating away at the edges of bubbles against his throat.
his control. He just—he wanted to know. “And we shouldn’t change much.” “Maybe you should get that time turner working and we can avoid Granger and the
Theo’s shoulders fell, just a fraction, but he nodded. “As fun as it sounds, traveling decommissioning altogether.”
years back in time, you’re probably right. If it brings us back after five minutes I’ll “You say we—”
know my modifications worked. I even did some work with paradox avoidance, but I “I sat in front of this painting and watched you try to dismantle these wards for
don’t much fancy testing that out. More of a fail safe.” two years. If I have to suffer through Hermione Granger gutting my ancestral home,
The sound of the Floo roaring to life on the other side of the door drew Draco’s your job is to distract me.”
attention. Muffled voices floated through the paneled wood, tension practically Theo frowned.
lashing in waves. “She did testify for you.”
Draco startled at the sudden shout. More muffled voices, his father’s laugh—far Draco frowned, too.
from joyful—toxic as it seeped through the border between rooms, a crack of magic, “I’m planning on avoiding her as much as I can. I might not even notice her if I try
a woman’s shout—had to be Granger—followed finally by the sound of the Floo hard enough.”
again. Theo pulled the time turner from his pocket, letting it swing from his fingers again.
Theo shoved the time turner into his pocket a breath before Lucius appeared at the “What would you change?” Draco asked, distracted by the glinting metal once
door, swinging it open, a rush of air from the force of it billowed his robes. Draco again.
blinked, waiting for the implication that they’d been eavesdropping, waiting for ire Theo shrugged.
and chastisement. “Not sure. Don’t know. It’s a lot of pressure, isn’t it? The idea of changing
His father only sneered, a curl in his lip, nostrils flaring. something. You?”
“Theodore,” he said. “I don’t know. All of it? None of it? Enough?” Draco said. He knew what Theo
“Mr. Malfoy.” meant. The idea of changing time, suddenly so big, so all encompassing, felt
With only a brief look between the two of them, frustration palpable, Lucius left completely surreal.
them standing there and stalked down the hall. Draco watched until Lucius rounded “Well, we have time to figure it out.”
a corner, the tap of his cane against the stone floors fading as he disappeared from Draco almost jolted, hit so fiercely by the same words he’d said to Astoria the day
sight and sound. Turning, Draco glanced into the parlor, ominously empty of any before.
Ministry representatives, by the name of Granger or otherwise. Theo offered him a wink, clearly unaware of the small shock he’d just delivered to
“We could fuck with your father?” came Theo’s voice behind him. Draco’s system, “I’ll try to have it done before Granger blows up your life.”
Draco laughed, an inelegant, surprised sound, as he turned back around. “Yes, Perhaps that’s the moment he would change: find a way to keep Granger away
let’s.” from his home. Or maybe he’d go for something smaller, like the lie he’d told
Astoria: that they’d figure it out. Or maybe he’d pick the moment he got back to
Wiltshire and where instead of marching straight into his Father’s office, he’d waited
to be summoned. Or perhaps further back, during the war, before the war. So many
moments. Not enough time.
Forced into close proximity with Theo, gold chain strung around both their necks,
Draco tried not to let his nervousness show, simmering just beneath his skin.
“This is a bad idea,” he said.
“It is.”
“Why are we doing it again?”
Theo’s shoulders rose and fell, a noncommittal kind of response that quite literally
brushed up against Draco’s side.
“Lost youth? Tendencies towards self destruction? Poorly managed impulse
control?”
 Beginning and end 13

on the stone floors with an irritated, familiar force. “Now, Draco. I will not have you
-3.000, -3.083, -3.166 interfering.”
Draco closed his book, slamming his will to retort between the pages: as if either of
their faces would be a welcome sight to Hermione Granger. He held his tongue. It
F E B RU A RY wasn’t worth the fight, nor the effort. Not right now.
He rose, noting how the features on his father’s face relaxed, pleased—always
pleased—at Draco’s compliance.
He left the parlor, closing the heavy wooden door behind him, and proceeded to

t
ICK run directly into Theo. He stumbled, startled and thrown off kilter by Theo’s
Draco paced, relentlessly so, the morning Hermione Granger was meant unexpected and uninvited presence in his home.
to arrive at the manor and begin sifting through centuries of cursed, “Is she here yet?” Theo asked, eyes wandering around Draco’s shoulder as if he
jinxed, and generally unsafe collectibles. He woke early: nervous. He failed to eat might be able to see through the door.
breakfast: nervous. And he hovered near the Floo: nervous. “No, not yet—Theo, how did you get through the wards if you didn’t Floo?”
For as much as he insisted on wanting nothing to do with her, as much as he Theo laughed, reaching a hand in his pocket and withdrawing a familiar golden
reminded Theo and Blaise on a daily basis how disinterested he was in whatever metal object.
gutting she’d be doing to his family home, as much as he tried to convey—patiently, “I’ve spent almost four years trying to break into my family’s most paranoid
oh so patiently—to Astoria why Granger’s imminent insertion into his life had him so wards.” Theo’s eyes landed back on Draco, a brow raised, assessing. “I keyed myself
agitated, he couldn’t seem to explain away his morbid curiosity on the day of. into your family wards while you were gone—for practice.”
He’d started having nightmares again, too. Not every night, and not always bad “Practice?”
enough that he couldn’t fall back to sleep, but disruptive nevertheless. Brewing “Also for fun.”
potions became his relief from exhaustion, or rather, something to focus on instead Draco snorted, that seemed much more likely. “I don’t understand how I got more
of it. He brewed in nearly all his free time, often in the middle of the night to order NEWTs than you.”
to escape the lure of sleep that would not come. He’d cobbled together something “Because you actually tried,” Theo said. “And potions is a pain in the arse. I don’t
only tacitly resembling a potions lab in one of the manor’s many spare spaces. His know how you can stand it.”
brewing once again became an obsessive hobby, one he used to distract himself from Draco gave Theo a light shove, eyes stuck on the time turner dangling from Theo’s
constantly questioning why he’d bothered to return to Wiltshire at all. hand. Theo caught the direction of his gaze, lifting the glinting object.
There had been something revelatory, transcendent, about realizing he’d left more “So. It’s done,” Theo said, allowing the tiny hourglass to hang between them. His
than his history behind in England; he’d left his nightmares, too. After a year without statement sounded more like a question, like he didn’t quite know.
them, he’d grown accustomed to something that looked suspiciously like quality “Done?”
sleep. Miraculously, he’d finally managed to rid his face of the dark circles under his “As done as it can be without trying it out.” Theo hesitated and cleared his throat.
eyes, haunting him since sixth year. “I should also probably mention that your father might have been the one to ask me
But the nightmares and the dark circles had returned. And so, in addition to his to make this.”
rampant nervous energy, exhaustion weighed Draco down as well. Draco stiffened, hands curling into fists at his sides.
Would Granger hex him on sight? Would she hex his father on sight? That wouldn’t “Might have, Theo?”
be the worst thing, honestly, and might very well be worth the opportunity to “He owled last year, asking if it was possible. He knew I’d been rejected by the
witness. DoM—not sure if you’d mentioned my tinkering. Anyway—” Theo broke off,
But Lucius had ordered Draco to steer clear of the main Floo parlor where he swinging the time turner between them, staring at it. “It got me thinking, then I
planned to receive her. Draco would have no part in the decommissioning process; started messing around. I told him it would take years, but—you know. It didn’t.”
his father would oversee, observe, and ensure that no Ministry overreach took place. Theo shrugged.
And if Draco had been agitated over the past month, Lucius had been outright nasty. “Don’t give it to him,” Draco said, amusement and curiosity dampened by the
“Remove yourself,” Lucius snapped, entering the parlor where Draco had given up power dangling from a chain between them. Lucius Malfoy did not need that kind of
his pacing in favor of sitting on an antique velvet sofa near the Floo, pretending to power.
read a book on rare potions ingredients. Draco glanced up at his father, eyes straining “I wasn’t going to. I’m not—totally sure why I even finished it. Probably just to see
to refocus. He hesitated for a moment too long. Lucius turned away from the Floo if I could.”
with a sharp pivot, black robes moving with him. His cane clicked as it came down They both stared at it. Too long. Curiosity cracked like felled timber between them,
bad decisions sparking on the kindling.
“But we could try it?” Draco asked: quietly, carefully. “Just to see if it works?”
 72 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 33

echoed in an eery, surreal sort of way. Morning light had a different color to it too: Draco had had the distinct displeasure of watching Granger’s brain at work for
crisp, bright, almost hopeful. years in school. Her thoughts tended to volley in an almost physical display on her
He preferred the manor in the mornings. It meant he’d survived the night. face as her brain jumped through whatever series of Quidditch hoops were required
That hadn’t always been a given. to come to a point.
He greeted his mother, father, and betrothed out in the gardens where, in a She looked downright debilitated by the force of her thinking as she watched him,
whimsical break from their painfully consistent routines, they’d agreed to share ice cream in hand.
breakfast amongst the flowers as they discussed the wedding. The ones doing the “If you want to call it that,” Draco said. “Just about anything is a quid pro quo
agreeing had been, of course, Astoria and Narcissa. Lucius already had a copy of the situation.”
Daily Prophet open in front of him where he sat at one end of the small table, clearly Hermione laughed through what sounded distressingly like a hiccup, or a snort, or
intent on excusing himself from participation. Draco, however, had no choice in the something equally inelegant.
matter. “You can’t quid pro quo acts of kindness, Malfoy.”
He kissed both his mother and Astoria on the cheek, hardly ignorant to why that A challenge, then? Draco smirked.
fact might stick out to him. “Of course I can.”
“Darling you’re looking tired, you mustn’t spend so much time with those Granger rolled her eyes and tucked her feet beneath her as she settled in to finish
experiments of yours.” her ice cream.
Astoria’s eyes found him, a Ravenclaw curiosity sparkling in her irises. “I should probably eat lunches.”
“Experiments?” she asked. Draco raised a brow at her, belatedly realizing he’d barely had to use his
Lucius folded his paper down, drawing Draco’s attention. He didn’t speak, but his Occlumency all day.
disappointed glare said enough.
Draco wanted to roll his eyes, shake his head at the predictability of it. Sometimes
in the morning, when he remembered how pleased he was to have survived the night,
Draco found his father’s general distastes almost amusing. How tiring it must be,
hating so much, appreciating so little?
He resisted his disrespectful impulses and turned back to Astoria.
“With potions. A hobby.”
She smiled, taking a small sip of her tea.
“Sounds interesting,” she said.
“Frustrating, more so. My failure rates far outnumber my successes.”
Astoria parted her lips, nearly forming another question. It looked like they might
actually engage in a relatively easy conversation about something that didn’t make
Draco want to slip into unconsciousness.
His mother interrupted. She wore a serene smile and smooth features, but Draco
saw the desire to change topics to something more palatable in the unsettling way her
brows didn’t move, not even a millimeter, as she spoke.
“Let’s not get distracted. This is a working breakfast, after all.”
Astoria tittered a polite laugh, setting her tea down with those fine, delicate hands
of hers. Birds chirped in the distance, reminding him of cages and claws. Whatever
small interest he might have had in her dissipated at the sound of that laugh. The
socialite laugh, the polite laugh that wasn’t even a laugh. It was a social language
crafted by women, for women, to communicate any variety of things Draco didn’t
have the first inclination how to understand. He only knew he’d heard his mother
and all her friends engage in it, ad nauseam, at nearly every social event he’d been
forced to attend throughout his life.
“—the guest list.”
His mother’s voice brought Draco out of his descent into annoyance. There’d been
very little about planning his wedding that piqued his interest; the guest list did.
“You received the owl with my list, yes?” Astoria asked.
 Beginning and end 71

He’d said it before he even realized he’d thought it. He was an idiot; he should
-2.833, -2.916, -3.000 have occluded the moment she walked in the door.
But instead of twisting into a sneer, Narcissa’s smile dropped into a frown. She
squeezed his hand.
A P RI L “We are family,” she said, as if that could answer anything, everything.
Draco loved her. He really did. And she loved him. But they had no idea how to
navigate this, on opposite sides of a valley neither could—or would—cross.
He pulled away from her touch.

T
ICK “What is it you’re working on?” she asked, folding her hands back in her lap as if
Annoying Granger was fun. Well, fun insofar as it provided an outlet for nothing had happened.
Draco’s frustrations that wasn’t outright nasty. It let him lower his A potion , a snide part of him wanted to say.
Occlumency. It let him practice having relatively civil conversations during the “I’m experimenting.”
endless hours they spent together, day after day, week after week, month after “On what?”
month. “A healing potion.” He hesitated, unsure how much he was willing to give. “I’d like
She arrived in a flash of green, nine in the morning exactly, always perfectly on to be able to remove cursed scars.”
time. He nodded a greeting. She wore a cardigan, sleeves down. He didn’t occlude. He saw the moment her eyes darted to his chest, lingering on the lines she knew
“Granger.” hid beneath his shirt, on the trail of one poking out from his collar and crawling up
“Malfoy.” his neck. It made him sick, realizing she thought he meant for himself, for his own
“I was wondering if I could request you work on a specific room today.” scars.
Granger paused mid-incantation, diagnostic runes delayed by his request. She froze, He hadn’t even considered it. None of this had ever been about himself.
looking at him with obvious confusion. Correcting her would have been too much hassle, so he let her think it of him.
“But—I’m almost done with everything your father had sent here. I’d like to be
systematic and complete this room before I begin—”
“Granger,” he said, taking a small step forward. He halted; he had no idea why he’d
done that. It wasn’t as if he could walk right up to her and shake her from her
chattering. “I know. We’ll go room by room for everything else. I just—I have a Draco should not have tested his potions on his own scars. That much became
small office I’d like to ensure is fully decommissioned.” evident the second time he gave himself burns so severe he had to brew a skin
Granger looked at her wand, still poised to begin her diagnostics in the parlor. She regeneration potion for a patch on his lower stomach so grotesquely sizzled that he
let her wand arm fall. didn’t have enough skin left to heal.
“Why?” She wore that expression she often did, the one where she looked like she Each morning, Draco winced as he buttoned his shirt, taking care to hold the fabric
couldn’t quite figure him out, like she didn’t trust him not to be a complete arse. away from his torso, where whole stretches of his sectumsempra scars had turned a
“I’m hoping to put it to use soon.” painful array of colors. Some pink and irritated, others purpling and mottled, one
Her mouth quirked, then paused mid-action, like she couldn’t commit to the smile. near his hip had turned a nasty green color and throbbed every time he breathed too
“Finally decided to get a job, Malfoy?” deeply. Tucking his shirt into his trousers became an exercise in withholding a pained
“Might have had one a while ago if many places were interested in hiring ex-Death hiss even though no one would have heard if he relented.
Eaters,” he said. He could feel the hard edge in his tone, the distaste. “Tell me, is He glanced at the clock, one of many objects Granger had cleansed of dark magic
your Ministry doing any hiring of highly educated—” in the Floo parlor. He’d only gotten four hours of sleep that night—with almost no
“There are anti-discrimination measures in place to prevent—” nightmares to speak of—but he’d stayed up too late brewing, sneaking away from the
He laughed, dragging a hand through his hair. He shifted his weight, looking manor somewhere around half two in the morning.
around the room as if the very space might provide agreement that Granger was really Breakfast service started at eight sharp, and Astoria would be present this morning:
being that naive. a casual opportunity to discuss fabric swatches or seating arrangements or some
“Yeah. Right,” he said. “Tried that. I’m far more qualified than a fair number of the other wedding planning topic that made his head spin. Did they have a date? It
people I’ve seen join their payroll.” occurred to him that this was something he should probably know, and yet—he
Hermione crossed her arms, frowning. found he’d rather delay that inevitability as long as possible.
“And what makes you think you’re more qualified?” Early morning at the manor had a distinct sound to it. Condensation that clung to
His brows shot up. Oh. This would be fun. She didn’t know. the stone walls, even many of the interior ones, muffled the way sound normally
 70 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 35

fumes, and conjured himself a stool as well. Narcissa dropped her hand. Draco didn’t “How many masteries do you have, Granger?”
much like the idea of someone else taking his wand, even her. Her mouth dropped open, just a bit. But he saw the surprise there.
“Granger got it for me—from Potter.” “Well, I started with the Ministry right after my NEWTs—”
He watched Narcissa’s lip curl, then freeze, at the mention of each name: “So none, then.”
displeasure in conflict against burgeoning respect. Draco doubted he could ever She scowled at him and he loved it, chuckling as a tiny thrill shot through his chest.
understand how his mother felt towards Harry Potter. It seemed everyone had to Annoying Granger was really fun.
have some complicated fucking relationship with the-boy-who-would-not-die, his “How many do you have?” She shifted, arm pulled tighter across her chest. He
mother included. could see her fighting against the frown on her face and it was fucking adorable—
“That was”—she took her stool, hands folded neatly in her lap—”thoughtful of the which was not a thought he allowed himself to have about Granger lightly. But gods,
girl.” to get to tell her he was more educated than her, he ought to mark the date on his
The girl was certainly better than mudblood . At least Narcissa had the good graces to calendar, celebrate it every year.
avoid such inelegances in casual conversation. “Just one.”
“I asked for it back.” “In what? And how? When?”
A tension across the line of her shoulders sank, relieved, and Draco couldn’t Draco laughed again, and it could have been mean, it could have been cruel, if he’d
imagine a reason why. She smiled at him and then let her gaze wander, examining his decided to laugh at her. But instead, he just laughed, enjoying the moment for
potions lab. Her smile curled into a sneer—Draco only saw it because he’d been himself. Her shoulders dropped, arms unfolding.
watching—before she corrected, expression smoothing back to a smile. He motioned for her to follow, opening the parlor door for her, literally the first
“Draco darling, why have you been spending so much time in here? Your father time they’d left the parlor in the three months she’d been working in his home. He
and I are thrilled you’ve pursued a mastery—but these things are meant to be turned when he realized she hadn’t followed. She had her bottom lip trapped
hobbies, dear, nothing more.” between her teeth, expression somewhere between concern and annoyance: over
Her assessment of the six cauldrons he’d been working with clearly indicated she what, Draco could only guess.
knew he’d moved beyond hobby level. And she wasn’t wrong. This was neither So he did.
hobby nor profession. This was obsession and Draco knew it. “We won’t go anywhere near—that room.”
It was all he could think about. She’d been staring down the corridor, gaze snapping to him when he spoke. She
He preferred to imagine that his mother didn’t outright disapprove of his work; she released her lip. The concern on her face vanished, replaced with determination: jaw
simply didn’t understand it. The valley between the things she didn’t understand set, brows level. She marched to meet him and kept pace as they walked to his wing
about him and his willingness to teach her had stretched too wide to travel; he’d in the manor.
grown weary. “Potions,” he said to fill the silence. “I started prepping for a mastery while I
She must have taken his silence as an opportunity to elaborate. studied to sit for my NEWTs.”
“You don’t need to do things, darling. These kinds of practical skills—of course, Her step faltered, a pause of surprise, before she corrected herself.
your education is respectable—but you needn’t use your hands to do work. That sort “You studied for your NEWTs and a potions mastery at the same time?”
of labor is undignified; you’re a Malfoy.” Draco couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He knew if he saw her eyes wide with
Draco made a point of setting his wand on the countertop, unclenching his hands, disbelief or amazement he’d be forced to gloat, or be nasty about how she doubted
and doing everything else in his power to remain level-headed, reasonable. Because as him. Was she not aware that he’d been second to her in nearly every subject, and
weary a traveler as he was, the taunts from the valley, unintentional or not, still regularly bested her in potions?
slipped beneath his skin and stung of his failure to cross. “I wasn’t allowed to leave these grounds, Granger. I had time. I was under house
“Mother, I’d like for my hands to do something productive. Something good.” arrest for two years. Studied the whole time.” He shrugged, turning them down a
He could do this. He could have this conversation with his mother. She was not hallway to where he’d set up a small office he might start a mail order potions
Lucius. She knew the taste of compassion even if she did not partake of it often. And business out of. “Last year I apprenticed. I only got back from Sarajevo in January.”
she loved him, Draco knew that. Whereas most days Draco tended to believe his “Oh.” It was a quiet acknowledgement. They stopped at the door to the office. “I
father loved the idea of him, more than who he’d actually grown to be. hear Sarajevo is quite pretty.”
The sad smile she gave him twisted Draco’s stomach. She reached out to rest her “It is.” He opened the door and held out an arm, ushering her inside. He was
hand atop his. Even though he knew, intellectually, that he’d put all his potions under pleased when she didn’t hesitate. “I’m surprised you didn’t get a mastery, to be
a stasis charm, he could have sworn he smelled something sour, something rot. honest.”
“You could do so much more if you considered working with the family interests.” It occurred to him as Granger cast her diagnostic spell and he settled in a large
“I can’t say I share many of those.” armchair in the corner of the room that they were presently engaged in normal, civil
 36 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 69

conversation. And they had been for several minutes. He’d annoyed her and it was Draco couldn’t think any of those things about Granger, couldn’t even consider
fun, but they’d also just talked. thinking them for a slew of reasons. First and foremost, because thinking them made
He watched her study the orange and yellow symbols. He was pleased to see no red him a creep, and lecher, and leer, and whatever other names existed for men bound
in the office. He was fairly certain nothing nefarious had happened in this room by betrothal agreements who suddenly found themselves fascinated by their former
recently, or that any of the furniture had a proclivity towards biting people, but he childhood adversaries currently working well over forty hours a week in their home.
could hardly account for whole century’s worth of history. In reality, he knew there was probably just one single name for such a specific set
“I think I’d like a mastery,” she said, poking at one of the orange symbols with her of circumstances: Draco Lucius Malfoy.
wand. She dragged it to the desk where she let it settle into the wood. “But I started
working right after my NEWTs. I do enjoy Arithmancy and Ancient Runes; it’s nice
getting to use them in this job. But now that I’m working I don’t know if I could just
stop to get a mastery—”
Draco scoffed. Sweat rolled down Draco’s back. Annoyed and uncomfortable, he considered
Whatever comfort they’d managed to nurture cracked when Granger’s posture launching a cauldron out the nearest window in frustration. He’d long since discarded
went rigid. the outer robes he’d worn to brunch with Astoria, and if not for the blackened brand
“You think that’s funny?” she asked. “Some of us don’t get to work for fun . We seared into his left arm he would have rolled up his sleeves, too.
can’t all have mountains of galleons—” Six active cauldrons was too many to manage at once. Five too many, he imagined
“That’s not what I meant, Granger,” he said. Even through his efforts at civility, most would say. At least three too many, for him. But the more cauldrons he ran at
the words came out tight in response to her sudden frustration. “The only funny once, the more variance he could test in a single brewing session, and the faster he
thing here is that you seem to think you couldn’t do both at once.” could identify which ingredients would perform how he wanted them to in order to
She dropped her spell, wand hand coming to rest at her side as she turned to look remove dark magic from cursed scars.
at him. He also desperately needed to move his brewing set up to his new flat. But he
Draco sank further into his chair. He leaned against his arm and tried to look and hadn’t figured out how he could explain away the absence of the lab he’d thrown
feel as casual and disinterested as possible. He was fairly certain he’d just together in the manor despite his father’s sneering about menial labor and how
complimented her. Accidentally and adjacently. But, still: something of a compliment. Malfoys need not work.
She had a bit of pink spreading across her cheeks and she looked nearly as One of the cauldrons overflowed, its formerly vibrant turquoise color evolving into
uncomfortable about his slip up as he felt. a putrid green that splattered as thick, viscous bubbles popped, spilling over the rim
Surprisingly, she snorted a soft laugh. and onto the table.
“Thanks for trying, Malfoy.” Draco evanesco’d the mess before it could damage the worktop or spread any further.
Annoying Granger was fun: forgetting that they weren’t friends and didn’t get to He grumbled a string of exceptionally colorful curses; he’d had high hopes for that
have normal conversations with accidental compliments, wasn’t. particular brew. Cauldron cleared, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and shoved
his hair back, furious about his failing hair charms on top of everything else.
“What a lovely and creative use of language, my darling.”
Draco looked up. His mother stood by the door, one hand pressed against the
frame as if holding her in place: keeping her from intruding any further, but
preventing her retreat.
If not for the fact that Draco had only been released from his own house arrest a Despite his preexisting flush from the heat of various potions fumes, Draco felt
little over a year ago, and for the fact that he’d never been able to successfully cast a embarrassment creep in, likely deepening whatever redness had taken up residence
killing curse, he would absolutely consider murder in this moment. beneath his normally pale skin.
He leaned against the wall near the door to his father’s study, arms crossed as he “Mother,” he said. “I apologize—”
watched his father’s parole representative from the Ministry review his case in “You did not know I was here. It’s alright, Draco.” She dropped her hand from the
preparation for the anniversary of his arrest. Every May, Lucius engaged in his annual door frame. “May I join you? I’ve seen so little of you lately.”
right to dispute the terms of his sentencing. Every year, it seemed the Ministry paid “Of course, yes”—he transfigured an empty crate from the greenhouses into a
less and less attention to the Malfoy name. stool—”please, sit.”
Narcissa observed from her seat in a nearby chair, hands in her lap. She wore a She approached but remained standing, focused instead on the magic he’d just
mask of perfect nonchalance, just barely betrayed by the pink and white flushes in done, and the wand he’d used to do it.
her fingers as she wrung her hands together, watching in silence. “Is that your Hawthorn wand?” she asked. She reached out like she might want to
examine it. Draco quickly cast several stasis charms on his potions, ridding the air of
 68 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 37

where their conversations skewed this way—a little fun, a little playful—he found Lucius, who Draco knew very well had successfully cast a killing curse in his life,
himself stunned each time at how easy it could be, not acting in total opposition to looked near enough to doing it again.
Hermione Granger. It was dangerous, shaky ground at the edge of a cliff; he ought “You’re wasting Ministry resources, Mr. Malfoy. Your sentencing will not change.”
not tread too far. “And yet, it is my right to dispute it,” Lucius said. “I have no intention of being
“I don’t know if that’s necessary, Granger. I do use it significantly more than you.” housebound for another five years.”
“That’s hardly my fault. I’m working during the day and don’t have access on The Ministry representative, who’d arrived in the middle of breakfast and thusly
weekends.” derailed everyone’s morning, looked like he could have done with a spot of tea and
They stepped into the library and he almost said something else, felt the traitorous toast himself. Pale and unpleasant looking, beads of sweat gathering along his
words lingering in the back of his throat, a breath from jumping off a cliff from hairline, he’d probably overheated from the synthetic fabrics in his robes—hardly
which there would be no return. Instead, he said nothing. Neither did she. breathable—that were offensively atrocious to look at.
In the awkward end of their banter, the air in the room thickened, tensed: Draco stepped beside his mother’s chair. If looks could kill, she’d be the murderer
simmering. Maybe he didn’t give Granger enough credit. Maybe she could hear his this morning, boring holes into the parole officer’s skull. Draco let his hand rest on
unspoken invitation dying to be spoken into existence: you can come over whenever you’d the top of the chair, almost like placing it on her shoulder, or holding her hand. It
like . Or maybe she couldn’t. He had no fucking clue. was an approximation of comfort, the closest they could come.
“Do you like it?” she asked. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to offer her support, nor was it that he couldn’t. But
“Like what?” proximity brought memories, vivid ones that had yet to dull, burning like bright light
“Your new place.” behind his eyelids, branded and dancing across his vision with every blink. He’d tried
“Oh. Yes, it’s fine.” to avoid political or philosophical conversations with his parents during his two years
“Were your parents—alright with you leaving?” under house arrest, both spent with his mother, just one spent with his father after he
Draco laughed, taking his usual place at the large reading table in the center of the served a year in Azkaban. But they couldn’t always be avoided.
room. Instead of heading straight to work, Granger walked with him. She leaned He had no desire to discuss the war with his parents because he couldn’t bear to
against the table—close enough to cause distraction—intent on getting her answer. know whether or not they’d evolved, changed their way of thinking. He would have
“I didn’t tell them,” he said, crossing an ankle over his knee and leaning back rather lived with not knowing, than risk confirmation that they still believed in the
against the chair. He folded his arms and lifted a brow, waiting for it— kind of blood purity that had nearly broken them.
“What do you mean you didn’t tell them ? Surely they’ve noticed—” And that’s how his mother had phrased it, one evening during an especially
“I take meals with them, I’m here most of the day. But instead of retiring to my uncomfortable dinner on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. Lucius and
wing in the evenings, I leave. And I’m paying out of my trust, which I’ve controlled Draco had been engaged in an unofficial competition to see who could be the
since I came of age. They have no reason to know.” drunkest at the dinner table. Draco was fairly certain he’d won, which was how he
She looked suspicious, tapping her short nails against the table as she thought. He failed to corral the conversation away from forbidden topics.
hadn’t convinced her with his attempt at a casual explanation. It was how he failed to hold his tongue, questions he’d shoved down, regurgitated
“So they just—don’t notice you’re gone all night?” in an inelegant, brutish way.
“We hardly have midnight meetings to discuss our nightmares, plentiful as they “You still think they’re dirty?” he’d half asked, half accused, his father. “Think we
may be.” should kill all the mudbloods?”
She softened; the one hand that had been on her hip, demanding answers through His mother answered instead, leaving Lucius to grow reddened under his anger,
posture, slipped to her side instead. more volatile with drink.
“Well—I’m happy for you.” “The—extreme methods of The Dark Lord were never the point, Draco, you
He tore his gaze from the way her fingers twisted at the edge of her blouse, know that. But he was—willing to support our beliefs when others weren’t.” She
wrapping the fabric around her index finger in a way that, with a bit more movement, reached out to him from across the table, resting her hand atop his. His mother’s
would probably reveal a peek of the skin beneath. touch had always been a source of comfort, shelter against a storm, but as she
Draco mentally shook himself. He’d once been so obsessed with her being better continued speaking, her touch grew unfamiliar, foreign.
than him, smarter than him, less worthy of the success he thought should come to “Our values have not changed,” she said. “We are proud of who we are. We, and
him instead, that he’d never noticed anything else about her. And now, he’d done a many other respected families, have been brought low by the thinking of the new
poor job of preventing a new reality wherein he not only wanted to invite Granger to administration, but we have not been broken. You should be proud we persist, not
see his new flat, but wherein he wanted to invite her to do great many other things, ashamed that we’ve temporarily lost.”
on the sofa or otherwise. With enough control, he could pretend those thoughts Temporarily lost .
didn’t exist. And yet they kept seeping in, dampness through cracks he couldn’t fully Disgust churned with bile in Draco’s stomach. He felt like he might vomit, and not
cover. as a result of the liquor he’d consumed. He pulled his hand from hers and risked a
 38 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 67

glance at his father, who looked furious and drunk and like a shadow of the man He groaned at the glee that erupted on her face as she advanced on him, helping
around whom Draco’s entire sense of self once revolved. herself to his personal space, staring up at him from barely a foot away.
How could they not see it? The Dark Lord had been a half blood himself. “We all know about the smoothing potions and the sticking charms, but
Hermione Granger was the brightest witch of her age and her blood ought to flow straightening, too, Malfoy?” She smiled through her teasing. For a moment, he
like sludge, muddy and vile. Yet he’d seen it, red as her Gryffindor bravery. Even the almost thought she would reach out and touch his hair. He almost— almost —hoped
Malfoy family tree—if traced far enough back, before the Statutes for Secrecy— she would. “You’re essentially a caricature of yourself, you’re so vain. You know that
included several muggle unions. How could they not see it? How imaginary it all was, right? How curly is it?”
how made up? And it had made him. Unmade him, too. He wasn’t brought low; he Carefully, Draco brought his hands to rest on either of her shoulders and, slowly,
was broken. His mother was very, very wrong. he pushed her away, forcing space from her invasion. Her amusement only grew as
The Ministry representative pulled several stacks’ worth of parchment from his he steered her back.
briefcase and dropped them on Lucius’s desk, toppling an inkwell and two “Slightly wavy, at most. And I know these things because rather riotous curls run
exorbitantly expensive eagle owl quills in the process. the Black family. I’ve listened to my mother drone on the subject extensively.”
“Your case,” the man said. Thankfully, that answer seemed to satisfy. He was glad she’d decided to put her
Draco dropped his hand from the chair, curling it into a fist and anchoring himself hair up; it saved him from picturing how it might look longer, what it might feel like,
in the pain of his nails biting into his palms. He might disagree with his family about how he might like to touch it. He blinked, recognizing the error of that thought. He
many—most—things, but this level of disrespect stank of corruption and froze it out, flaked it away, packed up. It meant nothing.
unprofessionalism. Draco briefly wondered how much money it might take to make Ultimately, these thoughts were Ronald Weasley’s fault. If that red-headed idiot had
him change his mind. been able to keep Granger interested, Draco’s reluctant fascination would still be
“I’m telling you now, Malfoy, stop wasting our time. Your case isn’t even held at bay out of begrudging respect for boundaries. On top of that, Theo had to
reviewed—straight in the bin every year. No one wants filth like you back out in the coerce Granger into participating in his birthday festivities. Who would have guessed
public.” that she could be so much fun ?
Draco’s jaw ached from clenching it shut, teeth groaning under the strain. The Well, Draco had an idea before then. But seeing proof—with a side of drunken
crooked fucking Ministry was all about equality until it came to the families they giggles and lectures on Queen Elizabeth I that Theo found endlessly quotable—had
disliked. Theo had similar problems with his parole officer, and he hadn’t even been a been something unexpected.
Death Eater. Still they’d kept him in Azkaban for a month and under house arrest for “Where’s the sofa?” Granger asked, surveying the room with suspicion, craning her
a year. His name alone had been enough to damn him. neck as if a better view of the large, open space might suddenly reveal a tufted velvet
Lucius stood, nearly a full foot taller than the man across from him. An monstrosity hidden in plain sight.
intimidating tower was most of what little Lucius had left to lob. He hadn’t necessarily expected it to slip her notice, but he didn’t expect her to
“If I had my wand,” Lucius began. Draco could see his hand tightening around the sound so—concerned?
head of his cane. “I—uh, I took it with me.” He rubbed at the muscles on the back of his neck,
The Ministry representative laughed, taking a step back, seemingly unconcerned probably looking woefully self-conscious.
with the palpable sense of fury emanating from Lucius. She blinked, processing.
“If I had my way, you’d never get it back. Keep you all as close to squibs as “Took it with you where?”
possible.” He closed his briefcase and looked back at Lucius, laughing something “My flat. I—got my own place.”
nasty again. “Oh.”
Draco wondered if his father had ever thrown a punch. Now seemed like an “I didn’t want, well—I couldn’t, really. Live here anymore.”
excellent opportunity to try. Draco wanted to rip his own tongue from his mouth and light it on fire. He’d been
“I don’t want to see a dispute of sentencing filed next month, Mr. Malfoy. If I do, reduced to an inarticulate idiot under Granger’s inspection. And over what? A sofa
I’m burning it on sight.” that had become a strange third party in their day to day?
The man turned and let himself out, clearly ignorant to social practices of being “Well, that’s a shame,” she said. That bewildered him. Briefly, he thought she might
escorted from a visiting home. Draco only unclenched his fist when the sound of mean it was a shame he didn’t want to live in the manor anymore, as if anyone in
footsteps faded enough that he could no longer count them, imagining them as their right mind could. But then she continued, “I was rather fond of that sofa.”
blows landed at the same pace. She gave him a smirk, brushing past him on her way out the door, beginning their
His mother let out a small, low breath beside him. usual path to the library.
“Less and less respectful every year. Growing bolder, too,” she said. “Perhaps we should consider a custody arrangement,” she added.
Evidently her frustration over her hair had transformed into a kind of playfulness
about the sofa. Draco hadn’t been prepared for that. On the handful of occasions
 Beginning and end 39

-2.583, -2.666, -2.750 “Is this normal?” Draco asked. He’d avoided these meetings in the past purely by
making himself scarce, but the breakfast interruption had volunteered him for the
family duty of enduring his father’s circumstances.
J U LY Lucius sneered and sat back in his seat. Narcissa angled her head to look at Draco.
“You needn’t worry about it, dear,” she said. “The Ministry is run by brutes these
days.”
“Imbeciles,” Lucius added.

T
OCK “Shouldn’t you—file a complaint, or something? He’d just said he won’t take your
Granger had clearly fought and lost a war with her hair before arriving at case seriously.”
the manor. She stepped through the Floo with a frustrated huff, sounding The silence that followed his question was worse than disbelieving laughter, worse
frazzled as her hair fluffed out at odd, uncooperative angles. Worse, she kept than a reprimand. His parents watched him, pointed stares that said, surely no son of
reaching for it, smoothing it, twisting it, dragging her fingers through it, and making ours is that naive. And it was like hearing Granger insist he could get a job with the
disappointed sounds every time she came in contact with another errant curl or right qualifications.
egregious tangle. The silence broke when Lucius shifted the pile of parchment from his desk to the
Her electric, frantic energy calmed Draco in a strange way; it provided him with a wastebasket. Draco pulled out his pocket watch and cursed, ignoring the protest
pleasant reminder of normalcy. He’d grown too accustomed to whatever unwelcome about his language from his mother.
feelings of fondness—and occasionally something else—had taken up residence in Half past nine in the morning. Granger would have been here for nearly half an
the places inside his brain formerly reserved for insults and irritation. hour and he’d been so distracted he hadn’t even realized it.
“Mane not cooperating today?” he asked in lieu of his usual greeting. He leaned He excused himself, leaving his parents, and the distaste that was their legal
against the frame to the parlor door, watching her process with open fascination. circumstances, behind.
She leveled an unamused stare in his direction as she attempted to twist her hair
into a bun.
“You know, Granger. If you let it grow past your shoulders, the sheer weight of it
would pull some of that frizz down.”
He resisted the urge to wince. He realized too late that such a statement suggested Draco didn’t find Hermione in the parlor, but the open door told him she’d been
at least a tangential investment in her hair. Investment landed far too close to there. He’d left it closed the day before and neither his parents nor the elves had any
fondness for his liking. reason to enter. His parents hadn’t even visited this wing since the decommissioning
She gaped at him, hands paused at the back of her head, mid-scuffle with a tangle process began. Rather, his father had taken an approach of pretending it simply
of curls. He couldn’t stand her stare, or the confusion dancing with curiosity across wasn’t happening during the day and then requesting exceedingly detailed progress
her face. He drew his wand. reports in his office after dinner. Progress reports that were exceptionally boring for
“Shall I conjure another ribbon and save us all?” he asked. He tried to ignore the Draco because they did not change from day to day; she found dark magic on an
ridiculousness prickling beneath his skin; he’d apparently doubled-down on whatever object, she removed it. Or, she found a cursed object, it tried to bite her, or sting her,
ill-advised stake he had in her hair and the potential relief its cooperativeness or burn her, and she fixed it.
provided. There was almost no deviation to speak of outside of the one day he’d ask her to
“Malfoy, I have so much hair. I couldn’t possibly let it get any longer .” work in his own office. Which had been more of the same, but in a different room in
So she had heard him. He’d started to wonder, growing concerned at her excellent a different wing. And now today. Draco reeled at the wild and surreal image of
impression of a carp. Granger wandering the manor by herself.
He gave a shrug, pocketing his wand again and folding his arms across his chest. Why ? Why wouldn’t she just stay and work? There were still several objects
“More hair but less hassle, would be my guess. This isn’t uncommon knowledge, needing her attention in the parlor; she had no reason to wander, and even less of a
Granger.” reason to try and find him. Draco’s presence was unnecessary, a formality imposed
She frowned, evidently settling on the haphazard bun she’d managed. by his father that meant nothing to her actual work.
“Seems like an odd thing for you to know, what with that bone straight, blinding Draco dragged a hand through his hair and winced. Already dishevelled and the day
white coif you parade around with.” had barely begun. He turned away from the parlor, looking down the hall. He was at
“My hair isn’t straight—” he needed Theo’s time turner. He needed to reverse a loss. He supposed she could have left, but that didn’t seem like Granger at all. Why
those words, erase them from existence. would she leave her work?
Then again, why would she wander his home instead of doing her work?
 40 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 65

With a disgruntled growl in the back of his throat, Draco decided he’d just look for If Hermione—wait? Hermione? No, Granger—hadn’t been sitting directly across
her. from him, silent and still and so obviously intrigued, Draco might have challenged
“Topsy,” he called. Blaise to a duel just to burn off some of his anger. Some of the liquor, too.
Crack . But Blaise kept staring at him. Granger did, too, he suspected. Even Theo had gone
“Master Draco has need of Topsy?” quiet. What exactly did they want from him? His temple throbbed, the first sign that
“You haven’t seen Miss Granger this morning, have you, Topsy?” maybe he’d reached a limit, or should impose one.
They elf smiled, bouncing as she clapped her hands together. “I didn’t ask for it,” he said, wishing in the same breath that he’d stayed silent.
“Oh yes, Master Malfoy, sir. Miss Granger is so kind to Topsy when I bring more Because the three identical looks of pity, useless looks he had no interest in, made
trinkets for her to play with.” him want to hex them all: one by one, and slowly.
“This morning? You brought her more work this morning?” But it was Theo’s birthday, so he endured. Occlumency and alcohol did not mix;
Draco knelt to speak easier with the elf, craning to converse with a barely two foot his magic became sloppy under the influence, but Draco tried anyway. Tried to freeze
tall magical creature made conversation in any sort of extended manner extremely out, pack away and forget every last intrusively affectionate and unfortunately lustful
uncomfortable. thought he’d had toward Granger in that library. They weren’t real thoughts, just the
“Yes, Master Draco. Miss Granger asked for directions to the west hall drawing result of alcohol, boredom, or proximity.
room so Topsy showed her.” He didn’t really think any of those things about Granger. And he repeated that
Draco staggered, tilting from his already unsteady crouch on the balls of his feet. thought to himself, over and over again, right up until Theo asked her about her
He had to brace himself with a hand against the cold stone floors, a hot, vibrating relationship with Weasley.
kind of panic erupted in his chest, shooting to his extremities. “Oh,” she said. “We broke up last year.”
Topsy, sweet Topsy, noticed his reaction. It shouldn’t have changed anything.
“Topsy told Miss Granger the room is locked and she would not be able to visit, If he occluded hard enough, sloppy and mostly useless from the liquor, he could
but she insisted. Did Topsy do wrong? Should Topsy punish—” almost convince himself it didn’t.
“No, Topsy. No punishment—just, go. You are dismissed.”
Crack .
Draco sank to his knees, head bowed. He must have looked absurd, forehead
practically against the floor as he focused on his breathing, as he forced ice into his
brain, his veins. Why the fuck? Why the fuck would she go there?
Draco struggled to swallow, throat tight. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to
focus on the freezing Occlumency, isolating and flaking away every unwelcome shard
in his mind: panic, fear, guilt, confusion, regret, hate, guilt, guilt, guilt . He tried
swallowing again, forcing the motion through the painful lump obstructing his
breathing, seizing and strangling his vocal cords. Cold enough, frozen enough, he
found numbness.
He stood, spello-taped together by freezing magic, and walked, purposely, quickly,
agonizingly— isolate, flake —to the drawing room.
He nearly doubled over again when he saw it, saw the sheer audacity of it. Granger
was insane; it was the only excuse.
One of the doors to the drawing room lay on the floor, ripped from its hinges. The
other had been shattered and splintered, still closed but buckled from the force of
whatever absolutely astonishing magic had been used to break through it.
She’d just—had she really? Draco swallowed against the tightness at the back of his
throat. His lungs felt like they’d shriveled and died in his chest, decayed, desiccated
things trying to perform the duties of something living.
He’d stopped walking far enough away that he couldn’t see inside the room yet. He
didn’t want to. Not even a little bit. But if this was his reaction to it, what could hers
possibly be? He dragged another hand through his hair, this time completely
disinterested in how wild or unmanaged it made him look. He hardly cared about
that, not anymore. He couldn’t just leave her in there, not again.
 64 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 41

Draco expected her to drop eye contact, to look sheepish or embarrassed over the He took several cautious steps, sinking deeper into his Occlumency with each one:
confirmation of her lawbreaking. Instead, still ignoring Theo trying to poke his way frozen and freezing and functionally blank. He gripped the door frame with his left
through her hands as she shielded one side of her face, she smirked. hand. He flinched; he could see the faint shadow of the brand on his forearm
Merlin, she smirked . through the sleeve of his white shirt. He took a single additional step forward,
And it only got worse from there. bringing the interior of the drawing room into full view.
She dropped her hands, swatting at Theo as if they’d been best friends for years, His Occlumency collapsed. It brought him to his knees in the space of a breath,
and stood. She leaned over the table towards Draco, testing every ounce of his lungs seizing, ice-flooded-veins surging into motion, scalding hot as molten rock,
gentlemanly manners to not glance down a witch’s shirt when presented with the shards of self reassembling into the jagged mess that lived inside his head.
opportunity. He did it anyway, manners be damned. But his eyes were the only thing He almost vomited up his breakfast, stomach churning and turning and roiling in
he seemed capable of controlling; every other part of him had frozen as she leaned the sudden heat that brought it to a boil. He’d only ever lost control of his
over the table, giggling as she did so, stopping only when her face was distractingly Occlumency one other time in his life, and it had been in that room, not an hour
close to his. after Granger had been tortured in it, and his family tortured in turn for her escape.
Voice dropped to a low whisper, a smirk still tugging at her pretty—pretty?—little Draco heaved, hating himself. How fucking pathetic, reduced to a withering mess
mouth, “Do you know what I did after I broke into Gringotts?” at the threshold to a room in his own home. He squeezed his eyes shut, screwed up
Draco was going to experience spontaneous combustion at the hands of Hermione his face, and forced a facsimile of normal breathing: in and out, push and pull. He
Granger. He just knew it. She smelled nice . She was close enough that he could tell. latched onto the sound of a nearby clock, tick tick ticking a rhythm he could follow,
And she was relaxed, so at ease in a way he’d never imagined Granger even capable that he could cling to in order to time his breaths.
of being. He’d limited his previous impression of her to books and timetables and Reluctantly, fingers still clinging to the door frame, Draco forced himself to stand.
fastidious dependency on rules and order. But this Granger— this Granger knew how His knuckles had turned white as he gripped it, clutching for support, for grounding.
to have some fun. He willed himself to look again.
And fuck she was pretty. And fun. And smart. And fuck . Granger stood in the middle of the room, just next to the shattered carcass of the
He’d forgotten she was going to say something, lost in the inferno inside his own chandelier that once hung from the ceiling. She stared at the floor. Draco couldn’t
skull. But then her lips—apparently he’d been staring at them—moved. help himself—it happened entirely within his subconscious, seeking out her left arm.
“I rode a dragon.” She had her sleeves shoved up: showing it off. Showing it off in this place.
He honestly thought he’d imagined it. A sick, intrusive, wet dream kind of thought His stomach turned again. She had her right hand just barely grazing the letters in
popping into his consciousness, sounding like Granger. But then she laughed, settling her skin. He could see her fingertips drumming lightly, skating up and down her arm
herself back in her seat across the table, and Theo said, “Did you say dragon , as she stared at the carpets beneath her, at the blood that wasn’t exclusively hers.
Granger?” Many people had bled on those carpets that day, but hers was among it, and utterly
Draco felt like he’d been hit with a confringo , ablaze and blasted apart, heat roaring indistinguishable from the rest.
through him. He had to adjust himself in his trousers, as inconspicuously as possible, Why was she just standing there, staring at the floor? Draco decided he should stop
having grown inconveniently hard in a matter of seconds. her, escort her elsewhere. Save her? No. With a surge of shame through his chest,
Across the table, Draco caught Blaise watching him, seeing straight through him, as Draco knew she didn’t need any saving, not by anyone, and certainly not by him. Not
he usually did. He watched as Blaise’s eyes flicked quickly towards Granger and then now, anyway. That opportunity had long since passed.
back again. With a quirk of his brow and a contemplative look, Blaise took a sip of But still, he should stop this. This couldn’t be good, for either of them.
his drink. He tried to cross the threshold into the drawing room—really, he did. But his legs
“Draco, is your fiancée planning on making an appearance this evening?” Blaise would not move, no matter how much effort he put into engaging the muscles in his
asked after his sip. thigh, his calves, bending his knees, lifting his feet. It was like a total body bind had
Any fledgling, inappropriate erections Draco might have been nurturing died at the gripped him, robbing him of control over his limbs.
reminder that Astoria—well, that she was meant to be something to him. He couldn’t go in.
“I don’t know,” he said. No, he wouldn’t go in.
“Shouldn’t you?” from Blaise as Theo made an annoyed sound in the background. No, he’d been right the first time. He couldn’t go in.
“Why?” Draco asked. He noticed that the movement across the table from him had He almost wanted to stomp his foot from the frustration, from the guilt, from the
stilled; Hermione’s giggling now absent. utterly incomprehensible sight of watching Hermione Granger stand in the spot
“Well, because she’s your fiancée. Do you not want to spend time with her?” where she’d been tortured with barely more than a curious look on her face.
What in the ever-living fuck was Blaise doing? He watched her shoulders rise and fall: a deep breath. She let go of her left arm,
“It’s a betrothal agreement, not a romance.” lifting her hand to her face and dragging a finger under her eye. If she’d been crying,
“What a lovely foundation to build a life on.”
 42 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 63

it hadn’t been much. She stood barely ten feet from him; he would have been able to They’d revisited the genealogy book, flipping between pages, laughing together at
see it. ridiculous, outdated names and oohing and ahhing over particularly scandalous unions.
Her shoulders lifted and fell again: another breath. And then she looked up, Draco and Blaise had started a very lazy game of poker to distract themselves from
straight at him. She walked towards him, then past him, into the hallway and away the constant screeching over Felcuin this and Idoine that and my gods look at this; an eighty-
from the drawing room as if he hadn’t been there at all, or as if she hadn’t cared. six year age difference, that’s barbaric .
It took him too long, several moments of confusion and grief, still staring at the “No, it’s true,” Granger was saying, face hunched closer to the pages than
carpets where she’d been standing, before the body bind that had seized his nervous necessary. “The Queen, Theo. The actual queen.”
system released him and allowed him to move his legs. He stepped away from the Theo laughed. “Granger the wizarding world hasn’t had a queen in—I don’t know.
drawing room and everything that happened there. Millenia? Maybe ever? I’m drunk and it’s a little fizzy, no—fuzzy. I didn’t care for
He walked quickly, the click of his shoes on stone floors not unlike the ticking of History of Magic.”
the clock he’d used to measure his breaths. He increased his pace, eyes focused on “You got an ‘O’ on that NEWT,” Draco cut in, letting his playing cards drop to the
the riot of brown curls he sought to reach. table. He and Blaise had mostly been pretending anyway.
His voice died in his throat, a crackle of intention eviscerated by vocal cords Theo tapped a finger to his temple.
shredded in grief. He tried again. “Intuition,” he said.
“Granger,” he said from several feet behind her. Granger’s head shot up from where she’d still been intensively studying the book.
She kept walking: confident, quick. Then she made a wrong turn, headed towards She blinked rapidly, looked briefly like she might tip backwards, before righting
his father’s wing, not the parlor. herself and turning to Theo.
“Granger, stop,” he tried again, voice stronger that time, more solid, devoid of the “You can’t use intuition in History of Magic—it’s about facts. You can’t—”
soundless gaps that let breath blow right through his vocal cords. “Don’t hurt yourself trying to understand how Theo does anything he does,
She stopped but she did not turn around. He stopped, too, still several feet away. Granger. It’s a mystery to all of us,” Draco said. He took a sip of his firewhiskey,
“The parlor is the other way.” enjoying how he could barely even feel the burn as the liquid slid down his throat,
She took another breath. Watching her shoulders rise and fall had a sort of calming shooting off tendrils of delicious heat in his chest as it descended.
effect on Draco, a physical reminder of the thing she did, the thing he sometimes Granger looked at him, for the first time in what had likely been an hour of
struggled to do. peculiar bonding between her and Theo. A flush of pink crawled up her neck, more
She turned suddenly, hair moving in a delay around her, whipping with the force of of it smearing her cheeks. Her hair, still tied by the ribbon he’d charmed, had started
her momentum. She began walking again, towards him, past him. Again and again. fluffing out around her temples, giving her a wild sort of look. He wondered, seeing
He reached out this time, catching her by the arm, fingers wrapping around her how glassy and distant her eyes had become, if his own were much of the same.
upper arm, sinking into her soft cardigan. They both froze, side by side, facing “I can also make portkeys that travel inside buildings ,” Theo said.
different directions. He didn’t look directly at her, but at a particularly independent And just like that, Draco lost her attention to Theo again. He sent his glass sliding
curl trying to break free from the rest at the back of her head. He would have bet a across the table towards Blaise, who obliged him with a refill and an unwarranted
substantial number of galleons that she didn’t look directly at him either. look of assessment.
He kept holding her arm, somehow incapable of letting go, not now that he’d “You cannot,” Granger said.
found an anchor, stilling the churning sea in his stomach. She didn’t try to break “Yes I can. Draco, tell her. You’ve tested them.”
away either. In another blink, he had her attention again. He liked her attention, it warmed him
“What was that, Granger?” he asked the wild curl under his focus. A ray of sunlight like firewhiskey.
peeked through a nearby window, hinting at a few golden strands hidden in a deep “ You tested illegal, experimental portkeys?” she asked.
brown landscape. “Didn’t you break into Gringotts?” he countered.
This time, he could feel her breath in the way her arm lifted, just a touch, as she Her flush deepened beneath her freckles, from pink to near red as she dropped her
invited air into her lungs. It felt like breathing on his own, too. gaze.
“I wasn’t letting her win.” “You what? “ Theo asked, slapping the table unnecessarily. The shouting had been
A flush of heat dropped in his chest, a bombarda against his ribs—weaponized enough to get the point across.
guilt—and somehow, he knew she hadn’t meant it that way. At least, he hoped she Granger lifted both of her hands, creating a blinder on one side of her head to
didn’t. Not that he wouldn’t deserve it if she did. effectively block Theo from her view. “How do you know about that?” she asked in
Because he’d certainly let her win. Her being Bellatrix, the winning being everything a loud whisper when she finally looked at Draco again. She did an excellent job
else: the game they’d been pawns in, the battle in which they’d been but cannon ignoring Theo poking at her palms.
fodder. He let her arm go, feeling vile for having had the audacity to touch her in the “You broke into one of my family’s vaults. Of course I know about it.”
first place.
 62 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 43

Draco swallowed, jaw tense. She didn’t move when he released her. In his peripheral vision, he saw her head
“Yes, Topsy, that would be excellent.” turn, looking more directly at him. He couldn’t bring himself to do the same.
“Malfoy,” Granger said, voice low as her hands came down on the table. “Let’s get back to work,” she said, as if he had any real part in it.
“My house, Granger. She would have been heartbroken if I didn’t let her help with But it helped to freeze out the molten mush inside his head, reminding him of his
Theo’s birthday. She likes him more than she likes me—” normal. His Occlumency was weak, magic cautious and hesitant after such blatant
Theo cut in with an, “Obviously, I’m nicer to her.” abuse, but it was enough to cool the fire that nearly melted his marrow.
“I’m hardly cruel to her, Theo,” Draco said, jaw tensing and he tried to He nodded, a single lift and dip of his jaw, curt and short and all he could manage.
communicate via eye contact that he should not say things like that in front of He could see her nodding, too, perhaps in agreement that yes, this was a miserable way
Granger. A voice that sounded very much like a disinterested Blaise flared to life in to start one’s day . But she started walking a moment later. He followed, several paces
the back of his head: why does that matter? behind, utterly floored by whatever it was he’d just been witness to.
“The Malfoy elves are free, Granger.” This time, Blaise actually did speak. All the He watched her work the rest of the day, not even pretending to read or occupy
heads in the room swiveled to him. Theo pouted, Draco sighed, and Granger’s eyes himself in another way. He just watched as she summoned diagnostic spells,
grew round and wide. manipulated them around objects steeped in dark magic, in a home steeped in dark
“Don’t ruin my fun. Draco was right; she is fun to tease,” Theo said. He jumped to magic, sorting through curses and counter curses as if her mind held an entire curse
greet Topsy when she reappeared in a crack , levitating several bottles of liquor with breaking guidebook open in front of her eyes. Which it probably did, knowing what
her. he knew of Granger’s fondness—dare he call it obsession—with books.
Draco could feel his mouth tightening, tendons in his jaw flexing under the force As he watched he realized how absolutely miraculous it was that she could even
grinding his teeth together. Granger had turned to him again: anger etched in the line bring herself to step onto this property to begin with. If Draco had the choice he
between her furrowed brows, the pursing of her lips, and the slight twitch at the never would have come back, and already he planned to leave it again, find a flat of
corner of her right eye. his own. But she’d come back and faced the people who’d hurt her here: in physical
“You never said.” It sounded like an accusation. form as Lucius Malfoy, or in echo as Bellatrix Lestrange.
“It was Ministry mandated, Granger. I didn’t think you’d find it especially And then she managed complex magic on top of it? Day in and day out, ridding his
impressive that we didn’t have a choice. Topsy and several of the others stick around home of the type of magic they all probably deserved to drown in.
because they want to.” It felt good, honestly, to finally admit it. Not to hide behind the jealousy or the
“Want to,” she repeated his words. “ Want to.” Her voice pitched. shame, but to simply acknowledge her for what she was without any comparison to
“Granger, it’s my birthday,” Theo said, wrapping her fingers around a shot glass, himself.
pulling her from where she'd held her palms open towards the sky, seeking Merlin’s Hermione Granger was fucking impressive. And he’d finally let himself admit it.
ghost for support, no doubt. “Take a shot and shut up, I want to have fun now.”
Granger, for her part, allowed Theo to steer her to the seat he’d formerly occupied
and, with almost no prompting, she downed the shot and grumbled a furious—and
furiously endearing—”fine.”
He didn’t even try sleeping that night. Draco knew it would have been a laughable
failure and he didn’t much fancy the idea of seeing his dear Aunt Bella again, even
within the confines of his own mind. Instead, he paced, fixating on what he’d
watched Granger do that morning, standing and staring at the place she’d
Draco would never have bet, even if given the option to pick the most outlandish, experienced so much pain.
unexpected outcome, that he would have the chance to witness a drunk Hermione He couldn’t make sense of it. Couldn’t wrap his head around how that would help,
Granger socializing with him and his friends. And having a damn good time, too. could help, staring it down in such a way.
To be fair, Draco had also indulged in several drinks, and if he moved his head too He gave up pacing shortly after midnight. He hadn’t even changed out of his day
quickly, the room took a blink to catch up with him, slogging behind in slow motion. clothes, echoes of his footfalls providing a comfortable clicking to manage his
Theo seemed as wobbly and intoxicated as Granger, laughing easily and shouting breathing. He threw open the doors to his room and headed straight for his
most of his words for no reason. Draco couldn’t tell how much Blaise had partaken, makeshift potions lab.
but he kept mixing delicious drinks for the rest of them, so he clearly still had He was obsessed; he knew he was. He’d known it for a while. He couldn’t stop
adequate use of his motor functions. seeking out that scar. It was a destructive obsession, masochistic, seeking another hit
“Theo. Theo— Theo ,” Granger said, repeating the name with increasing urgency of pain and guilt every time he laid eyes on it. And somehow it didn’t seem to affect
when she couldn’t get him to look up at her. her at all. Granger didn’t glamor it, didn’t keep her sleeves down like he did with his;
 44 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 61

she just lived her life despite it. And then she’d stood in the spot where it happened Granger looked dumbfounded.
like it was the easiest thing in the world: staring one's demons in the eyes. “But—why? You don’t know me—you don’t even like me. Why would you want
Draco evanesco’d several cauldrons and summoned a smattering of various potions me here for your birthday?”
ingredients. He didn’t understand why it didn’t bother her, why she didn’t seem to Theo laughed, “Draco likes you just fine, and I defer to his judgement in most
want to hide or remove it. But he had to give her the choice. He wanted—no, things. Except on the acceptability of peacocks as pets. And on potions as an
needed—her to have the choice. And not just so he didn’t have to see it, but because enjoyable discipline. And on the appropriate number of charms to keep one’s hair in
she’d earned it. She’d accepted it—something horrible and hateful—and she place—”
deserved to be free of it. “She gets the point, Theo.” Draco had gone still, pinned under the casual, blatant
assessment that Draco not only didn’t actively disapprove of Granger, but rather,
that he liked her. That could not—was not—no. He could tolerate her fine, act civil
towards her, annoy her for amusement, but actively like her? That simply wasn’t
allowed: a line too far that he would not, should not, could not cross.
Theo rolled his eyes and called for Topsy.
Crack .
Well, that certainly wouldn’t help Theo’s cause. Granger cringed. Her brows
furrowed, her eyes narrowed, and she looked so hopelessly at Topsy—like every drop
of magic in her bones wanted to crush the elf in a hug and offer her safe passage to
another land—that Draco’s chest actually clenched. And that was ridiculous.
“Ah, Topsy, my sweet,” Theo said. He dipped his head and extended his hand in a
low and dramatic bow-cum-handshake. “Mopsy returns your regards from the Nott
Estate and wishes you good health on this summer solstice.”
The elf trembled under Theo’s formality, the tips of her long, drooping ears stained
a maroonish-pink. Some days, Draco wondered if Theo’s antics were actually a
strangely specific form of torture for Topsy, who could barely handle his praise and
affection.
Topsy made several unintelligible noises, presumably an attempt to speak.
“Topsy, today is my birthday and Draco would like to break out several expensive
bottles of liquor to celebrate, would you mind terribly popping to the main cellars
and grabbing them for us? Feel free to dip into Master Lucius’s personal reserves as
well, only the best for my special day and all.”
If Topsy vibrated with any more nervous energy she might simply pop out of
existence. Draco dared a look at Granger. She watched Theo with her head tilted to
the side, knuckles pressed into the table next to her, a look of wonder and confusion
clouding her normally clear eyes.
Topsy made a squeaking sound and disappeared under the table, reemerging next
to Draco. The elf looked up at him, waiting for confirmation of Theo’s request. The
answer stalled on the tip of Draco’s tongue: of course, yes, sounds wonderful . But Granger
had turned to him, watching. And suddenly the idea of having Topsy delivering
several bottles of liquor when they could just as easily get it themselves—
Draco had lost his gods damned mind. He shook his head, not at Topsy, but more
to clear his thoughts. Granger had hijacked his brain.
He risked a glance up at her and immediately regretted it. She looked so serious, so
preemptively disappointed. Well, that wasn’t fair . Theo, on the other hand, looked like
he couldn’t wait to see how this played out. And Blaise looked rather uninterested,
staring vaguely in Theo’s direction as he balanced on two legs of his chair.
Draco looked back at Topsy. She stared up at him, eyes wide, the very face of
pleading.
 60 Mightbewriting

not annoyed because I have some muggle ancestors from the sixteenth century. I’m
annoyed because it means—I don’t know, nothing .”
-2.750, -2.833, -2.916
Draco wanted to sprint out of the library, remove himself from her presence as
he’d started to slip, to stumble, to spill. MAY
The library doors swung open, saving him from his impulse to disappear.
Draco groaned; they were early.
“Granger’s still here,” Theo nearly shouted, announcing his entrance. Blaise trailed

T
behind, a hint of amusement betraying his mostly impassive expression. OCK
“Hello—” she started. Things regressed. Or, more accurately, Draco regressed. Whatever
Theo thrust a hand at her, “Theodore Nott, call me Theo.” inferred civility he’d forged with Granger evaporated with the fumes in
She took his hand, a flash of confusion crossing her face. this potions laboratory, seared from the surface of his skin as he toiled to create a
“I—I know who you are, Theo. We went to school together for six years.” She potion to rid her of that fucking scar.
tilted her whole body to peer behind him, “and hello, Blaise.” It made him angry. Angry he had to see it. Angry she had to live with it. Just,
“Oh, no, no, Granger. You should be thanking me for saving you from the generally, angry. And even with a renewed reliance on his Occlumency, Draco
mortification of having to admit you had no idea who I am. Classmates or not. struggled to keep that irritation at bay, constantly bombarded by annoyance. Granger
Though, I’m annoyed you remember Blaise,” Theo said, taking a seat at the table wasn’t an idiot; he could freely admit that these days. She noticed the flip in his mood
across from Draco, next to where Granger still stood above the book. “This could immediately, frown settling on her face before she shook her head and began her
have been very uncomfortable, for all parties. Me especially. Thank a bloke next time work, ignoring him.
he saves you by being all”—a vague wave at his person—”magnanimous.” Which was fine ; he’d prefer to ignore her, too.
“Fair warning, Granger, it sounds like Theo might be a little drunk,” Draco said, Except that he couldn’t. She occupied most of the space inside his brain, most of
sending a pointed look in Theo’s direction. his thoughts revolving around the healing potions he kept experimenting with and
Her face, which had slipped into outright awe at the show Theo had just put on, the fact that he had to sit in the same room as her for most of the day.
shifted. Her eyes widened, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth, amusement It made for a very uncomfortable few weeks wherein they rarely spoke, rarely even
hidden beneath the surface. looked at each other, while he watched their tacit agreement at civility rotting in the
Blaise took a seat on the other side of Theo. He dragged a chair out next to him, a silences between them.
scrape of wooden legs against stone floors echoing through the space, and propped She sighed, a heavy sound spreading through the room and staking ownership of all
his feet up. No one spoke as they adjusted to the shift in dynamic, in the doubling of the air. Draco tried not to breathe, not to think. He’d rather not acknowledge it at all.
personalities in the room, quadrupling if you accounted for the sheer space Theo’s “I’m done.”
tended to take up. Draco’s hands flexed around his book, thumbs nearly ripping the pages. He forced
Theo reached out and pulled the book towards him. his fingers to relax.
“Oh, how thrilling. Are we betting on incest? A classic, of course.” “Done?”
Granger paled, watching as Theo flipped through the pages in the enormous book. He didn’t know how to talk to her anymore. Ice in his veins, ice in his words. Cold
Draco, appalled as he was, also wanted to laugh. She probably thought Theo was and flat and emotionless.
joking, but there had definitely been bets about incest in the past. Whose family had “With this room, and everything that’s been delivered here. So, unless there are
the most, the most recent, the most severe. more trinkets your father plans to have dropped off, it’s time to move on.”
“Aha,” Theo said, trailing his finger down a page. He cleared his throat, “Move on?”
“Cantankerous Nott married to Adelia also Nott, first cousins. Eighteenth century. I Her head tilted; he hadn’t even realized he was looking at her. Perhaps because he
have furniture older than that.” looked more through her, focusing on his mental shields.
Granger craned to confirm what he’d read. Theo slid the book towards her. She made a frustrated sound, hands on her hips.
“I do so love celebrating the day of my birth with an existential crisis about “Yes, Malfoy. Move on, I have to do every single room in this place. I know you
inbreeding.” know that.”
“Oh,” Granger said, closing the offending book and sliding it away from them. She “Right.”
hovered by the table; she wouldn’t have looked so out of place if not for the nervous She made another noise, somewhere between a scoff and a growl.
chewing on her bottom lip and the rapid glancing between the three of them. “Merlin, Malfoy. You’re the worst like this. Show me to the library. I want to start
“Happy birthday, Theo. You—must have plans, I’ll just wrap up my work for today.” there if this is what I have to put up with.”
“No you don’t, Granger. As the birthday boy, I hereby request you stay and have
fun with us.”
 46 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 59

He could have teased her then. Reminded her of the obsessive fastidiousness with She reached, just briefly, for the ribbon still tying her hair back, as if to confirm that
which she’d once planned to tackle his estate, room by room, starting in this parlor it hadn’t escaped its binds. She tapped her fingers on the cover of the book. Draco
and working her way through. Skipping to the library would be skipping several tilted his head, craning to read the spine.
hallways, nearly a full wing, and would be a significant deviation from her plan. In a “Do you—does your family—do you ever loan books out?”
dim part of his brain he knew being reminded of that fact would needle her, but in a He shouldn’t have smirked. The moment the corner of his mouth lifted, brow
fun way, in an annoying Granger is fun way. raised, she rolled her eyes and sighed. Her shoulders sank, and her hands slipped
But instead: “Of course.” from the cover, tapping irritably on the table.
He stood, closing his book and carrying it with him. “Never mind, Malfoy. If you’re going to be a prat about it—”
Halfway down the hallway, she tried talking again. “Why do you want to read a book on Sacred Twenty Eight genealogy? Lot’s of
“I’ve been curious about the library here, if I’m honest.” overlap, gets pretty repetitive.”
The hairs on the back of Draco’s neck lifted. He hadn’t realized she walked so That earned him a small smirk in return.
close behind him. He could practically feel her words brushing up against him, “I was just—interested in understanding, better, where it comes from.”
grazing his neck and back. They felt like knives, stabbing him in the back. It . Hatred for her very existence, she meant.
He didn’t respond. “You won’t find it in there, Granger. This book will only make it worse.”
“I can only imagine what kinds of books have been hoarded over the centuries in One of her nails scraped against the wood grain on the table. Draco watched as her
these old estates. I’m sure a few things will be quite nasty, but it could be fun, too.” fingers flexed, twitched, formed a fist: the only indication of whatever thought had
“Nothing about this place is fun, Granger.” barreled through her. Normally so dynamic, the thoughts crawling across her face
He heard her footsteps stop behind him. He paused, too, waiting. had stilled. No amount of connecting the dots between her freckles could make sense
“That seems a bit extreme,” came her voice from behind him. “I don’t believe of her expression.
anything in this world is all bad. There must be something good here. And I suspect Her voice came out quiet, strained against her vocal cords in a register she didn’t
it will be in the library.” normally use. “I don’t see how it can be any worse than wanting me dead.” Draco
She started walking again, matching where he’d stopped, then overtaking him. And could hear the tension in her throat, fighting her words.
as she passed, she added, “It usually is.” His stomach sank, despairing for her and embarrassed for himself and his family: a
She must have thought she’d been right when they entered the library. He saw it on whole lineage of people who’d culminated in the current disaster of the Malfoy name.
her face: all wonder and curiosity, like she’d somehow managed to forget the terrible He reached for the book and flipped it open. The enormous tome, thick as a cake,
things that happened a few halls over. practically groaned as he cracked the long-disused spine. He thumbed to the Malfoy
He watched as she restrained herself, pulling back against the impulse to line, thick parchment stiff between his fingers as he turned through centuries,
immediately investigate the rows and rows of shelves. But she was smart, always so traveling back in time.
smart. She cast a diagnostic charm instead; angry bright red light flooded the space. He found the page he sought and rotated the book towards Granger, sliding it back
She sighed, but still somehow managing to look wistful. Something about her across the table. He pointed at the name at the top of the page and, next to it: blood
wonder melted his Occlumency, just a bit. Then he let it happen a little more, with status.
intention, trying to hold back the rush of agitation that had taken up residence in his Muggle .
chest. He focused on the look on her face: the amazement, the curiosity, the awe. It “Before the Statute for Secrecy. A very long time ago. This is what makes it worse,
helped. Granger.” He risked a glance up at her. Her lips were moving, mouthing the words as
She frowned at the glowing red runes in front of her. she read, eyes focused and growing glassy. She touched a finger to the name, some
“This—is going to take a while.” long-dead ancestor of his who didn’t have a single drop of magic in her veins. “Just
“There’s a whole shelf in the back that makes the Restricted Section look like shows you that none of it really mattered. Maybe it won’t make a difference for you.
children’s books.” But for me, that makes it worse.”
She whipped around to look at him, all that curiosity now aimed in his direction. “Is this”—she swallowed, a heavy motion—”normal? Common?”
He tried not to wince under her appraisal. His tone must have changed—of course it “In pureblood families? Yeah, Granger. Things were different a few centuries ago,
had—when he eased up the occlusion. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, though you’ll have trouble getting most of the Sacred Twenty Eight to admit to any
still staring at him. of it.”
She rotated her floating runes between them, wand pointed directly at a red one. “You just did.”
She hesitated in her movement, a thoughtful tilt to her head as her eyes danced Draco twirled his wand between his fingers, watching as it spun. Anything to avoid
between him and the rune. He saw the decision when she made it, resolve in the way looking at her.
her jaw tensed. She waved the red rune towards him, taking a step closer. “Yeah, well—I’m nearly as annoyed about it as you probably are.” In his periphery,
he saw her shoulders sink by a fraction. “And not—shit, that probably sounded—I’m
 58 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 47

She fidgeted again, as if physically fighting off her embarrassment. But she smiled: a If Draco’s brain hadn’t completely stalled he might have pulled his Occlumency
small thing. back into place. Or drawn his wand. Or flinched. But he barely had time to consider
“What’s the difference, do you think?” she asked, opting to sit next to him in what his options before she stood in front of him, wand pointed at his chest, directing the
felt like a wary sort of peace offering. rune to him. It sank through his shirt and into his skin, like he might be an artifact in
He cast a couple of showy charms: sparks, lights, little gusts of wind, a tendril of need of decommissioning. He shoved a hand into his pocket, trying to hide the
smoke. He levitated the box and let it come to rest on the end table again. He sudden shaking.
conjured a strip of green ribbon and sent it towards her hair, where it burrowed The rune disappeared into his chest. Red light vanished before it flared again,
through her curls before it emerged, winding around and through it, binding it at the tracing the jagged lines crossing his torso, glowing through his shirt, scars he’d had the
nape of her neck. Granger huffed in annoyance as she lifted her hands to find the decency to hide. He kept his left arm glued to his side. He didn’t want to know if his
ribbon. mark glowed, too.
“Probably the core,” he said, finally answering her question as he ignored her She made a thoughtful noise and rotated, just enough to pull another red rune from
examination of what he’d done to her hair. Charms were so much easier with this her floating charm. She directed it at herself and Draco watched it sink into her skin.
wand; he’d almost forgotten how intuitive they could feel. “Unicorn hair instead of A moment later, red light glowed from the letters beneath her shirt sleeve.
dragon heartstring. My newer wand may have more inherent power with the “Cursed scars are kind of troublesome, aren’t they?” she asked. She looked at him
heartstrings, but this one, with the unicorn hair, it just—always felt more me.” like she’d just figured him out. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. Brilliant
“Unicorn hair,” she repeated, softly, but with something like amusement peeking as she might be, she had no idea.
through. He thought she might say something. But she turned abruptly, taking her floating
He stopped fiddling with charms. runes with her. She sent them flying at the nearest shelf, identifying pockets of dark
“Something funny about my wand?” magic.
Gods. Schoolboy wand in hand and he already sounded exactly like he had back Draco placed a hand to his chest, expecting the lines across them to burn, as angry
then, too: all bite and sneer and words meant to wound. as the red light that glowed through them. But he felt perfectly normal, if perhaps a
“No,” she said, surprisingly calm considering the tone he’d just taken. “It’s not little cold from the residual Occlumency. The light faded and its absence felt
funny, not at all. I’m just surprised.” normal—too normal.
“What do you have to be surprised about?” He looked around, wishing he had his usual sofa for comfort, but opted for a desk
“It’s difficult to cast dark magic with a unicorn hair wand, that’s all.” chair instead. Setting his book down, he tried to lose himself in potions theory, in
Oh . ideas about dark magic and cursed scars so painfully relevant to that moment that he
Draco lowered his wand, letting it rest on his lap. He couldn’t look at her. almost wanted to laugh.
“I know,” was all he said. And really, he probably knew it more than most. But he worried if he did it might sound too much like a scream.

Draco spent the entire afternoon practicing charms. Pointedly, he ignored the Watching Granger with books was fucking endearing. And Draco allowed himself
occasional sounds of amusement he heard coming from Granger’s direction as she to think that only after a week of watching her eyes light up every time she cleared a
worked on one of the many rows of history books his family had accumulated over row of dark magic and then allowed herself a few minutes of pure wonder, fingers
the centuries. trailing spines and memorizing titles.
He’d been deep in thought, watching the wisps of smoke from a fire charm He’d caught her, more than once, sneaking glances at him as if she expected him to
dancing above his head, when Granger dropped an enormous tome on the table in remind her she was meant to be working, or perhaps to give her permission to stop
front of him. He jumped at the thud and then scowled, not appreciating the smirk and read. In a near lifetime spent being annoyed by Granger’s swottiness, watching
she lobbed at him. her try to resist the pull of books was frustratingly delightful.
“Lovely, Granger. What is this?” He looked up from his reading when she released a squeal. She had her hands
“You know, you’re quite good at charms,” she said, eyeing the space above him clasped over her mouth, eyes wide and brows raised when her gaze met his. Draco
where flames had danced moments before. arched a brow, curious. He’d actually managed most of the afternoon without his
“Unicorn hair is good for charms and I—it was my best subject behind potions.” Occlumency, which made room for the more subtle emotions so easily steamrolled
He frowned. “Don’t try to distract me, Granger. I can see the misdirection hiding in by magic. Things like curiosity, fascination, endearment .
that fluff you call hair. What’s with the book?” She cleared her throat, letting her hands fall.
 48 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 57

“Sorry, sorry,” she said. Her eyes darted to the shelf next to her and back to him “Oh,” she said, and that was it. But he could see her processing, that same face of
again. She’d flushed pink, color blooming up her neck and across her cheeks. deliberate, debilitating thinking winding its way through every muscle, in every flicker
Draco affected his most imperious tone, brow still arched, “Would you care to of an expression. She had something on her mind, came to some kind of conclusion,
share with the class, Miss Granger?” but she let it drop, returning to her work and leaving him in blissful quiet as he slept
He did not expect her to make a small whimpering noise, a strangled high-pitched off his hangover.
sound that emanated from the back of her throat. She nearly jumped, turning back to She could have truly gutted his home that day; he would neither have noticed nor
the row of books, obscuring his view of her redoubled blush with a quagmire of hair. cared.
A moment later, she moved again, pulling a book from the shelf. She stepped down —
off the stool she’d been using and approached the table where he sat. Her cheeks “I have something for you,” Granger said in greeting as she stepped through the
were still flushed with pink. Floo later that month.
“This is a first edition Numerology and Grammatica ; it predates several major celestial Draco lifted a brow, nodding to greet her as he always did, and turned to walk with
events. The Hogwarts Library doesn’t even have one of these—it has an antiquated her towards the library.
method of moon phase cross-referencing that’s fallen out of favor but is actually “Well, hold on,” she said. “You don’t want it?”
quite interesting—” Draco turned back to her, puzzled. “Oh—it’s a thing? I just assumed you meant an
She cut herself off abruptly when Draco chuckled. obscure fact you wanted to tell me. Or an embarrassing story about Potter, you know
“First editions get you going, Granger?” he stood, ignoring her tiny groan of those are worth actual gold to me. Or maybe a renewed proposal on how to free the
protest. “Wait here.” manor’s house elves—”
Draco disappeared between the shelves, towards one of the sealed sections kept “Oh, shut it Malfoy, and sit.”
behind glass. She hadn’t ventured far enough into the stacks to find it yet. When she She pointed at the tufted green velvet sofa.
did, she might melt into the floor. He cast an unlocking charm on the glass and “You’re kind of fun when you’re bossy,” he said beneath his breath, following her
pulled it open, knowing exactly which extremely old, extremely expensive tome he directions regardless and planting himself on the sofa.
intended to impress her with. She laughed.
He hadn’t read this particular book since sixth year, something he’d forgotten until “You did not feel that way in school. Anyway, here. I asked about it—I thought—
that very moment, holding it in his hands. He’d hoped it might give him answers; well, it seemed only fair that you should have it back.”
instead it had given him something which he simultaneously regretted and She held out a long narrow box. He knew the shape of the box well, every witch or
appreciated learning, if for no other fact than that it probably kept him alive. wizard did. How could they not? Draco tried not to gasp, tried not to look too
He set the book on the table in front of her. thrown off kilter as he reached for it. He slid the top of the box off and blinked,
He wanted to bottle her gasp, preserve the sound of it for safekeeping so that he eyesight blurred for a brief second before it cleared again.
could revisit it when he wanted to know what genuine, unbridled excitement sounded His wand. The wand he’d lost hope of ever seeing again. He occluded, just enough
like. He’d never heard something so pure in his entire life. to steady himself as he reached for it. Without the safety of his barriers, he knew his
“This—” her voice actually faltered, completely failed to form words as she ran her hand would have trembled.
hands along the front cover. She looked up at him as he sat across from her again. He felt the familiar rush of magic flow through him the moment his fingers
“Is this really a first edition of Hogwarts: A History ?” touched the hawthorne handle. Gods. It was like discovering dry land in the middle of
“It is.” the ocean, steady and sure after what felt like years at the mercy of rocking waves.
She marveled, hands shaking as she opened the book and gasped again. And Granger had given this to him. Granger, who now witnessed his unblinking eye
“It’s—annotated?” contact with a wand.
“By the original editor. This is her copy.” “I—uh, do you need a minute?” she asked, shifting her weight from foot to foot, as
She whimpered again, eyes round as the gods damned moon as she stared down at if she couldn’t decide if she should stay or go.
it. He tried to act casual, tried to look unaffected.
“I’ve never seen a first edition before—I wonder what differences there are.” She “I don’t need alone time with my wand, Granger.” He smirked for good measure.
flipped through the pages, fingers lightly tracing the text, illustrations, and He only realized the double meaning when she flushed, a rise of pink creeping up
annotations. from beneath her collar. Her eyes widened as the entendre dawned on her, he
“It includes the come-and-go room, and it has more extensive explanations about assumed, in several layers of detail.
the anti-apparation wards. Those are the only differences I noticed.” He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or feel equally as embarrassed.
He probably should have stopped watching as she had a near-transcendent “I didn’t mean it like that—I just. It’s different from my other wand. More
experience with the book, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He couldn’t remember familiar.”
 56 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 49

light. He opted, benevolently, to ignore the impolite snigger hovering somewhere the last time he’d witnessed someone enjoy something as much as Granger enjoyed
above him. that book, mere feet from him.
“Well, I hardly have time to deep clean my kitchen otherwise. It was a good It was infectious: an infection he’d welcome. He could be overcome by it, altered
opportunity.” by it, die by it, and probably still be pleased to do so if it meant experiencing
Draco let the hand covering his face fall away, forcing his eyes open. He furrowed whatever this was.
his brows, determined to convey his disbelief. That was ridiculous. She was Her head snapped up, regarding him with open surprise.
Hermione Granger. Surely she had every hour of every day planned to the second, “You’ve read it? And the later editions—you, you know the differences?”
accounting for everything in her life, manual labor included. “No need to sound so surprised, Granger. Of course I’ve read Hogwarts: a History . I
She sighed again. went to Hogwarts after all.”
“I’m here from nine in the morning to seven or eight in the evening, five days a She giggled through tightly closed lips, flat as she tried to house the sound inside
week. I don’t have an abundance of free time.” her throat. She dropped her head into her hands, losing her fight against laughter.
He narrowed his eyes. He didn’t buy it. Alas—there were still alternatives Her hands raked through her hair, snagging on tangled curls. Her laughter turned
preferable to wasting one’s free time on something so mundane as chores . into frustration as she pulled her hands from her hair, wincing where she’d caught
“You should have said something. I could have loaned you an elf for the week.” herself in a knot.
“ Absolutely not .” Her voice pitched to a nearly inhuman sound, ricochetting “Of course,” she said, quietly. And Draco wondered if she’d meant to say it only to
between his ears and stabbing at an exceptionally painful place just behind his herself. “Of course you’ve read it.”
sinuses. He lifted a brow, completely thrown by the series of events he’d just witnessed.
Despite the pain in his skull, Draco laughed: a cackle that lurched his stomach and “And what does that mean?” he asked, realizing only after he’d said it that his tone
amplified the pounding behind his eyes. It was worth it. lacked all sense of accusation. He’d almost sounded friendly.
“I was kidding, Granger. I’m aware of your thoughts on the subject. I was witness “Nothing,” she said. “It’s nothing—well, it’s ironic…hilarious, really. But nothing.”
to your spew days, after all. Though Topsy might have volunteered; she’s quite fond That explanation did little to convince him she hadn’t been laughing at him.
of you.” He groaned, pressure throbbing in his brain. However, considering the number of times he’d laughed at her, both to her face and
Granger looked torn between hexing him and pitying him, a not altogether behind her back, he probably deserved it if she had been. Weirdly, it felt like a bit of a
unfamiliar expression for him to see warring on someone’s face. Disgraced son of a break in a duel, a pause in combat where they didn’t have to exist on opposing sides
Death Eater and a victim of his circumstances? Or old enough and smart enough to of something—of everything.
know the consequences to his actions? Most days he didn’t know. Most days he’d say “Hey, Granger?”
it was a little bit of both. She looked up from the book that had completely absorbed her focus. He
“What’s going on with you, anyway,” she asked. “You look like you’ve been hit by wondered if she even remembered she was meant to be working. He almost laughed
the Knight Bus.” at the thought of her horror over misusing her working time; that seemed very much
“Could have been, don’t remember much. I’m extremely hungover.” like something that would offend her swotty sensibilities.
“And eating candies at barely ten in the morning.” “Yes?”
Even Narcissa Malfoy would have been proud of Granger’s you aren’t to eat sweets at “Do you think Potter still has my wand?”
this hour tone. Her head jerked, a quick and violent tilt as her confusion registered.
“Birthday sweets can be had at any time of the day; everyone knows that. And if “What?”
you plan to take that tone with me, then I won’t be sharing any with you.” “My wand. From school. The one he took when—you know.” Draco drummed his
She cocked her head. fingers against the table, trying to channel his growing discomfort away from the
“It’s your birthday?” impulse to occlude himself into the ground. “The one I have now is fine; it picked
“Yesterday, hence the candy and the hangover. Blaise mixes drinks like you me and all. But my first one, I—I liked it better.”
wouldn’t believe, and Theo insists on having a good time until you literally can’t She’d flushed pink again, but now she looked distinctly uncomfortable. She
stand.” fidgeted in her seat, rocking side to side as her lips twisted between frowning and
Quiet, just for a beat. grimacing, brows furrowed.
“And your fiancée?” she asked, voice uncertain around the edges. “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t realize he never returned it to you—things
Draco might have rolled his eyes if the idea of engaging in such a motion didn’t were—there was a lot going on, right after. Knowing Harry, he probably just forgot.”
send his entire head spinning. Draco rolled his eyes, trying to opt for indignation over the sudden surge of fury. It
“Astoria made an obligatory appearance, had an obligatory drink, and left before was his fucking wand. His wand . He didn’t have the luxury of forgetting it, even if
my friends became obligatory arses. All for the best.” Potter did. He pulled the anger in, tried to control it without freezing it; he’d grown
so tired of the fog, of the swelling sickness in his stomach.
 50 Mightbewriting

“Knowing you, he probably stashed it in your hair for safekeeping and now no one
can find it,” he said instead, and it only looked like an insult if he squinted. -2.666, -2.750, -2.833
JUNE

At the end of another day spent watching Granger suppress her complete and utter

T
glee at being allowed to work in the library—like anything about this job at his manor
could be considered a gift—a hiss of pain pulled Draco from his reading. ICK
A crash followed, not terribly loud, but loud enough to alarm him. Granger had Draco wobbled into the library fifteen minutes past nine with an
disappeared into the second row of shelves and out of his sight several hours before. enormous headache and a box of apple taffies under his arm. He spotted
He stood, crossed the library, and stepped around the corner to find her on the the nearest chaise: inconveniently located on the far side of the room, and under an
ground, back against the first row of shelves, a hand pressed to her lip. A tiny stream obnoxiously bright window. He promptly collapsed onto it, closing his eyes against
of blood dripped down her chin, dipping below her jaw, and slipped down her neck. the light and allowing himself a smirk when he heard footsteps approaching.
Draco, decidedly unfamiliar with experiencing emotions of concern towards “Where have you been?” he asked without opening his eyes, an effort to preempt
Granger, couldn’t deny the swell of panic seeing her there. the barrage of questions he suspected Granger had been a mere breath from speaking
“It’s nothing—I’m fine,” she started when she saw him. into existence.
Draco cobbled together a haphazard approximation of calmness despite what “I could ask you the same thing,” she said. “You didn’t meet me at the Floo
seeing her blood—especially seeing her blood in his home—did to him. He crouched today.”
beside her, pulling a kerchief from his trouser pocket. She moved to take it from him, Behind closed eyes, he could almost discern a touch of disappointment hiding
but he wasn’t offering. He simply leaned forward and dabbed the blood from her lip, behind her haughty tone.
noting the warmth of her skin as it seeped through the fabric. Slowly, he descended, He didn’t say anything. Instead, Draco reached blindly into his box of candies and
following the trail of blood beneath her chin and down the column of her neck. He unwrapped one, popping it into his mouth while silently cursing Theo for thinking it
felt her swallow beneath his fingers. would be funny to pour out all the hangover potions . Fucking idiot. He’d damn near asked
He pulled away and looked down and the white linen, now painted in blood. for that experimental time turner just to get the potions back.
Mudblood, he might have said once upon a time. He heard her sigh.
He folded the kerchief several times, enclosing the red stain inside it. “I actually took some of my time off this year—well, they forced me. I’m not
“Which one was it, Granger?” allowed to accumulate any more until I’ve used some. The Ministry should have
One of the books had obviously caught her by surprise, despite her obscenely informed you I wouldn’t be here last week. It was a last-minute decision.”
fastidious diagnostics. She pointed to a book lying several feet from them with a deep Draco smiled to himself, blindly reaching for another candy.
purple cover, distressingly similar to the color of the drawing room walls. “They did.” He opened his eyes, recoiling against the offensive brightness in the
With a single spell he set the book on fire. room. “What did you do?” he asked.
“Malfoy,” she tried to protest, scrambling towards the book on what must have “I stayed at home. I read a lot. Did some laundry, deep cleaned my kitchen.”
been instinct before she retreated again. There was no hope for it. He let it burn to Draco sat up straight, ignoring the lurch in his stomach at the motion. He popped
ashes as she settled back against the shelf. another candy in his mouth, wishing it had some kind of stomach-soothing
“Did it get you anywhere else?” properties. He forced himself to speak through the nausea. This was of critical
She held out her hand. importance.
“Just a sting on the wrist—” she stopped. She probably saw it at the same time he “That’s appalling, Granger. That is not a holiday. That’s manual labor. Trust me, I
did. She’d held up her left arm. She must have rolled her sleeves up sometime during appreciate cleanliness as much as anyone, but I’m not spending a holiday on it.
the day; Draco didn’t remember the scar being visible that morning. Holidays are meant to be spent on beaches, or snow-covered mountains, or
And now it was in his face, less than a foot from him. exploring ruined ancient cities. Even museums—which I enjoy quite a bit, but have
He slammed down hard on his Occlumency. Freezing, freezing, freezing, until he been reliably informed are not a favorite holiday activity for most—would be
felt absolutely nothing at all. No concern for her wellbeing. Even less concern for preferable to deep cleaning a kitchen .”
his. Shard after shard of imposing emotion flaked and discarded in his mind until That had been a lot of words. In rapid succession. Coupled with images of grease
nothing but willful control remained at the center of a dense, freezing fog. stains on kitchen surfaces. Draco felt unwell. Extremely unwell. He laid back down,
“Are you using Occlumency right now?” she asked. “Harry was never very good at one hand clutching his stomach and the other thrown over his eyes to block out the
it, but it seems—”
 54 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 51

“You let them brand you,” her voice was quiet but it roared in his head. Brand . “I’m not very good at it, either,” he said, focusing on his lungs, on his ability to take
“You almost ripped your soul apart attempting murder.” a deep breath, to soothe with oxygen as his words rolled off his tongue. His words
Draco had stopped breathing. Violent rage erupted inside him, an image of his flowed smooth as the surface of still waters, frozen lakes. “Mine is effective,” he said.
hands around her neck, forcing her to stop speaking, snuffing the life and the words “It performs a function. But you can tell when I’m doing it. With Aunt Bella you
from her throat in a single motion. Gods, make her stop . Make her stop. Make her stop. never knew. Or with Severus.”
But he’d sunken deep enough into his Occlumency that such a violent, intrusive She looked distressingly close to asking him another question, so he stood, smooth
thought, unlikely as he was to ever act on such a grotesque impulse, only felt like a and serene like nothing could concern him.
twitch of indecision in his muscles. “It’s near the end of the day. I’ll meet you in the parlor. If you wait there, I have a
“I’m just wondering if they appreciate the cost. What it did to you—how hard it soothing paste in my potions lab I’ll get for you.”
must have been. And if they know you did it for them. That’s all.” “That’s not necessary, Malfoy. My hand is fine.”
Draco couldn’t breathe, could barely think. Everything about him had been held “Please, Granger,” he said, applying spell-o tape to a new crack in his Occlumency.
hostage by such a ruthless assessment of what amounted to most of his entire “Just wait for me.”
fucking life. She nodded. He did the same. And he left her there, sitting on the library floor as
“Could you—not occlude, please? You’re difficult to talk to like this.” he went to his lab to grab something to soothe the sting in her skin, wishing he had
He would have laughed if he could. something to erase the scar there, too.
“You don’t want me to stop right now, Granger.” He was almost surprised, even with the occlusion, to find that she’d listened to him
She gave him a sad smile. He was dumbfounded. Utterly dumbstruck. And so very and waited. She sat on the velvet sofa, legs tucked beneath her. She’d rolled her
completely fucked. He gave her an answer all the same. sleeves back down.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think they did.” He sat down next to her, too close. His knee knocked against hers and, if not for
She let out a small sigh, and, in an even smaller voice, “Neither did mine.” the ice freezing and seizing his muscles, he would have flinched, recoiled from it.
Instead, he simply readjusted as he opened the pot of soothing paste.
Perhaps it was the Occlumency, or something else—something deeper that he
would not and could not acknowledge—but for the first time in his life he reached
out and touched Hermione Granger’s skin. Just her hand, turning it over and
exposing the inside of her wrist that had turned a nasty purpling red, spreading like
lightning bolts across her skin.
He only realized the intimacy of it after he’d done it: dipping his fingers into the
paste and pressing it into her skin, rubbing in small circles to massage the paste into
her flesh. Two hands on her now, several points of contact.
The fog in his Occlumency shifted to something that felt more like the fog of
firewhiskey, the kind of haziness he felt when he’d had one too many: pleasant and
warm and cushioning. He administered two applications, to ensure she wouldn’t have
any residual pain. And more distantly, to extend the length of time he could touch
her, reveling in the warm fog inside his head, so much more pleasant than the frozen
kind.
Carefully, reluctantly, he pulled his hands from hers and resealed the jar of soothing
paste. For the first time since he entered the parlor, he dared to look at her face. He
tried to let some of his Occlumency go.
Her eyes were wide, pupils too, a pink flush crawling across her cheeks; her mouth
was partially open. He had a feeling she’d been staring at him for a while. He offered
her the jar.
“Take this. In case any pain flares up over the weekend.”
She closed her mouth, pressed her lips together, and then finally took the potion.
“This is—” she started, looking at the small pot in her hands, “—a really good
brew, Malfoy. You’re good.”
He smirked, feeling the natural expression spread across his face.
“I’m a master.”
 52 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 53

She let out a short laugh and then looked at him again, leveling him with a kind of waiting for an opportunity to strike, he might have allowed himself a self-
stare that he took to mean she once again had no idea what to make of him, like congratulatory smirk at how well he’d managed so far that day.
whatever she’d thought she’d known about him had just shifted. He had no idea “Do I dare inquire as to what you mean by that?” he asked her.
what to make of himself, so he could hardly blame her. “I mean you are nothing like the Malfoy I knew in school. You’re supposed to be
“I’ll see you on Monday,” she said, standing. mean and nasty and brooding and unpleasant. You’re supposed to make fun of me,
When she’d gone, Draco let his Occlumency fully drop. Months ago, he’d decided and not just little jabs at my hair because we both know you’re barely even trying
he didn’t want to stay at the manor, but he’d yet to do anything about it. Now, with those. You’re not supposed to be all—studious and patient. And you’re
having had to witness another piece of this place hurt someone, he wasn’t sure he definitely not supposed to bring me ice cream when I fix your family heirlooms. Or
could bear another night. heal me when something in this place does me harm. Who gave you the right to
pretend like you have a personality outside of being prejudiced and being a—”
Draco didn’t take the bait. He braced himself, resisting the impulse towards his
mental wards. His first instinct was to fight back, defend himself. But he couldn’t
address her point about prejudice. He sidestepped it, but only just.
Granger’s awful mood preceded her when she arrived through the Floo Monday “Oh, I had a personality. Was capable of being fun, even. People liked me in school,
morning: feet moving in a heavy, annoyed step. She barely spared Draco a glance, even if your merry little gang of idiot Gryffindors didn’t. And sorry, if after a
just stalked out the parlor and blazed a now familiar trail to the library. By the end of megalomaniac took up residence in in my house, in my fucking head, for a couple of
the day, Draco could catalogue in detail the finer points of Granger in a bad mood, years I wasn’t personable enough for you. Sorry about that. I was just trying to keep
down to her frustrated huffs and growls at inanimate objects. She even stomped her my family alive.”
foot a time or two while staring at her runes, probably annoyed at the persistence of His fingers ached from his grip against the arm of his chair.
red. “Not yourself?” She was still heated, but her brows had loosened, no longer tightly
Draco leaned back in his chair, watching as she jabbed her wand in the direction of drawn together.
a red rune hovering on a particularly unpleasant shelf. His chair creaked at the “Sure, if I could swing it. But I didn’t expect much for myself. I would have done
motion. anything to protect my parents.”
“Could you stop that?” she snapped, spinning around with her wand raised, hair Her hands dropped from her hips. How they hell had they gotten here?
flying out around her. “Yeah, well. So would I.”
He leaned further into his chair: another creak. She let out a furious groan and spun Draco felt stunned for a moment, like a rogue stupefy had found its way to the
back around, poking and prodding at her floating runes with her wand. center of his chest. That statement—it had a lot to unpack. He pushed back from the
“Granger,” he said. “I’m asking you this with the most noble of intentions: what table and used his foot to pull the chair next to him out as well. He lifted a hand,
the fuck is your problem?” effectively offering her the seat.
She whipped back around, flushing red, everything about her crackling with the “Would you care to elaborate on that?” he asked.
same energy she’d had that first day she showed up at the manor and faced off She sat, arms crossed. She let out a small huff as she landed. But she looked more
against his father. defensive, less angry.
“What’s my problem? You’re my problem. This family. This house. All this awful They sat in silence for several agonizing moments. Draco had just reached for his
prejudiced shit is my problem.” book again when she finally spoke.
He leaned back in his chair, brows raised. Creak . A couple of months ago, such a “I had a fight with my parents over the weekend. It’s nothing.”
skewering might have debilitated him, might have crushed him with the guilt he “Doesn’t seem like nothing if you're coming into my home and taking it out on
already so effectively smothered himself with. But now, he had a suspicion there me,” he said, knowing he sounded more annoyed than he’d wanted to.
were several other words hiding behind the ones she’d hurled at him: different words “Did your parents appreciate it?”
for a different stressor. He knew the distraction technique well. “Excuse me?”
“Wow, Granger. Don’t hold back, then. Anything else you’d like to get off your “What you did for them. To protect them?”
chest?” That was his line. They’d crossed it. He couldn’t manage any longer without his
“Yes, in fact.” She stomped towards him—she’d truly refined her stomping Occlumency. He froze his veins and shielded his mind.
technique throughout the day—and stopped right in front of him, hands on her hips. “And what exactly do you think I did?”
“Where did this personality come from? Who are you?” She waved a hand vaguely at She looked sheepish: lips pursed, hands still crossed in front of her, eyes refusing to
his person. look in his direction. Perhaps she’d stumbled past a line she hadn’t intended to cross
He lifted a single brow, trying to decide if he had the energy to be offended. And as well.
he wasn’t even occluding. If Granger hadn’t been standing in front of him just
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She looked at him for the space of another breath—enough time for him to His mother made a demure sort of sound in acknowledgment, “Thank you, dear.
remember how very seriously he needed her out of his flat—before she reached for And it wasn’t too long at all. We’re fully intending to engage in a little grandeur. We
the Floo powder and returned to the manor and, presumably, her work. anticipate your wedding will be the most magnificent social event of the year.”
Year. Which year? Not this year, surely. She must have meant next year.
“Draco, it’s been decided that Pansy Parkinson will be receiving an invitation,” his
mother said.
No , sprang to life inside his head. It would be uncomfortable, awkward. If he
Since forcing Hermione to teach him the theory, incantation, and wand movements could voice those two letters, this conversation could be so much simpler.
associated with her diagnostic spells, Draco experimented with every method he “Mother, I’ve barely spoken to her since Hogwarts.”
could conceive of to bind that magic to his potion. Its simplicity had to be the “Which I don’t understand, darling. She was once a very close friend.” His mother
answer: a way to identify and isolate the dark magic, to pull it from the scar tissue did not look at Astoria when she spoke.
where it could then be destroyed, no damage done to the body. Every iteration thus For a moment, Draco’s chest tensed, sorry for the girl sitting here with them and
far had been a disaster. Until— the implication that it once might have been someone else. Because that’s what
He massaged his chest, fingers tracing a smooth expanse of skin without Narcissa meant. There had been talks, casual ones, but talks nonetheless between the
interruption: nothing upraised, nothing mottled, nothing sore, nothing cursed. Draco Parkinsons and the Malfoys.
transfigured a mirror from a shard of glass—what had once been a vial for his potion “My social life didn’t exactly thrive under house arrest.” He ignored the appalled
before he’d dropped it in surprise—and examined his chest. look his mother gave him. Apparently she forbade talk of probation at the breakfast
The largest of his sectumsempra scars, the one that bisected his torso, twisting table. “We’re not really friends anymore.”
around his ribs on the left side, formerly red and purple and generally quite irritated, “She’s still close with my sister,” Astoria said, and Draco heard several other
had vanished. Or, more appropriately, Draco vanished it with a simple scar statements buried beneath it as she looked at him with her pretty blue eyes, so similar
smoothing potion, something that only worked to any degree because his other to his mother’s.
potion, the one he’d finally managed to bind part of Hermione’s diagnostics spells to, “We dated,” he told her, tired of all the things they weren’t really saying.
had successfully rid the scar of lingering dark magic. His mother’s teacup came down a fraction too hard against her saucer, clinking
It had been a simple thing, an easy thing, once he knew how to do it. Success with a telltale force of disappointment. She’d likely admonish him for being rude,
merely required the right combination of ingredients, magic, and time. No different uncouth in front of his intended the next time they were alone.
than any other potion he’d ever brewed. The act of trial and error simply expanded “The Malfoys have been close with the Parkinson family for generations. We even
time’s role in the equation. stood by Simeon during that scandal over his foreign wife.”
He started brewing a larger batch immediately, buoyed by the adrenaline of “Pansy’s mother is from Japan, not the moon.”
discovery. He was a fucking genius. He’d done a thing— invented a thing—that not Narcissa’s lip curled, completely at odds with her words: “And Sakura is a lovely
even the healers at St. Mungo’s had done. pureblood witch.”
He brewed for too long. Which made him late for breakfast. Which made him late Draco could hear Pansy’s voice in the back of his head, hissing the correct
meeting Hermione. pronunciation of her mother’s name, a favorite pastime at social events.
She surprised him, waiting for him instead of the other way around, standing in the “I don’t mind that you dated,” Astoria offered with a sweet smile. Kind Astoria,
middle of the most recent corridor she’d been working in. She tapped her foot, eyes trying hard enough for the both of them.
narrowed, arms crossed, with a parchment crushed in her hands, practically vibrating She didn’t want a loveless life, he could see that in these small gestures, in every
with what looked suspiciously like furious energy. attempt she made to connect. Draco didn’t want that, either. But that didn’t mean he
She marched straight up to him, eyes definitely alight with anger. She whacked the wanted it with her. Gods, and it gutted him. This could be so much easier if he
parchments—a copy of The Daily Prophet —against his chest, forcing him to take it. actually felt something, anything , for her. Even irritation would do, annoyance. But all
One day earlier and the action would have smacked directly on the scar he’d removed he felt was blandness: porridge and cream biscuits and under-steeped tea.
mere hours earlier. It stalled him momentarily, marveling at the absence of what had He reached for her hand across the table, brimming with objections: he hadn’t seen
been there for so long. Pansy in so long, a wedding wasn’t the place for those kinds of reintroductions, his
“What is that?” she asked, a stiff jerk of her hand towards the paper he now held. annoyance at Astoria’s own sister for suggesting Pansy distance herself from him,
He raised a brow, in too good a mood to be put off by whatever had soured her so and how he didn’t know how to be her friend anymore.
severely. With the benefit of hindsight, he might have acknowledged how much of his own
“Is snark still disallowed, or shall I explain what a periodical is?” history was tied up with Pansy’s, and how horrified the idea of confronting all that
“Table the snark, Malfoy. Page three. What is that announcement?” made him.
“I trust you ladies to make these decisions,” he said in lieu of the truth.
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Astoria smiled, but Narcissa raised a brow. “Don’t insult your first conquest.”
“You don’t want any input in your own wedding?” she asked. She made a humming sound, sitting back up. She rolled her neck, stretching as if
Lucius made a sound from behind his paper but didn’t contribute anything else. she’d been lounging for hours and not the scant handful of seconds she’d spent
Draco didn’t miss the sharp look Narcissa sent in his direction, despite the fact that pretending to rest.
Lucius couldn’t even see it from behind a headline about Potter’s exploits in the “My first of many.”
Department of Magical Law Enforcement. On the topic of conquests, Draco couldn’t help but include himself in that count.
“I trust your opinion,” he told her, taking a sip of his own tea to drown what he She popped up from the couch, crossing the room with such speed he wondered if
would have rather said. she’d used magic to propel herself. She stopped in front of his bookcase.
Specifically, he would rather have told her that he very much wanted input on his “You have books.”
own wedding. Lots and lots of input. Particularly over his choice of bride. But Obviously. But there was something so earnest in her tone that any snide responses
without that, where was the point in the rest of it? evaporated in his mouth, leaving something only partly playful.
“I do know how to read.”
“The snark’s not necessary, Draco.” She smiled as she said it, fingers trailing the
spines of several books in front of her.
And even though she wasn’t even looking at him, certainly wasn’t touching him, he
“You’re in a foul mood,” Granger said—casually, simply, far too easily—as she set could feel her observation. He could feel her fingertips, grazing book spines or his
a stack of books on the table. own, it felt the same. Reading the titles felt like reading him, knowing him. He could
Draco counted as he exhaled, staring at the word anticlockwise in the book in front feel the prick and tingle of scrutiny shooting a thrill through him: a surge from being
of him, before he looked up at her. Of course he was in a foul mood; he’d had to seen. These were his books. Not the manor’s. Mostly potions texts, a few on
discuss his impending nuptials over breakfast. Furthermore, several scars across his herbology, an odd novel or two. Hardly a complex collection, but things he’d chosen
torso wouldn’t stop burning. to bring with him when he moved and that felt like it mattered.
“And?” he asked, seriously considering Occlumency. It could be worth the “I rather think the snark is essential to my personality, actually.”
unsettled stomach and the foggy head. That he spoke at all was a bit of a miracle, dry throat trying to hold the words in.
“Just an observation,” she said with a shrug. Her hand dropped, fingers finished in their exploration. It felt like a loss. She
“I doubt that. You’re hardly subtle.” turned away from the bookshelf, facing him again.
He tried to return to his book, the word anticlockwise sticking in his brain, he “Do you like fiction?”
couldn’t seem to get past it every time he tried. She wanted to interrupt again; he “I do.”
could feel it crackling in the silence around them. She bit her lip, a litany of thoughts rushing across her face.
“Can I borrow these?” she asked. “Do you—would you—read muggle fiction?”
Draco lifted a brow and glanced over his book. Draco didn’t know if that offended him or not. Perhaps it should? Or perhaps it
“Sure, Granger.” didn’t matter? Was the point that she thought he might not read muggle fiction? Or
She didn’t return to her work, still standing across from him, probably staring at his did it matter more that she thought he might be willing to try? All he knew was that
failed attempts at reading, if he had to guess. With a heavy sigh, he conceded and he wanted to touch that bottom lip of hers, taste it, take it for himself and wrench
closed his book. whatever lovely sounds he could from her in the process, books be damned.
“Yes?” “I’m not opposed, no.”
“I’m done.” She didn’t elaborate. Instead, she smiled, lips spreading wide.
“Done?” He had to get her out of his home. She’d already generated enough fantasy fodder
“With the library.” to last him a lifetime. He couldn’t take it anymore.
Draco’s brow furrowed. He let his eyes sweep the enormous space. It didn’t seem “We should head back,” he said.
possible. Her eyes widened.”I’m supposed to be working.”
“Are you certain?” he asked. She looked like someone had just prophesied her early death, color dropping out of
She propped her hands on her hips, indignation shooting to the surface of her her face, horror spelled in the soft ‘O’ made by her mouth.
features. Draco laughed, even when she frowned at him for doing so. Gods, it was so
“Of course I am. I’ve been working on this one room for almost three months.” fucking earnest, so precious, so beautiful he could hardly stand it.
His brows lifted, no longer suspicious, but confused. “I won’t tell if you won’t, Granger.”
“Has it been that long?”
“It has.”
 110 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 75

her. Day after day, her proximity grew exhausting, overwhelming, tangible in a way He hummed a noncommittal noise.
he couldn’t explain. “You’re not occluding are you?” she asked, pressing her hands on the tabletop and
He needed a break from the overwhelming want of her: her acceptance, her leaning over it. Far too similar an action to when she’d nearly crawled on top of it,
friendship, her laugh, her pretty fucking lips. His father would be furious if he found whispering about riding dragons.
out Draco had left her to her own devices. But on the extensive list of things that “What are you doing?”
made his father furious, a little autonomy for Hermione barely registered when “Trying to get a closer look at your eyes. That’s where I can see it best.”
Draco had things like familial duty and failed marriage contracts to consider. Draco blinked. Rapidly. A feeling of exposure, of being scraped raw: fresh skin,
He shrugged.”I trust you.” bleeding gums, and exposed gray matter.
She paused, eyes catching on what probably looked like chaos in stasis around him. “I’m not occluding.” He looked towards the window, ignoring her huff at his
“What are you doing?” uncooperativeness.
“Moving my potions setup to my flat. I—don’t like being here more than I need to “Then what is it with you today?”
be.” “I’m reading.”
He could have told her about breaking off his betrothal then. It was but one of “You’re silent. You haven’t made fun of my hair once. And I tripped earlier; you
many opportunities he’d had in the last month. But he couldn’t do it. Every time he didn’t make a single comment about my lack of grace. I thought we’d—I don’t know.
thought he might, he hid from it. Telling her felt like placing expectations on her, like Exited the Cold War already.”
there was some unspoken thing they’d agreed upon that said his betrothal was the “Granger, what on earth makes a war cold?”
problem, the thing holding so much at bay. But being unspoken meant that there was She shook her head, “that’s not what I meant—”
the very real possibility that he’d only imagined it, assumed it. Being almost-friends “And this isn’t a social call,” he said, interrupting her. “You’re here to work. I’m
with her without the weight of his looming nuptials could be enough. here to supervise.” And if he repeated that enough, maybe it could start looking like
The problem, though, was that he knew it wouldn’t be. Because while he didn’t the truth.
have expectations, he had wants. So fucking many of them. Most of them involving She was kind of pretty when he made her mad. And he shouldn’t notice things like
his mouth and her skin. Her lips and his cock. Her head and his heart. that.
“Would you like some help?” She propped her hands on her hips again. She’d reeled like he’d said something
With getting the image of you, naked and bent over one of these tables, out of my head? Yes. horrible. He’d only meant for it to be the truth.
That runaway thought stole his ability to answer with anything but a strangled, “Well, I’m done working in here. The library is finished.”
“Sure.” “I suppose you can go, then.” He pushed, needing distance. She was too close.
Which was how he ended up with Hermione Granger in his fucking flat. “It’s only three in the afternoon—”
Hermione helped Draco move several cauldrons and a fair few more boxes of He pushed harder. “Take the rest of the day.”
ingredients into the room he’d set aside in his flat for brewing. She worked diligently, He didn’t even bother offering a reason or an excuse. He tried to make it sound
methodically, and as if helping him move his potions set up was the most important like an order from an employer to an employee, which wasn’t technically the nature
thing about her being there. Draco had difficulty separating her actual purpose from of their relationship, but it was the only thing he could think of.
the strange and overwhelming intimacy of having her in his home. Her lips pressed together, rolling between her teeth as she repressed whatever it
This place was his, not his family’s. It felt like cracking open a part of himself and was she wanted to say.
letting her peek inside. He’d only ever had Theo and Blaise over. And now Hermione He prepared to push again, too fascinated with her mouth in that moment. He’d
Granger could be added to that limited list. Brilliant as she was, he knew she’d see spent the morning planning his fucking wedding. He couldn’t be distracted by
the differences. Dark grain wood floors that echoed in a key entirely unlike granite Hermione Granger’s mouth.
and tile. Bright white walls and high ceilings, as far from masonry and brocade She pushed instead.
wallpapers as he could find. Green and black and silver, bookcases and broomsticks, “Fine.” She forced the words out through a clenched jaw. And when she left, she
a grandfather clock with a miniature snitch zipping behind the glass face: light and forgot the books she’d wanted to borrow.
life and everything he could think of to make a space entirely him, entirely unlike the
manor.
With the last box ferried through the Floo, Hermione collapsed on the green velvet
sofa in his main living room, helping herself to his hospitality, it seemed. She smiled,
giving the cushion beside her a fond sort of pat.
“My old friend,” she said wistfully, leaning over and letting her head rest again the
arm. From where Draco stood near the fireplace, he heard her stifle a giggle. “It’s not
very comfortable, is it?”
 Beginning and end 109

-2.500, -2.583, -2.666 “I hope you did it for her—is what I mean to say,” Theo added with a shrug.
“Blaise might be the only Seer amongst us, but I have a good feeling about the two
of you.” Theo paused, then shuddered. “And please don’t make me repeat that. It
AUGUST was hard enough to say the once.”
Draco felt his eyes widening, brows furrowing, confusion and disbelief and
something distinctly grateful winding its way around his throat, choking his response.
Theo settled against the back of the chaise, a forced and familiar air of nonchalance

T
ICK overtaking his demeanor. “This is boring. Is this what it’s like watching me try to
The Cold War, Draco learned from Theo who’d learned from Granger break into my family vault?”
during their afternoon in Diagon Alley together, was a sort of war without any Theo’s nonchalance—a shift executed with practiced ease—suggested a strange,
fighting. It was a muggle thing, had something to do with the Russians and the unlikely approval of Draco’s situation with Granger, denied for so long.
Americans. Draco tuned most of it out, hung up on the fact that Theo and Granger “This is much more exciting. Granger actually accomplishes something,” he said,
had become friendly. So friendly that they’d met up for lunch in Diagon Alley and knowing Theo would take offense.
then spent an afternoon shopping and boyfriend hunting.
That last part certainly didn’t bother Draco at all. And he most certainly didn’t feel
any relief when Theo clarified that they’d been hunting for a boyfriend for him,
without luck, apparently. Draco mostly couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that
Hermione Granger had no problem spending time, in public, with Theodore Nott. Even with shrinking and featherlight charms, packing up and moving the manor’s
“Did people not stare at you?” Draco asked, regaining his composure after having haphazard potions lab turned out to be no small task. Draco kept finding vials he’d
nearly spluttered his wine across the chessboard between them. forgotten about: all manner of colorful concoctions he couldn’t remember if he’d
Theo poked his knight; it seemed reluctant to move, perhaps sensing an impending already tested. He couldn’t even confidently identify many of them. In a month’s-
capture by Draco’s castle. long string of iterative potions experimentation, fuschia, magenta, mauve, and
“Some. But she said people stare at her anyway. And it’s not like I’ve never been maroon all started to look the same, mean the same. Knowing Draco’s luck, at least
stared at before, at least once someone realizes who I am.” one would burn a hole straight through his skin.
The knight finally moved, a begrudging trip to its new square. The cauldrons were complicated. He couldn’t move them with active brews, which
“And that wasn’t—uncomfortable?” meant finishing all his experiments and resisting the urge to start new ones until he’d
Draco captured the knight, placing Theo’s king in check. Theo sighed, but when set up a new lab in his flat. It would be worth it though, for the independence, for
Draco looked at him he had his head tilted, the beginnings of a smirk twitching at his the space he needed.
mouth as he tapped a shard of his fallen knight against the board. “I had to ask Topsy where you were.”
“These questions aren’t selfishly motivated in any way, are they?” Theo asked, Draco startled, nearly dropping the cauldron he’d been levitating. He brought it to
moving a bishop to protect his king. rest on the workbench and turned to find Hermione at the entrance to his lab—or,
No. what would imminently be his former lab.
Of course not. He smiled, mostly against his will.
Absolutely absurd. “I’m sure she was honored to assist you.”
“Because if they were,” Theo continued, entirely unaffected when Draco captured Hermione’s mouth twisted and her shoulders sank. He saw the tiny twitch towards
his bishop. “I’d only have supportive things to say.” a smile at the edge of her lips, betraying her.”Overwhelmingly so.”
Theo paused, the sincerity of his words seemingly catching up with him, and then “She has a touch of hero-worship: causes me indigestion. Or perhaps she’s
grimaced. considering nesting in your hair.”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Draco said. Hermione rolled her eyes and took a step into the space with him, curious eyes
Theo flicked a piece of his shattered bishop at Draco. “I’ve just suffered sincerity scanning the room as she tried to hide her grin with a very unconvincing scowl.
for you. You can at least admit it.” “You’re not concerned I’ll ruin your ancestral home today?” She glanced at her
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Draco’s heart rate had increased; he watch. “I’ve been alone for almost two hours. Who knows what havoc I’ve already
could feel it in his neck, against the collar of his shirt. He moved his castle, clearing wreaked.”
the path for his queen. Checkmate. No, he was not worried in the slightest. She’d probably implode from disgrace at
her failed duty before she did anything even remotely unprofessional. Which could
be interesting to watch. But moving his lab had been an excellent excuse to avoid
 108 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 77

“Does she know?” Theo asked.

“Know what?”
“I’m not generally a very violent person, Draco. But I find myself wanting to hit
you.” After the library, Granger cleared the entire hallway leading away from the Floo
His betrothal. Or rather, lack thereof, then. parlor in a matter of days. Outside of enormous libraries and house elves constantly
“It hasn’t come up—and how do you know anyway?” delivering new trinkets for her to examine, her work could apparently be done in the
Theo breathed a disbelieving sort of laugh. less affected areas of his family home with relative ease.
“Obviously, Pansy told me after Daphne told her after Astoria told her after you It wasn’t that they were back in their Cold War—or whatever other muggle
apparently told her you didn’t want to marry her over a lovely crudité and tea service, comparisons she wanted to make about the state of their working relationship—but
you fucking twat.” more that Draco simply couldn’t decide how to behave around her. He oscillated
Draco had his eyes glued on the door across from them, newly invested in Granger between heavy occlusion to chip away every unwanted emotion—substantially less
taking as long as she needed to decommission that particular room. irritation these days, and substantially more of something else—and concerted efforts
“What happened to only having supportive things to say?” Draco asked, turning to Theo to have normal, civil conversations with her.
and hissing the words in as low a whisper as he could manage. It was both more comfortable and significantly less hassle to try and act as if they
“Me being supportive and you being a twat aren’t mutually exclusive—Oh, weren’t Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy when they interacted. But he couldn’t
afternoon, Granger.” maintain that illusion when he realized she’d started wearing long sleeves, even in the
Draco’s eyes snapped back up. Granger had exited her room and stood at the heat, to cover her scar. Nor could he forget such things when the same heat made
doorway with her head tilted, looking at them with curiosity. him want to roll up his own sleeves, only to be reminded of the hideous brand on his
“Question for you, Granger: whales?” arm. The worst, though, were the times when he felt a bolt of something entirely
She blinked, blank with confusion before she smiled. inappropriate towards her, making pretend niceties an impossibility to maintain. They
“Whales?” became Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy again: emphasis insurmountable.
“Yes. Do muggles believe in those?” “We should move to a different wing,” he said, trying to reroute her after she
“Yes, Theo.” finished dampening the dark magic attached to a bust of Lucius Malfoy I. According
Theo made a thoughtful noise. “Interesting.” to her ever-present diagnostic runes, it was the last object in the corridor leading
She laughed, shook her head, and then walked to the next room. from the parlor that required her attention.
“I’ve got work to do so I’ll just leave you two to—” Today, he’d tried avoiding occlusion, but he wouldn’t last much longer if she
“Yes, yes, Granger. You’re a very busy woman, don’t let us keep you.” insisted on tackling the south hall.
Draco must have dropped into an alternate reality, inter-dimensional travel, a “This is the next logical place to clear,” she said, shoving up one of her sleeves—
dream world. The door clicked behind Granger, and he turned back to Theo. the right one—before she paused, pulling it back down again.
“Whales?” “That’s the guest wing,” he said.
“Muggles don’t think dragons are real. Makes me wonder what other animals they They stood facing a long hallway. At the end, a set of stone stairs led to two other
don’t believe in.” floors, one up and one down. Several doors and archways punctuated otherwise
“Whales aren’t magical.” blank swaths of stone wall. Draco’s skin prickled just looking at it.
“They breathe air but live underwater. And muggles don’t know about kelpies; I’m “What does that matter?” She threw her question over her shoulder as she marched
fairly certain whales and kelpies are related. And then there’s business at Loch Ness.” into the hallway, ignorant to his misgivings.
“There aren’t enough hours in the day for you to pick up a magical creatures “We’ve had”—Draco took a step forward, tangentially pleased his stomach didn’t
hobby, too.” immediately drop—”many unpleasant guests. Especially during the war.”
“Maybe that’s what I made that time-turner for.” That stopped her, one foot hovering before it finally came down on the stone
Draco sighed. Theo was in one of those moods. He did not relish having to reign in floor. A number of paces ahead of him, she turned, swallowing.
his focus. “Unpleasant guests?”
“About me being a twat?” “Him. His people.”
Theo lifted his brows as if to say you brought it up, not me. Granger had the good grace to look unsettled. This may have been the entire
“Did you do it for her?” purpose of why the Ministry had sent her here, but this hall was something else—
“I’m not—Theo, don’t.” something more. No one used it, not in years, not since then. There was no rush to
“I’m neither blind nor an idiot. And I’m friends with both of you now. I see things.” subject themselves to it.
“Theo she’s not—I doubt she’d ever.” Draco’s shoulders sank, words stalling. He tried to elaborate. “I believe my father really did make an effort to bring as
many cursed objects we knew about to you, especially from this hall. But I anticipate
 78 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 107

it will still be extremely unpleasant. There’s at least one room on the next floor that Granger’s frustratingly optimistic voice floated through his head, suggesting that his
we haven’t been able to open since the war.” life did not have to operate in ultimatums. That he could be his family’s heir and still
“So what do you suggest?” she asked. have some measure of control over the path his life took. Especially now, after
“There are several other wings that need attention.” already having surrendered so much control for so long. It seemed like the sort of
“This is my job.” reasonable optimism she would spew.
“Oh, is it? How disappointing. I was under the impression these were social calls.” But Granger’s logic had no place in a meeting with Lucius Malfoy. Logic and
She rolled her eyes, hands finding her hips.”I know what I’m doing.” tradition did not mix. Ultimatums and history did not listen to reason.
“I know—I know you do. I’m just—suggesting an overabundance of caution, Draco bit his tongue, holding his treasonous words inside.
perhaps delay this part of the manor for a while more.” Lucius dismissed him, and the tightness in his face looked more like
She didn’t budge. Not even an inch. She didn’t even dignify his concerns with a disappointment than anything else. It sank something inside Draco’s chest; even
response. She just stood there, brows raised, eyes narrowed, heels dug in as deep as when he won, he lost. He’d clawed himself out of one pit only to stumble into
she could get them: a vision of stubbornness. another.
Finally, “Please let me do my job.” He paused at the door. He wondered.
His teeth clicked together as his jaw snapped shut. Stubborn fucking witch. Change didn’t have to be their enemy.
“Fine.” Did Lucius even know how hard he fought it?
He sighed, conjured a chair for himself, and tried to bury his anxiety in potions
theory.

“I distinctly remember being told I’d have a part in this process,” Theo said as he
sat next to Draco in the middle of a November afternoon. Granger had been
working inside the room across from his chaise for the last forty-five minutes, and
The problem was in separating the curse from the flesh. Simple in theory, a Draco had started growing twitchy, resisting the urge to check up on her. Knowing
complete cunt in practice. If Draco could get the curse to release its grip on the skin, she’d be annoyed by his overbearing concern—her words, not his—kept him
then the rest of the healing would only require a bit of scar paste. Everything he’d reluctantly rooted to his seat.
tried thus far had resulted in burns and scabs and dark magic fighting back, staking “Afternoon, Theo. Welcome to my home.”
ownership over the scarred skin and reacting violently at the suggestion it vacate. “Not exactly your home. Not anymore.”
Draco crossed several items off his list of rare potions ingredients, already “Semantics.”
foreseeing unpleasant reactions with the base healing potion he’d been using. He’d Theo snatched the book from Draco’s hands and tossed it on the floor, where it
have to place a few special orders to acquire those that had promise; many were slid along granite tiles with an obscene sort of scraping sound. Draco blinked,
hardly things grown in his family greenhouses. Perhaps Theo would have some at his watching as it finally came to a stop several feet away.
Estate. “What the fuck was that for?” Draco asked, rising, only to fall back down,
“Malfoy,” Granger spoke from nearby. stumbling from a jelly-legs jinx. “Theo.”The threat in his tone landed flat, mostly
He drew a line through an entire paragraph of exceptionally unhelpful herbs, not exasperated.
looking up. He hadn’t expected to hear from her for hours, honestly. She’d been so “We need to talk,” Theo said as if this were a perfectly reasonable way to initiate a
determined to force this hall into submission. conversation.
“Hmm?” he offered as he paused, considering the implications of acquiring and “And my book was an impediment to that?”
adding dragon’s blood to the current iteration of his brew. “And since you haven’t actually invited me to be here”—he spoke over Draco’s
“Malfoy.” Her voice came softer. He sighed. He’d finally settled into his work after question, gesturing around them—”I’ve taken it upon myself to ‘distract you,’ isn’t
she’d insisted on tackling these particularly unpleasant rooms. that how you put it?”
“Yes?” he asked, making a point this time to continue evaluating the list of “Theo—”
ingredients in front of him. “And what excitement to witness, wouldn’t you say? This corridor, thrilling. You
“Draco.” reading, I can hardly contain myself—”
That got his attention, head snapping up, torn from his work with an almost violent “Theo—”
force: stunned by the use of his given name. “Where’s Granger?”Theo’s tone dropped, performative pitch abandoned in favor
He dropped his list, scrambled to his feet, and cancelled the transfiguration on his of something suddenly serious. Facing moderate whiplash from Theo’s shift, Draco
chair all in the span of a single gasp. Granger cradled her right arm. The veins nodded dumbly towards the door across from them.
 106 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 79

“You weren’t going to—after Astoria and I—” beneath her skin glowed a bright, angry red, creeping and crawling up her forearm
“I had no intention of sabotaging a year’s worth of negotiations because you said and her bicep. Her sleeve had been cut open, probably a slicing hex she’d done to
something idiotic. But the girl clearly convinced her father—” assess the damage. Her fingers and her hand glowed almost entirely red: webs of
“—Because neither of us wanted it—” Draco broke off, blanching. He held a bright red veins. Draco’s stomach flipped; her fingers seized, rigid muscle that
breath deep in his lungs, appalled at himself for interrupting, knowing it would only wouldn’t relax. The tension in her hand hurled him back in time, memories of his
worsen his father’s mood. own fingers torqued in agony under the Cruciatus. His head spun from the sudden
“The Greengrasses are a fine, respectable family.” need for Occlumency.
A beat. Draco took the silence to mean he should respond. Her voice didn’t even tremble when she spoke, low and a little bit breathy. He
“She didn’t want to marry me, either, Father.” didn’t miss the glassiness in her eyes though, tears about to fall.
“The point of a betrothal is that it isn’t a choice. It is a strategic partnership “I’ve stopped the spread,” she said. “But I’m not familiar enough with this type of
between families.” blood curse to reverse it.”
A knuckle in Draco’s left hand cracked, distractingly loud in the large office. He “Why are you so calm?” Draco asked, not sure what else to do. Should he touch
hadn’t even been aware of how hard he’d clenched his hand into a fist. There were her? Should he give her space? His whole body had stalled in panic, in indecision. He
several things Draco wanted to say. He took a breath, and with past regrets and leaned deeper into his Occlumency, trying to freeze out the heat of panic, trying to
future hopes battling for attention, Draco said one of them. slow his heart’s frantic beating.
“I’m not available to act as a pawn in games of strategy, Father.” “I’m not calm. I’m actually feeling really unsteady—could you please help me to
Lucius laughed a liquid, toxic laugh that washed over Draco’s skin and burned away the Floo? I need to go to St. Mungo’s.”
his confidence. She’d said one thing, but acted completely the opposite.
“It was difficult enough to broker that match. With the Parkinson girl out of the “You—this is you not calm? In an emergency?”
picture it will be difficult to find another household willing to marry into ours.” Right, an emergency. He finally moved, wrapping her good arm around his waist
Draco had been completely ignored. So he said another of the many things he and hating the inappropriate thrill that tensed his muscles and sent heat rushing up
wanted to say. his spine. He cast a featherlight charm on her and she immediately sagged in what he
“That predicament is our own doing.” hoped was relief over not having to hold up as much of her own weight.
Lucius didn’t respond. It was as if Draco had no voice, or that his voice had no She held her jaw tight. A tear broke from her lids but she barely blinked,
sound. determination evident in every measured breath, every step she took for herself.
“You’ve accepted more responsibility in the family affairs. The account you’re If this was Hermione Granger not calm, The Dark Lord never stood a fucking
managing, how is it performing?” chance.
“Well.”
Barely. He tracked profits and margins almost as obsessively as he brewed his
experimental potions. It was boring, dull, tedious work. It meant a parliament of owls
to and from Gringotts and subscriptions to several herbology periodicals to
familiarize himself with his investments. He’d considered owling Neville Longbottom
in one or two moments of exceptional frustration. He barely had a profit to show for “Why are you here?” Granger asked, entering the waiting area at St. Mungo’s where
any of it. But this was the one piece of involvement in the family affairs he’d been Draco had spent almost three hours, bored out of his mind. He sat, he stood, he
given. So he handled it. He tried to appreciate and enjoy it. occasionally paced, irritating the nurses who wouldn’t tell him a damn thing. But he’d
“You aren’t allowed both, Draco.” also been too worried he would miss her if he left to get a book or something else to
He blinked. Confused at what his father meant, but a hot flush behind his ribs felt occupy his racing mind.
like a warning. So instead, he engaged in extremely reluctant waiting, thoughts spiraling to all
“You will either accept your role as heir to this household and all that it entails, or manner of grotesque ways the blood curse had mangled Granger’s arm.
you don’t.” She looked perfectly fine. More than that, surprised to find him there.
All that it entails. The wife he did not want. The business that did not interest him. “I was waiting for you,” he said. He rose from his chair, resisting every impulse to
And yet, the only paths to belonging. reach for her right hand and examine it. But from where he stood it looked
And if I don’t want all that it entails? He wanted to say it, he could feel it—just there— completely normal. She flexed her fingers as he watched. Why did she still look so
poised on a traitorous tongue. But he’d already delivered so much disrespect, upset confused?
his father in so many ways. There were limits, lines that could not be crossed no “But—why did you wait for me?”
matter how much he wanted to cross them, just to see the other side. A chill raced down Draco’s spine, coldness that had nothing to do with
Occlumency. He hadn’t engaged those defenses since the healers whisked Granger
 80 Mightbewriting

away, leaving him to focus on controlling his breathing. As such, standing in front of
her now, he was completely himself. This left the door open for what felt
-2.250, -2.333, -2.416
suspiciously like mortification, carried by the implication that he shouldn’t have
waited. Was it inappropriate? Had he overstepped? NOVEMBER
He slid his hands in his pockets, trying to resist the urge to fiddle with his cuffs or
shuffle from foot to foot. He fought the desire to request she roll up her repaired
shirtsleeve and prove his family home hadn’t permanently maimed her.

T
He cleared his throat.”You were harmed at my family’s estate, Granger. It felt like OCK
appropriate decorum to ensure you were alright. I—apologize, if you’d rather I Three weeks of waiting slipped by before Lucius finally summoned
leave—” Draco to his office. It came as no surprise, Draco had been expecting it—
“No.” She almost reached out, at least that’s what he inferred from the small jerk in waiting for it—since the moment his mother had lifted her hand in complete fury
her arm and shoulder, but she stopped herself. “I just—didn’t expect it.” and disappointment. Three weeks of stunted, almost-nonexistent conversations at
“Are you?” he asked. “Alright? That is, are you alright?” breakfasts and dinners. Three weeks of riling Granger while watching her work and
She crossed her body with her left arm, massaging her right forearm where the finally feeling like a free, normal person in her presence. He knew, but hadn’t fully
curse had been just hours before. But she smiled, something reassuring, something realized, how much effort it had taken for him to occlude most of his days away, or
warm. pretend not to think half the thoughts he had. The absence of that effort left room
“Oh, yes—I am. It was a pretty run-of-the-mill blood curse. I’ve been filtered and for so much more living.
replenished. Good as new.” Three weeks of refining his experiments, trying to bind his potions to the theory
“And that’s it?” It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her, but he wanted—needed—to he’d learned from Granger about her diagnostic spells. Three weeks of the scars on
make sure. His whole body practically thrummed with the desire to cross the three his chest burning less and less, fighting back against his attempts at healing them less
feet of distance between them, examine her arm, and then apologize profusely, and less.
possibly on his knees. That was a dangerous thought; he packed it up and put it away, It happened like this:
a little chill. Draco knocked on the heavy paneled door a moment before his father’s voice
“Yes. It’s pretty straightforward, actually. I’m just a little lightheaded from all the carried through it with a sharp, “Enter.”
blood they purged. Blood replenishers take time—I’m sure you know.” He walked into the office with hardly any expectations. He expected a lecture. He
He did. They were an extremely common healing potion. They worked best when expected disappointment. Beyond that, he expected little else.
taken with food and drink. Lucius didn’t look up from the parchments in front of him, and that image echoed
“We’ll get you some food, then,” he said. with a boom, reverberating through Draco’s memory. He’d been here before. Done
“What?” Her left arm fell back to her side; probably a side effect of the shock. Her this before. He took his seat across from Lucius’s desk, waiting for neither direction
eyes had gone wide too, huge expressive orbs practically begging him to make more nor permission.
sense. Silence stretched on the razor-thin edge of one man’s patience and another’s ire.
He felt like he’d been perfectly clear.”Food, Granger. We should get you some Draco felt it, considered the balance, teetering, and let out a breath, enough to totter.
strength, help that blood replenisher along. You are looking rather ghostly. Come “You’re displeased,” Draco said.
on.” Lucius paused, quill against parchment. Draco stared at the grandfather clock
He offered her his arm, an instinct from a different version of himself who didn’t behind the desk, just above his father’s head. He watched the second-hand tick,
have to consider what it might look like for Hermione Granger to walk arm in arm counting the time between his words and his father’s response.
with Draco Malfoy. Another echo rattled through him, one of sand in an hourglass, counting a different
And strangely, unbelievably, inexplicably: she took it. Admittedly, her eyes kind of time.
narrowed once her surprise passed, and she looked like she trusted him less than she Lucius set his quill on the desk and offered Draco the parchment, a sneer twisting
trusted a blast ended skrewt, but she took his arm and walked with him through the his lip to something sour.
hospital halls and out the doors. “The dissolution of your betrothal agreement. It requires your signature.”
He tensed. He couldn’t help it; every ounce of his self-awareness had been Draco didn’t look at the parchment. Instead, he watched his father’s face, trying
narrowed down to the pressure of her hand gripping his forearm and the warmth not to shrink under the withering discontent he found there. Finally, he glanced
from the crook of her elbow radiating through his shirtsleeve. He didn’t comment on down at the parchment in his hands.
the wobble he felt in her steps, on how it became clear, as they stepped onto the “This was initiated by the Greengrass Estate.”
footpath outside St. Mungo’s, that she’d benefited from his steady arm. “Of course it was.”
 104 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 81

Narcissa finally relented with a terse and quiet, “You may go,” eyes fixed on a slice He tried to ask his question in as matter-of-fact way as possible; the last thing he
of melon in front of her. wanted was for her to think he intended to make fun of her. His house had attacked
He met Granger halfway down the corridor heading to the wing they’d been her, for the second time, no less. He’d have to be tremendously cruel to layer casual
working in the week prior. Her steps echoed heavily through the space, evidence of insults on top of that. And maybe he had been at one time, but that was before he’d
an annoyed stomp. had casual cruelty lobbed at him on a regular basis. Perspective had a revelatory magic
“You’re late,” she said, and not in a teasing way. It sounded more like an to it, he’d realized.
accusation, like a hex she meant to hurl. “How far do you think you can walk?”
And rather than a reasonable response, Draco fell into old, familiar habits. It was Inconveniently, St. Mungo’s just happened to sit in the middle of muggle London.
so easy to do without the Occlumency, without the betrothal, without anything “I’m—” she started. Her grip on his arm tightened, a beat, and then loosened
controlling him. She tapped her foot, watching him like she half expected him to jinx again. Draco looked ahead, resolute in his commitment to let her have privacy in
her. She had her wand in her hand, knuckles flushing as she flexed her grip around it. whatever battle against her limits she needed to have. “I’m not up for walking very
Her hair had taken on a life of its own. far.”
“Your hair looks like a pixie’s nest.” It wasn’t what she meant, but for some reason, those words had the same effect on
She rolled her eyes and let out a frustrated breath, turning and marching away from Draco as if she’d said I trust you with my life. Granger had just admitted to a weakness,
him. She threw her response over her shoulder, voice tight and bordering on shrill. no matter how small, and evidently trusted him not to take advantage of that. He
“Real mature, Malfoy.” almost laughed at how utterly unbelievable such trust would have been mere months
Admittedly, it had not been exceptionally mature. But it also felt oddly like the first earlier.
time he’d really spoken to her, out from under someone else’s thumb. It elated him. Draco considered his options, which had essentially been limited to whatever was
It was hardly as if he could open with I ended my betrothal because I realized I couldn’t in his line of sight.
keep doing what everyone else told me to do. But I also ended it, in very large part, because I can’t “Do you like Italian, Granger? It looks like there’s a place on the corner up there.”
stop thinking about how you’ve practically moved into my home, into my head, into the space inside Her grip tightened again.”It—it will be muggle,” she said, voice quiet.
my chest I might tentatively call my fucking heart. “Well that’s—fine.” He struggled with the words because he knew she wouldn’t
Instead, he insulted her hair and laughed at the way she stomped away. He rolled believe him, not because of the principle of the thing. Sure enough, he could see her
his eyes when she did something utterly exasperating. He stood too close and listened head angling in his periphery, probably seeking confirmation that he meant what he’d
carefully as she cast her spells and performed her diagnostics, learning whether she said.
wanted him to or not. He let her huff at him and correct his wand movements when He turned and met her gaze. He’d expected suspicion but saw something more like
he imitated her incorrectly. He called her a swot when she forced him to listen to the wonder. He had to pack that away too, lest it double him over with an uncanny sense
entire history of her diagnostic spells because apparently the context was important. of satisfaction that wove between his fibrous parts that sometimes felt like they may
He let himself enjoy the warm vanilla scent of her—shampoo? Lotion? Perfume? unravel at the seams.
And he let the day pass, rife with banter and frustration and relatively tense “It’s—fine?” she asked.
conversation, because it finally felt like the first they could have without everything “Yes. I—ah, started carrying more muggle money on me in Sarajevo. Magical
else getting in the way. He didn’t say a thing about his betrothal, or lack thereof. spaces aren’t as separate there. It, well, seemed like a smart thing to do here, too. Just
He simply existed, for the first time in a long time, for himself. in case.” He reached into his trouser pocket to pull out his wand and his billfold,
unshrinking it.
She might have let go of him then, if only for a moment, to make it easier for him
to cast his spell and fumble with his money, but she remained firmly in place. If
anything, she leaned more heavily into him. He suspected she might be struggling
more than she wanted to admit.
He held out a handful of bills to show her.
“Do you think this would suffice?”
Her hand shot out to the muggle money, shoving it down.”Merlin, Malfoy.
Don't—my gods, put that away. You could probably buy the whole restaurant with
all that.” She laughed, but her pitch crept towards hysteria. She swayed.
He indulged in a frown as he returned his billfold to his pocket and led them down
the block.
 82 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 103

“Oh, don’t pout, Malfoy,” she said. He could see her smiling up at him from the “Not now, Mother,” he said, a thrill of independence shooting through him. “I’m
corner of his eye. He did not, could not, look. “Did you not pay attention while taking a moment to be in charge of my own life.”
Gringotts converted your galleons? That was a lot of money.” Astoria looked to Narcissa, searching for something. Draco didn’t flinch, didn’t
He simply raised a brow and tilted his head towards her, just enough that she’d be move. He gave Astoria his entire focus, waiting for her to return to the conversation
able to see, but not enough that he’d have to look into her eyes, not from this that could only happen between the two of them, regardless of how much
proximity. involvement his mother might prefer. Her fingers flexed beneath his own as she
She snorted a laugh, grip on his arm holding strong as he opened the door for her, looked back to him.
leading her inside the restaurant. He’d already dug himself too deep, he kept shoveling: “I don’t know you. I have no
reason to know you outside of this arrangement. And I’m sure you’re lovely. From
what I’ve seen you clearly are but—”
“I wouldn’t have picked you.”
Her words came out strong, certain, and relieved. It felt like the first truly genuine
It was sometime after the appetizer arrived that Draco experienced a complete thing to exist between them.
system meltdown in what felt like a very literal sense. Even without actively engaging “I’d like the opportunity to pick,” he said. “Wouldn’t you?”
in Occlumency, there were still things he’d frozen out, chipped off, packed away. She nodded and released a shallow, nervous breath. Draco almost felt bad; he’d
And those things, so diligently ignored for so long—months, probably—flew from effectively just blown up her life. Only through sheer luck of circumstance had she
their hiding places, molten, and rejoined the flow of blood pulsing through his veins. agreed to it.
It happened as he stared at their fried zucchini blossoms, which irritated him probably He released her hands and sat back, creating space but feeling closer to her than he
more than they should. ever had. He turned to his mother.
“Sometimes they’re stuffed with cheese, Malfoy. I’m surprised Blaise hasn’t made Narcissa stood very still, controlled breathing moving her chest just enough to
you try them. His family’s Italian, right? They’re delicious,” Granger had said, confirm she hadn’t been stunned. Her lips had nearly disappeared, pressed into a
insisting over the rim of her wine glass. thin, tense line as she seethed. More than that, her eyes searched him: confusion and
Draco enjoyed fine things: fine food, fine wine, fine dining. And the company of anger, like she was looking at a stranger, trying to make sense of what he’d just done,
fine witches. Which was where things fell apart: staring at this absolutely ridiculous who he’d just been.
appetizer, sipping the most expensive red wine available—in what happened to be a “I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Mother.”
not inexpensive restaurant, according to Granger’s protests once she saw the menu— He stood from his seat and bent to give Astoria a kiss on the cheek. He took a half
and in the company of someone he couldn’t entirely deny was a fine witch. step towards his mother to do the same, but stopped as she lifted a single hand, as
He was on a fucking date. quick as a viper strike, warning him not to approach. He dipped his head,
An accidental date. acknowledging, and left the solarium an entire engagement lighter.
And that thought became the key that unlocked whatever room inside his mind
held all the inappropriate things he’d thought about Granger since she’d started
working in his home, flooding his system with a rush of heat. Heat in embarrassed
varieties, fond varieties, and lustful varieties, most distressingly.
All those thoughts that weren’t supposed to be a problem, that he’d tried his best Seeing Granger the day after the luncheon where he effectively lit his life on fire
to ignore, that he’d packed away to deal with at a later date, roared to life inside his and walked away—his first time seeing her since the things that did and did not
head, drowning out the tasteful piano track playing throughout the restaurant. happen in the greenhouses—felt like stepping through a fog that finally cleared.
Apparently this would be the later date, the specific time he’d finally have to manage And the day went horribly.
several identity crises worth of traitorous thoughts: while staring at fried fucking Breakfast with his parents had been a painful, silent affair. Uncomfortable and
zucchini blossoms. awkward, as neither his mother nor father spoke to him. Neither of them
As his eyes bored holes into the appetizer plate between them, Draco tried and acknowledged that he and Astoria had effectively dissolved their betrothal the day
failed to find a part of him that was disgusted, or upset, or otherwise revolted at the prior. Lucius focused on the Daily Prophet with a near deadly force, taking deep,
idea of being in a date-like setting with Hermione Granger. Instead, all he found was calming breaths through his nose, lips only relinquishing their twisted pursing for the
a seed of rebellious pleasure, and an internal chiding that said he couldn’t take it back occasional indulgence in his tea.
now, couldn’t unthink it now that he’d thought it; he wanted to be on a date with Draco couldn’t bring himself to leave until his parents excused him, having already
Granger. grossly exceeded the liberties he could take with their patience. As such, he didn’t
leave the dining room until five minutes after nine, dismissal evolving into a
stalemate over who might speak first.
 102 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 83

greenhouses beyond the rose garden. If he turned his head just so, the glass-paneled He almost excused himself to find a place where he could groan at his own idiocy
roof glinted with a sharp stab of late afternoon sunlight, making it impossible to in private, perhaps hex his own bollocks off for finding himself so deep, so suddenly,
ignore or forget. The damned thing taunted him while he only halfway listened to a and so unwittingly. Evidently, he had a skill for self-delusion.
conversation about string quartets. As it turned out, fried zucchini blossoms were delicious. He couldn’t stop himself
And that would be his life: half-listening to conversations he didn’t care about. from watching Granger’s mouth as she partook. She, in turn, watched him with an
Following a social event schedule. A lovely wife he’d have to learn to love. equal look of curiosity he couldn’t place.
Predictability. Palatability. “You’re left-handed,” she said.
He forced himself to look away from the taunting greenhouse and back at the meal He paused, fork hovering midway between his plate and his mouth.
he shared with his mother and his betrothed. It felt so impersonal, so unreal. Not “I am,” he said, lowering his fork and ignoring his bite.
unlike how it felt to sit and hear his mother tell him the Dark Lord would like for “I haven’t noticed before.”
him to take the Mark, to recoup the favor lost by his father. He tilted his head: face warm, and he wished it was from the cabernet.
Astoria said something about Vivaldi. “You’ve seen me cast plenty of magic for—years.”
Narcissa made a comment about cabernet. She shrugged, sipping her wine. She glanced at his left hand again, resting near his
Draco snapped. plate, still loosely holding his fork. He felt the weight of her gaze as her focus
“Astoria,” he said, turning in his chair to face her more directly. He reached out, travelled up his arm, snagging on his forearm, at the thing they both knew lived
taking her delicate hands in his. His fingers twitched; he might break them. “Do you beneath his sleeve, before continuing upwards: bicep to shoulder to collar to—
want to marry me?” finally—his face.
Her look of befuddlement over his sudden touch compounded, doubled in on itself “I just never noticed.” She almost sounded surprised by her own admission.
as her brows drew together. Her head tilted, and she let out a nervous laugh, baffled, “I suppose I don’t know why you would.”
before she transformed it into that socialite tittering he hated so much. She pulled When, exactly, had Granger gotten pretty? He’d noticed before that she’d changed
herself together quickly, almost easily. since school, but he hadn’t connected those changes to the face in front of him: open
“We’re already engaged,” she said with a smile. She tilted her head towards the and warm and glowing from the candlelight at the center of their table. Flickers of
table between them: scattered with seating arrangements and wine pairing light danced across her freckles, illuminating them not unlike the stars in the sky. He
suggestions. “A bit past engaged, actually.” wanted to reach out and trace every path between them: draw constellations on her
“No—I mean. If you had a choice, would you have picked me?” skin.
Draco tensed at the sharp inhale to his left. His mother’s outrage sliced through his Oh, he was so very fucked.
determination with better efficiency than a well-cast diffindo. He continued despite the He’d never come anywhere close to thinking those kinds of thoughts about
tatters torn into his sails. Astoria. In fact, he’d stayed the length of several Quidditch pitches away from that
“Would I? Draco, you’re my betrothed…” line of thinking, despite all his opportunities at the many luncheons and dinners and
He squeezed her hands and leaned forward, trying to block out the sounds of social events he’d escorted her to.
disapproval coming from the other end of the table where his mother’s surprise had His conversation with Granger stalled in a shockingly similar way to all of his
likely taken a turn towards ire. Draco astonished himself with his own audacity; he attempted outings with his betrothed: swirling in an eddy of awkward glances before
could only imagine his mother’s feelings on the matter. But he’d already started, traveling downstream, towards the waterfall where one of them would have to jump.
already taken this moment, and all the ones that followed, hostage for himself. He The only question Draco wanted to ask, the only conversation he really wanted to
had to ask. He had to know. He had to do something other than sit and agree and take have was entirely inappropriate and far too date-like for his denial, or lack thereof, to
what was handed to him, much as he hated it, with a smile covering his silent dissent. stomach.
He sighed. He was dying to know why she and Weasley had broken up. When he’d first
She had blue eyes, so very similar to his mother’s. learned that fact, months ago during Theo’s birthday, Draco had packed the
“I know we’re betrothed but—I don’t mean to be cruel. But— fuck, I think I’m stemming questions away so quickly it was a miracle he’d had any control over his
going to be. That was a selfish question, I apologize.” He grimaced, fumbled like a occlusion, particularly with alcohol involved.
fool. His mother admonished his use of vile language; he ignored her and forged His other, absolutely-not-date-related, go-to conversation topic was work. Which
ahead. “Perhaps I was hoping your answer would be an emphatic no and that it wasn’t an option, owing to the fact that he probably knew more about her work than
would make it easier for me to say that I would not have chosen you.” anyone else in her life. He had the distinct pleasure of witnessing it, after all. So, that
“Draco!” Narcissa rose from her seat, flatware clattering. Her voice rose just topic toppled off the fucking table.
enough to inform him that she was very, deadly serious. But he could hardly stop He glared at the zucchini blossoms.
now. Like a firestorm, like a flood, like a burst of uncontrolled magic. He could ask her what she liked to do in her spare time.
 84 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 101

Except she’d already admitted once that she had very little of that since she spent have her on every surface in that greenhouse, learning the sighs and sounds she
so much time on her work. Also, that would have been an absolutely pathetic not- reserved for lovers.
date conversation starter. “Experimenting on yourself? With what?” she asked. He knew he didn’t imagine
He revised his desire to be excused; he would also require privacy to throw himself the quiet, breathy tone in her voice.
off the tallest building he could find. It was as if he’d never been on a date before, “I’m trying to extract dark magic from scars. So they can be removed.”
never spoken to this witch in his entire life. He might have shaken himself if not for A flash and crack of thunder drowned out the sound of her surprise: an intake of
the fact that Granger’s impossibly expressive eyes were currently fixed on him with breath he had the pleasure of watching in close proximity.
curiosity. This was not a date, nor could he think of it as one. His mother had assumed he meant the potion for himself. Would Granger think
This was dinner designed for her wellbeing. She needed food to aid her blood the same?
replenishing potions and, because she’d been harmed in his home, he felt a The rain on the glass greenhouse roof reminded Draco of his own heartbeat,
responsibility for her care. hammering inside his ears: thudding erratic and wild.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, finally taking the long-abandoned bite of his Sound seemed to go the way that time had, exiting the space around them, leaving
appetizer. a hollow vacuum where time stood still, and he could nearly hear the sound of
“Better,” she said. “The food is helping. I’m feeling a little less woozy. So, thank Granger’s blinking, of her thinking.
you. This was a good idea.” His right hand moved at the behest of instincts he couldn’t control, fingers finding
She lifted her wine glass, pausing just before the glass touched her lips. Draco her waist in a halting, almost-touch. But she drifted into it, and he to her, and when
found himself envious of a curved rim of glass, so close to her mouth as she spoke. he looked again, they were very nearly touching from head to toe, her hand still on
“The wine might not have been the most medically advisable choice,” she his chest between them.
continued. “But it’s been a long day.” He swallowed: a man hanged by the very last thread of his self-control. With a deep
He lifted his own glass. “I do have good ideas sometimes.” breath or a stiff breeze, his nose would touch hers, his mouth just as close. He
She laughed. “Did you just make use of understatement, Draco Malfoy?” employed every last ounce of his unraveling restraint.
He might have. But his brain had stalled, utterly confunded, at the sound of his given “I need you to tell me to stop,” he said, and the act of bringing those words to life
name spoken so easily from her lips. For the second time that day, in fact. More than almost brushed their lips together. Her eyes fluttered shut and the thread holding him
that, she’d been teasing him. It felt like a spark of fire in his chest, catching on nerves up, away, snapped.
and veins and entire muscle groups, building to a conflagration at his fingertips. Then she opened her eyes again, lips so close to sampling his that her words were
He cleared his throat. traded more by flesh than by air.
“Why dark artifacts?” he asked. “You’re betrothed.”
She looked up from where she’d been tracing patterns against the white tablecloth, And it was like lightning had shattered the glass roof above them, soaking him in
apparently not immune from the novelty of their situation, either. freezing rainwater that restarted time and sharpened his lust-hazed brain.
“Oh, well—I just,” she flustered, blush blooming behind freckles. She released a He stepped back, forcing one foot, then the other, to create space between him and
sigh and settled her hands on the table, tone shifting. “I was stuck—felt stuck. Stuck a bad decision.
in the Magical Creatures Department, stuck with—Ron, too. A lot of things weren’t Fuck.
working quite how I wanted them to. When I ended things with Ron”—Draco
logged that fact with the force of a sledgehammer inside his skull—”I realized I
wanted to have a more immediate effect with my work. This fit.”
“And you enjoy it?”
Of all the stupid, idiotic, imbecilic questions he could have asked. He went with the Astoria and Narcissa had chosen the solarium for their wedding planning luncheon.
one where he inquired as to whether or not she enjoyed her work, stuck in the manor They’d decided not to fuss over warming charms in the crisp October air while they
where she’d once been tortured and now subsequently injured mere hours before. juggled seating arrangements, musical accompaniments, and a wine list longer than
“Very much.” several of the books found in the estate’s library. Narcissa insisted on Draco’s
He might have choked on his wine if he’d been sipping it. presence because of course he should be involved.
“Oh,” he said, disbelief slipping from his mouth before he could stop it. Because Hermione had been very, very correct in her assessment.
Their meals arrived: hers, a creamy saffron risotto, and his, a lamb dish in a He was, in fact, betrothed. Furthermore, he’d somehow ended up exactly where
burgundy sauce. With fresh plates in front of them and dashes of awkward he’d been years ago: in his ancestral home doing what his parents asked of him even
conversation behind them, the looming label of date reasserted itself. when he’d come to realize he did not want to. Or, in this case, never wanted to.
They ate mostly in silence, a few stunted attempts at marveling over their delicious From the solarium windows, designed to immerse a viewer in as much of the
food. Until finally, Granger came up with something else. grounds as possible without leaving the comfort of the manor, Draco could see the
 100 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 85

His head felt sluggish, raw, and like a fwooper had taken up residence, in desperate “Why did you decide to move out of the manor?”
need of a silencing charm. He tried to engage his Occlumency anyway, already He finished slicing his cut of lamb and set his fork and knife down, offering her his
panicked under the weight of her evaluation. undivided attention.
He froze it out and flaked it away; panic left in a shard somewhere deep in his “I’d gotten used to living on my own. While I was abroad I—” he stopped,
subconscious. Granger let the door slam shut behind her and crossed the room grimaced, and restarted. “That’s not—I’m sorry. That’s not entirely true. I just
before he could blink. couldn’t live there anymore. Not with everything that’s happened.”
“Stop it,” she said. “Don’t do that, please just—stop occluding, gods.” Her chest He expected to feel flayed, exposed by such honesty. But instead, it felt a lot like
heaved, a deep breath as she ran her hands through her mass of curls: a quagmire of gasping for air, breaking the surface in a pool of water after being held under for far
twists and turns and spirals he wanted to lose himself in. too long.
He isolated that feeling, too, and flaked it away. “Being abroad,” he continued. “It was good for me.” And he tried to will her to
“Draco, stop. Please,” she put her hand on his, the one holding his shirt together. understand just how good. How he’d finally been able to be someone unrelated to
He flinched away; her skin felt like fire. But even as he dropped his hand, she didn’t, his family legacy. How, from the moment he arrived, he pretended like blood purity
her soft palm coming to rest against his exposed chest. meant nothing to him, a belief already severely fractured by the things he’d seen and
He froze. done and agonized over during the war and his two years under house arrest.
“You’re freezing.” And how, at some point, he stopped having to pretend. And it had been a
He was. marvelous feeling.
Except for where her hand touched him. There, he was molten: churning and “And now you’re back,” she said, perhaps seeing his point, perhaps not.
spilling and spreading. “I am.”
“Please,” she said again, and when it felt like she might pull her hand away, he “And you’re engaged.”
reached up to hold her in place, fingers wrapping lightly around her wrist. His The crescendo towards feeling like he might finally reveal himself clattered a
Occlumency crashed in an avalanche under her order, incapable of denying her. measure too early, banging around inside his head: off-key, off-tempo, off-topic.
She must have recognized the change because she softened, the stiffness in her “I’m—betrothed.”
hand relaxing against his chest. If she branded him with that hand he wouldn’t have “Is that different?” she asked. Her tone had taken on a sharp quality, no longer
minded carrying her mark, better than his other. quite as warm, quite as welcoming.
“I have them, too,” she said. “More than just the one.” She held up her left arm in He shouldn’t say it. He didn’t want to say it.
a weak gesture. She pointed to a thin line on her neck he’d never noticed before. But he said anyway, gods be damned.
“Same knife.” “It’s different to me.”
He blinked. He wondered how long this suspension of reality would last: her hand
on his chest, his holding her wrist, so close he could smell something warm, sweet,
and vaguely vanilla drifting from her hair and skin. It was as if they’d been paused in
time, perhaps a new feature of Theo’s time turner, where they could speak and move
and exist inside a bubble where, for a moment, consequences seemed so very
inconsequential.
“I have one on my chest, too. From the Department of Mysteries. It was a nasty
curse but—Dolohov, he was silenced at the time, so it could have been much
worse.”
I’ll remove that one for you too , he wanted to say. He wanted to erase it all, every
memory, every scar, that made her eyes turn down like that, caught in the
unpleasantness of a past she shouldn’t have had to endure.
“What’s happening to them?” she asked. The pad of her forefinger moved against
his skin, brushing the scar beneath it.
“I’ve been experimenting.”
He held her gaze, trying to ignore the litany of reasons why any measure of
closeness to Granger was a bad idea. How could it be? When her hands lit him on
fire and burned away the fog in his brain. When she looked like goodness, and
wholeness, and hope with a halo of ridiculous curls and a constellation begging to be
drawn across her face. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to
 Beginning and end 99

-2.416, -2.500, -2.583

S E PT E M B E R
Draco couldn’t stand the Occlumency anymore. He tried, but his head ached and
his stomach twisted, clenched and churning. Preemptive pain potions had lost their
efficacy, and even though he’d known that inevitably would eventually strike, he kept

T
OCK turning to his mental wards for protection from everything he wasn’t allowed to
After the incident with the blood curse, Granger elected to leave the think or feel about Granger. He hated that he kept coming back to Occlumency: a
guest wing for another time. Not because she couldn’t handle it—she’d broken second hand on a clock that could tick forward just enough to feel like it had
made a point to inform Draco of that fact—but more because she couldn’t bear his counted time, only to be pulled back down by gravity, exactly where it started from.
redoubled hovering after her unfortunate injury that first day. He excused himself from his supervisory capacities later that afternoon, incapable
“Accidents happen, Draco,” she’d insisted with a huff, gesturing for him to step of staunching the arterial flow of fantasies about Granger. Always Granger, taking up
back. Admittedly, he’d been lingering rather close, watching as she contemplated so much space inside his head.
which room she might try and enter. “It’s an expected part of this job. I’ve been She looked confused when he said he’d be leaving her to finish on her own, but
trained to handle these sorts of things.” A pause, a sigh. “Would it ease your didn’t comment. He saw the quick narrowing of her eyes, assessing his own,
concerns if I tackled a different hall instead?” searching for the occlusion he’d already numbed himself with. She looked
“I’m not concerned.” disappointed, but not altogether surprised, by what she found.
She rolled her eyes.”Obviously not.” He didn’t exactly run through the manor halls, but his walk could certainly be
But she’d abandoned the idea of returning to the guest wing after that. Instead, she deemed brisk. His head throbbed as he pulled back his mental wards, letting heat
moved back to the library, working her way through the adjacent corridor. While flood his veins. He’d grown accustomed to the icy stillness of it. The sudden surge of
Draco made a concerted effort not to hover too closely behind, he still couldn’t quite emotion in his veins nearly scorched him, burning him from the inside out. He’d
shake his unease as he lounged on a settee in the hallway while she worked in one of already undone several buttons of his shirt by the time he stepped into the gardens,
the many flanking rooms. intent on escaping to the greenhouses to check on his many and varied potions
He winced, shifting against his shirt fabric; the placket rubbed uncomfortably ingredients for experimentation.
against a new burn on his chest where a recent attempt at cursed scar removal had A drizzle of rain greeted him. He paused at the door and raised his arm, letting the
failed spectacularly. He crossed moondew off his list of possible ingredients with rain splatter on his outstretched hand. He half expected to hear a hiss, to see the
excessive vigor, quill tip ripping the parchment as his face contorted, a sharp inhale at droplets evaporate into steam and sizzle away from the fire on his skin.
a stab of pain. He cast a water repellent charm and walked to the greenhouses, further dismantling
Considering different ingredient combinations had become Draco’s preferred the remaining Occlumency he’d let consume him. He entered the greenhouse,
distraction technique as Granger worked her way through the corridor adjacent to immediately stifled by the humidity inside.
the library and then started on the second floor. He trailed her, book and parchment One of the scars on his chest throbbed. Draco sighed; he unbuttoned the rest of
in hand, reading and scribbling, contemplating his options, and dodging her curious his shirt and pressed gently against a fading red outline. His worst scar crossed his
questions about what had him so enthralled. ribs on the left side of his body, extensive and painful from his attempt at removal.
It became a helpful method of avoiding his worries that something else in his home He prodded, trying to get a sense for the stage of healing.
might attack her, and more than that, from thinking too long about the unfortunate Despite the slow, slogging process of experimenting—testing and failure, over and
not-date they’d shared the month before. over—Draco saw progress, too, infinitesimal as it was. The scar on his ribs almost
He sighed as a shadow stole the sunlight filtering through the enormous floor-to- looked normal, felt normal. And when he’d tried to remove it with an everyday scar
ceiling window next to his settee, aggravating his reading process. He paused, looking removing solution, it almost worked. Until it started burning from the residual dark
up as he realized what room Granger stood in front of. He’d been dreading this. magic that rebelled against it, of course.
He spoke just as she directed one of her diagnostic runes to the wood panelling on “Why are they so—irritated?”
the door, letting it sink in: purple. Draco’s head snapped up, pulled to the greenhouse entry where Granger stood,
“While I can’t speak for the other rooms in the manor,” he said. “I can assure you door halfway open, eyes wide as she took in the horror show on his chest: silver scars
there’s nothing of interest to you in there.” rimmed in red or purple or blue or green, various stages of trauma and healing with a
few burns scattered in between.
He pulled his shirt closed, clutching the fabric together with his left hand.
Fuck.
 98 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 87

Before he’d tried occlusion, returning to his cold, numb ally, he simply tried to In a made-up, imaginary world, Granger would have taken that at face value,
focus his thoughts on the reasons why they couldn’t really be friends. The drawing perhaps thanked him for saving her some precious time, and moved to the next
room usually came to mind. Horrific memories of her screams, images of her torture. room.
Draco couldn’t ignore or forget that his home, his family, had been so integrally tied That imaginary world did not know of Granger’s impossible curiosity and unending
to the movement that tried to ruin her. The first and most obvious reason why they stubbornness.
couldn’t, shouldn’t, be friends: any association with him would be but a She turned towards him, narrowing her eyes as she tapped her wand against her
reintroduction of a disease she’d already survived. thigh. She engaged in an excellent impression of a Legilimens trying to see right
His grandfather Abraxas had died of Dragon Pox. The bout that finally killed him through him.
wasn’t his first experience with the disease. He’d had it once, years before, and He could have tried harder, could have tried to stop her with real effort. Instead, he
survived. But upon a second infection, the magic in the disease behaved differently. sighed, setting his book and parchment on the window sill and stood. He stepped
It looked different, acted different, but still ravaged him all the same. It had been his forward and dismantled the wards for her. It wasn’t difficult; they belonged to him,
undoing; a patriarch brought low, broken by a thing they could not see and could not after all.
fight. From his periphery, he saw her gaze shifting from the door, to his face, and back
Draco flipped to another section of his notes: a series of numbers, a tiny running again. He let the door swing open, already resisting the tug of awkwardness he knew
ledger for the account he’d been given control over, a trading venture in only semi- would follow.
legal potions ingredients. The type of account had either been a lucky coincidence on “This is my bedroom.” He stepped inside, opting to ignore the tiny intake of breath
his father’s behalf, or a thoughtful attempt at reconciliation. Draco hadn’t asked. The he heard from behind him. He braced himself for the backwards reality where
only time he’d considered it, over breakfast the morning after Granger’s birthday, Hermione Granger was alone with him in his bedroom. The potential ease of
he’d realized just as quickly that he didn’t want to know. Occlumency called to him like a siren song. But he could do this, survive without it.
Like many parts of his relationship with Lucius: having to sift through motive and He didn’t want every interaction with Granger to result in him hiding behind mental
intent and implication made it difficult to accept any good deed at face value. The magic.
risk of disappointment that Lucius hadn’t cared—or known—what he’d offered, She entered, head swiveling to take in his bookshelves, plenty and packed, his desk,
made not knowing—and therefore not risking disappointment—a reasonable option. his four poster—suspiciously similar to those provided at Hogwarts, though
Draco opted to live in ignorance, knowing he’d picked a coward’s choice. substantially larger—the telescope by the window, the small sitting area in the corner,
Granger exited the room he would have sworn she’d unwarded mere minutes the door to his private facilities, and with a turn, glancing back at the threshold she’d
before. A flush of pink crawled up her neck. Her chest rose and fell with quick just crossed.
breathing, but she looked calm, shutting the door behind her. He leaned against the corner of his desk, letting the pointed edge dig into the back
She smirked at him, back pressed against the door, and then let out a small giggle. of his thigh, a distraction from imagining several other scenarios where they might
“Just a rather angry armoire. Nothing too challenging. Might have tried to eat have ended up in this room together—each new vision as impossible as the last.
me”—she giggled again, hand coming up to cover her mouth like she might smother “You—still have furniture here? I thought you’d moved out.”
the sound—”but it’s fine. I don’t think it could actually eat me, just flapped its That helped distract him from a particularly errant fantasy about what Granger
drawers quite a bit.” might look like pressed against the door frame behind her— Merlin, he had to stop.
She shook her head and pushed off the door, looking far too amused for someone “I did move out.”
who’d just battled a piece of furniture. She almost looked like she was enjoying Her eyes widened as if she’d realized something obvious.
herself. “So, you must have just—bought all new furniture, then. Of course.”
And that was reason two, and three, and all the rest why they couldn’t be friends; Draco frowned, finally distracted in full from his increasingly libidinous train of
Granger was interesting, and fun, and brilliant, and giggled about an armoire trying to thoughts. “No—I didn’t buy my furniture, Granger.”
eat her, and sighed about piano keys biting her. She gasped over old, rare books, and She quirked her head, lips twisted between amusement and confusion.
was a chatty, flirty drunk. She became fast friends with Theo and tried to reintroduce “Why did you say that like it was something—I don’t know. Wildly offensive?”
Draco to her own friends in kind. She returned his wand. She fixed his grandfather’s “Because I don’t have to buy my furniture.”
pocket watch. She liked apple caramel ice cream and had freckles he could trace into She smiled like he’d said something funny.”See, you did it again. What’s so
constellations sprawling across her face. And she was kind. She was forgiving. She’d offensive about buying your furniture?”
stared down the memory of Bellatrix Lestrange in the place where she’d been He leaned harder against the corner of the desk, denting the muscle in the back of
tortured. She didn’t care about the slur carved on her arm but covered it anyway; he his leg. He realized his mistake only a second before he saw the light of recognition
knew she did that for him. He didn’t deserve any of it. cross her face. He’d been caught being an aristocratic arse, and he hadn’t even
But he would give her the choice to remove her scar if she wanted to because, fuck noticed.
it all, he wanted to be her friend. He wanted to be her friend and so much more.
 88 Mightbewriting

“We don’t”—it took concentrated effort not to cringe at how he was about to
sound—”buy furniture. It’s inherited. We have plenty in storage. I furnished my flat
-2.333, -2.416, -2.500
from that. I only took a few pieces from the manor—the green sofa, for example.
Buying one’s furniture is so…” O CT O B E R
“Working class?”
He blanched. She outright laughed, doubling over, amusement spilling in gasps.
Draco was fairly certain the corner of his desk had made contact with his femur,

T
piercing through skin and muscle. ICK
As uncomfortable as such exposure made him feel, he appreciated the opportunity Some days, Draco could almost convince himself that he’d been honest
to marvel at Granger’s laugh: a true, unguarded sound. It shined like sunlight, about his inability to be a good friend to Granger. Most of the time,
coasting across his skin with the softness of silk. though, he spent his days watching her work and contemplating the impressive
Granger straightened, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. depths of his denial, while trying to ignore the knowing looks she kept sending his
“I don’t really know how,” she started, a smile pulling the apples of her cheeks into way: the smug smiles that said you’ll figure it out or I don’t mind waiting. But he couldn’t
a flushed, round shape. He hated how lovely it made her look. “But I sometimes figure her out. He couldn’t comprehend what had her so convinced, so disarmingly
forget how obscenely wealthy you are. Which is hilarious, considering I literally spend certain, that they were—or could be—friends.
all day traipsing around your mansion.” Tempting as it was to flake that thought away, pack it up, and silence it with a
“You hardly traipse.” heavy dose of Occlumency, Draco forced himself to admit that a large part of his
She giggled, and the sound of it danced around the room. He wondered, briefly, if inability to be friends with Granger hinged on the fact that he didn’t want to be just
such a sound had ever existed in this place before she breathed that noise into friends.
existence. He certainly wasn’t in the habit of wanking to the image of his friend’s pretty pink
“Well. I can assure you. Of all my family’s beliefs, our views on furniture are the lips during his morning shower. That seemed like something else entirely, ripped
least problematic.” from the hiding places in his head he’d once kept at bay with self-delusion.
She sobered, the pitch of her laughter falling, fading into steady breaths. She pulled He hated those moments of weakness, increasing in frequency as they were, but he
out her wand and cast her diagnostic runes, offering him a sad smile as she did. savored the raw dose of desire summoned by the image of Granger’s wild curls or
“I believe you.” her lips or her smattering of freckles when he allowed himself a fantasy. And
He wasn’t sure what she meant. He didn’t have the courage to ask. afterwards, he’d remember shiny dark brown hair, delicate bones, and blue eyes,
He pulled away from the edge of the desk, leg protesting in pain as blood rushed to stomach turning at how vile he’d become.
the muscle he’d crushed. He watched the series of mostly purple runes hovering in The longer he tried to pretend he and Granger couldn’t really be friends, the easier
front of her. Three outlying runes, two red and one yellow, disputed his earlier it became for his subconscious to push back, laying out an extensive argument in
assessment that there would be nothing of interest in here. Disappointment sank favor of their continued association. Traitorous fucking subconscious; Draco knew
inside him; he’d been sure he’d kept this room, this place, separate from so much of excuses towards friendship would be nothing but a slippery slope towards justifying
the darkness that permeated the manor. something more.
Granger held her wand to the single yellow rune, prodding it towards the desk “You’re occluding today,” she said offhandedly as she walked by, already
where he stood. For a breathless moment, he thought she might direct it to his chest unwarding and letting herself into a new room for decommissioning.
again. He worried about the state of his scars, in various stages of healing from the He’d been reviewing notes on his latest experiments, still struggling to successfully
experimental torment he’d put them through. draw dark magic from flesh without damaging it. He had several places on his chest
She passed by him instead, lowering the rune to a drawer on the far side. She that throbbed in testimony to his most recent failures. He sat on a transfigured chaise
opened it with a quick spell, levitating a fancy eagle feather quill from inside. She in the hallway, hardly noticing as Granger came and went from room to room,
pressed the yellow rune into it, watching as it glowed, evidently learning something making quick work of a relatively unused wing in the manor.
from the process. She always seemed to know just how much she could push, never too much, but
“Ah—that was a gift from Goyle a few Christmases ago. Haven’t used it,” Draco holding him accountable to whatever standard had become their normal operating
said, watching as she worked, muttering something and pulling her yellow rune back procedure. He’d been occluding for several days, numbing errant memories of her
out of it. She recast her diagnostics: almost all purple, excepting for the two red looking up at him under the soft streetlights in Diagon Alley, trying to force away the
runes. all-consuming want to be accepted into her life. She’d allowed him a few days of his
“I’m surprised about the red ones,” he said. mood, and now, she brought it up.
Granger smiled sadly. “I’m not.” She gestured between them with her off hand.
“It’s you and me.”
 96 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 89

opportunity tempted him, wildly so. But to accept it would mean accepting more of Draco felt fear drop hot in his stomach, and he almost gave into the instinct to
Lucius Malfoy into his life. freeze it out. But in his room, perfectly safe with Granger, he didn’t want to.
He’d thought it was best to cut himself out entirely. He’d left and studied abroad; “How does it work?” he asked. “Those spells of yours. They seem—complex.”
he’d bought his own flat when he came back. He’d tried to excise the rotten flesh, She hovered her wand at one of the red runes, just as she’d done months before, in
slash and burn the crops, amputate the dead limb. But he still felt the phantom pains the library when she first touched him with this magic.
from time to time; a piece of parchment held the cure. “I should have asked, last time—I just performed magic on you without your
He set his empty glass down on the table and summoned a quill. If his father was permission. It was presumptuous.”
willing to try, Draco could as well. He signed the document, waiting for a rush of “You can do it now—if you want.” His voice had dropped. They stood close
adrenaline to give feeling to what should have been excitement: finally a participant together; they didn’t need volume to communicate. Any worries he’d had about the
in the Malfoy family investments. Finally in control of an account. Finally trusted to state of his scars had completely evaporated from his mind, burned up by the
carry on part of the family legacy. morning sun, by the warmth behind Granger’s eyes, blazing with curiosity.
But he only felt more phantom pains, remembrance of a limb he’d already She gestured the rune closer, letting it sink against his chest. It disappeared. The
abandoned. And he wondered if that meant it was too late. tint of the room dipped, strangely cool in the absence of red light. It only took
The clock chimed again. An hour had passed in a moment. another blink for the glow to reappear, tracing the scars along his torso and neck.
“It was developed by the Department of Mysteries. It’s a combination of
arithmancy, ancient runes, and some powerful cleansing charms. The flashy part is
the glowing runes, helps me identify where pockets of dark magic are hiding, how
severe they are.”
“But how do you—how do you know? You just walk around, following the runes.
It’s—” otherworldly, ethereal, unreal “—interesting.”
“It’s a lot of intuitive magic. It took me—well, it took me quite a while to get the
hang of it. Intuition isn’t my forte.”
Draco made a humming sound, agreeing, but not so strongly as to annoy her. Too
enthusiastic an agreement that Granger needed rules, order, boundaries, and specific
incantations to feel in control felt like asking for a hexing.
He pressed his hand to one of the glowing red lines beneath his shirt—evidence of
his scars—running along the left side of his ribcage. When the idea struck, it nearly
crushed him under its weight.
“Does it work on people? You and me? Can you not—use this to take the dark
magic out of our scars?” Perhaps he’d spoken too quickly, with too much
enthusiasm, with too much raw hope.
Because when he looked away from his scars and back at Granger, her eyes had
gone glassy. A sad smile decorated her face, fading quickly despite what looked like
intense effort to maintain the facade.
“No. It doesn’t work on living things. Pulling dark magic out of something that
can’t be hurt by the process is one thing. Pulling it from something animate…” she
lifted a hand, reached out, close to touching the glowing scar peeking out from his
collar, but stopped. “The most it can do is identify dark magic living in our scars,
nothing more.”
It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was enough of a start. Maybe if she’d be
willing to teach him the spell, he could experiment with it, try to find a way to bind it
with his potion or otherwise leverage it for his uses. He closed his eyes, blocking out
the glowing runes in front of him and the scars still illuminated on his chest. His
mind raced, considering the new possibilities. How had he not thought of it before?
“Are you okay?” Granger asked. He opened his eyes again; she stood even closer,
within a single step of him. She’d canceled the glowing runes, leaving the space
between them unnaturally deep and dark and cavernous. With the right impetus, he
 90 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 95

could see them disappearing inside such quiet, dark caverns. “I had a similar thought He couldn’t decide if he was more stunned or impressed. He nearly walked back
when I first learned about it, too.” into the Leaky, just to follow the pull of her, daring him to do it.
She rubbed at her left forearm, hidden beneath her cardigan.
She looked so earnest, so concerned for his emotional wellbeing, and he didn’t
deserve such a thing. Not in the slightest. He felt something crumble in his chest,
belatedly comprehending her words and grieving for the fact that she had wondered
it, too. When Draco finally stepped through the Floo, a Malfoy eagle owl waited at one of
All the more incentive to figure out a potion that actually worked and didn’t just the windows to his flat, perched on the tiny sill and tap tap tapping with its beak.
leave patches of raw, irritated scar tissue behind, just as cursed as it had been before. It was only as he offered the bird a treat and sent it away that Draco realized what
In the meantime— its presence meant; his parents had figured out he’d left the manor. He groaned,
Fuck. breaking the wax seal he recognized from his father’s office, fully prepared for a
The impulse to kiss Granger, the absolutely overwhelming compulsion towards it, written lambasting.
reached out from the floorboards and nearly shook his senses from him. He wanted Instead, he found something startlingly like a business proposal. Or rather, a very
to kiss her. He wanted to kiss Hermione Granger. Badly. And with that thought came taciturn notice that Lucius had transferred management of one of the family
the reluctant admission that he wasn’t even a little bit annoyed at their accidental not- investment accounts into Draco’s name. It required his signature to complete.
date the month before. In fact, he’d enjoyed every minute of it: awkward, stunted Draco stared at it, trying to make sense of the sudden gift of responsibility, of
minutes included. Because Granger was interesting. And so fucking compassionate. inclusion, in something he’d been frozen out of for the entirety of his life. It looked
And brilliant. And standing right there looking oh-so-kissable, if only he leaned like an olive branch but felt like a trap.
forward, stooped down and met her lips with his own. He poured himself a drink, sat on the green velvet sofa in his living room—with
“My birthday is next week,” she said, staring up at him with a sort of open- only a brief thought to Hermione’s protests that perhaps they ought to consider a
mouthed awe he knew she must have seen reflected back at her. The oxygen in the custody arrangement over it—and stared at the letter from his father sitting
room thickened, weighing him down, wearing him out. Whatever threads of self- innocently, too innocently, on the table in front of him. Suspicion, exhaustion, and
control he had left were slowly being compressed, strung out. hope warred inside him: a fight to the death, most likely.
And she’d chosen to break the tension with her birthday? He’d spent years in a stalemate with his father. Living under house arrest together
“Happy early birthday?” had pushed them from disagreements to disappointments to simple avoidance,
Perhaps Draco’s brain had been compressed as well, smashed to pulp from the roar mutual and permanent. At least, Draco had assumed the permanence.
of blood rushing through his skull. Happy early birthday? Where was a rogue avada It didn’t make sense. It didn’t feel right. His stomach churned, and likely not from
when he needed one? his extended use of Occlumency that evening. Something else unsettled him. He
“I’m not really celebrating,” she said, tucking a lock of curls behind her right ear. tensed at the sound of a clock chiming. He counted, barely nine in the evening, and
He would pay a substantial number of galleons to do the same, to touch that curl, to he felt utterly wrung out. As the reverberations from the chime faded, a small
wind it around his fingers and see how it felt. “I’m just going for some drinks at the thought surfaced in Draco’s mind.
Leaky, probably.” He and Theo had toyed with time. They’d changed one small series of events
“Well, that should be fun.” Draco’s brain had ground to a halt inside his head. Was involving his father. He’d only thought of the turner in passing over the past few
she asking him to come? He couldn’t tell. And he didn’t know if he wanted her to. months, never really lending any credence to the potential implications of changing
Fuck, he wanted her to. the trajectory of time. And he’d almost completely forgotten the original version of
“Harry and Ginny—Ron, and everyone, well, they know I’m working with you.” events from that day: where Draco had not been included in Granger’s initial arrival,
“Right.” where there’d been no interruption, no lecture, none of it at all. He wondered which
“They know you’re not—that you’re different than you were. I’ve told them.” piece, if any of it, set into motion a version of reality where Lucius offered Draco
He made a noise, caught between agreement and confirmation he still had control more authority in the family affairs.
over the use of his lungs. He groaned, leaning his head back against the sofa. Or maybe none of it. Maybe
She looked up at him, still standing so close. this would have happened regardless, and the things he and Theo did or did not
He looked down at her, still incapable of beheading those treasonous thoughts change had absolutely no impact.
about kissing her running rampant through his brain. His head hurt.
She didn’t ask. All Draco knew was that he’d sought his father’s acceptance for so long that even
He didn’t prompt. this small showing of faith felt like belonging, more so than he cared to admit. Gods
The staggering inappropriateness of their present situation struck him like a bludger he wanted to belong, to something, to someone, to fucking anything. The business
to the gut. They were in his bedroom. She hadn’t been doing actual work for what
 94 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 91

He turned. Granger had followed him onto the cobbled street, clutching a felt like several eternities. And, just in case he’d already forgotten, they were in his
butterbeer; her third of the evening by his count. fucking bedroom.
“You’re really leaving?” she asked, a slight unsteadiness to her step as she shifted He didn’t want her to ask it. She shouldn’t ask it. If she asked, he wasn’t going to
her weight from foot to foot. The soft glow of the streetlamp amplified the flush be able to say no.
creeping up her neck, though whether that coloring came from drinking or “If you wanted to come by…”
something else, Draco couldn’t tell.
“I am.”
He held tight to the fragments of his Occlumency he’d yet to dismantle.
“Why? You’ve barely said a word since you arrived.” She took a step forward, then
three more in rapid succession, marching herself into his personal space. She seemed Draco spent the better part of that week regretting those two words of agreement:
only to remember the drink in her hand when she stopped, grimacing as the golden yeah, alright. They didn’t even sound like him. They sounded like something Weasley
froth sloshed over the rim and dripped onto her hand. Undeterred, she stared up at would say: slightly idiotic, a little dim. What had he even been thinking? Clearly he
him and made a triumphant sound. “You’re occluding. You have been all night, hadn’t been. No scenario existed wherein Draco Malfoy could have a normal pub
haven’t you?” night with the golden trio, which was essentially what Granger’s invitation boiled
“I appreciate the invitation, Granger. It was very kind of you to include me with down to.
your friends, but—I don’t fit in with them. I don’t want to ruin anything. Wouldn’t Either Potter or Weasley—or both—would hex him on sight, or they’d bicker until
you like to have a pleasant birthday?” Granger ripped all her hair out by the roots and never spoke to him again.
“Kind of me?” Or maybe Draco would lose his temper first. Perhaps he’d send a jelly-legs jinx at
She rolled her eyes and took a sip of her drink. Draco reached for her elbow, the boy who lived and could then sustain himself on that image for the rest of his
pulling her gently to the side so as to make room for a passing couple. life. Honestly, the idea had its merits.
“Draco, you are one of my friends.” It became increasingly obvious throughout the afternoon of Granger’s birthday, as
For the first time, it occurred to him that she’d been using his first name. For how he tried and failed to act normal around her—which mostly meant reading about
long? The whole day? The week? He couldn’t recall. But it was that use, in experimental potions and ignoring her as she worked—that Occlumency, much as he
conjunction with the assertion that he was her friend, that struck him. wished he could avoid it, would be his only option to survive the night.
She kept talking, chatty from the alcohol.”I’ve probably spent more time with you Towards the end of the workday, he slipped away to find a pain potion so that he
in the last eight months than I have with Harry, Ginny, and Ron combined.” might preempt his inevitable headache. He’d require a heavy dose of Occlumency if
“I’m—I’m not your friend.” What might have sounded mean, sounded cruel as a he was expected to socialize with Ronald Weasley for an extended period of time.
straightforward statement, mostly came out confused, disappointed. He met with Granger in the parlor, pain potion coursing through his system, gift in
“Yes, you are. And quit occluding. You don’t have to. We’re just having some his hand.
drinks. They’ve all promised to behave.” He held it out to her.”Happy Birthday, Granger.”
“You didn’t make me promise to behave.” She looked surprised, brows lifting as she took the book-shaped package.
“Because I knew you would.” “So, you’ve remembered?” she asked. “I couldn’t tell with all that brooding and
He had to physically step away from her. That level of trust, that was too much. ignoring me you’ve been doing all day.”
She had no reason to even remotely believe so highly of him. “I wasn’t brooding.”
“Hermione.” Had he ever called her by her name before? “We’re not—we can’t be She laughed, tearing at the paper to her gift. She paused, staring down at the still
friends. I wouldn’t be a good friend for you.” mostly wrapped book. She looked back up at him. Draco resisted the urge to look
Primarily because he kept forgetting who he was, who she was, and who he was away, to occlude. But he’d be doing plenty of that later. He could survive a simple
meant to marry more often than not in her presence. Especially when she had her gift giving without having to freeze out every last errant emotion, even the
thigh pressed up against the side of his leg. His focus had gone into rapid decay, a frustratingly fond ones. He did rather like that little look of surprise on her face: lips
planet nearing a black hole, torn further and further to shreds with each revolution. parted, eyes wide, a slight blush warming her skin.
She frowned, taking her own step away from him, back towards the Leaky. “You’re not giving me this,” she said.
“Well, that’s fine. I’m a good enough friend for the both of us,” she said, tucking a “I believe I just did.”
mass of curls behind her ear. “I’m fine with waiting until you sort yourself out.” “Draco—it’s. This is practically priceless.”
She turned and left, disappearing inside the pub before Draco could fully register “You needn’t qualify. I’m certain it’s actually priceless.”
what she’d said, or more, what she’d meant. He let the rest of his Occlumency fall, He watched her grip on the gift wrap tighten.”I can’t accept it.”
heat rushing him, doing battle with the chill in the air. “Of course you can. Didn’t you tell me Hogwarts: A History is your favorite book?”
 92 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 93

“Favorite nonfiction book, yes—but that doesn’t mean you should be giving me tables and chairs, stopping them in front of a large booth containing Harry Potter,
your family’s priceless first edition of it.” Her voice pitched higher, the first sign of Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, and Neville Longbottom. Every set of eyes at the
panic creeping in. table, and what felt like the rest of the room, stared at Draco. He could feel Granger
He’d expected a little resistance. He hadn’t expected her to look so terrified of the looking up at him, too, from where she stood by his side.
thing. Potter was the first to move, standing from the booth and offering Granger a hug.
“Granger.” He took a step forward and pulled the book from her grip. He almost No one else moved, least of all Draco, who felt a little bit like he’d walked into some
smiled at the resistance he met, a slight reluctance to let it go. He ripped away the rest kind of trap. Absurdly, he wondered if he didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t breathe,
of the wrapping and gave it back to her. “I sincerely doubt anyone other than you he might be able to avoid springing it.
and I even know this book exists. Furthermore, I am certain that you and I are the Then Ginny Weasley sprang it for him.
only people who appreciate it. And I want you to have it.” “Evening, Ferret.”
She looked down at the book in her hands. It looked comically big in her grip: a “Pleasure, She-Weasel.”
huge tome in little hands. He watched as her front teeth sank into the flesh of her He heard Granger’s little intake of breath beside him, nearly as crushing as the
bottom lip, pressure turning it white from lack of blood. He realized that if he was force of awkwardness trying to suffocate them all. He froze it out, sank into his
close enough to see such a thing, he should probably take a step away. But he didn’t Occlumency, and slid into the booth next to Longbottom, as neutral a party as he
move, waiting for the moment she released her lip, knowing it would flush the was going to find. In the fog of his mental wards, Draco realized they’d intentionally
prettiest shade of pink. left that seat open: poor Longbottom had the honor of being neutral territory.
He’d lost his gods damned mind. At some point, Draco finally got his drink. And eventually got roped into a second.
He stepped back. He engaged in neutral, barely coherent conversation, occluding himself into such a
“Come on, Granger. Pop it in that impressively spacious bag of yours and let’s get fog that not even Ron Weasley’s inability to hold his liquor—face growing red, limbs
this over with.” growing sloppy—was enough to pull Draco to the surface to engage in an insult or
That seemed to snap her out of her staring contest with the book she so clearly two. Nor did Potter’s ever-suspicious glare convince him to snap or sneer.
coveted. Draco said something about Herbology to Longbottom.
“I’ll buy another one if I miss it terribly,” he assured her. She narrowed her eyes at “Well, the Sneezewort yields have been finicky with us having such a warm
him, and he enjoyed the thrill of watching her try to decide if he’d been serious or summer, you know?” Longbottom said, taking a sip of his butterbeer.
not. Draco did not know. He didn’t remember what he’d said to elicit an assessment of
She took another moment to consider before sighing, a long-suffering kind of sigh Sneezewort crops. So he just nodded, sipping his own drink in turn. He felt the
that Pansy Parkinson would have been oh-so-proud of. She opened her little beaded weaslette’s eyes on him with about as much subtlety as a bombarda. He refused to look
bag and carefully added the book to whatever monstrous collection lived inside that in her direction.
undetectable extension charm that he’d been tactful enough not to point out. He dipped into a calm, placid pool of conversation topics and picked one for
Longbottom: voice level and listless as he did.”Are you enjoying teaching at
Hogwarts?”
Longbottom said something. Draco didn’t pay attention.
This time he felt Granger’s eyes on him. Her thigh pressed up against his as he sat
Arriving at the Leaky Cauldron with the intention of meeting up with Harry Potter, sandwiched between her and Longbottom, unfortunately central in the booth. Her
at least two Weasleys, and an unknown number of extraneous Gryffindors, felt like gaze irritated his temples; he packed that up and flaked it away, too. He should have
an out of body experience. Doing so with Hermione Granger as his unofficial guide banished the creeping warmth running along the side of his leg where she sat flush
felt downright dreamlike. against him, but for reasons he refused to acknowledge, he let those treacherous
Granger spotted Potter several seconds after Draco had already found him tucked feelings slide.
away in the far corner of the pub—a lifetime of picking Potter out of a crowd When he’d drained his drink, he had Granger let him out of the booth. He offered
apparently didn’t stop being a skill when it went unused for several years. He’d have a series of lifeless goodbyes and left, opting for a walk through Diagon Alley as he
one drink. He’d fulfill his obligation to come and socialize because Granger had told pulled back his Occlumency. Flooing while heavily occluded felt like asking for the
her friends that Draco wasn’t that bad anymore, or something to that effect. headache he’d been trying so hard to avoid.
Granger waved. Draco tried not to sneer when he made eye contact with Weasley. He focused on the cool autumn air, pulling the ice from his mind and to the
He was betrothed. This was a friendly birthday outing. This was not inappropriate. surface of his skin, reassembling the discarded parts of himself he’d chipped away in
This was not uncomfortable. He could do this. order to survive a social gathering with Harry Potter and the like.
He’d been about to excuse himself to get his single drink and sink into his “Draco.”
Occlumency when Granger pulled him forward and tugged him through a maze of
 152 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 113

and all Draco could hear was his heart beating in his ears. Another dream-like He tried to think of the last time she’d called him Draco. He missed it. He’d almost
experience in the sharp turn his life had taken with her inclusion. grown accustomed to his given name spoken by her lips, even when she used this
As the film finally ended and they walked quietly, hand in hand, to the apparation swotty, authoritative tone.
point in an adjacent alleyway, Hermione startled him with a thwack against his He opened the Prophet and flipped to page three. Ah. He tried not to sigh,
shoulder. knowing she would probably catalogue his every last reaction, but the breath slipped
“You didn’t even watch the movie.” from him regardless.
The lines across her forehead said she was annoyed by that fact. The smile breaking “It looks an awful lot like a statement rescinding my betrothal announcement.”
across her lips suggested otherwise. Because of course the dissolution of a marriage contract between two Sacred
“You were much more interesting,” he said, pulling her against him with their Twenty Eight families warranted a news piece.
interlocked fingers. “Why?”
“You are very distracting,” she said, attempting to disentangle herself from him. She “I’ll need you to narrow down the scope of your question, Granger. Why is there
smiled as she said it, only transforming her expression into a frown once he lifted a an announcement? Because the contract has been dissolved. Why has it been
brow. dissolved? Because neither Astoria nor I had any interest in engaging in—”
“You’ve mentioned that once or twice in the past.” “Why didn’t you say anything?”
They could have apparated, then; they were far enough from the muggles. But Draco literally could not fathom of a worse ‘why’ for her to want the answer to.
Draco found he rather liked the idea of prolonging his time with her in a dark, “It’s hardly a casual conversation topic,” he said, hedging. “Oh, Granger, did that
unknown place. He stepped into her space, hands encircling her waist as he walked snuffbox shock you? Also, did you know I’m no longer betrothed?”
her backwards, against the brick wall. Her frown deepened as she crossed her arms. Draco let his hand holding the
He swallowed her sharp intake of breath with a kiss, one hand roaming up her side, Prophet drop to his side, pinching at the bridge of his nose with the other. He didn’t
finding her neck, her hair. She melted against him almost immediately, chest pressed know what she wanted from him. He’d not told her specifically to avoid upsetting
against his, her hips dangerously close, too. She made a whimpering noise that shot a her, not wanting her to think he meant or expected anything by it. But now, she was
hunger, a need, running wild up and down his spine, gathering heat below his belt. upset that he hadn’t said anything.
He let his hands slip to her sides, her hips, and then beneath her arse where he “When did it happen?” she asked. Her voice lost a bit of its edge, quieting.
gathered her flesh in his hands and hoisted her up, closer to his height, as he pressed “Last month.”
her firmly against the brick wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist, rocking into “Last month?”
him on the tail end of the most beautifully strangled sound he’d ever heard slip from “After.”
her mouth. He didn’t elaborate. He simply watched her face, waiting for recognition, if there
He paused, breathing heavy, head spinning from lack of oxygen and utter awe. was any. Was there a before and after for her, too? There certainly had been for him.
He’d endure the boredom of a thousand muggle films if he could have the promise Before that moment in the greenhouse, and after. Two separate states of being with a
of this kind of kiss at the end. line between them painted by her hand on his chest.
He kissed her jaw and she sighed, breath spilling and shaky. Her brows lifted, just enough.
He kissed her neck, and she squirmed against him. For her, too, then.
He kissed the hollow just above her clavicle, and her heel dug into the back of his He shouldn’t have felt a rush of excitement at that little realization, but he did all
thigh. the same. He probably ought not wish for her to have experienced even a fraction of
He kissed lower, daring, narrowly above the neckline of her blouse, on the soft skin the strange, half-existence of not really acknowledging whatever was or was not
of her chest, so close to the curve of her breast. happening between them.
She whimpered again, hands flexing in his hair. He rocked his hips into hers, scalp The fact that for her there had been a before where now there was an after; it felt
stinging, breath heavy, brain in a haze. like a snitch behind his ribs in rapid flight, struggling to escape.
She made another noise, throat exposed, head tilted towards the sky. “Oh,” she finally said, looking past him.
“Draco,” she said, words sounding scraped and forced through a raw throat. He’d “It didn’t seem fair to marry her,” he elaborated, entirely unprompted. “And as it
done that to her. turns out, she didn’t want to marry me, either. We both would have been doing it out
He hummed against her pulse point, savoring the rapid flutter of it against her skin, of a sense of misplaced duty.”
his tongue. “Misplaced duty,” she said, an almost silent repetition of his words. She still looked
“We should—I mean, we shouldn’t—” past him, somewhere over his left shoulder, not totally a participant in conversation
He drew his head up as she tilted hers down, eye to eye. Whatever she meant to say with him.
came out soundless: a breath against his mouth as he drew her lip between his teeth. “I think I’ve had enough of misplaced duty in my life.”
Her eyes finally flickered to him, an expressive, open brown.
 114 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 151

He wondered then if he should kiss her. Really kiss her. Not a theoretical “You’re doing an excellent job with a seduction of your own. Please continue.”
wondering in an inappropriate moment. But rather, a real moment where he could He wouldn’t have said anything if he knew she’d immediately pull her hand away,
actually dip his head and bring his mouth to hers. Every muscle in his body stepping back.
practically pushed him to do it: warm and thrumming and drawn to her. He probably “I have to finish my work,” she said, smile pulling at her mouth. “But I accept.
could. Maybe he should. We’ll see a movie tonight.”
But he didn’t. He didn’t want to kiss her for the first time, or possibly any time, in He risked it, swooping in to kiss the curve of her neck, wrapping his arms around
his family estate. Nor did he think it should happen after enormous, likely confusing her. She laughed, swatting him; he stepped away before she could land another blow,
news. laughing as he ran a hand through his hair.
But gods, he really wanted to kiss her. “Excellent,” he said with a grin. “I’ll let you get to it then. I’ll just be over here,
And for the first time, he wondered if perhaps she might actually let him. trying to cast a Patronus, thinking about your hands. And your mouth. And that
“Right,” she said with a small jolt, as if she had to physically throw off whatever noise you make when I—”
had been on her mind. He knew what had been on his. He hadn’t even considered “Draco.”
what might be on hers. “We almost have this wing finished; we should get to work.”
“We?”
The smirk formed slowly, almost calculated, and coupled with something
mischievous behind her eyes.
“You’re effectively my assistant, Malfoy.” The film turned his stomach, not totally dissimilar from a heavy and sustained dose
“Draco,” he said, before he could even consider taking it back. of Occlumency. Like operating through a fog. Everything was too big and moved too
She blinked, smirk shifting into a smile. quickly, and he had trouble keeping track of what he was meant to focus on when
“Hermione,” she said. the perspective kept shifting and swooping, each time giving his insides an
“Hermione.” unpleasant lurch. It was bright and loud and overwhelming and an altogether
Her name tasted of chocolate truffles and apple caramel ice cream and dangerous unenjoyable experience. He could see how it might be awe-inspiring without all
new beginnings. Of things that came after. that—Theo would have gone mad for it—but Draco couldn’t see past the nausea.
He gave up watching partway through. Instead, he angled himself so that he could
watch Hermione enjoy it. This was something she did with Potter sometimes, that’s
what she’d told him. And now she’d shared it with Draco.
It felt oddly like a successful move on a chessboard, an infiltration behind enemy
lines. Like he’d slipped past her defenses and integrated himself into her life. He
wanted to learn about all the things she liked to do, big or small, and do them with
her.
She seemed enthralled by the muggle entertainment: laughing when other people
did, brows furrowing as the music swelled over what must have been a dramatic
moment, chewing at the inside of her cheek when things grew tense. He liked
watching her reactions, memorizing them, and wondering which of them he might
provoke in a different set of circumstances.
What he enjoyed most about his muggle movie-going experience—apart from the
end—was her hands. Her arm lay casually on the divide between their seats, begging
for him to touch. With a smirk, watching as she stared at the screen ahead of them,
he let his index finger trace lines on the top of her hand. He found the tips of each
finger and, with the lightest touch he could manage, drew a line from her nail, to her
knuckles, over the top of her hand, and to her wrist.
She didn’t look at him. Didn’t acknowledge him in any way. But he saw her
swallow, saw her breath stutter as she inhaled. He drew circles against her wrist and
runes along her forearm. He experimented with how light he could make his touch
while still making contact: tiny thrills of barely-touches. He slotted his fingers
between hers, savoring the span of seconds where Hermione simply closed her eyes
 150 Mightbewriting

“Do you not like it?”She didn’t sound angry. She sounded sad. And that was so, so
much worse.
-2.166, -2.250, -2.333
“I really do think I need reading glasses,” he started, and he watched her draw
breath, ready to rebut. “But, no. I’m not especially enjoying it.” DECEMBER
“That’s—oh.”
“Please don’t do that, Hermione—that, with the frown—don’t.”
What exactly had Draco become? Dismantled by a frown on a pretty witch’s face?

T
Debilitated by the idea of having disappointed her? ICK
“It’s alright,” she said. “I suppose I was just hoping you’d enjoy it.” After, evidently, did not have a timeline. Time and distance from the
“I’ll finish it. I promise I will.” conversation about Draco’s shattered betrothal agreement only made it
“You just need glasses first?” She offered a tiny smirk and conjured her runes worse. Every day that passed—turning into weeks, taking them fully into December
again. and steadily approaching the holidays—felt like another lost opportunity to do
“Truly, I might.” something about this new state of reality.
He felt a bit like he’d just sidestepped a potentially terrible character assassination What could have been an abundance of freedom, gloriously absent of Draco’s
wherein his taste in literature almost cost him the affections of the woman in front of obsessive experimental brewing, had only morphed into an equally obsessive
him. management of the account his father had entrusted him with. His numbers
“Let me take you out tonight.” plummeted, something about supply problems in a particularly rare herb. Draco
“It’s a Friday.” could hardly keep it straight, lost in a mass of letters delivered by owls at all hours of
“A reasonable day of the week to go out and socialize with one’s boyfriend.” night and day: informing him of price changes, supply shortages, and a coup in a
She blinked, staring at him through one of her yellow runes. For a brief, terrifying country he’d never heard of, but that apparently had some bearing on the numbers in
moment, he thought he’d said something wrong, offended or upset her in some way. his account.
His pulse pounded beneath his skin, uncomfortable against his collar. He hated it. Truly, wholly, and completely hated it. It had none of the control, none
He watched as the thoughts scrolling across her face coalesced into a tiny grimace. of the finesse, none of the reward that brewing gave him. It felt like guesswork at
“But I like to catch up on my reading on Fridays. Saturdays are your day. I’ve given best, and at worst, like wandering through a fog with his eyes closed, hoping he
you a whole day.” She’d started sounding a little pitched, a little panicked, at the end stumbled upon his destination. He’d been given one account. One tiny sliver of
of her sentence. responsibility. And when he finally had time to devote something of himself to it, he
“And I’m extremely grateful for that,” he said, stepping forward, through her probably would have had better luck letting his owl make the decisions. Or Topsy.
runes. He’d already committed, so he doubled down. “But I want to take you out Perhaps she knew a thing or two about rare herbology imports.
tonight. I could take you to dinner, or dancing, or both. Or what if I let you take me to “I’m taking a few days off,” Hermione said.
one of those muggle movies you’ve been talking about.” Her words came completely without warning, and in the middle of another long,
He started playing with her curls as he laid out his proposition, knowing it probably awkward day of talking to each other like they didn’t have something enormous and
wasn’t fair. She’d admitted more than once that she found him distracting. It wasn’t awkward and wanting hovering in the space between words and blinks and breaths.
as if he could just ignore that kind of information. Nor could he deny that he enjoyed She’d just finished the room she’d been working on for most of the week, a
watching her react to him: hitches of breath, tides of blush, wide eyes boring into his. troublesome one with an especially unpleasant gobstone set.
“Could we strike a bargain?” he asked. “Let me take you out tonight and then we “Oh,” Draco said, lacking for any other kind of response.
could read together all day tomorrow. I’ll let you catch up on everything you want to “I was only planning to work half the day today, actually. The Ministry already
read and I’ll read The Count of Monte Cristo.” approved it. I would have taken the whole day, but I wanted to finish this one”—she
She lifted a hand, trailing a path with her palm up his chest, around his neck, nails tilted her head backwards, towards the room she’d just exited—”since it’s the last
dragging through his hair. She left fire in her wake, fresh burns where sectumsempra room in this hall.”
scars used to live. “Who’d have thought gobstones could be so troublesome?”
He didn’t even realize he’d closed his eyes until he heard her voice and noticed he She laughed: quiet, but genuine, filling the awkward, unknowable spaces between
couldn’t see her face, couldn’t watch her lips as she spoke. them.
“I’d like it known that I’ve been swayed by the promise of a full day of reading and “Anyone who’s ever played with a Weasley prank set. Though this was certainly
not your attempt to seduce me.” more difficult than those.”
He opened his eyes. She stood much closer than she had a moment before. Her “I honestly didn’t even know we had a gobstone set here.”
hand at the base of his neck dragged through his hair, sending pleasant shivers
shooting down his spine.
 116 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 149

She rolled her eyes, stepping away from the door—closer to him, but also to her He focused on that: how her lips tasted, how her skin felt, how easy it was to know
bag, which was more likely her destination. That didn’t stop the wondering, though: her now, to be with her. He’d turned into a right sop, the vast majority of his day
the intrusive little thrill that perhaps she sought closeness. spent orbiting this witch.
“To live in a home with so many rooms you don’t even know what’s in all of He concentrated, pulling a deep breath in through his nose. He let that feeling fill
them.” him up, lush and lovely. It felt like satin against his skin. Smelled like vanilla and
“I don’t live here anymore,” he reminded her, a little tease, as she slid her wand amber. Tasted like apple caramel ice cream. Sounded like annoyed huffs and reluctant
into her bag. “We used to be a much bigger family—the Malfoys. But it’s just the sighs. It looked like her.
three of us, now. We hardly need to use all these rooms.” “Expecto Patronum,” he said, voice level, confident, strong.
A beat of uneasy silence hovered. He kept his eyes closed; he needn’t open them to know that he'd once again failed.
“So you don’t mind?” she asked, piercing the quiet. “That I leave a little early?” He couldn’t feel the magic. Or rather, he couldn’t feel it in his wand. He felt it filling
“As exciting as the prospect sounds, I’m not actually your employer. You’re free to him up; he knew that’s what it was. But no matter how hard he focused, how clear
do as you wish.” his incantation or how precise his wand movement, he couldn’t convert that magic in
“As long as I don’t defile the estate, of course.” his bones into magic in his wand, ready to defend. It kept tumbling off craggy cliffs
“Of course.” of bad decisions, grabbed by swaths of guilt, and swallowed by shame.
She didn’t move, bag slung over her shoulder, pulling at a curl caught beneath it. He let his wand arm drop and opened his eyes. Hermione watched him.
He almost reached out to free it. “Any light at all?” he asked.
But he didn’t move, either. She nodded. “A small burst.”
When he noticed the silence again, so loud in its nothingness, his chest twinged, “Not enough.”
uncomfortable. “It takes time, Draco. It took me months—”
“Plans?” he asked. “Sorry—I mean, do you have any plans for your time off?” “When you were a teenager. I’m an adult wizard with a mastery. And I’ve already
“Oh, not especially. I’ll just do some relaxing.” been practicing for almost a month.”
“Do I need to send Topsy to save you from your version of a holiday?” “Would you rather go back to reading all day while I work?” she asked with a smile,
“I might see my parents,” she said, finally freeing her trapped curls from beneath teasing. She already knew the answer.
the strap on her bag. He might hate failing but he hated boredom more.
“Might?” “I was researching for my potion. Now that it’s done I don’t need to do nearly as
“We’re—figuring it out. After…”She trailed off, still looking at him, but her eyes much reading.”
unfocused, pulled into whatever thought had crossed her mind. He had no idea what She laughed like his response had been funny, the sound floating through the space
she meant, and he felt like he shouldn’t ask. Something about the fragility in her tone between them, brushing up against him. She poked at a yellow rune with her wand
and the distance in her eyes told him that whatever it was, it was personal. and sent it to a nearby desk for analysis.
And really, what right did Draco have to anything personal about her? Excepting “There’s always something to read,” she said. “How is The Count of Monte Cristo
for his very personal desires to touch her and kiss her and fuck her. But that was— going?”
different. That was fascination, attraction—it couldn’t be more. He tried to control his reaction, not tense out of guilt. His answer was a
Self-delusion tasted sour these days. resounding: not well.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I forget sometimes. I don’t have a particularly large social Thankfully, she seemed too engrossed in her work to catch his beat of hesitation.
group and, well, everyone else knows. I forgot you probably don’t.” “The print is very small,” he said.
That felt like an opening, a crack in a door he might pass through. He saw her wand pause, rune hovering, before she moved again.
“Know—what?” he asked, hesitating only just. “And how are you enjoying it?” she asked again, more careful in her wording.
She swallowed. Her smile looked strained, cheek twitching just enough that he “I’ve been getting headaches when I read it. The print is very small.”
wondered how hard she fought to keep it in place. “That’s not an opinion on the story.”
“I obliviated them. During the war.” “I think I might need reading glasses.”
The shock felt like a full body bind, locking him in place and freezing his muscles. “Best buy some, then. You have the galleons, don’t you?” She arched a brow, still
Surprise with enough force to hold his body still while his mind spun, whirling out of watching her runes and the desk, but her focus had shifted.
control as he tried to make sense or reason out of what she’d just said. He didn’t say anything.
“I sent them to Australia,” she continued. “They were safer not knowing me; they After another beat, she cancelled her runes, waving her hand through the air where
never would have understood, otherwise.” Draco wondered how many times she’d they’d been. He almost smiled at the action.
told herself that, trying to find her own belief in the words. He knew the feeling well. “You haven’t finished it?”
“Hermione—”
 Beginning and end 117

-1.916, -2.000, -2.083 He’d just felt it: it couldn’t be more. “I managed to reverse it last year. They—well,
things have been tense. We try to have dinner together every month or so.”
Draco couldn’t conceive of that. For as complicated and dysfunctional and wildly
MARCH unhealthy as his relationship with his parents could be, he took at least two meals a
day with them, every day. They had a routine, a foundation of togetherness that
existed outside of any conflict they might have. Even when his mother likely wanted
to slap him for sabotaging his betrothal, or when his father had to lecture him for

T
ICK TOCK speaking out of turn or with disrespect, they still dined together. Every morning and
“I’m not allowed to kiss you while you’re working, but you’re allowed to every night; they were a family, which meant they stuck together.
teach me how to cast a Patronus in the middle of the workday?” Draco “I—” he tried to speak, say something. He both could and could not fathom it,
asked through a clenched jaw, resisting the desire to throw his wand at the wall. how horrible it must be to have such uncertainty with one’s family. He almost said
It took nearly all of February, but they’d managed to clear the entire first guest so, but he didn’t know if that would make her feel better or worse. Something inside
room of its dark magic, cursed objects, and general disarray, righting it into a him suggested worse.
reasonably pleasant looking space once more. Hermione seemed undeterred, continuing despite his failure at interrupting.
The second room didn’t provide nearly the same challenge. This led to a strange Perhaps she needed to get it out, words flowing in a deluge of confession, and he, her
sort of multitasking wherein Hermione worked through her decommissioning while confessor.
simultaneously instructing Draco on how to cast a Patronus in what had to be her “I defied their trust. I know that. They don’t understand—not really. But it’s
swottiest, most frustrating tone. If he didn’t want to kiss her so badly most of the getting better. We’ll have breakfast together, on Christmas, I think.”
time, he might try jinxing her. Draco’s chest clenched, something so sad, so heartbroken for the woman standing
Casting a Patronus was an impossible task and he’d never be able to do it. in front of him. To have any doubt, even a shard of it, that she might not get to
She adamantly refused to accept this fact. Every time he tried to tell her as much, spend a holiday with her family, it gutted him. Even knowing that he didn’t always
her eyes grew wide and round and looked oh-so-disheartened that he’d stopped want to spend time with his parents; he always had the option.
insisting and instead just played along. He absolutely, positively, was not worthy of this woman. How could a person like
He wouldn’t mind being able to cast a Patronus. He just knew that the Dark Mark her even exist? It seemed outside the realm of possibility that a strength and a
on his arm represented more than a bad decision. It spoke to the content of his soul, determination and a bravery like hers could be contained in one person’s body.
the magic in his blood. It put him squarely in a subset of the population that didn’t Surely her magic would combust, or implode, or shatter under the weight of it.
have the right stuff inside them to cast magic so helplessly dependent on joy. “Anyway,” she said, still forging on as if that hadn’t been the most remarkable story
“I’m still working. And you’re not focusing. You barely even did the wand ever told. “I have a gift for you. I hope you don’t think it’s too”—she blushed, a
movements.” pretty pink—”well, it’s not really a gift, exactly. You can’t keep it.”
Maybe he could get away with sending a tiny tripping jinx her way. And then he Draco arched a brow. That she’d thought to give him something pulled him from
could catch her, and kiss her, and map every inch of her skin with his mouth. the melancholy of thinking about her parents.
“Hermione.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a wrapped package: suspiciously book-
She paused, several glowing yellow runes floating near her face.”I don’t want to shaped.
hear it today, Draco. I know you can do this. You’re excellent with charms, and you “Hermione, if you’re trying to give me that copy of Hogwarts: A History back—”
have a unicorn hair wand for Merlin’s sake.” “I’m not, no.” She smirked, though, like maybe she’d thought about it. “This is my
She kept reminding him of that, as if his wand core alone told her everything she favorite book, my personal copy I’ve had for ages. I love it, I would like it back.
needed to know about the types of magic he could and could not do. But—I wanted to share it with you.” She blushed heavier, pink flushing into red as
She returned to work on a cursed settee with barely a second glance. He rolled his her words tumbled faster and faster. “You said you were open to muggle literature—
eyes, fingers flexing around his wand. All his failed magic exhausted him, leaving him it’s, well, I love this book.”
annoyed and frustrated. “To confirm,” he said, smiling through what felt like true, overwhelming gratitude.
Despite his persistent vexation, he enjoyed spending his days practicing magic with “You love this book?”
Hermione, casually chatting while she worked, and ever-so-rarely sneaking a kiss, She laughed, but looked away, clearly embarrassed. It was precious.
even when he wanted to jinx her for correcting his technique every few minutes. “Don’t be a prat, yes.”
Time passed in rolling waves, surging forward under the momentum of an interesting “Thank you,” he said. He tried to sound as sincere as possible. He didn’t want her
conversation or thought-spinning kiss. Dream-like. Unbelievable. Wonderful. to feel uncomfortable, as fun as it was to tease and annoy her. That she’d thought of
him, wanted to share something so personal with him, Merlin. He had to truncate
 118 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 147

that thought: not necessarily to pack it up and put it away, but rather save it for later “For the last time, Nott, you are a civilian whose only role here was to escort me
when he didn’t have to actively engage in conversation. “I—have a gift for you, too.” through the Malfoy wards, not to assist in curse breaking.”
She tore her gaze from the stonework on the floor when he spoke, the corners of Theo made a grumbling noise of disappointment, waving a dismissive hand as he
her eyes crinkling with excitement, tempering what looked an awful lot like surprise. pushed off the wall.
Gods, it nearly killed him, realizing she might have thought her gift giving would be a “So, what were the two of you up to in there?” he asked, peering around them and
one-sided affair. into the dark room. “Looked a lot like cuddling. Cozy, was it?”
“I didn’t know you’d be taking time off,” he said. “I don’t have it wrapped or— It was Potter’s turn to make a noise, something strangled and annoyed.
well, ready. It’s at my flat.” Hermione surprised Draco by responding before barely a beat had passed. “Theo,
“Oh.” Her face fell, lip pulled between her teeth. “Well, I’m sure it can wait until if you want to learn more about airplanes, you won’t follow that train of thought any
later. After the holidays.” further.”
It sounded like a question. Theo lifted a brow, a slow smirk spreading. He raised his hands in defense. “Low
Could it be a question? blow, Granger.”
“No, I’d like for you to have it—do you, would you like to come over and I can He turned to Draco.
grab it?” “Have you heard about these giant metal contraptions that muggles get inside of
He knew it was a bad idea even as he suggested it. He could have gone to get it and and then they fly?”
came back. He could have owled it to her. He could have done or suggested any “Don’t be ridiculous, Theo.”
number of things that did not involve Hermione Granger walking into his flat again. Hermione giggled.
But gods, if he didn’t want her there. He liked the idea of having her in his home Even Potter looked amused before he spoke.
again. Of seeing her there, with him. “It’s amazing your house is so big that I can be in it, and your parents have no idea,
She smiled at his suggestion, and he knew he was done for. do they? Or that you two are”—he made a gesture between Draco and Hermione—
“Yes, alright. That would be fine.” ”doing whatever you’re doing.”
Theo clapped a hand on Draco’s shoulder, answering for him.
“Manor life. Lends itself to privacy and lingering childhood trauma.”
Draco tried not to roll his eyes.
“They have no idea. And you needn’t worry, I won’t tell them,” Draco said.
It took less than ten seconds of standing awkwardly in his living room for Draco to He only realized later how unclear he’d been. Potter or Granger: which one was the
regret his impulsive decision to invite Hermione over. It wasn’t so much the literal secret he’d committed to keeping?
sense of having her in his home that was problematic. But more, having her in a
place that was his, was him, and not clouded by his family history and the cold stone
interior of an aristocratic manor.
The floors in his flat were a woodgrain. They’d been grown. And that felt—
different.
“Just, give me a moment,” he said, gesturing to the green velvet sofa so she could
sit.
He required time to breathe when he entered his potions lab. Firstly, over the relief
that he’d made and kept a large batch of the potion, constantly tweaking and refining
the effect of his experiment so that it not only worked, but it worked well, and quickly,
and pain free; he couldn’t give her anything less than the best. But secondly, he had to
catch his breath such that terror did not completely seize him.
It threatened to crack him, brittle and ready to break, like his bones might snap and
shatter.
What had he been thinking?
Panic felt like ice lit on fire, contradiction in his veins.
She wasn’t ashamed of her scar. She’d said so, very literally, to his face. She didn’t
need to cover it, she only did it for him; he knew that. Because who couldn’t notice
how pathetic he acted every time he saw that slur carved into her arm, how he sought
it in flagellation by guilt?
 146 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 119

“That’s a handy trick,” he said. “Being able to send messages with a Patronus.” How disgustingly presumptuous did that make him? He pressed his palm to his
He could almost hear her smile. chest, over his heart, as if the pressure and heat could stop it from beating so fast.
“I could teach you, if you wanted to learn.” She would think him an absolute arse obsessed with image. Superficial. Vain. She’d
He wondered if she could hear his frown. already called him that, too, once.
“Hermione,” he started. Would she really make him say it? “I was a Death Eater. I Really, what had he been thinking?
can’t—” Fuck.
“But you were never—” He’d just wanted her to have a choice. That was it. That was all. She didn’t have to
“Don’t,” he said, tone solid and heavy and final. “That’s not true. It wasn’t never, take it. Didn’t have to use it. But then his gift to her would be a bottle of something
Granger. I was a Death Eater. And right up until the moment I was branded, I she did not want and months of work she’d probably be mortified to know about.
believed in all of it. I hated, just like the rest of them.” He dropped his hands. He He felt an unfortunate sheen of sweat, probably cold and clammy, forming on his
couldn’t touch her, not with the reminder. brow when he finally bottled a vial and left his lab. He felt like an uncertain teenager
She gave him too much credit, always had. again, roiling with nerves.
“You’ve changed,” she said. She hadn’t let go. If anything, her grip around his Twenty two years of age felt old enough to not experience nerves like this. He
torso tightened, pressing herself closer against his chest. walked back into the living room and found her sitting on the sofa, legs tucked
That didn’t seem like enough. beneath her, flipping through a potions periodical he’d left on the table. Gods, he’d
“Draco, I don’t want to do this,” she said. “Whatever you’re thinking about— spent so much time fighting with himself that she’d gotten bored and needed
whatever parts of your past you think preclude you from living in the present—they entertainment.
don’t, okay? If it wasn’t never, fine. But it’s not now.” When she looked up at him, he saw a crease between her brows, hovering over
Gods, what a witch. wide, curious eyes. Nerves of her own.
“How do you know?” His fingers twitched towards the vial in his pocket.
He’d meant to ask it in his head, a question to himself. But it ricocheted in the He couldn’t do it. Not yet. He needed more time. A distraction. Fucking something
blackness around them, fracturing into a deluge of other potential inquiries as the to calm him.
sound bounced off cursed objects and impassive stone walls. “Would you like some tea?” he asked.
“I can see it. And I’ll teach you how to cast a Patronus. Then you’ll know, too.” She’d clearly been expecting something—anything—else to come out of his mouth.
“I don’t think it’s quite that simple.” Her head tilted. The crease between her brows deepened.
“It could be, if you let it.” “Yes—please. Thank you. That would be lovely.”
Light spilled in from the door, setting them free. She sounded so formal, like her words had tried to trip her, trick her, like she
couldn’t decide on which version of them were hers and which belonged to the
formalities she hid behind.
“I make an excellent cup of tea.”
She rolled her eyes at his boast, shoulders relaxing. Draco’s own did the same.
“You didn’t say anything about Malfoy being in there with you,” Potter said by way “I’m surprised,” she said. “I would have thought Topsy did that for you.”
of greeting as Draco followed Hermione into the corridor. He squinted against the “Mother doesn’t prefer it. Certain things are sacred, and all that.” He waved his
light, feeling slightly off-balance. wand to summon his supplies.
Theo leaned against the wall nearby, brow arched, smile spread across his face. Tea preparation didn’t last nearly long enough to fully settle him. As he offered her
“Draco was helping,” Hermione said with a distinct edge of defensiveness coloring a cup, his thoughts obsessed over the vial in his trouser pocket: either a very bad
her tone. He heard her indignation simmering at the implication that she might not decision or a very good one. He suspected the former but hoped for the latter.
have been acting in a professional manner. “Thank you,” she added, giving Potter a He sat beside her on the sofa, one full cushion’s worth of space between them.
hug. Hermione took a sip of her tea, smiling kindly. It felt like an indication she enjoyed it.
“Might have had you out of there sooner if Potter let me try my hand at the Honestly, he expected a little more of a reaction than that. He made an excellent cup
wards,” Theo said from his place against the wall. of tea. Objectively. She didn’t seem nearly impressed enough. He sipped his own.
Draco watched Potter shake his head, releasing a heavily annoyed breath. With a Confirmation, an excellent brew.
smirk, Draco couldn’t help but wonder what had transpired in the corridor as Potter Brew. Fuck.
worked to release them whilst Theo observed. In the right mood, Theo could chip “So,” he said, setting his tea aside. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the
away at even the calmest composures with hardly any effort. small vial. The potion, in its current iteration, was a lovely shade of lavender that
Draco knew because he’d seen Theo subtly needle his way beneath Lucius’s skin on reminded him of flowers and deep breathing and peace. So very different from the
more than one occasion. dark, angry purple so many curses manifested as. He held the bottle out to her.
 120 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 145

He saw the curiosity, the questions, obvious in wide eyes as she reached for it. He “I think it bothers me more than him. He’s brilliant in his own—Theo kind of way.
wondered if she’d put it together already. She was brilliant, after all. And he’d told And he has way too much free time. He wasn’t even marked, and he still can’t get a
her, before, that he was experimenting with potions to remove cursed scars. job.”
Surely she’d make the connection. “Well at least he doesn’t need one, though?”
“I’ve realized I don’t think you’ll like it,” he said. Hot, uncomfortable anxiety Draco stiffened.
flushed him. He’d call it mortification, but the root of that word implied a death of “That’s not—the point.”
some kind, and as he still unfortunately drew breath despite this embarrassment, “I know, it’s just. Well, I suppose it could be worse, is what I mean. At least he
mortification surely couldn’t be the right term for it. Although, he wouldn’t mind doesn’t need the money.”
throwing himself out a window: death by defenestration. Draco’s brow twitched, a rebellion against the tension so tightly drawn across it.
“Why not?” she asked. She didn’t say anything about what must have been a bright Perhaps she felt it, because her breathing paused altogether.
red flush creeping up his neck. His skin felt like embers crawled across it, up it, “It could be better, too,” he said. “Much better. He’d work for free if they let him.
emanating from his heart and seeking his extremities. “You brewed something for It’s not about money, Hermione.”
me?” She puffed a tiny laugh, nervous against his chest. It did nothing to settle the
She held the vial against the light, head quirking as she examined its properties. She disquiet creeping through his veins.
wouldn’t find any answers in its transparency, or its color, or in any floating “That’s something only someone with far too much money could even consider,”
particulate. She wouldn’t find any acceptable combination of properties to help her she said.
identify it. And evidently, she hadn’t connected the thing he’d told her two months “He can’t exactly help what he was born into.”
before with the vial in her hands. For the first time, touching her felt foreign, uneasy, like he wasn’t sure if he should
“I did. Well—I invented a potion for you.” lean into it or pull away. Hermione might be brilliant, but it became clear that this
She froze, blinking. Then, her hand and the vial dropped to her lap as she looked was something she did not understand. He considered his father’s annual case
back at him. He watched her fingers tighten around the glass, as if protecting it, dispute and wondered if she would even bat an eye at the blatant disrespect given to
cherishing it. his family by the Ministry.
“It—ah. It’s the one I told you I was working on, a couple months ago, do you “Are we still talking about Theo,” she asked, a pause. “Or are we talking about
remember?” She had to remember, how could she not? They’d nearly spiraled into a you?”
black hole together. “It’s for cursed scars, like I said. I found a way to bind your He leaned down, pressing his cheek into the curls at the top of her head. He took a
diagnostics to it, actually. It—well, it draws out the cursed magic so the scar can be deep breath, lost in her vanilla shampoo.
healed. It was for you.” He needed her to know that part. If nothing else. She needed “I didn’t go all the way to Sarajevo for my mastery because I really wanted to see
to know. “I was only testing it on myself. But it was always for you. Only for you. In the Balkans.”
case you—” “It was the only place you could find a mentor,” she said, knowing.
He’d been trying so hard not to look at her arm. But his gaze flicked there, mostly In the dark, her voice, flush against his chest, sounded like a siren, calling him to
out of instinct, a reference to the thing he mentioned. He really, desperately, hadn’t sea. It felt dangerous, suddenly, knowing that he’d follow, trust her not to drown
wanted to look. Because then she looked, too, following his gaze. him.
She would hate it. He jumped, almost toppling and taking her with him when a bright silvery-white
He was an idiot. stag bounded through the door. Draco had to close his eyes, then squint against the
But she didn’t yell at him. Didn’t say anything. She stared at her arm for several sudden intrusion of light into the darkness he’d grown accustomed to, uncomfortable
beats longer than he did, his attention now on her face, watching as his act of and unnatural as it was.
stupidity sunk in. Harry Potter’s voice spoke from the stag’s mouth.
Her knuckles flushed white around the potion, and he worried for a moment that “Working on getting you out now,” Potter said through the Patronus. “Shouldn’t
she might crack the glass with the force of her hold. be long.”
“It would,” she started, then paused, then swallowed. She looked up at him. Gods, Draco felt Hermione loosen against him, a soft and almost inaudible, “good”
she looked like she might cry. He’d truly fucked this up beyond all measure. “It breathed against his chest. It was a marvelous thing, a privilege, really, to witness
would—remove this?” she asked. She held up her arm, covered by a sleeve, but they Gryffindor bravery up close. It wasn’t as infallible as he’d assumed. He’d always
both knew what she meant, as if there were ever anything else she could possibly thought of it as the absence of fear, of a strange disregard for personal safety or
mean. consequence. But it wasn’t that at all; Hermione had been afraid when she dealt with
“Yes. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to suggest that it’s needed. I know that you—” the blood curse, and she’d been anxious for the last thirty minutes, standing quietly
He broke off, watching as her hands shook, setting the vial on the table. It clinked, against him in this room. The fear was present, but her bravery was in not letting it
an unsteady tapping of glass on the marble top as she struggled to place it upright. consume her.
 144 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 121

Draco waited, unsure if he should try offering encouragement or simply let her do She pulled her hand back to her lap, clasping it with her other, wringing them
her job as she’d requested of him since the beginning. together. She hadn’t reached for her wand. Hopefully that meant she didn’t intend on
When she finally cast the spell, a bright, silvery otter burst from the tip of her jinxing him.
wand. He couldn’t help but marvel as she gave it directions. It danced around the She looked up at him, agony on the brink. He heard a rush of breath, a rough,
room before leaving, swimming around his shoulders. In the shifting white light it strangled sound, and then she burst into tears, head dropping into her hands.
radiated, he could see Hermione smiling up at him. And then it vanished, popped
straight through the closed door, dousing them in darkness again.
It had provided enough light that he knew where she stood, knew the exact
distance. He reached blindly and found her, pulling her into his arms.
Draco didn’t move for nearly a full minute. He knew because he watched the
second hand on the clock behind her, ticking away every moment he did absolutely
nothing as the most remarkable witch he’d ever met sat a cushion away from him
bawling into her hands.
Draco might have enjoyed himself, holding Hermione flush against his body in the Then, as the second hand ticked past the twelve for a second time, he finally
dark, if not for the looming threat of cursed objects surrounding them. moved. From his cushion to the one between them, he closed the distance. She
In the dark, her hair smelled more strongly of vanilla, and of other, more subtle didn’t look up at him when he moved, but the intensity of her tears seemed to abate.
things, too: amber, orchids, bourbon. Warm, comforting scents, sharply reminiscent Carefully, Draco reached out to place a hand on her knee, offering her some kind of
of the short span of days when summer croaked and groaned, becoming autumn. comfort, some kind of apology, not that anything he could say would ever be
He could hear her tiny huffs of breath against his chest: in and out, every few anywhere near enough.
seconds, a rhythm of frustration punctuating the darkness. She flinched at his touch, and he immediately pulled his hand away. Of course, why
“You breathe rather loudly,” he said, mostly for something to say before the silence would she want any comfort from him? He’d done this to her, after all.
and the darkness fully swallowed them up. His desire to cast a lumos battered at his He wasn’t prepared for her to launch herself into his arms, practically crawling into
wand hand: an instinct to cast light where there was dark. his lap as she wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into his chest.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m a little anxious. I’ve never actually triggered one of these His breath stuttered, confusion mixed with a rush of desire he couldn’t control,
before.” inappropriate and ill-timed as it may be. His response was automatic, one arm
“I thought we agreed that was my doing?” wrapping around her waist as the other smoothed her hair, curls already threatening
He tightened his arms around her. He felt her head tilt upwards against him, to smother him. He could think of no finer way to go.
probably trying to see something, anything, in the unnatural darkness. He couldn’t help himself; he leaned against the top of her head, resting his cheek
“I have told you before you’re very distracting.” against the curls he’d known would be so, so soft, despite the frizz and the madness
She had no idea. If she found him distracting, then there simply wasn’t a word for and the crackling magic that lived inside.
what she did to him. He’d had to resort to Occlumency for the vast majority of a He realized, then, that she was blubbering, apologizing, against his chest.
year just to manage the unbelievable distraction she caused him. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean, I’m sorry. I know this shirt is probably stupidly
Her fingers shifted, skating along his sides in a wandering exploration. expensive. I—”
“You know, you probably didn’t even need to request Theo bring Potter—Theo She started to pull away but he tightened his grip, hand on her back drawing circles
could break through these wards on his own.” against her shirt fabric. She melted into him again.
Her fingers paused, more pressure against his side. He felt her chest expand against He watched the clock. She cried for another five minutes, on and off, surges of
his, followed by the sound of a breath. grief, or agony, or embarrassment, or melancholy, or whatever it was he’d caused her,
“I realize Theo is—industrious. But ward breaking is a part of Harry’s job—” surfacing in fresh bouts that flowed before they ebbed. When the space between
“And it could probably be Theo’s job, too, if the Ministry would hire anyone with gulps for breath and fresh tears became wide enough that her breathing felt almost
Death Eater connections.” normal against his ribs, he let his hand against her back slide away: space to leave if
She sank into him, resignation weighed against his ribs. she wanted to.
Draco continued, “He’s been dismantling ancient Nott wards in his spare time for She leaned back, looking up at him. Her knees bracketed his hips, quite literally
over four years, trying to break into his family vault. He—invents things, all kinds of straddling him. In any other circumstance that realization might have sent him
things. And he’s been rejected by just about every department at the Ministry.” spiraling, drunk with lust. But guilt overrode that carnal instinct, strong as it may be.
She’d gone still; even her breathing had quieted. “I’m sorry,” she said again, and he couldn’t comprehend it. “That was just—so
“I didn’t know that.” overwhelming, I’m sorry—”
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“Why are you apologizing to me?” His words came out tight, snappish. She tensed, She tilted her head, looking up at him.
her thighs against his, and there was nothing sexual about it in the slightest. What a “As if you’re so easy to figure out, Draco Malfoy.”
nightmare. He might have asked her what that meant if the door behind them hadn’t slammed
She wiped a tear from her cheek and waved vaguely in his direction. shut, drowning them in darkness.
“For your shirt,” she said, as if it were obvious. “I’ve cried all over it.”
He wondered why she hadn’t removed herself from his person, but when he
looked down, he saw that his hands rested on the top of her thighs, close to her hips,
one smooth motion from her arse. He hadn't realized he’d done it, but he could
hardly move them now, lest he draw attention to this unintentional slip in intimacy “Oh,” was all she said in the dark. Her runes had vanished.
they ought not be sharing. He tried conjuring his own; they glowed weak and dim. In the faint red light
“I didn’t mean to cry like that. I—tend to cry when I’m overwhelmed and that was, around them he saw Granger draw her wand and cancel his spells again.
well. I never expected to have the option.” She looked down at her left arm. “I’d “What are you—”
accepted it. I was fine with it. Really, I was. You saw, what am I saying, of course you “Don’t use your magic,” she said, voice calm and controlled but very, very serious.
know. You probably know better than Harry and Ron. But, well. I—you’re giving me He didn’t say anything; he didn’t use any more magic. He simply waited for her to
a choice.” elaborate, finally following her instructions without question.
“Am I to surmise that you’re not furious with me?” “It’s likely a security curse. Not especially common. It measures the amount of
“Furious? Why would I be furious?” magic used and starts dampening it if the correct security measures aren’t followed.”
“It was rather presumptuous.” He heard her sigh in the darkness. “I would have found it if—”
She seemed to consider that, consider him. One of her hands found his on the top “I hadn’t been conjuring my own runes and distracting you?”
of her thigh. She smiled. “Yes.”
“It’s hardly your worst quality. For example, your propensity for hair straightening “Well, don’t soften the blow for me.”
charms…” “You’re a big boy, Malfoy; you can handle it. Speaking of handles, don’t touch the
A playful squeeze at her hip felt natural, smile breaking across his face as he pulled door. It’ll have fresh wards.”
her closer, tighter against his lap. He did it before he’d even considered the Draco shifted in place, a sense of shrinking descending upon him, like he couldn’t
consequences of having her so close. But she kept smiling at him, a faint pink move in any direction for fear of danger.
spreading across the apples of her cheeks. “What—what do we do now?” he asked.
“I wanted you to have the option,” he said, voice dropping. He could be quiet with She sighed again.
his words; so close, they needn’t travel very far. “When I saw you standing in the “I was able to disarm the other two I’ve come across—”
drawing room, back in April, accepting it. It was—honestly the most incredible thing “There have been more of these curses here?” Draco asked, dying to reach out and
I’ve ever seen. I started brewing that night.” touch her. But in the darkness, which he realized now had an unnatural
That close, when her eyes widened, he saw not only a deep, expressive brown, but pervasiveness, an artificiality to it, he’d lost track of exactly how far she stood from
a mahogany blended with umber, swirled with chestnut, copper, russet, and bronze, him.
as complex and confusing as the witch they belonged to. “It would make sense that the same person cast them. Do you know who stayed in
“You’ve been working on an experimental potion”—a swallow—”since April?” this room?”
“I really wanted you to have the choice.” “No—I tried not to come here. Only high ranking Death Eaters stayed at our
“Why?”She’d barely asked: a whisper. estate though. This wasn’t Aunt Bella’s room, that’s on the next floor. Not his,
“I think if anyone deserves to move on, fully move on, from—all that. It’s got to either.”
be Hermione Granger, doesn’t it?” He wondered if he ought not to have brought up his deranged aunt while a cursed,
She sat close enough that when her eyes moved this time, a flick towards his own pitch-black room held them captive.
arm, his left arm, he didn’t miss that, either. She looked back at him a split second “Theo has access to the manor’s wards, right?”
later, regret seeping from between streaks of copper and bronze inside her eyes. He “Yes, why—”
didn’t mind, didn’t begrudge her for it. He hated the thing, too. “I’m going to send him a Patronus. Ask him to find Harry. He knows how to
“Thank you, Draco,” she said. “Honestly. I’m speechless.” handle this type of security trap. I actually did a lot of curse breaking training with the
He smirked, trying to force something normal, something simple, something easy, auror division.”
into a situation where Hermione Granger straddled his lap on an antique sofa in his “If the room is dampening magic—will a Patronus work?”
flat. He’d wanked to far less than that. Hermione considered her response longer than he would have liked.
“Speechless? Never thought I’d see the day.” “I certainly hope so. It’s my only idea.”
 142 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 123

“I’m the one who’s worried about you, remember?” She rolled her eyes, smiling.
“Well, the feeling is mutual.” All the moments before that. All the errant impulses to touch or taste or kiss her.
“Is it?” he asked, unable to help himself, voice dropping low. They all paled in comparison to this. Those moments contained barely a fraction of
She glanced up at him, face glowing bright red from the warning runes. the want barreling through him with those lips, so close to his, stretched into a
She swallowed before she spoke. “Very much so.” beautiful smile. It twisted inside him, pulling him apart at the seams, shredding every
If not for the fact that they stood in a ransacked room that could potentially kill thread of self-control he thought he might have left.
them in several different ways, he might have kissed her then, schedule be damned. “Granger,” he said.
She took a step towards a collapsed bookcase and a pile of books because of course “Hermione.”
that’s where she would start. “What?”
He grabbed her arm. “If you’re going to kiss me, you should call me Hermione.”
“Wait, Hermione—you can’t just—” He gestured towards the floor, at the splinters He swallowed, panic strangling him. She’d just—said that, hadn’t she? He would
and glass and gears scattered everywhere. “Be careful where you step.” have laughed at her Gryffindor tendencies if they hadn’t so utterly paralyzed him.
“I can’t properly evaluate the bookcase from here, Draco.” “You are, aren’t you?” she asked, an edge of self-consciousness creeping into her
“Shouldn’t we reassemble the room first? Get the debris off the floor. What if tone.
something curses you again?” “Yes, I am,” he managed. He could taste his heartbeat, thudding against the back of
“If I reassemble the room, I run the risk of increasing the power of some of the his throat.
curses. They’re easier to dismantle in their constituent parts.” She slid a hand along the side of his neck, up into the back of his hair. He closed
“But—” his eyes, just for a moment, staving off a sensory overload.
“You’re supposed to do what I say, remember?” She whispered his name, syllables he could inhale by proximity. He opened his
“Well, start with the stuff on the floor, then.” eyes, long enough to orient himself, and brought their lips together in what he might
“My runes would tell me if they were a problem.” have called an impulse had he not fantasized about it, wanted it for so long.
He growled in frustration. She sounded so casual, so flippant. She’d been cursed in He pulled her closer, savoring the brief but staggering sensation of finally crossing
this room once before. the event horizon, slipping into a black hole together. The kiss flashed, fleeting, and
“First, how can you tell? Mine aren’t—I don’t know. They aren’t telling me ended far too soon. Warm, soft lips, lightning in his blood, relief on the surface of his
anything at all. And second, they aren’t perfect, right? You got hurt last time.” skin. He held her against his chest, forehead against hers.
She shifted her weight out of the half step she’d taken, moving towards him again. “Merlin,” he breathed, and saying it brushed their lips together again, giving him
Lifting her wand, she cancelled his runes. He made a noise to protest but stopped at the distinct, erogenous pleasure of watching her eyelids flutter.
the sight of her raised brow and unamused stare. She leaned back, pulled away, and stood.
“First,” she mimicked. “I’ve told you there’s intuitive magic involved. It takes time He absolutely had an erection and she had to have noticed. But she just kept staring
to learn. And second, no, it’s not perfect. But part of this job is accepting risk. I’ve at his face. He didn’t move, effectively melted into the sofa by a firestorm named
done probably a third of the manor now, haven’t I? Barely any incidents.” Hermione Granger.
“Barely any incidents is a poor method of self-preservation. Oh, just barely any death. “I need to go,” she said.
It only takes one, Granger.” And he agreed. If for no other reason than his self-control had already been ripped
“Sometimes the best self-preservation is none at all. Sometimes you just have to to tatters by an overwhelming want of her. She’d just cried for several minutes and
dive in, be bold.” then let him kiss her. Those things, they should not interact, overlap. He didn’t want
“Be a Gryffindor, you mean. Honestly, it's astonishing any of you live into finally knowing what it was like to kiss her to be tainted by a lingering sadness. He’d
adulthood if that’s your philosophy on life.” had one, brief and beautiful, and it would have to be enough for now.
“Draco,” her voice had a sharp quality to it, cutting through the first syllable in his She reached for the potion and her bag, pausing at the Floo. He could hear the
name, but her eyes remained soft, almost pleading. “I know how to do my job.” heaviness in her breath.
“I know.” “I was planning on going by myself,” she said. “But—if you’re available. I was
“So let me.” wondering. I could use a date for Harry’s wedding—”
“It sounds a lot like you’re hoping luck will work in your favor, Hermione. And “Yes.”
that’s so contrary to your logical”—he waved his hand at her—”everything. It He’d go to Harry Potter’s wedding ten times over if it meant going with her.
doesn’t make sense.” She smiled.
“People don’t always make sense.” “Good. Ok. Yes, well. It’s just after the New Year. I’ll, um. I’ll owl you the details.”
He snorted. And before either of them could say—or do—anything else, she vanished through
“Well that’s obvious. You make no sense.” the Floo.
 124 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 141

Draco wasn’t entirely confident he had a perfect grasp on reality in the span of no other reason than the opportunity to wind it around his knuckle, sliding the soft
seconds after she’d left. But he was fairly certain he now had a date with Hermione strands against his finger before he finally tucked it behind her ear, finger trailing
Granger. down her neck.
He watched the second hand on the clock again. It felt unreal, as if he’d stumbled “Hermione,” he said, leaning closer, voice low, already pushing his luck by
into a formerly unknowable version of a future where Hermione had just straddled engaging in so much obvious touch. Regardless of the mandates that Lucius and
his lap and kissed him before asking him on a date. Narcissa stay away from her work, it still felt so visible, like they might be seen at any
He summoned the book she’d given him, almost entirely forgotten on the tabletop moment. “You’d get to boss me around. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
while he’d descended into a panic about his potion. He ripped the wrapping away She pursed her lips, trying to smother her growing smile. Of course it sounded like
and examined the cover. fun. Hermione Granger, at her core, liked telling people what to do when she knew
The Count of Monte Cristo. better. Honestly, she should be asking him for the honor of having his assistance.
He’d never heard of it. Not altogether surprising; she’d said it was muggle. With a He pressed the pad of his thumb to the center of her bottom lip, trying to free her
shrug, he flipped it open to find her name written inside the front cover. It was a repressed smile. She narrowed her eyes, parting her mouth slightly, tongue grazing
child’s penmanship, shaky and slow, but clearly done with care and precision. He his thumb. Her mouth softened, but didn’t shift into a smile. Instead, it dropped
could imagine her, a younger version of the woman he’d just had in his home, further open, warm breath heating his thumb. Her tongue hovering a fraction too far.
marking this book as her own, claiming the thing with her name. If he pushed his thumb forward, past her pretty little lips, he wondered what she’d
He wondered where she’d written her name on his body, because she must have. do. Would she let her tongue graze him again? Would she close her lips around it?
She had to have done it, snuck her name on him somewhere, if the rush behind his Warm and wet and—
ribs bore any indication. He let his hand drop, trying to ignore the throb of his pulse beneath his skin and
the tiny almost-noise of disappointment she made at the loss of contact. For as much
as she protested that they must maintain professional boundaries, moments like this,
few and far between as they were, told him of a willingness to throw caution to the
wind with the right incentive.
“Is that a yes, then? I promise to be very helpful.”
She closed her mouth, muscles at the side of her jaw flexing.
“Fine,” she relented. “But you have to do whatever I say.”

No wonder she’d been cursed. The first of nine rooms in the guest hall was a
veritable nightmare that bore far too much resemblance to the room of hidden things
for his liking. Debris littered the dark space, curtains pulled tight over the windows.
What might tentatively be labeled as furniture remains lay in shards and shambles all
over the floor. It looked like the room had once been occupied by a bedroom set,
judging by the bits of mattress he saw poking out of what essentially amounted to a
pile of trash. The whole room had the distinct air of a reducto, or several. It had been
wrecked, utterly so. By whom, he had no idea. But there was barely space to stand
beyond the threshold without encountering a splinter of broken wood, or what
looked like the gears from a clock, or the upended remnants of a chess table.
“You remember the incantation?” she asked, conjuring her diagnostics. The dark,
disassembled space glowed suddenly with more red than Draco had ever seen the
runes display.
Hermione let out a small sigh.
“I do,” he said, conjuring his own. “I used it quite a bit, trying to break it apart for
the potion.”
“Just—observe for today, okay? I’ll walk you through what I’m doing, but please be
careful.”
 140 Mightbewriting

He didn’t open his eyes, stuck in the darkness behind his closed lids, wondering
how on earth he could ever possibly deserve someone willing to give him that level
of understanding. She should be mad. She should be furious. He was upset on her
behalf that he didn’t have the will to march up to his parents and tell them that he
spent most of his supervisory duties fantasizing about what Granger might look like
underneath her frustratingly professional workwear.
In short: he definitely did not deserve her.
Eyes still closed, he dove for another kiss. He was selfish; he might not deserve her,
but that did nothing to dampen his want.

The guest wing looked different this time around. Six months ago, it looked like an
indistinct threat, reasonably menacing, and an inconvenience Draco didn’t want to P ART T WO :
deal with.
Now, it looked like acute danger, a film of concern for Hermione’s well-being
overriding every other opinion he might have about it. But she insisted it was time,
that she’d avoided it for far too long and that her job required she be thorough: every
hall, every room, every crevice, every cranny. No matter that the first room she’d
2003
stepped into last time left her with a blood curse and trip to St. Mungo’s.
And an accidental date with him, but Draco wasn’t allowed to be pleased about that
bit.
Or was he?
“Hermione?”
She stood next to him, staring down the hallway with more wariness than when “And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way
she’d first tried to tackle it, but still significantly less concern for his liking. back.
She looked up at him, a soft smile on her face. He still expected suspicion You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
sometimes, forgetting the trust that came with his newfound familiarity with the That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.”
sounds she could make if he nibbled on her neck just so.
“I’d like to help,” he said. — T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, The Dry Salvages
She turned more fully, facing him.
“Help?
“With this hall. I—well, I wouldn’t mind having a part in dismantling whatever
terrible shit still lives here and”—she would think him ridiculous—”I’d like for you
to have the help, from me. I don’t know if I can just sit around expecting something
to hurt you again. I think I’ll go mad.”
He braced for indignation. For annoyance.
But her smile softened even more.
“You aren’t trained in—”
“I’m familiar with it, though,” he rushed to say. “From my family and from
association. And you taught me the diagnostics. I’ll listen to you, I won’t—be a
bother. Please, Hermione—”
He turned to face her, too, finally tearing his eyes away from the door she’d entered
once before, perfectly unharmed, and exited with a blood curse. He lifted a hand,
tucking a curl behind her ear, knowing it was a futile act and that the curl would
spiral, exploding free at the first shift in Hermione’s center of gravity. He did it for
 Beginning and end 139

-2.083, -2.166, -2.250 He’d been right about his suspicions that she planned her life to its far edges. She
planned time for him to kiss and hold and otherwise woo her into a schedule packed
with productivity, and a small circle of social engagements. His time with her mostly
JANUARY boiled down to Saturdays, as she had Sundays reserved for her parents or Gryffindor
friends, depending on the week. He could occasionally steal a weekday kiss, in the
evenings after her work was done, his body pressed flush to hers against the

T
fireplace, or the paneled parlor door, or whatever other vertical surface was nearest
ICK TOCK to them. But always in the parlor and behind closed doors.
Inexplicably, Draco’s life shifted on a spectrum closer to a dream than a “Your parents don’t know about this, do they?” she asked in early February. He’d
nightmare. No longer did so much of his existence feel like a cruel joke, an been toying with the idea of slipping his hand beneath the hem of her shirt as he
obstacle of fate, or a gauntlet meant to be endured. Rather, it had taken on an unreal kissed her. Those dreams evaporated at the thought of his parents.
quality: something lovely, like gossamer or lace, wrapping what might have been He pulled away, cradling her face and dropping kisses along her jaw. He tried to
unpleasant, unbearable, with hope. He liked dreams. They could be fantastical, drag himself out of the haze that enveloped his brain whenever his mouth neared her
unbelievable, and yet feel so real. Unbeknownst to his better judgement, Hermione skin.
Granger had become his biggest, boldest dream. “No,” he began, already fearing the direction this line of questions could travel.
Watching her step through his Floo in a beautiful cranberry-colored dress and not “They don’t.”
her usual work ensemble, felt a bit like he’d yet to wake from a fantastic dream. In “That’s good, I think,” she said, shifting her body against his, breasts pushed
what conscious state did Granger—Hermione—have any interest in spending time in against his chest in a way that made a conversation involving his parents painfully
public with the likes of him? And not just anywhere, but at Harry Potter’s wedding? inconvenient.
Private as the event may be, it would still integrate Draco into the deepest parts of His brows furrowed, trying to divine meaning from her look. Was it actually good?
her personal life. It felt suspiciously like a trap, like the sort of lure Lucius would sometimes leave with
Their correspondence by owl had felt unreal, like an extended hallucination the intent of coaxing an opinion out of Draco that he ought not possess.
wherein Draco kept feeding treats to owls that delivered letters to no one. Perhaps he She lifted her hand, running it through his hair. The woman had a vendetta against
only imagined Hermione’s responses in return: coordinating attire, rendezvousing his smoothing charms. Nevertheless, he leaned into the touch.
time and location, expressing cautious, impossible excitement. None of it felt real, “I don’t imagine they’d be pleased—with me.”
not even when she entered his flat looking like an entirely unfamiliar version of He watched her with curiosity. She sounded so clinical, so divorced from emotion.
herself, who smiled at him without suspicion, tucking a distractingly smooth curl He might have believed her if he couldn’t feel the way her heart beat against his own
behind her ear. chest.
The dream-like quality in his living room crumbled when he saw her scar, fully on “I—no, I don’t think they would,” he said. He saw no point in a lie.
display because of her sleeveless dress. The blood drained from Draco's face, panic “It’s probably best that—you don’t have to deal with that,” she said. “Especially
he’d been unprepared to face in the weightlessness of a dream. after your betrothal, don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry. I know,” she said, right arm crossing her body to cover the scar. “I She kissed him; it felt like an apology. And when she pulled away, lips lingering
wanted—gods, this was probably a bad idea. But well, I decided to use your potion, close to his, he didn’t know if he should speak. He didn’t know what response she
but I wanted to do it with you. Should I not have? I’m so sorry.” wanted from him and he had no interest in being incorrect.
He dropped his gaze, landing on her legs. He watched her calves twitch, kneecaps “That’s”—a pause as he stumbled to find neutrality—”very logical.”
flexing, sliding over joints as her whole body seemed prepared to retreat, muscles “I’m very logical.”
poised to engage. The thought that she might not stay pulled him from an imminent On the surface, that answer sounded correct. It didn’t feel right.
spiral. “I’m not ashamed of you,” he added, chest tightening in discomfort, of feeling laid
“You do not need to—ever—apologize to me for my inability to control my bare and left on display.
reaction to—it is my problem. Not yours. You should never have to—” She sighed.”Would you like to go tell them, then?”
She sighed, stepping forward. “I thought perhaps we could both use it.” His fingers flexed against her hip, other hand brushing against her cheek.
She glanced down at his left arm, covered by his sleeve, mark beneath it covered by He hesitated too long. He closed his eyes, forehead pressed against hers, a slip of a
a concealment charm that left a dark shadow staining his skin: never fully out of kiss away from her mouth. Any moment now, she would pull away from him,
sight. separate their limbs and lips and lingering affections, disgust and disappointment
“No. It’s for you.” evident on her face. He’d failed the test, sprung the snare.
“I’m sure there’s enough. I thought perhaps—” “I didn’t think so,” she said. “I don’t find I especially want to, either. I don’t expect
you to blow up your life for me.”
 Beginning and end 127

-2.000, -2.083, -2.166 “No.”

“Draco, you shouldn’t have to constantly wear long sleeves and flinch when
someone so much as looks at your arm.”
FEBRUARY “I do not flinch.”
She raised a brow.
Panic and anger and guilt and shame roiled around inside his chest, a boiling sea
bubbling out of control. He closed his eyes and took a breath, resisting the draw

T
ICK TOCK towards Occlumency. When he opened his eyes, he saw the potion in her hand. She
Being on kissing terms with Hermione Granger involved far less kissing looked nervous, worried, a finger tapping against the glass vial in a rapid, shaky
than Draco preferred. Mostly, it involved watching her work while pattern.
wanting to kiss her and being told that no, there would be no kissing because she was She wore makeup. Out of her norm. An effort.
being paid by the Ministry to perform a task. This was meant to be a good day. A first date. A beginning.
So bloody responsible all the time. “Hermione,” he said, walking to her, only taking the briefest of moments to marvel
It had started driving him mad. at the ease with which he’d been allowed into her personal space. He took the vial
He parted from her after Potter’s wedding more drunk on the memory of her and held her hand, guiding her to the sofa. “I made this for you in large part
mouth than the champagne he’d consumed. Days later, when she walked through the because—you beat her.”
Floo to resume her work on the manor, that comfortable warmth chilled in their He sat beside her, angled so that his knees touched hers. He forced himself not to
awkward reintroduction. shy away from the scar, to face it just as she had. He unstoppered the vial.
“We shouldn’t—be friendly. While I’m working,” she’d said, avoiding eye contact “You won. You came to terms with it. You—could just live your life with it. I’m
as she stood by the fireplace. not”—he glanced at his sleeve—”I’m not there yet.”
He smirked, taking a cautious step forward. He could be forgiven for one tiny He turned her hand over in his, exposing her forearm.
breach of professional sensibilities, couldn’t he? Once he stepped close enough, into “May I?” he asked.
her orbit, it was like an accio drew him the rest of the way. He trailed his fingers up She nodded.
her arm, across her shoulder, along her neck, before winding them into her hair. It He let her arm rest against his leg as he tilted the vial, letting several drops of the
felt familiar, natural, like he’d done it a thousand times and not just the once. He lavender liquid drip onto his fingertips. He set the bottle down and held his breath,
dropped his head, voice low, still smirking as he savored what sounded like a very too afraid to look in her eyes. He traced the letters, one by one, letting the potion
reluctant hitch in her breath. bind, separate, and eliminate the dark curse clinging to her skin.
“Friendly? You snog many of your friends?” He heard her intake of breath as the magic worked, glowing purple, not unlike her
“You know what I mean,” she said, her arms winding around his torso. He hadn’t runes. Most iterations before he incorporated her diagnostic spells had leaned
exactly planned on trying to seduce her in the parlor on her first day back, but the towards blues and greens. But this purple, with her diagnostic magic, felt safe, felt
idea suddenly held a tremendous amount of merit. “You’re being intentionally like healing.
distracting,” she continued. He risked a look up at her when the glowing faded.
She ducked, slipping beneath his arm and stepping around him. “It didn’t hurt,” she said, eyes blurry.
“I need to work when I’m here,” she said. “None of that.” She waved vaguely in “I would have told you if it did.”
his direction. “I assumed, from your chest, that it must.”
“None of what?” “Those were bad versions.”
Annoyed as he was by the distance she’d put between them, he preened at the Her fingers tapped against the underside of his wrist.
unspoken compliment. “What now?” she asked, focus latched on her arm. Without knowing what had just
She tapped her foot several times before answering, either uncertain if she should transpired, one would assume her scar remained unchanged. But the invisible curse
or not knowing how. had been evicted, forcibly removed from her person, from her life.
“All of it,” she finally said. “Just—all of it.” His chest clenched—almost painful as his lungs and heart and sternum all vyed to
And that moratorium on all of it, which he discovered upon subsequent occupy the same, suddenly reduced space—at the idea that her diagnostic runes
admonishments, included: maintaining eye contact too long, lingering too close, would stop identifying her as a vessel of dark magic. He stood.
smiling too wide, and thinking too loudly about how he wanted to bend her over the “I have some scar paste. It will take care of the rest.”
nearest horizontal surface and fuck her senseless, endured day in and day out. And it did. Not five minutes later, and her arm bore no signs of the scar.
“I’m not going to cry again,” she said.
“It’s—alright. If you need to.”
 128 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 137

She smiled at him, lips slightly parted as Draco tried to decide if that look of urgency, a spiraling loss of control as a new fog enveloped him, knowing nothing of
wonder could really be directed at him. war or Occlumency.
“I’m going to hug you.” He groaned, the sound smothered by her mouth, as her nails dragged against the
His laughter burst suddenly, unbidden, from some disbelieving part of himself that back of his neck, messing his hair. He flexed a possessive hand at her waist, exploring
had slipped back into a dream with her. her ribs, sliding back to her spine, counting shivers with her vertebrae. He couldn’t
“You sound like Theo.” breathe, lungs desperate for air as every other instinct told him he could go without,
“He likes hugging you?” that his only focus ought to be the sweet sounds he could draw from Hermione’s
“Mostly just announcing it. Evidently, I project an air of disinterest in physical throat.
affection.” His chest burned, lips on fire. He delved deeper, harder, more frantic: a taste of
She hesitated, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. tongues and spiralling tension.
“Is it?” she asked. “A disinterest in physical affection? I wouldn’t want to make He broke: a gasp of air and the words “Merlin, Granger,” tumbling from his mouth.
you—” He followed the syllables with his lips, back to hers, then dipping to her jaw, her
Merlin. His disinterest centered exclusively around the awkwardness of this throat, dragging his teeth and tongue against the soft skin there. He nibbled, sucked,
conversation. He rolled his eyes, a strange, bold sensation clawing at his ribs. utterly overcome by a need to mark her, to claim her as his own, because fuck if he
“If it’s from you, Granger, I can guarantee there’s no disinterest. You may touch didn’t want her for himself. Her head tipped back, offering a feast for him to explore
me whenever, and however, you like.” and consume.
Her lip slipped from her teeth’s hold as her face flushed. She stepped up to him, Her hands fell from his neck, skating across his chest. He could feel her breathing,
winding her arms around his torso, head pressed against his chest. heavy and labored against him, still pressed so close. He peppered more kisses along
What a perfect fit. her neck, letting his own hand at her spine slip lower, kneading her arse and pulling
She stood at just the right height; he could dip his head into her hair, suffocate in her hips forward.
the scent of it, drop a brave kiss somewhere in the quagmire of it, twist his fingers in He matched the strangled sound wrenched from her throat with his own groan,
it. mouth finding hers again, abandoning his attentions on her neck. He brushed his
His skin felt alive when they broke apart, buzzing and vibrating. So focused on tongue against hers once more, nearly debilitated by the force of desire driving him
how she’d somehow delivered such a thrum to his person, he barely heard her small to hold her so close that he could feel the expansion of her ribs against his own.
laugh. Part of him—a small, distant part—had wondered about compatibility, about how
“You make me nervous,” she said, and he didn’t believe her for a moment. She much of his draw towards her had been imagined, an effect of forced proximity over
shivered, a release of nervous energy he probably needed for himself. But something so many months. But this—this was certainly something. This felt very much like
about it emboldened him. It seemed unbelievable that he might affect her in a similar prophecy, delivered by Andromeda mere hours before. Something about where this
way as she did him—with her hair and her lips and the story of her thoughts written would go.
across her face all day, every day. The kiss slowed, a cautious descent from staggering heights, with nips and
“That’s ridiculous.” breathless praises. He brushed a thumb against her cheek, warm to his touch.
“I agree.” She cracked a smile. “Are you ready?” This path had a single destination. And, in his own version of prophecy: it would
He reached for her, letting his hand trail down her fresh, unblemished skin before be his undoing.
threading his fingers between her own.
“Take me on a date, Hermione.”
And, in an act of pure spontaneity bound to a sudden thrill of excitement, he
winked at her, laugh welling, determined to have fun.

“You haven’t given me any kind of impassioned speeches about playing nice with a
brood of Weasleys.”
They stood in the Burrow’s gardens, having made an inconspicuous arrival, mostly
avoiding introductions and wary eyes. Hermione would leave him soon to attend to
her duties to the bride, whatever that entailed. Until then, they’d sequestered
 136 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 129

She nodded, an equally near-silent yes breathed straight through him. Draco resisted themselves in the magically blooming midwinter garden, sipping champagne and, to
the shudder that shot down his spine as her hands skated up the front of his robes, Draco’s surprise, feeling strangely at ease despite the circumstances.
far too light a touch for his liking, before they wound around his neck, threading “Would you like me to?” she asked.
through his hair. “Not necessarily. Just an observation.”
He bent, already so close. Eliminating the distance between them required barely “I’ve already told them all I was bringing you.”
any movement at all. But he didn’t close the gap completely, maintaining enough “And how did that go over?” He began a casual count of the number of redheads
space between his lips and hers to trade secrets he’d never dare risk the rest of the in sight: too many.
world hearing. She rolled her eyes. “Not great. But not horrible. You didn’t make an altogether
He placed a barely-there peck at the corner of her mouth. terrible impression on my birthday. You’d earned a tiny bit of goodwill.”
“I have a suspicion,” he whispered against her skin, every ounce of his self-control He almost snorted into his wine.
screaming for more. Fingers pressing against her dress, heart hammering, breath “I was nearly unconscious from occlusion.”
heavy. She smiled, not saying anything, but he had a strong suspicion that if he tried
He shifted, dropping a kiss at the other corner of her mouth. His grip on her waist anything similar during this wedding, she might hex him.
tightened, anchoring her in place as he felt her impatient movement start to swell, “When do you abandon me for the Weaslette?”
like she wanted more, too. “You’ll be fine.” It wasn’t an answer.
Good. She could want as much as she liked. She could wait, just like him. “Yes, the lone snake in a den of lions usually fares well.”
“That you’ll be my undoing,” he continued. A greedy want of her clawed at his ribs, “Not a lone snake.” Hermione tilted her head towards a child emerging from a
demanding to know her, to have her. hydrangea bush, and the remarkably familiar looking woman wrangling him. She
He moved again, another fleeting kiss at the center of her bottom lip. He looked so very much like—
swallowed the pitch of her frustrated sound, transmuting it into his own chuckle. “Is that—my aunt?” His world felt unreal again, like a dream, to speak of an aunt
“Could I be yours?” and not have that mean Bellatrix. Draco had only ever seen his mother’s other sister
A breath and a blink. once in his life: during an unfortunate and accidental run-in at Diagon Alley.
“Yes.” Coincidentally, it was also the only time Draco ever met his now-deceased cousin. He
Her agreement tasted like caramel apple, like satin ribbons, like waiting he barely wasn’t sure what he should feel now, seeing his first cousin, once removed, child of a
knew he’d been doing. cousin he didn’t know, grandchild to an aunt he didn’t know.
He gave her his breath and took hers in exchange, bridging the last gap between “I should have mentioned they would be here,” Hermione said, her hand finding
them and savoring the spark that shot through his lips, his jaw, his neck, straight his arm. “I honestly didn’t think about it. Harry is Teddy’s godfather and…are you
down his spine, to the very tips of his toes. alright?”
Kissing Hermione was nothing like he expected. “I—” Draco started, honestly unsure how to answer. He took a final sip of his
He expected warmth and lust and the familiar softness of a woman’s pliant lips: champagne, downing the rest of it. He let the carbonation burn against his throat, a
lovely and pleasant and a stepping stone to more. He did not expect warmth that vitalizing kind of sting. When he looked back at Hermione, she watched him with
raged like fire, lust that cracked inside his bones, and lips that felt like the destination wide eyes, an expressive umber with a wrinkle between her brows. “I think I’ll talk to
he’d sought for so long. If he only ever got to kiss her, that would be enough; he her—to them.”
wouldn’t mind in the slightest, not as he swallowed the sound of her delicate, Hermione smiled. If it weren’t the middle of the day—and in plain view of several
satisfied sigh. sets of Weasley eyes that would likely slip something in his food if he did it—Draco
The garden: bursting with herbs and vegetables, fruit and flowers. The burrow: would have kissed that lovely curve in her lips. He certainly wanted to. In that
overrun with Weasleys, both natural born and married in. The sky: idyllically clear moment, he felt like he’d stepped into a different world, where he had long-estranged
and sparkling with stars on a January night. The ground: solid confirmation that the family he might talk to and a brilliant, beautiful woman staring up at him, like she
world still had shape, form. didn’t hate him and knew he didn’t hate her.
Her skin: prickling with gooseflesh, independent of the winter chill held at bay by What was all this? Unbelievable, honestly. He leaned down, close to the side of her
warming charms. No, the sensitive flushing beneath his fingers—rising as he trailed face, soft curls brushing against his cheek as he spoke against her ear.
his hand up her bare arm and buried it in her hair—belonged to him. He did that to “You are so lovely. Have I told you?” Bold fingers found her waist, not exactly a
her. hug, more like a tentative, unmoving dance. He permitted himself one small brush of
He smiled against her mouth as her hands pulled at his robes, bringing them closer his lips just beneath her ear. He felt her shiver against his fingertips. He hovered in
together than was decent, even for a dark, secluded garden. place: a fixed orbit.
He pulled her bottom lip between his teeth, finally taking it for himself after so “That’s not the last kiss I plan on giving you today.”
many months watching her do the same. Her whimper speared him, a jolt towards
 130 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 135

He hadn’t noticed that she’d wrapped her hand around his free wrist until her Was this what moving on felt like? Was this how one grew out of one’s past and
fingers tightened when he spoke. They stayed like that, unmoving, much longer than into their future? If Draco ended up waking in his bed and discovering this had all
necessary for a simple exchange of whispered words. been a dream, he would be extremely displeased with his subconscious.
There was nothing simple about this exchange at all. Hermione’s hand slipped into his, tugging him away from where he’d stared far too
This exchange had been lit on fire. long at Potter. He looked at her, pride swelling in the apples of her cheeks. He saw it
Unsuccessfully doused by reality. in the way starlight reflected in her eyes, in her grip on his hand, as if to say she did
Still blazing. not plan on letting it go. He’d be happy to live and die by that look of pride, knowing
“I hope it’s not,” she said. He couldn’t resist digging his fingertips into her waist, that he’d pleased her.
possessiveness ignited by her words. He pulled away to look into her eyes, close Warmth filled him from the soles of his shoes to the carefully maintained charms in
enough that if he wanted to give in and kiss her right then and there, it would have his hair. He led her to the dance floor; he pulled her close, and he danced with
taken barely any movement at all. Hermione Granger like it didn’t matter that his existence partially scandalized half the
“Go do your job, Granger. I’ll be around when you’re done.” guests. When he spun her, he realized the storm in his chest had strengthened to a
“So, a normal day, then?” hurricane. And it had a name: hers.
He laughed and stepped away, requiring space lest he ruin any chance he might
have at actually romancing her.
With distance, he saw she’d flushed a beautiful shade of pink. He could see himself
losing track of all sense of time trying to discover all the things that made her blush.
She let out a quiet laugh, shaking her head. “There aren’t enough cushioning charms in the world to save my feet from the
She met his eyes, mouth slightly agape, like she might say something, like there damage you’ve done, dancing me half to death.”
were words there to be spoken, but she swallowed them back. With a rush of pride, He walked with her on his arm, a slow pace through the gardens, moon high in the
Draco gave into the impulse to smile, rather liking the idea that he’d rendered sky as the celebration wound down.
Hermione Granger speechless. She laughed again, another shake of her head, a “Can you blame me? What if this was my only opportunity to dance with you?”
deeper flush, and then she left, presumably to find the Weaslette. Because there was a Her hold on his arm tightened, just by a fraction.
wedding to be had. That was meant to be the most important thing happening, not “I highly doubt this will be your only opportunity.”
the hostage situation happening inside his chest. “Oh?” he asked, stopping them somewhere in the middle of the herbs, fragrant
with rosemary and lavender, a hint of sage and mint. “I suppose I was fairly well
behaved. Surely that warrants another date.”
“I might even go so far as to call you tame.”
“Let’s not.”
Draco had no experience with children. Apart from when he was one, he could He turned towards her, letting one arm slide around her waist, the other finding the
scarcely imagine a time when he’d ever even engaged with a child, which made side of her face, thumb brushing against the round curve of her cheek. It felt so easy,
approaching an unknown four—five?—year old a sufficiently intimidating task. But so natural, tangling himself up with her.
as he watched Teddy tear through the gardens, carving a warpath through gardenias “This was nice,” she said, quiet so as not to disturb the moon and the stars and the
and gladiolas and geraniums, Draco saw the opportunity to introduce himself. many reasons why the next few minutes could be a very bad idea. “Thank you for
Andromeda caught his eye from a distance, a knowing sort of smirk on her face: one coming. I enjoyed spending time with you—especially, well, anywhere that’s not the
he’d seen his mother wear in the past. She gestured towards where Teddy had run manor.”
off, closer to Draco than to her, and apparently, an opportunity to connect. He smiled.”Who’d have thought it, Granger?”
Well, that seemed irresponsible. She didn’t know Draco from an ogre, not really. But “I thought we’d agreed you were calling me Hermione, now.” She pushed.
with a second pointed gesture and raised brow, reminding him so sharply of Narcissa “I am, mostly. But some habits—I think of you rather fondly as Granger.”
that he almost did a double-take, he steeled himself and made his way towards a She smiled, too, so close.
wildly overgrown rosemary plant. “Who would have thought?” she echoed. “I wouldn’t have.”
The bush rustled. “And you’re alright with it?”
Draco tilted, bending to peek under the plant, and found a pair of grey eyes staring She swallowed, a nod, her gaze dipping to his mouth.”Very.”
back at him from beneath a shock of bright blond hair. Draco didn’t move or speak, He took a half step closer, the entire line of her body flush with his, cranberry-
stunned by a mirror through time. Then the eyes changed, a golden brown. The hair colored fabric cushioned under his palms. A pull.
changed too, morphing into a sandy dark blond. His question was nearly silent, not even the herbs could hear him. Only her.
“Can I kiss you now, Granger?”
 134 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 131

“Yes, the exposure has certainly helped educate me on the fascinating intersection Right. His cousin had been a metamorphmagus. And the magic evidently passed by
between sincerity and snark from a Slytherin.” blood.
He risked the scandal and reached for a curl; it wasn't as if the other guests didn’t “That’s quite the trick,” Draco said, hoping desperately that he didn’t sound like an
know he was her date. He just hadn’t felt especially generous about giving them gossip idiot. How were adults meant to speak to children?
fodder. He wound the spiral around his knuckle, counting just how long he could get “Your hair is fun,” Teddy said.
away with it. Huh.
“Just,” she started, reaching up, grasping his hand and pulling it down. The curl Draco’s mouth twitched, a tug towards a self-satisfied smirk. He crouched.
stretched, then bounced as it slid off his finger. She kept his hand firmly in her own “Thank you. I rather like it, as well. What—ah, what are you doing under there?”
and it felt like he’d somehow tricked her into a compromise in which he got to hold “Hiding.”
her hand in front of all these people: only about half of whom looked like the sight Draco snorted.
unsettled their stomachs. “Table the snark? Just in case it tries to make an “Obviously. Care to elaborate?”
appearance.” Teddy’s attempt at parroting the word elaborate did not end in success: warbled
He couldn’t resist the laugh. syllables stuck on a stuttering ‘b.’
“You’re saying I shouldn’t greet the bride with an insult on her wedding day? “Sorry, it means explain. Why are you hiding?”
Well—so long as I can greet her with an insult every other day.” “Grandmother told me there would be vegetables.”
Hermione’s mouth pulled together, stifling the laughter he suspected she refused to “A horror.”
reward him with. She released a deep breath through her nose and opened her mouth Teddy’s face broke into an enormous smile.
to say something. He preempted her. “And I’m bored.”
“I’m not offended you had to say it at least once. Due diligence and all that,” he “Understandable. Weddings are dull.”
said, a slight squeeze of her hand in his, encouragement to continue their path to the Teddy’s smile spread even wider.
Potters. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you got roped into a promise.” Draco looked up from his crouch at the sound of a new voice, melodic and refined
He leaned close again.”Is that the case, Granger? Did an uncivilized herd of in a familiar, uncanny way.”I cannot say I expected to see my sister’s son at Harry
redheads bully you into promising you’d keep your exceptionally attractive, but Potter’s wedding.”
unknown element of a date in line?” Teddy shifted further beneath the rosemary bush, finger lifted in front of his lips in
“I can’t imagine why they’d think that necessary.” a shhing action, eyes wide as if his hiding place hadn’t already been found out. Draco
“Nor can I.” offered him a conspiratorial wink before rising to his feet.
She pulled him forward the last few steps required to come face to face with the “Aunt Andromeda,” he said. She had the same hard edges in her face that his
bride and groom. Hermione broke from his grip and offered Potter a hug in greeting, mother did, slender with angles that could cut as quick and deep as glass. But her
leaving Draco standing directly in front of the she-weasel with nothing to do. eyes were softer, less calculating. When she smiled at him, it steered clear of
She raised a very ginger brow at him: a dare if he ever saw one. A trap, too. One evaluation in a way his mother’s smile rarely did.
he’d have to avoid if Draco ever planned on having another date with Hermione. He “How are you, Draco?”
was saved from a dangerously tempted tongue when Hermione swept Ginny into a Teddy emerged from beneath the rosemary before Draco had the opportunity to
hug as well. answer, which conveniently saved him from weaving together a response to such a
Draco gathered his courage, took what was likely too audible a deep breath, and remarkably loaded question.
stepped up to Potter. He extended his hand and, for a moment, felt transported in “Aunt?” Teddy asked, tugging at Andromeda’s deep blue sleeve. “Did he call you
time, an echo of a scene he’d lived before: one without a happy ending. A handshake aunt?”
offered; a handshake rejected. A path set into motion that would define years of their Andromeda smoothed her fingers through Teddy’s sandy waves.
lives, whole swaths of time. Draco forced his jaw to unclench and looked directly “Yes, sweetheart. This is Draco. He’s your cousin.”
into Potter’s green, bespectacled, infuriating eyes. Teddy did not look convinced, tiny features narrowing and pinching in suspicion.
“Congratulations, Potter.” “I’ve never had a cousin.”
He half expected Potter not to accept his handshake, continuity maintained, a “Technically you’ve always had one, sweetheart. We haven’t seen him in”—her
perfect echo, a cycle—broken with a quick grip, a single up and down movement, eyes met Draco’s—”many years.”
and the words: “Thanks, Malfoy.” “Oh,” Teddy said with a kind of settling, simple acceptance. In one large step,
Tempting as it was, Draco decided an emotional unravelling in the middle of Harry Teddy detached himself from Andromeda’s sleeve and hooked his arms around
Potter’s wedding wasn’t the most ideal course of action, regardless of the small storm Draco’s waist in a sudden and unexpected hug.
tearing his ribs to shreds by way of vindication, of closure.
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Draco lifted a hand and, feeling ridiculous, offered Teddy a pat on the top of his “They—already have, some. A bit.” A very small, almost imperceptible bit that
head. Andromeda sniggered across from him in a way Narcissa would have deemed mostly involved the exclusion of slurs from their vocabulary when speaking with
highly unbecoming, in private or public. Ministry officials.
“Teddy, why don’t you see if you can find Victoire? I believe I saw her mother a “Enough?”
moment ago.” “They just need time.”
In a continuation of the whirlwind Draco had already witnessed, Teddy broke “We all do, darling. Sometimes there’s not enough of it. Not for everyone.”
away, excitement stretching his mouth and eyes wide. And then he was gone, tearing
through more flowers in search of someone named Victoire.
“It’s difficult to keep him still,” Andromeda said, eyes following Teddy's trail
before landing back on Draco. A beat passed between them, sounding of what might
have been a shared history, silenced by circumstance. “How is Narcissa?” The ceremony was—fine. Draco probably ought to call it understated, if he were
There were many things Draco might have responded with, ranging from very well going for the most socially-acceptable description. Proletariat felt more apt. But he
thanks to a bit of a shut-in, but the stream of words that spilled from his mouth sought didn’t linger on such distinctions as he let his hand hover at the base of Hermione's
an inkling of familiarity, of family that might know and understand in a way few else spine. His fingers ever-so-barely grazed the fabric there as she led him towards the
could even begin to comprehend. happy couple.
“Brought low, but not broken, according to her.” She glanced back at him. A furtive, sneak of a look before she immediately
The grimace, the distaste, the disappointment: it was all implied. Placed at redirected her gaze ahead.
Andromeda’s feet for her to pick up, and she did. “Is this where I get my speech about playing nice?” he teased, dipping his head to
She nodded.”I had hoped…” she said, trailing off. “But—I did not expect it. And breathe the question in her ear. “I did manage to sit through an entire ceremony next
you?” to a Weasley.”
“Closer to broken.” She rolled her eyes, still determinedly looking ahead and away from him.
“Broken can be fixed.” “Angelina is only a Weasley by marriage, and I heard you talking about Quidditch. I
Draco let his gaze wander, seeking chestnut curls and a cranberry dress. doubt it was much of a burden for you.”
“You’re here with Hermione Granger,” Andromeda continued, far from a “Still a Gryffindor though. And you know how those upset my delicate
question. constitution.”
Draco nodded, strangely at ease with a woman he’d only met once in his life, whom He savored her smirk, the tiny quirk at the corner of her mouth. He planned to
he was meant to despise for her choices. Those choices looked far less damning up learn how those smirks tasted, how they differed from her hidden smiles, her grins,
close, free of fog and fear. even her frowns and her grimaces. He would endeavor to know how each shape of
“You know there’s only one way loving a Muggleborn ends in our world, don’t her mouth felt against his own. And if he could just escape the constant cloud of
you?” Weasleys by birth, Weasleys by marriage, and Weasleys by association, he might take
His halfhearted attempts to spot Hermione in a crowd ceased before Andromeda a shot at doing just that. But as it stood, he still suffered in the thick of it.
had even finished her question, eyes snapping back to her: blue like Narcissa’s. The “Have you forgotten who your date is?” she asked over her shoulder, winding
implied advice, on the surface, looked quite similar, too. through a particularly thick hoard of red hair and freckles. Circumventing the space
“This is only a first date,” he said. “It’s new—it’s, hardly love.” set aside for dancing, straight by the assortment of drinks and hors d'oeuvres, he
She smiled with a kind of warm, pitying understanding that tensed Draco’s back, followed her towards where the newly minted Mister and Missus Potter stood
muscles rebelling under scrutiny. surrounded by friends and family.
“I’m willing to forgo the obvious rebuttal that Harry Potter’s wedding is much He indulged in a single stroke of his finger along her lower spine, enough to pull
more than a first date sort of outing.” her attention back to him. Not that he wanted to delay the inevitable of having to
Draco pressed his lips together, biting back what he already knew would be speak to Potter. That certainly had no bearing on his attempt at distraction.
unsuccessful objections. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “I’m just immune to your especially offensive
“My point remains,” she said. “It’s relevant caution I received for myself once Gryffindor qualities at this point. It’s a hazard of long-term exposure.”
upon a time.” In the middle of the reception, he wished he could pull her close and not feel like a
“Things were different then. My family—they can change.” public oddity on display. Even under the cover of relative darkness as the sun set
The force of saying they, and not we, struck him in the silence after he said it. The over The Burrow, the suspicious glances cast in his direction did not go unnoticed.
tiny lift in Andromeda’s brows told him she had heard it, too. She smiled up at him, another shape made by her lips for the catalogue he planned to
“But will they?” build with his tongue.
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She laughed, the motion pulling her away. He clung to her, keeping her close, He held her tighter, fingers digging into the underside of her thighs, exposed from
pressed flush against him. He intended to trade as many secrets and whispered her dress riding up.
confessions against her lips as she would let him. “We shouldn’t—” she said again. “In the middle of an alley.” Her words wavered,
“I’ve told you before that you’re difficult to figure out,” she said.A pause. She entirely unresolved.
swallowed. He watched her wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. She spoke again. But he agreed. Just barely.”Not against a wall—not the first—”
“And how do you feel? What you said before.” “Right.”
“Inconveniently in love with you.” She swallowed.
“Inconveniently,” she repeated. He struggled to breathe.
“You’re hardly making it easy on me.” Neither of them moved.
She made a lovely, whining noise as she pulled his mouth to hers. It was just as “Come have a drink with me,” he said.
magnificent, just as orbit shifting as he remembered. Instead of caging her in, against Almost a question, but not quite.
a wall or shelf as he so often liked to do, she pushed this time, awkwardly forcing “Where?”
him backwards until he came into contact with the shelf behind him. “My flat.”
He committed himself to memorizing the shape of her mouth. His catalogue had “Only a drink?”
grown foggy, a blur obscuring detail in the absence of constant stimulus and “No.”
reaffirmation. She still blinked her eyes open to meet his whenever he captured her She blinked several times, perhaps not expecting that answer, or the honesty
bottom lip between his teeth. She still melted closer, grip on him tightening, when he propelling it from his lungs. But something about her, especially in such close
trailed his fingers down her throat, tongue brushing hers as he deepened their kiss. proximity to her lips and her skin, robbed him of any impulses towards dishonesty.
She still tasted so sweet, so soft. She nodded, slowly at first, then with more certainty. Her grip on his hair tightened
She relearned him, too. Forcing a rumble from his chest when she dragged her nails again, his only warning before she kissed him again.
down the back of his neck. He cursed the fact that they were in the middle of muggle Hermione Granger. The Hermione Granger let him pin her against a brick wall
London. He wanted—needed—to apparate them away right then and there, straight somewhere in the middle of muggle London and snog her senseless, rocking against
to his flat and, ideally, his bedroom. her like a lust-crazed teenager, and drinking in every delicious sound that spilled from
A quiet but pointed throat clearing wrenched Draco from the kiss. her mouth.
He looked up. If he didn’t stop he was going to fuck her there, too.
Hermione had pushed them directly into the shopkeeper’s line of sight. She sprang They’d agreed on a drink. And his flat. And more.
back, flattening herself against the shelf opposite him, conveniently hidden from the He loosened his grip on her legs, letting out a tortured groan as she slid to the
nonverbal admonishment Draco received via one very disappointed look. ground, dragging against his erection, a fresh bolt of bliss careening down his spine.
He arched a brow at the shopkeeper. He’d paid heftily to stock a number of books He cleared his throat as she smoothed her dress back down. The next moment,
that would never have sold otherwise; Draco felt he could be allowed a liberty or with a turn and a pop, they were gone.
two.
Hermione had flushed pink, a hand pressed to her mouth, likely suppressing an
embarrassed sound.
Draco smirked at the shopkeeper. He spoke loudly, clearly, and with intent to be
heard by both Hermione and their unintentional voyeur. For as much as Draco enjoyed seeing Hermione in his flat, he’d only managed to
“Thirteen books, you said? Let’s go ahead and grab them, then. I’m sure the shop have her over a handful of times, opportunities constantly constrained by her packed
will restock with even more options by next week.” schedule and extensive list of commitments. He’d never known anyone who went to
as many book signings, brunches, and museum exhibit openings as Hermione
Granger.
The first time she visited after the Potters’ wedding in January, a week after their
explosive kiss in the gardens, she hand-delivered a thank you card for the wedding
gift she’d apparently given him co-credit for giving. He kissed her against the kitchen
cabinets, abandoning his attempts at preparing her a cup of tea and acting as a proper
host. She introduced him to the rigorous schedule that ruled her life shortly after he
discovered a spot behind her ear that made her arch into him with every touch of his
tongue.
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The second time, only days after they’d been trapped together in the guest hall, she “Your inclinations towards physical violence are a tad alarming, Granger. Do you
visited on a Saturday afternoon, riled up over an argument with Ronald Weasley. not have a more productive way to channel your anger?”
Draco had been planning on snogging her for several hours. Instead, they bickered She sucked in a huge breath, eyes narrowed as she looked down at the book. He
over something they agreed on; Ronald Weasley sometimes said idiotic things, wasn’t sure if that focus meant she wanted to purchase it or to use it as a weapon
including several snide comments about Draco. Evidently, Potter had let slip how again.
he’d found them in the trapped guest room together and that had set off a rant. Even “You,” she said.
though Draco agreed with Hermione’s outrage on his behalf—was touched, “Me?”
honestly—it didn’t help her mood. Apparently everything Draco said, in agreement “You are so annoying.”
with her or not, simply irritated her into an argument out of principle. Weasley “Yes, and your hair is doing an excellent impression of a pygmy puff.”
apologized to Hermione the next day, and Draco learned something very important That, of all things, seemed to cool her ire. Her eyes relaxed. He stretched his luck.
about her. “Annoying you has always been, and will always continue to be, some of the most
Hermione valued the power of a sincere apology. fun I’ve ever had,” he said, closer to raw honesty than he’d intended, but the words
Which was around the same time he realized that he, in all his idiocy, had not were gone now, slipped past his teeth and towards her brain.
actually, ever, apologized to her for, well—anything. Everything. “Even when—well, now that we’re not exactly—” she failed to finish her sentence,
He had nightmares that night for the first time in months, since moving to his own words broken off as she stumbled through her acknowledgement of their strange, in-
flat, probably. He dreamed of her screaming; he dreamed of her crying. He dreamed between situation.
of himself, hating her. He’d once spent the better half of a year ignoring the impulse to kiss her when it
The third time she visited, towards the end of February, he intended to apologize. struck him. He’d held back enough.
Properly and completely. He intended to beg for her forgiveness and would accept So when the thought crossed his mind; he gave in.
whatever scraps of a relationship she’d allow him. He planned to cook her a meal, He let her gravity pull him towards her, closing the gap between them. He barely
loosen his tongue and her heart with a lovely vintage of red wine. But he’d burned brushed her cheek with his lips, relishing the way her hands immediately grappled at
the food, cursing over cooking spells. She dissolved into laughter, giggling over his his shirt, fisting the fabric.
failed attempts at domesticity. And it was so easy to laugh with her, to sip their wine He placed a tiny kiss against her cheek, then hovered in her space.
and order take away and sneak kisses in-between debates over the ideal hybridization “Are we not?” he asked, letting his breath coast across her neck. He wound an arm
of muggle and magical kitchen and cooking processes. around her when she shivered, lining her body up with his. He could hardly contain
The fourth time, this time, an apology for reprehensible ideologies, horrific the flood of want, of recognition over how much he’d missed touching her, holding
decision making, and several years’ worth of guilt, didn’t seem in the cards. Not when her.
she pushed him against his own fireplace the moment they apparated into the living He kissed just beneath her ear, his own knees unsteady as one of her hands snaked
room, pretense of drinks utterly abandoned. up his chest, running along his neck to the base of his skull. Gods, he’d missed her
He could have stopped her. He could have insisted that he get his guilt off his touch: tiny incendios in her fingertips.
chest, that he verbalize the things he knew she’d already forgiven him for. He brushed his tongue along the shell of her ear, savoring her whimper that may
But he had trouble finding the motivation for such maudlin things when her well have been the incantation for fiendfyre from the way it erupted a firestorm in his
devious, delectable, daring little hands slipped to his rapidly hardening cock, palming chest.
him through his trousers. “Because,” he started, abandoning his torture of her ear and neck. He rested his
“Fucking—Merlin, Hermione.” forehead against hers, eyes closed as he enjoyed the sheer power of proximity. “It
“Sorry,” she said, lips against his neck. He buried his hands deep in her hair. Either feels like we might be.”
his eyes were closed or he’d been blinded by pleasure; both seemed equally likely. “It was unfair of me to bring up your parents after telling you I didn’t want them to
“Did you actually want drinks?” know, either,” she said, whispers against his lips, barely spoken. He’d sometimes
He laughed, back of his head thudding against the mantel. wondered, in moments like this, if they’d invented a new kind of magic, where
“Not at all,” he said. Her fingers found his belt buckle. closeness made terrible conversations easier, comforted by touch. “You were right
He leaned forward, stealing a kiss, slowing her.”Did you want to—sit, or—we’re about that and I’m sorry. I see most things as pass or fail. I don’t do failure very
practically inside the fireplace.” well.”
She stepped back, and he immediately regretted his words. He was an idiot. An He opened his eyes, watched her face.
actual, certifiable idiot who’d just blown his chances at having her touch him. Which “And you decided we would fail?”
was unfortunate, because he ached for her: desire burning up his blood, drying him “It felt inevitable. Especially when I didn’t know exactly where we stood.”
out. He sighed. “I think I’m so used to you knowing everything I assumed you knew
She raised a brow at him, a slow smirk spreading across her kiss reddened lips. how I felt, that you knew what I was thinking.”
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“Only if they find out.” A pause, a breath, a declaration. “I trust you not to say “Is this too much spontaneity for one day?” she asked, taking another step away,
anything.” towards the velvet sofa. She sat, watching him, pinning him to the fireplace with her
He really missed kissing her. stare. “We’ve already deviated from my schedule once today. I certainly didn’t have
“I trust you not to defile the estate. If you need to take it, take it.” any of this”—a pointed look at his trousers where his interest was still very, very
She allowed herself the smile then, breaking across her face with the force of apparent—”on the schedule this week.”
sunlight spilling over the horizon, lighting up his darkness. She sat, crossing her legs and lobbing a serene smile across his living room. He
He really, really missed kissing her. blinked. She was going to kill him. Undoing, indeed.
“Tomorrow?” she asked. “The bookstore?” “Granger.” He lost himself for a moment to the idea of her sitting and considering
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Granger.” the best day of the week, the best time of day in between all her other
That feeling, the warmth inside his chest at the idea that she wanted to spend time responsibilities, to engage in some kind of, any kind of, physical intimacy beyond the
with him, on a Saturday, outside of the manor, carried him through the estate as he bid delightfully frustrating kissing they’d been doing. “I can’t decide if I want that to be a
her farewell in the Floo parlor. Then, out of curiosity, he tried casting a Patronus, joke or not.”
giving himself permission to think of her again, just once, instead of clinging to the She didn’t comment. Instead: “So. Are you in favor of or in opposition to the
scant other memories that qualified for the spell’s emotional needs. spontaneity?”
The light he conjured, stronger than any he’d ever managed before, looked a little Only Hermione Granger could make what effectively boiled down to a sexual
bit like hope, and a lot like his undoing. proposition sound like a bloody board meeting.
“In favor,” he said. “Strongly in favor.”
He finally moved, pushing off the fireplace and crossing the room. He dipped,
leaning over her and stealing a kiss. She ran a hand along his jaw, so soft, so warm.
Her fingers trailed down his throat and caught in the buttons running down the front
Hermione made a frustrated, growling sound from the back of her throat as she of his shirt.
stood on her tiptoes, reaching for a new book. “So,” she started, voice coming out shaky against his mouth. “I can touch you?”
“Who even is Gertrude Ederle, and why is my shop suddenly stocking so many He leaned further down, pushing her against the back of the sofa as he dropped to
new biographies? I’m never going to get to—” his knees in front of it.
She whipped around, facing Draco. Honestly, it surprised him how long she took “Gods yes,” he nearly growled, voice roughened by the image that flared to life
to put those pieces together. He could only assume that the disquiet between them inside his head. He kissed the spot at the base of her throat that made her keen
had diverted her mission towards TS Eliot and distracted her enough that she didn’t prettily against him, skating his hands along her sides. “But I want to touch you
notice the sudden abundance of biographies on public figures whose surnames began first.”
with the letter ‘E.’ The wobbling whimper that escaped her throat didn’t sound entirely like the
“What did you do?” she asked, pointing at him with the biography in question. enthusiasm he sought. He broke them apart, leaning back against his heels, literally
“Ensured that my ancestral, antique furniture stays in my possession.” on his knees for her. His hands now rested on the tops of her thighs, one small
The smirk was necessary, absolutely essential in that moment. Though it did not movement from dipping beneath the hem of her dress.
appear to help. He met her eyes, fingers dancing against her skin.
She released a frustrated huff, gestured towards him with the book again, and then “May I?” he asked.
spun back to the shelves. She nodded. Then, in a croaking voice that betrayed her nerves, “Yes.”
He heard her murmuring something, talking to herself in annoyance, and all he That sound, that strangle in her throat, made something in his chest tighten: a
wanted to do was kiss that frustration away, pin her against these shelves, like he’d clench behind ribs, a drop in a still pool sending waves rippling outward. He leaned
done not so long ago, but long enough that he ached for it again. forward to kiss her again, bracketed between her legs. She let out a startled breath
“Thirteen?” she said, louder now, actually intelligible. She turned back on him, when he looped his arms around her middle, pulling her against him, perched closer
taking two displeased stomps closer. “Thirteen books before I get to Eliot—how?” to the edge of the sofa.
He shrugged, casual, unaffected. Gods, he’d missed riling her. And she’d stepped His hands dipped, playing with the hem of her dress, before beginning a path
so close to him; he wondered if he had enough gravity to pull her in the rest of the beneath the fabric, up her legs, to her knickers that he quickly removed. He would
way. make this perfect for her. He had some—enough?—experience with women to do
“How I do most things: money.” that much. He would make her forget her nerves, wonder why she’d ever had them.
She smacked him square in the chest with the book. He recoiled, rubbing at his He’d make her come panting his name, forgetting all the things he’d not yet sought
sternum, a broad smile on his face. forgiveness for, forgetting all his flaws that made this endeavor of theirs impossible,
forgetting that she could have anyone and, for some reason, had picked him.
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With his head between her thighs, her nails scratching against his scalp as she He tried to remain calm, unaffected. But confusion battered at the inside of his
gripped his hair, he lost himself in the flush of red creeping up her chest. He twisted skull, seeking understanding. She didn’t seem concerned; she seemed casual, flippant
his hands in the soft fabric of her dress, bunched above her hips, anchoring him. even.
She flushed, panted breath growing heavier at every careful swirl and swipe of his “Have you—” he started, tamping down the accusatory tone that scratched at his
tongue, savoring the noises he could pull from her throat: a symphony of sounds in throat. “Have you done this—before?”
pleasure. He loved them. Loved—this. Her head tilted, recognition flared in the way her eyes, just for a moment, widened.
He groaned at a particularly rough drag of her nails, which only encouraged her “A few times,” she said. “I’m sorry; I didn’t realize you were unaware.” Their roles
more, a quiver beneath him. She arched, head thrown back: so close, so close. He had reversed, she now spoke with a careful, measured tone. He felt like the skittish
disentangled a hand from the fabric of her dress, touching her, teasing her, tasting animal that might bolt at too sudden a movement.
her. Under the debilitating force of his focus, determined to drive her to the edge and She continued, “There is a small category of illegal objects, in addition to a clause
over it, he nearly forgot to breathe, to think. The entirety of his world had narrowed about those that are irreparably damaged, that require removal. I turn them over to
down to the feeling of her canting her hips against his mouth, stuttering breath the Ministry. So long as the traceable magical history in the objects falls during or
punctuated by shattered attempts at speaking his name. before the war, and they aren’t a Class A infraction; they have no impact on your
She flexed her hand in his hair again, “Like that—Draco, gods.” father’s existing sentencing. I haven’t found anything that would extend his—”
He watched her face tense, eyes screwed shut, mouth agape as she arched against “You think that’s what I’m worried about?”
him. He was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he’d disassembled every last “I don’t know what you’re worried about. You’re not really saying anything.”
one of her nerves, lit them on fire, and repurposed them for her pleasure. He held He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he should feel offended on behalf of
her tight, slowing his touches, dropping kisses against the inside of her thighs as she his father, on behalf of his family estate, that the Ministry still saw fit to unilaterally
shuddered, panting. decide what of their property the Malfoys were allowed to keep. Nor did he know if
When she opened her eyes again—looking down at him as her hands went limp, he should feel offended that she hadn’t told him about it—that she assumed he
falling from his hair—her eyes had a distinctly glassy, distant look to them. He let simply knew but never mentioned when she took something, turned it over, as she said.
himself smirk, fully satisfied that he’d been able to please her. “I didn’t realize you were taking things from the Manor. Don’t you think that falls
She lifted a hand, pressed a finger against his bottom lip as she looked at him with under defiling the estate?” He wasn’t sure if he meant it as a joke.
curiosity, like perhaps she’d never really seen him before. In the quiet, almost-silence following his words, she tilted her head, evidently also
“Your hair,” she said, voice dry and stunted. It must have looked a mess, and she unsure if he meant it in jest.
was the only one he’d allow to do that. “It’s really only been a few things. This estate received the most attention from the
“Your fault.” Auror Division immediately after the war; they already found a good deal of it with
He let her pull him up, off his knees that had started to ache against the hardwood: their cursory sweeps.” She glanced down at her satchel, resting on the stone floor.
entirely worth it. “Would you prefer that I return the poisoned bottle of wine I found to the cellar?”
When he kissed her again, her mouth felt different, languid and lazy in the He couldn’t tell if she meant that as a joke, either. He felt like he’d entered a strange
afterglow of an orgasm. Another shape he could add to his catalogue. He kissed her, loop, lobbing words and measuring how they landed while he waited for her to
let her kiss him, let her maneuver him. return her own responses for evaluation. Both of them hoping they got the meaning
Around the time she wrapped her beautiful lips around his cock, a prettier sight right.
than any fantasy he’d ever had, he identified a foreign feeling behind his ribs, swelling He wondered if they were even talking about what they were talking about anymore.
with every bob of her brilliant head, threatening to overflow. The surprise wore off. The sharp stab of new, unexpected information had found
He wound her curls around his fist, resisting the instinct to thrust into her, hips its place amongst his understanding of her job, of their dynamic. And without that
begging for movement, for agency in this endeavor. Instead, he let his head fall back, shock, he could see clearly. She wouldn’t defile the estate. She wouldn’t abuse her
lost to soft, warm sensations that he might transmute to round, full sounds inside his power. She was incorruptible and he could trust her.
mouth, his throat, his heart. “I’ll put it back,” she said, brows drawing together. “If it matters that much to—
His mind ran blank, lost to the feeling of her mouth on his cock, driving away you. It’s just poisoned wine. It’s not an enormous threat. Don’t drink it, obviously.”
coherent thought. This—surely this—could be Patronus worthy. “Would you get in trouble for that?” Perhaps she was less incorruptible than he
thought. But he supposed it was easy to forget that she’d broken into Gringotts and
ridden a fucking dragon during her days as a war heroine. Such a contradiction, this
woman.
One corner of her mouth pulled up, bunching her cheek. He saw her biting at the
inside of her lip, trying to staunch the smirk.
 188 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 157

could be at that, knowing when to push and when to give him space. He’d counted it
once as a reason why they could be friends, when really, it was a reason they could be
so much more.
-1.833, -1.916, -2.000
A P RI L
Hermione invited him to spend an afternoon at the muggle bookstore with her. On
a Saturday. It felt so much like success, like progress, that it took a substantial

T
amount of self-control not to burst into a satisfied smirk as she posed the question. ICK TOCK
“Do you have any plans tomorrow, Draco?” she’d asked at the end of an The third room they tackled in the guest hall ended up being quite the
uneventful week clearing the cellar. cunt, in Draco’s professional opinion. It took almost a full day just to get
Her question stopped him mid-Patronus attempt, wand motions suddenly aborted, the door open, and Hermione didn’t take kindly to Draco’s occasional—hourly—
words on his tongue swallowed back. The happiness he’d curated, gathering in his suggestion that perhaps if they called Theo, he could get them through.
bones, remained. He wasn’t sure if professional boundaries or personal pride kept her insisting that
She looked nervous, not quite meeting his eye as she stepped through the cellar Theo’s skill set wouldn’t be required. Draco considered it a success that he even got
door and into the landing. She had a small package wrapped under her arm, and an her to admit that: yes, Theo could probably handle the wards if they needed to call
unflattering smear of dirt or ash streaking across her forehead. But only her question him. Which they didn’t, according to her.
bore any significance to him. Draco spent most of his time failing to produce a Patronus while he waited for her
“Not as of yet, no.” He spoke carefully, simply, afraid he might scare her off with to break the wards on the door. He’d been painfully—embarrassingly—optimistic
too much enthusiasm. She had a skittish look about her sometimes, like a wary that memories of her mouth on him, scorching rational thought from his brain,
animal in the wild. would be more than enough to conjure a corporeal Patronus.
“I was thinking of stopping by the bookstore—the one in muggle London. If you He managed one pitiful wisp of white light, lasting as long as it took for his
wanted to come.” frustration to consume him again, shutting down his happy thoughts. When
He forced himself to count his breaths—he managed three whole inhales—before Hermione asked if he was trying a new memory, embarrassment kept him from
he answered, lest he spew his excitement before she even finished her question. admitting he had been, and that it involved the cacophony of beautiful noises she
“Yes,” he said. “I’d love to.” made when she came.
She blinked, drawing her lip between her front teeth before immediately releasing For two weeks, he’d sustained himself on the memory of their post-movie evening
it, as if she thought better of that action. Did she know how often she did it? How he together: an appetizer against the sofa, a main course in his bed. They’d spent hours
liked to watch? He rather hoped not; his fascination with her lips likely bordered on tangled up together before she reluctantly pulled herself away, a beautifully sated
obsession, and it wasn’t as if she’d responded to his declaration of love in an smile on her face as she kissed him farewell and returned to hers. Between then and
especially favorable manner. now, he stole precious moments with her when he could, but they’d spent most of
And by that, he meant that she had barely any reaction at all, and still didn’t. They their time in a frustratingly professional capacity.
didn’t bring it up; he didn’t mention it, and neither did she. They simply worked He had no intentions of sabotaging his chances at continued intimacy by admitting
through their Cold War. Each day, conversation a little less forced, eye contact to how frequently he thought about her mouth—even for the purposes of casting a
maintained a fraction longer, lingering hurt evaporating into the ether. Patronus—while she did her work.
“What's the package?” he asked, shifting the conversation as she rocked awkwardly “You sound frustrated,” she said, back turned to him.
on the balls of her feet. Obviously. Yet another Patronus attempt had fizzled and died in an
“Oh, just something to turn into the Ministry.” underwhelming show of dim white light.
“Turn into the—what?” “You do, too,” he snapped: nastier than he should have been.
“A cursed object,” she said, blinking up at him with the most matter-of-fact tone in He heard the telling click of a door handle turning, brushing against the strike plate.
her voice. “I can’t decontaminate it, so I’m turning it over.” “Not anymore,” she said. Triumph overtook her posture: from slightly hunched
“You’re taking something from the manor?” Merlin—fuck, had Lucius Malfoy and tensed to standing tall and loose. But the door only represented the first step of
actually been onto something? many.
“I—yes? Why are you surprised by this?” When he moved to join her, ready to enter the room at her side, she arched a brow
She stepped around him and shrunk the object with an easy incantation, sliding it at him.
into her satchel’s outside pocket. “Don’t you dare say a thing about how Theo could have done that faster.”
 158 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 187

He smirked. “What were you—I mean, sorry, no that’s so intrusive of me to ask.” She pulled
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I only intended to compliment you on your brilliance. the door fully open again.
Excellent work.” He ducked and kissed her cheek despite her eye roll and “A muggle.”
disbelieving chuckle. Her fingers slipped from the handle, glass pane closing.
They paused at the threshold. “What?”
“It’s empty,” Draco said, staring into a room devoid of any furnishings. Unease Hermione looked confused, truly and genuinely baffled, with her brows pulled tight
prickled at his skin, sliding beneath it. together, mouth dropped open, eyes wide and searching him. A confused Hermione
Hermione didn’t seem to find the emptiness that greeted them all that alarming. Granger, most of the time, looked barely befuddled. She usually had some idea, or
“Considering how many rooms there are here, I’m honestly amazed this is the first several ideas, about the thing that confused her, solutions winding their way across
that’s empty. How many bedroom sets and sitting rooms can one household have?” her face. But this look, she had no ideas to unravel it.
She cast her runes and frowned: red light engulfed them. Draco cast his own to “I was thinking about my mastery, in Sarajevo. It was the first time I realized I
confirm. wasn’t pretending.”
“I presume this means we aren’t looking for dark magic stuck to a sofa?” “Pretending at what?” she asked, voice barely a whisper.
She let out a breath.”No. Probably more wards, security type stuff. It’s not entirely Something about what he planned to say felt insidious, disallowed in this place. The
unexpected considering all the trouble the door put me through.” cool, damp stone walls seemed to reach out to him, slicking him with unease. For
Draco’s family owned an abundance of furniture. He’d taken a whole flat’s worth some reason, it made him want to say it all the more.
out of storage to furnish his new place. He had trouble seeing his mother allowing “That blood supremacy didn’t mean anything to me. It’s not like I hadn’t already
for a single unfurnished room to exist. It unsettled him, incongruous with his had my entire belief system shattered in the war. But one doesn’t just”—he struggled
understanding of the manor and his mother. to articulate—”change overnight.” He paused. Every word felt cheap, unsatisfactory,
“Do you feel the intuitive magic?” came Hermione’s voice beside him, pulling him a knut when a galleon was the price. “Or even in the two years I spent isolated in this
from his staring contest with a sunbeam bisecting the room, illuminating the dust manor, rethinking those ideas.”
motes that acted as the only inhabitants of the space. She continued, “My runes are Hermione swallowed; he watched the line of her throat. Why hadn’t he told her
pointing me towards the center of the room, drawing me to the source of the threat. this before? It seemed so important, suddenly, that she know how he came to where
Do you feel it too?” he stood now. He’d even apologized three months earlier, pathetic as it had been, but
He felt—something. A nebulous tug in that direction, a red rune that attracted his he gave her no context, no reason to believe him even though she insisted his actions
focus more than the others. But he couldn’t separate that feeling from his unease meant more than his words.
about the lack of furnishings. “By the time I left for my mastery, I told myself I could pretend. While I was away,
Not even a bookcase. I could wear a different skin, be someone else, someone who didn’t care or know
Or a desk. anything about the Sacred Twenty Eight, who had nothing to do with the war.”
Or a piano: didn’t they have six or seven of those laying around? “And you were pretending,” she said. “But then you weren’t?”
“I—can’t tell,” he said, attention torn between the glowing runes in front of him “I realized I wasn’t exactly pretending when I had my hand up some muggle girl’s
and the empty space beyond that. “Something about this room—” skirt in a pub toilet—”
“It’s eerie, yes.” “A muggle?”
“Glad I’m not the only one,” he began, just as she lifted her foot to take a step. “Yes, Hermione. A muggle.” Draco drew in a sharp breath. Right. This was why he
“Hermione, wait.” hadn’t told her. It felt so real, so big, so important somehow, telling her like it meant
She glanced back at him. “I know,” she said. “But the best I can do is follow the something.
runes.” But it hadn’t meant anything. He’d been drunk. He got her off in a filthy fucking
“There should be furniture.” bathroom that for some reason had stalls with no doors and no toilets, just holes in
“That’s what has you worried?” the ground. By the time she’d given him a lazy-arsed hand job in return, the line of
“Every room in this manor is furnished.” people waiting to piss had started blending with the crowd around the bar trying to
She lifted a brow, suspicion and amusement twitching at the edges of her mouth. order their drinks.
“I mean this in a very affectionate way, I promise. But I sincerely doubt you’ve It had been an all around unsatisfactory experience that had nothing to do with her
been in every room in this manor.” blood status, the lack of magic in her veins. The general aroma of piss had rather put
He scowled at her. Of course he hadn’t been in every room. There were several in him off. But he’d been horny and drunk and snogging a pretty girl who had no idea
his parents’ wing he’d never had reason to enter. Besides, those were theirs, private. who the fuck he was, and that had been the best rush he’d felt in years.
But that wasn’t the point. He released an uncomfortable breath when Hermione gave him a soft smile,
“I know my mother, Hermione. I know how she maintains her home.” returning to her work without further question. He’d almost forgotten how good she
 186 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 159

Every time, that was the problem. Most of his memories—most of his life—had “Listen to your runes, then,” she said. “Are they providing you with any other
been spent in pursuit of being a good son in his father’s eyes, of achieving whatever warnings or suggestions?”
barely-achievable task his father set before him and doing everything in his power to He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding together.
reach it. “I just think we should be cautious,” he said, feeling like a repetitive idiot. He’d said
The good memories, the ones where he came the closest to casting something that that to her before, in the first room. They’d sprung a trap because he delayed her
could generously be called a Patronus Charm, always stopped too soon: second in work. But then again, he’d given a similar warning the first time she wanted to work
class behind Hermione Granger, second best Seeker behind Harry Potter, would-be in this hall, too; she’d ended up in St. Mungo’s on that occasion.
assassin to Albus Dumbledore—dubious honor usurped by Severus Snape. She smiled at him and reached for his hand.
A purple glow pulled his attention. Through the glass between them, he saw “I really appreciate that you’re concerned for me. Risk is part of my job. At a
Hermione emerge from the small humidor room attached to the cellar, runes happy certain point, the best I can do is use the tools the Ministry has provided.”
and purple. A faint smile pulled a curve at her lips; how she could find enjoyment in “That’s not reassuring. The Ministry is staffed by imbeciles.”
forcibly cleansing dark magic from the estate eluded him. She opted to ignore his insult against her employer. Instead, she squeezed his hand
She glanced up, catching his look. Her lips quirked higher, a silent hello in the and then let it go, finally taking a step towards the center of the room.
shape of a smile. He couldn’t decide if he liked this sudden realization that he was in It happened in an instant. She stumbled back—into him—tiny cuts littering her
love with her. It all seemed awfully difficult a situation to be in. But in little moments hands and face: anywhere her skin had been exposed. As if glass had exploded right
like this, where a tiny pull at the corners of her mouth could tense every muscle in front of her, slicing and shredding her skin. She hissed, wand already poised to
inside his chest, cause his heart to hammer, he couldn’t deny the thrill—not unlike heal her wounds. Draco dragged her out of the room by her shoulders.
flying. “It’s nothing,” she said in a rush when she caught his eye.
She looked away, returning—as always—to her work. He must have looked murderous, manic. He could feel the blood draining from his
He needed a different memory. Something else. Not one of her, and not one that face, the hard line forming at his brow. Fury at an empty room, at her for putting
could find its way back to his father, or the manor, or the war, or the general sense of herself in danger.
inadequacy he couldn’t shake. Existential crises did not make for stable Patronuses. “I told you something was off, I—” He forced himself to stop, torn between
There wasn’t much in his life that didn’t involve those things, though, and therein concern and anger: concern for her wellbeing, anger that she’d put herself at risk.
lay his assertion, from day one, that he would never cast a successful Patronus. “This is nothing,” she repeated. “A small repellent curse, illusionary in nature, they
Then it hit him. He realized he did have a memory, a year of them, that had can misdirect the runes sometimes, but they aren’t especially dangerous.” She’d
nothing to do with Hermione or his family or his past. He thought of his mastery, of already healed one hand completely, switching her wand into her left hand to tackle
Sarajevo, of feeling like he could be more, be better. the other.
He felt his magic swelling, warm and calm. It radiated from his chest, seeking an He stopped her.
exit in his extremities. “Let me. Don’t use your off-hand for healing magic. Don’t you know that?” He
“Expecto Patronum.” knew his words came out sharp and snappish, but he quite literally had her blood on
He spoke clearly, carefully, and with a precise wand movement that would have his hands. His fingers smeared it at her wrists, holding her steady as he cast several
impressed even the great Hermione Granger. healing charms to mend the tiny cuts. His mouth ran dry, robbing him of the ability
Yet, when he opened his eyes, all he saw was a faint glow at the tip of his wand, to swallow against a tightness at the back of his throat. “This is not nothing Hermione,
white light already fading out. you’re bleeding.”
The cellar door opened. “It’s a small curse,” she said again, stilling as he healed her hand, then her face,
“Draco, that was amazing—the first light I’ve seen from you since—” she broke flesh stitching itself back together: pink and raw, then white, then fading back to her
off. They both knew how long it had been and why. It didn’t bother him though, not normal skin tone. “It wouldn’t have even done anything to you; they’re usually blood
with the look of true joy crinkling the corners of her eyes as she beamed. specific.”
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t thinking of you.” If he hadn’t wanted to vomit before, he certainly did now.
A muscle in her cheek twitched, smile taking on a strained quality. “It’s okay,” she continued. “It could have been significantly worse. Really, this
“That’s good,” she said, and he wasn’t sure why he’d even mentioned it at all. curse is only a minor inconvenience.”
He’d wanted her to know he’d listened, he’d heard her. He wasn’t hanging all his He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the droplets of blood, five of them, that had
happiness on her. But she seemed disappointed by that idea, and that didn’t make dripped onto the stone floor. He could see his right hand hanging limp in his
sense. periphery, more red—her blood—spilled in this place.
She still held the handle to the cellar door, which hinged slightly open. It would “I’m sorry,” he said. For so much.
make for a quick retreat if he told her to go. He wondered if she expected him to. “It’s alright. Draco, it’s not your fault. I probably should have been more cautious,
as you suggested.”
 160 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 185

“Not for the curse. I mean—yes, for the curse. For being angry at you for She spun, eyes wide as she looked at him. Perhaps she’d been expecting anger, or
triggering it. But also for—all of it.” sadness, or for him to look at her the way he had all throughout June, when all he
He slumped against the wall, sliding to the floor. Evidently, a couple good orgasms could think about was how much she’d hurt him. When she didn’t find that—
could quell his conscience for two weeks and no longer. The reality that he’d never because he’d really, truly only meant it as a passing technicality, perhaps a subtle
truly apologized to her made itself known: a shift in temperature, in tone, in his entire reminder of what he’d like for them to be—she softened.
ability to process the scene around him. “And I’m sorry,” he added, knowing he had to say it. If he meant it, he had to say
He wiped his hand against his trousers, blood blending into black wool. If he didn’t it, especially to her. “Which may or may not be enough, but I am. I shouldn’t have
know to look for it, he’d have no idea her blood had been absorbed into his pant leg, shut you out, shouldn't have lashed out. It has occurred to me that my perception of
invisible against the dark fabric. He could carry it with him, and no one would ever you being entirely unaffected might have simply been your eternal professionalism in
know. the workplace.”
Guilt returned in force, a roar behind his eardrums. She considered him. “Thank you,” she said, watching for a moment longer before
Hermione crouched in front of him, stealing into his field of view. She shifted to turning back to her work.
her knees, reaching for him with a tentative hand, but he leaned away from it. “You may want to practice your Patronus some more,” she added, tone matching
“Please don’t, Hermione. I really don’t deserve—any kindness from you.” his in lightness. It almost felt playful, like banter he knew. “I suspect this room might
“Draco, what are you—” take a while.”
Despite the snitch-sized ball in the back of his throat, threatening to choke him of He smirked, purposefully catching her eye in the glass this time, enjoying this
his words and his oxygen, he spilled. moment of ease. Gods, he’d missed this.
“I never apologized to you. For everything.” He glanced wildly around them, at the “Would you like me to call Theo to assist?”
impersonal stone walls that constituted his family legacy. He shrugged his shoulders, She didn’t look especially amused, but she laughed all the same.
head falling back against the stone behind him. Anything he might say felt like far too
little, far too late. “I just—I’m sorry. For hating you. For hurting you. For—all of it. I
should have said so, ages ago. A year, at least. But I didn’t. And I—I need you to
know that I am sorry, I truly am. I don’t want there to be any question. Any doubt.”
The words nearly strangled him, so lifeless and painful inside his throat, scraping and Draco hated Patronuses. He hated seeing them. He hated trying to cast them. He
sticking at his flesh. hated every gods forsaken happy thought he was meant to think in making one. He
He kept his eyes closed, head resting against the wall. His heart felt like it might hated that apparently he wasn’t allowed to hang his happiness on Hermione and use
beat out of his chest and run away with the memory of what had felt a lot like that to fuel his magic, whatever the fuck that meant.
happiness with Hermione. Something he wouldn’t have again. Not after she realized He generally hated how his days were shaping up. Day after day of failing to
how long she’d let him get away with being an unrepentant villain in her story. produce a Patronus while watching from behind the glass cellar walls as Hermione
She’d let him touch her. Intimately. He should never have—his throat felt like it worked, floating runes leading her from shelf to shelf as she siphoned dark magic
might seal shut. from the room.
She didn’t say anything. Quiet dragged out the space between them. Behind closed He’d run through damn near every memory he had, every feeling he could think of,
eyes, it felt like the silence had pulled her away, either literally or figuratively; he had and none of them came anywhere close to the pathetic flashes of light he’d managed
no idea. when thinking about her skin and her lips and her hair and her eyes.
Finally, from much closer than he expected, she spoke: “An apology isn’t always He groaned. Their Cold War might be warming again—or wait, wasn’t that bad?
enough.” He had trouble keeping track, it honestly made no sense—but the divide between
He felt like the granite floor beneath him had cracked open, a pit to welcome him them remained.
into a new cold reality without her. How many minutes had passed since he’d He reached for another memory: Quidditch at Hogwarts. He honed in on how it
managed to conjure a tiny bit of light based on her beautiful mouth, on how it felt to felt to fly, wind whipping through his hair, stinging his cheeks, chapping his lips.
touch her, be touched by her? No more, never again. His chest ached, something Control and precision and freedom in the sky. The jolt, the utter thrill, in a glint of
seeped from between his ribs. fluttering gold: his heart beating as fast as the snitch’s wings in his pursuit.
Then her hand touched his knee. And his father, in the stands. Watching him. Judging him. Expecting success, and
He jerked his head up, eyes flying open. He didn’t know her to be cruel. If she then, of course, Draco failed.
meant to do this, she needn’t torture him with her touch. His magic withered. The warm tendrils that had surged from his center recoiled,
“If you’d apologized then, a year ago—I don’t know that it would have been desiccating in the sour, ashen memory of loss and disappointment. He didn’t even
enough.” bother with the incantation; it would not work.
 Beginning and end 161

-1.583, -1.666, -1.750 She pulled her lip between her teeth as his heart stammered painfully, a thud in the
center of his chest. The potential of her words, the hidden hope in them, hit him
straight in the solar plexus, nearly knocking the wind out of him. His diaphragm
J U LY seized, holding his breath hostage.
“You’ve shown me. You need to know that. I forgave you a very long time ago,
Draco.”
She scooted closer, knees between his legs. When she touched his chin, he still

T
ICK TOCK didn’t believe her. He had to replay her words inside his head several times, a loop of
With five of nine rooms in the guest hall decommissioned—the entirety understanding he did not deserve.
of the main level—July began with a trip underground, to the small lower “I know you did,” he said, realizing he had to say something, even if none of it felt
level that contained the guest wine cellars. When Draco originally recounted to right. “But that doesn’t mean I deserve it. You’re too kind, Hermione. Too
Hermione the number of rooms in the hall, he’d included the cellar as a single entity. forgiving.”
As his shoes clacked and echoed off the stone stairs when he stepped onto the She sighed, a sound hovering between the lines of sadness and annoyance.
landing, it became apparent that he might have undersold the size of the space. “Why are you thinking about this?” she asked. “I thought we’ve been—enjoying
He could feel Hermione’s frustration in the annoyed breath she released, peering ourselves? I’ve been happy, I’ve been—”
through the glass walls encasing the front of the cellar. Narcissa had been so proud She broke off from whatever she planned to say. Instead, she leaned forward and
of the lovely, modernizing renovation they’d done. Now, it felt out of place: clear kissed him.
glass, empty wine racks, and no indication as to whether or not anything nefarious She never kissed him during the workday.
lurked inside. She only occasionally allowed him to sneak one for himself.
At least Draco would be able to see Hermione while she worked. And never beyond the closed parlor doors.
They hadn’t quite reached a place where he participated again, but that didn’t stop But she kissed him all the same, in the middle of the guest hall corridor. She kissed
the worry for her safety from swallowing him whole now that he’d admitted that he him so thoroughly, with such intent, that he nearly forgot his own name, his own
was in love with the witch. past, and all the reasons why those things should be a barrier to this very act.
Loving her was an inconvenient thing. When she pulled away, this beautiful impossibility of a woman, she pulled him out
To use Hermione’s terminology, they’d slipped back into something of a Cold War: of his own head by doing what she did so very often: asking a question about
neither of them sure how to proceed without setting off an unmanageable chain scheduling.
reaction. She tried explaining something called mutually assured destruction the other “You’re still coming with me to the bookstore tomorrow, right?”
day, but Draco lost his focus, thinking instead of how soft her curls were and how He gave her an appreciative squeeze with his hand, which had found its way to the
badly he wanted to touch them again. back of her neck as she kissed him, running his fingers along either side of her spine.
But he could wait, would wait, until she sorted through whatever it was that had her He found the guilt. He found the shame. He packed it up and flaked it away,
so scared of trying anything with him. He presented her with tiny offerings instead. hoping he might lose it amongst the rubble, allowed to forget.
“I’ll tell them, if you want me to,” he said as she began dismantling the wards that
kept the cellar door sealed shut.
She paused, but didn’t turn.
“Tell who, what?”
He chuckled, watching as her grip tightened on her wand, tension traveling from One surprising side effect of dating Hermione Granger was the amount of time he
her wrist, up her arm, and into her shoulders. found himself in the muggle world. He hadn’t been opposed to it in theory; he’d
“As if you haven’t already considered every possible iteration of what I meant,” he dabbled while living abroad, but he now found himself experiencing it nearly every
said. “I’m just letting you know. If that’s the price, to put you at ease that this is week. The muggle world didn’t know who they were, wouldn’t judge them for
worth something to me. I’ll tell my parents we’re in a relationship.” spending time together, for their hand holding or fleeting kisses. There would be no
He saw the faint image of her outline reflected in the glass cellar door. He watched photographs, no newspaper articles that found their way back to Lucius and Narcissa
her face, uncertain if she realized the reflection exposed her. Malfoy.
“You would do that?” They could simply exist with each other, even if it meant without magic.
“Not now, of course. Since we’re not in a relationship, presently. But if we ever Not to mention the galleon to pound exchange rate worked incredibly well in his
were...” He kept his tone light, as unaccusatory as he could. He meant to bring levity. favor.
Truth be told, Draco didn’t mind it so much. There was a disorienting quality to it
sometimes, and he didn’t enjoy feeling unprepared or ignorant. But for the most part,
 162 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 183

dating in the muggle world wasn’t unlike dating in the wizarding world—with what in remembering what had happened last time they stood there, something like peace
limited experience he had before Hermione. settled over him, smothering his anger, soothing his hurt.
She dragged him to a cramped corner bookstore on a Saturday in April, insisting She still hadn’t answered him. He imagined she didn’t know how. She was a
that he would love it, but looking wary as she introduced him to the place all the woman of contradictions, even he could see it. Surely she did, too. With a Gryffindor
same. tendency to jump into something headfirst, but a paralyzing fear of failure that she
“Do the Flourish and Blotts proprietors know you have a secret muggle bookstore managed with effort and discipline and a schedule that left no room for error; it was
on the side?” he asked, leaning against a shelf and watching as she browsed the no wonder they’d ended up here.
nonfiction section. “Do you remember when you said you could be friends enough for the both of us
He wondered if he’d ever tire of the look on her face: lips parted slightly, until I figured myself out?” He’d softened: shoulders, voice, soul. She responded to
occasionally moving as she mouthed the titles to herself, brows furrowing and it, tension unwinding, death grip on her lower lip loosening.
smoothing in her critical assessment of the things she saw, acknowledgement written She nodded, evidently too trapped in her own head to speak.
in her features. “I suppose I could be in love enough for the both of us until you figure yourself
He’d never known a soul with as expressive a face as Hermione. Every thought. out.”
Every idea. She wore them without realizing it. Watching it had become his new They stood there, in the quiet, until Theo came, stumbling and drunk, to find them.
favorite exercise in nonverbal communication, trying to figure out what each twitch It broke the silent understanding they’d formed.
at her brow and wrinkle of her nose might mean. She’d waited for him.
“If Flourish and Blotts is interested in an exclusive relationship with me then it He could wait for her.
ought to specify that, and perhaps consider appealing to all my interests. They stock
exclusively magical books; there’s so many more I’d like to read.”
She ducked past him, flashing him a smile as she turned the corner into a new
section. He followed, enjoying every moment in this quiet, mostly-empty muggle
bookshop, flirting with his girlfriend.
“Besides,” she said, pulling a book from the shelf and scanning the back cover,
somehow capable of speaking and reading at the same time. “I like this little
bookstore. Flourish and Blotts is always so busy.”
“I’m not convinced the owner is even conscious over there,” Draco said, taking the
book from her, meeting only the slightest bit of resistance. She certainly didn’t like
sharing her books, even when they weren’t hers yet, but he wanted to satisfy his
curiosity about what had caught her attention.
“He’s awake,” she said. “He just has a drowsy look to him.”
The clerk looked one long blink from an upright nap. Draco rolled his eyes. He
flipped the book over in his hands.
“A biography? Who is Amelia Earhart?”
“A muggle,” she said and Draco couldn’t quite tell if she meant to be facetious, but
she continued. “She flew airplanes—remember Theo telling you about them a couple
of months ago?”
“I thought you two were joking—”
“She disappeared while trying to circumnavigate the world. I’ve been—” She
stopped, biting at her lip, expression closing off.
He moved closer to her, ducking out of the barely conscious shopkeeper’s sight.
He’d be lying if he pretended a series of salacious thoughts about getting Hermione
off in a bookstore didn’t cross his mind. Surely she’d thought something similar at
some point in her life. She liked books and libraries and bookstores more than
anyone he knew.
“You’ve been…” he prompted. She looked up at him, a nervous flicker behind her
eye, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. Maybe she’d been thinking about salacious
things, too.
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“I fumbled my words,” she said. “I honestly wasn’t sure what you wanted—from He stepped even closer, one hand finding her waist, savoring her tiny intake of
me, us—because we’d never talked about it and then that jewelry—I didn’t handle it breath as he pivoted them, positioning her against the shelves. She reached for the
well, alright? It scared me, and all I could think about were your parents and how book in his other hand, taking it back.
they’d never approve of me, and it all felt so hopeless.” “I’ve been working my way through the biographies here. In alphabetical order.”
Draco bit his tongue, quite literally, to stop himself from interrupting. She stared at She looked past him—beyond him—as she spoke, clutching the book to her chest.
his shirt collar, dim streetlamp turning her normally deep brown eyes a bright copper: “This one is next.”
glassy as she spoke. He almost laughed, but her look of embarrassment stopped him. Her words had
“I was already kind of strung out—the anniversary does that to me. And then I come out slow, halting, like it had been truly difficult for her to will them into
knew I’d hurt you, and I didn’t know how to fix it. And you just left; you wouldn’t existence. He didn’t say anything. Instead, his eyes flicked to the shelves above her
talk to me. So then I got even more upset and—” head, taking note of the titles he saw, scanning the gap where Amelia Earhart had
She ran a hand through her curls, making a strangled noise of frustration as her once been.
fingers got tangled up in it. In about any other situation, Draco would have thought “That’s—” he started.
that adorable, would have kissed her annoyance away. But as it stood, he just wanted “Don’t make fun of me.” Declaration caught between indignation and insecurity.
his chest to stop aching and this conversation to end. So, she hadn’t been thinking about doing any unsavory things in a bookshop with
“I’ve never wanted jewelry before, okay? It’s never even crossed my mind as him. Unexpectedly, her surprise confession only made him want her more.
something I might like. And I never accepted or asked for any from Ron. But I was “I wasn’t planning on it.”
scared because I wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea—from you. I was afraid of what She rolled her eyes, making a halfhearted attempt to push past him; Draco didn’t
that meant—you offering and me accepting. The uncertainty, all the possible move. He ducked his head, breathing in her ear the way he knew she liked. He felt
outcomes. It’s all so overwhelming. My parents have just—a perfect relationship. her shiver before he spoke his first word.
Even your parents seem like they do. Molly and Arthur, James and Lily Potter, Harry “How long have you been working on this, Granger?”
and Ginny, they’re all so perfect—” Another shiver, stronger. One of her hands found his chest, a finger trailing down
“Did you do this to Weasley, too?” the front of his shirt as she sighed.
The question burst from him as suddenly as he’d thought it. She didn’t even seem “A little over a year, maybe? I discovered this place shortly after I broke up with
to register he’d spoken at first, still barreling through her list of perfect relationships, Ron. It—seemed like a good hobby to occupy all my free time.” She’d loosened, no
and all the ways that clearly made her wildly insecure. An inkling of understanding longer unnecessarily embarrassed for a hobby she enjoyed. As if anything about
trickled through his veins. Hermione and her love of books could be embarrassing. He’d decided long ago that
“What?” she said, finally recognizing his question. “No, Ron and I weren’t really all it was one of her more endearing qualities.
that compatible—” She tilted her head slightly and lifted her finger from his chest, tapping a title near
“Are you so afraid of failing that you’d rather not try?” the side of her face.
Her eyes widened. Despite that bolt of confirmation, all Draco could feel was the “I’ve been looking forward to this one for a few months now. Only three more
weight of hypocrisy hanging over him. How many conversations with his own loved after Earhart.”
ones had he avoided because he was afraid of the answer? Draco read the spine, “And who is TS Eliot?”
The question of blood purity as it related to his parents came to mind. She made a little gasping noise, as if scandalized that he did not know.
He knew that kind of coping mechanism. He understood it. He’d hidden behind it “He’s a writer, a poet. He writes—beautiful things.”
for far longer than he ever should have, and he still did with some issues. “And because you’re working your way through these biographies alphabetically,
It wasn’t quite the same as staring at fried zucchini blossoms and feeling his you’ve denied yourself of reading the one you want?”
Occlumency crumble, but more like he finally gave himself permission to “I’ve enjoyed the others, too,” she said with a small shake of her head. “There are
acknowledge the unspoken thing hovering in his periphery, a shadow just out of so many interesting muggles that we know nothing about in the wizarding world.
sight, a word on the tip of his tongue. But—yes, I’m looking forward to Eliot, especially.”
Her rejection hurt him so much because he was in love with Hermione Granger. “How long? Three books plus the flying lady; how long will that take you?”
In love with her. She shivered again, eyes darting down to where his fingers had slipped beneath her
He’d never been in love before. jumper, drawing circles with his thumb against her skin.
It hurt more than he expected. There was more fear involved, too. But also, a level She locked eyes with him, a pause as she considered.
of certainty, of calm that came with accepting it. “Maybe two weeks—I have a few other things to read as well, so I won’t be able to
The nightmare shifted, sharply, into a dream again: better, but still unreal and devote my time exclusively to—”
unnervingly repetitious. He’d been here before, done this before. On a different He chuckled, halting her words.
birthday—hers—but the place was the same. In acknowledgement of that sameness,
 164 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 181

“Have you not looked at the one on this”—he tilted his head to read the title— “Why are you following me, Granger?”
”Einstein person? It must be close to a thousand pages long. Hermione, you are a “Can you please be an adult and just talk to me?” she asked, mouth pressed thin as
very impressive witch, but not even you can read that much, that fast.” she crossed her arms.
She narrowed her eyes at him, “And here I was thinking you wanted to kiss me.” Draco never realized how dark Diagon Alley became after all the shops closed up
He leaned closer. for the day. There weren’t nearly as many street lamps as he assumed there were, and
“I do, very much.” even those were dim and flickering. He’d stopped at the midpoint between two of
“Your odds of doing so drop dramatically when you antagonize me.” them, directly in front of Eeylops Owl Emporium. Wide owl eyes blinked at him
Closer still. from a darkened window. He could hear a ruckus coming from another pub around
“Are you certain that’s the case? Sometimes I think you enjoy it when I rile you the corner. And yet, he felt very much alone with her. He really, desperately did not
up.” want to be alone with her.
She licked her lips, a tiny flick of her tongue as she drew breath. All his avoidance, all his deterrence, shifted into anger at her indignation.
“How do you do that?” she asked. Her voice had dropped, barely a whisper “Be an adult? Fuck off, Granger. You don’t get to imply I’m not an adult because I
between them. don’t want to be constantly tortured by you. I have to spend most of my time with
“Do what?” you. Is it not enough that I can’t fucking escape you?”
His nose brushed hers. He turned, intent on storming away, but halted. He flexed his hands, ground his
“Look all—handsome, and like you’d do anything to touch me.” jaw, nearly growled when he heard her start to rebut with something undoubtedly
“Probably because I would.” clever and cruel and uncalled for.
She whimpered, head tilting back. He let his lips touch hers, just enough, just for “And you know what else, Granger?” he said, turning back to her. He felt a furious
him, before pulling back. flood seeping from between his ribs, and it was an excellent, vindicating feeling.
“I suppose I can’t kiss you, then.” “You’re delusional. You know that? You introduced me to your friends. You took
“What?” she asked, voice propelled much louder than necessary, failing to properly me as your date to one of the most prominent weddings ever.”
adjust out of the whispered words they’d been sharing. He advanced on her; she didn’t get anonymity by distance. He would see her
“Well you see, I’d like to antagonize you some more. And if that means no—” reaction to the truth she’d clearly tried so hard to forget.
She pulled him to her, stealing a kiss as he smiled against her lips. He wasted little “You let me hold you,” he continued. “Touch you, fuck you. Make you come over
time, arms encircling her, only tangentially aware that they were barely out of sight. and over and over again. You spent your spare time with me. Gave me a whole day
He pushed her back against the shelves, gently, so as not to jostle them. He let his of the week in your insane schedule. You said I’d done enough to show you I was
thigh rest between her legs, pressed against her as she released an almost sorry and that I didn’t need to apologize.”
imperceptible noise of pleasure, searing it into his skin. He stood too close now, feeling like a predator, like he’d trapped her. Her jaw
“There’s no way”—he broke from her mouth, dipping to her neck, dragging his hardened, brows a furious, straight line projecting annoyance and confidence. But he
teeth along the vertical tendons in her throat—”that you’re getting to Eliot in the saw each blow as it landed, chipping away at whatever her version of mental wards
next two weeks.” was. Not Occlumency, she didn’t know that particular brand of magic. But
A puff of frustrated air coasted by his ear. something else, equally as stubborn. And if he had to guess, likely brute-forced by
“You are impossible. And childish.” Her voice caught when he dipped his tongue sheer discipline of intent, because that was the Hermione Granger way.
into the hollow at the base of her throat. “I blew up my fucking betrothal for you. I don’t understand how you can possibly
She said one thing, but her body arched against him regardless, a beautiful curve of think we weren’t in a relationship. You’re way too smart for that. So what I don’t
her spine, pressing her chest against his as she rocked—just enough—against his leg; understand is why you’re being such a bitch about the thing you’ve already ruined.
he knew she must be fighting off her own pleasure. Just let me nurse my broken fucking heart in peace.”
“Doesn’t feel very childish to me,” he said, hand dipping beneath the hem of her He hated himself the moment he said it. Too much, too far, too cold. He’d been
jumper, skating up her ribs. far too mean and far too vulnerable all at once. He was mad at her, yes, very much
She pulled away. First, pressing herself against the shelves but, in finding nowhere so. And he wanted to hurt her: a little, some. But—gods, now he only felt tired.
to go, leaning to the side, disentangling herself from his lips and limbs. She cleared Exhausted from laying it all out, onto her. He’d raised his voice, too, he could still
her throat. feel it echoing around them, propelled by angry magic that carried a touch more
“We are in public.” He supposed she intended to sound scandalized. sadness than he cared to admit.
She only sounded breathless. She clenched her jaw, looking furious. Then it faded, something sadder. “You’re
He stepped back, giving her space, brow arched as he crossed his arms, savoring being cruel. But—you’re not entirely wrong.”
her fluster. He’d just called her a bitch. She wasn’t allowed to agree with him.
“Care to wager on it?” he asked.
 180 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 165

“What the fuck is Granger doing here?” “Wager on what?”

To Theo’s credit, he looked shocked, then sufficiently contrite. “Eliot.”
“I invited her before—probably two months ago. I didn’t know she’d come,” Theo She laughed.
said, turning to peer back inside the pub. “What, that I can’t get to it in two weeks?”
“Well, she’s here, you utter fuck. You didn’t think to rescind the invitation since “Precisely.”
she—you know.” He gestured vaguely to himself, wanting to melt into the brick wall She picked up the biography on Earhart she’d apparently dropped, brushing the
behind him. cover as if to sweep away a layer of nonexistent dirt.
“How do you know she’s here?” Theo asked, pausing on a hiccup. He swayed. “I “If you win?” she asked. Her tone went flat, like she could barely bring herself to
don’t even see her.” entertain such a notion.
“She’s here. I saw her walk in. She’s hard to miss.” He considered.
“For you maybe—oh, yes. There she is.” “You lift the moratorium on workday kisses.”
She stood directly in front of the window Theo had been craning to gaze “No, Draco. That’s unprofessional.”
through.She pulled the door open and stopped on the threshold, greeting Theo with It was worth a shot.
a small smile playing on the lips Draco had spent so much time trying to erase from “Fine, I get to complain as much as I want about my Patronus progress, and you
his memory. can’t stop me.” She made an unamused sound. “And if you win?” he continued.
“Hello, Theo. Happy birthday.” “What do you want? Anything at all.”
She held out a small package. Theo glanced sideways at Draco, almost as if he She didn’t answer at first, thoughts crawling across her face. Anticipation crept up
needed permission to take it. After a beat, Theo reached out anyway, accepting the Draco’s spine when she glanced up at him, an amused glint flashing from her eyes.
gift. She smirked.
“Thanks, Granger,” he said. He leaned in, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and “The sofa.”
then slipped by her, mumbling something about drinks. “Excuse me?”
He’d abandoned ship before Draco even had the opportunity to consider the “The hideous one. That tufted velvet green nightmare of a sofa. I have a rather
depths of his mutiny. sentimental attachment to it despite how atrocious it is.”
“I just came to give Theo his gift,” Hermione said, taking a small step forward, He couldn’t help himself; he took a tiny, half-step towards her.
then aborting the move when he tensed. He’d been cornered in a fucking back alley. “Because of all the ways I’ve touched you on it?”
“I was hoping I’d see you though—outside of work. If we could talk—” She pressed her lips together, averting her eyes as her chest flushed pink. She
“Merlin—fuck, Granger. No, we can’t fucking talk. There’s nothing to say.” cleared her throat and ignored him.
He spun, wand out, and tapped on the appropriate bricks to open the entry to “To summarize, if I get to Eliot in the next two weeks, the sofa is mine. If I don’t,
Diagon Alley. He slid through as soon as the space grew wide enough to let him pass. you get to complain and be a prat while I’m working?”
This late in the evening, the shops would be closed, and he could hopefully slip away He chuckled, offering his hand.
to some empty alleyway, rip out his hair, and regain control over his heartbeat in “Since you clearly have no idea what you’re getting into, betting with a Slytherin,
peace. I’m willing to extend the timeline indefinitely. Whenever you get to Eliot, the sofa is
Behind him, he heard the clack of her shoes against the cobblestone street. She’d yours.”
followed. Of course she followed. She was tenacious and stubborn and clearly bent She narrowed her eyes at him, “Sounds like you don’t even want to win, in that
on torturing him. Was sadism a Gryffindor trait? case.”
He didn’t look back. He pointed at himself. “Slytherin. And you’ve already admitted that you find me
“Go away, Granger.” very distracting.” A pause, a smile. “What do you say?”
“Stop calling me that. You’re being so unreasonable,” she called from behind him, She made a show of rolling her eyes and shaking her head, curls bouncing around
slightly breathless. He had long legs; he imagined she had trouble keeping up. He her as she did. But she took his hand all the same. He pulled her in for another kiss.
smiled at that. “Felt like something we should seal with a kiss, don’t you think?” he asked.
“It’s your name.” He threw his words over his shoulder, not really looking at her. She gave him that you’re impossible smile again and led him to the register.
“You stopped calling me that ages ago.” He looked forward to being able to complain about his nonexistent Patronus as
“Not true.” much as he pleased.
“Fine,” she relented, something defeated and annoyed in her tone. “You stopped The next day, he returned to the shop, having put the exceptional galleon exchange
saying it like that ages ago.” rate to good use, and paid heftily for the owner to stock as many biographies as he
He stopped, sucking in a deep breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He spun could find between Earhart and Eliot.
to face her just as she came to a halt far too close to him.
 Beginning and end 179

-1.750, -1.833, -1.916 “Not likely. You’ve tainted every last memory I might have used.”
She recoiled, perhaps from surprise that he’d actually engaged her or from the
physical force of his words, snappish and annoyed. She brought her hand to the door
MAY frame, either steadying herself or holding herself in place, he didn’t know.
“I—” she started, but stopped, swallowed. “You’ve been thinking of me?”
That shouldn’t have embarrassed him. At least he didn’t think it should. But warm
shame tickled down the back of his throat.

T
ICK TOCK He realized he still had his wand raised, as if delayed magic might still spill out of it.
In yet another series of events Draco could never have imagined prior to He let it fall to his side, shoulders dropping with defeat.
entangling himself in a relationship with Hermione Granger, he found “You’re supposed to think of your happiest memories, are you not?” He watched
himself sitting in Harry Potter’s home on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. hand on the door frame. Her knuckles tensed, fingers flushing white from increased
Strangely, Draco had actually visited Grimmauld Place once before, when he was pressure.
very young, accompanying his mother to the property upon the passing of her Aunt “You can’t hang all your happiness on me,” she said, voice quiet, almost silent.
Walburga. Narcissa had called the home unsalvageable and set her sights on newer It felt like a nightmare again, like none of this was real. Or perhaps, like this was the
properties in the city, should they wish to invest in London real estate. Draco first time any of it was real and everything leading up to this had been a bizarre,
remembered her surprise when his Aunt Bellatrix never claimed the decrepit old whirlwind of a dream. Time slipped strangely through the cracks between words. He
home either, leaving it abandoned until Harry Potter and his ever righteous band of couldn’t tell if it moved too quickly or nowhere near quick enough. He’d almost
Gryffindors took up residence. forgotten that she spoke.
Sitting in the home now, Draco found the clash between classic pureblood He laughed again, but with more hollowness this time. His eyes didn’t move from
aristocratic interior design and what he could only assume was the Weaslette’s her hand, still resting on that door frame, anchoring him in place more than anything
attempt at making the space less, well, nightmare-inducing with a collection of else.
excessively fluffy throw pillows, distinctly disorienting and unsettling. “Well—you can’t let a man think he’s in a relationship with you for nearly half a
Nervousness chewed at his skin: a constant, prickling reminder that he did not year. So, I suppose we’re both doing things we shouldn’t.”
belong with these people, especially not on this day. Hermione had insisted it would In that moment, he wished more than anything that he could produce a Patronus
be a small gathering, that they simply liked to spend time together on a difficult day, purely powered by spite. He had that in spades, plenty to go around and enough left
eating food, having some drinks. She seemed incapable of understanding that his over to cast some truly powerful magic.
presence ought to be offensive and grotesque, that he would be unwelcome. His She had a lot of nerve. He wasn’t allowed to be in a relationship with her, not a real
protests clattered uselessly against the optimism she wore like armor. one anyway. And apparently, even when he thought he was, he shouldn’t have been
He might have felt proud that he’d so thoroughly charmed her into ignoring his using the happiness it brought him to try and fuel his magic.
horror show of a history, if not for the fact that those charms had landed him in What other things was he not allowed? How much more did she want to take from
Harry Potter’s living room, loitering in a far corner and trying to make himself as him?
inconspicuous as possible. He pocketed his wand, refusing to look at her face. His chest ached. His bones
A pink-haired blur threw itself over the arm of his chair, tiny hands grabbing for hurt.
purchase as Draco heard a breathless oomph from impact. Teddy Lupin looked up at He needed a drink.
him, pink hair melting into an uncanny white-blond. He needed space.
“Why are you in the corner?” Teddy asked. He needed to wake up from this fucking nightmare.
“I’m hiding.”
Teddy wrinkled his nose, eyeing the doorway as if expecting Andromeda to appear
at any moment to ruin his fun.
“Is it because of the vegetables? I can’t have any more sweets until I eat my
vegetables. Grandmother says so.” “Theo, I don’t care that it’s your birthday. I’m going to kill you.”
Draco let out a gasp of mock shock. “There are vegetables, too? All the more Draco grabbed Theo by the upper arm, yanking him from the booth where they’d
reason for us to hide, don’t you think?” been sitting with Blaise, getting solidly drunk for Theo’s birthday.
“I want to play outside.” Theo stumbled out of the booth, teetering on wobbly legs as his coordination
“You and me both, kid. A game of Quidditch would do wonders for my stress sagged under the weight of their celebration. He pulled Theo out the Leaky’s back
right about now.” door, next to the entrance to Diagon Alley, and resisted the urge to hex a man on his
birthday.
 178 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 167

engaged in some hilarious inside joke about liquor qualities. “Draco, any news from Teddy bounced against the armrest, eyes wide with excitement.
Tilly you’d like to share?” “You play Quidditch? Uncle Harry plays Quidditch. He’s the best—”
“Ah, yes Milly—Tilly says hello and sends her regards for the upcoming solstice.” “Let’s not be hasty. Potter is hardly the best. He’s adequate and infuriatingly lucky.”
Milly’s ears flushed a deep maroon. Her huge, round eyes gathered mist as she “You—talk funny.”
effused her thanks and cracked away to retrieve the requested alcohol. Draco sighed, wincing.
“Sorry—I don’t talk to a lot of kids. I just mean, he’s not the best. I played against
him in school.”
“Did you beat him?”
“Well—I, there was one time—”
The fifth room in the guest wing, and the last on the main level, presented enough “Was there?” Potter asked from the doorway, brows lifted over his stupid
of a challenge that Draco’s paranoia drove him to linger a little closer than usual. Not spectacles.
hovering, per se, but near enough that if something else attacked Hermione—as this “Yes. There was.”
particular hall had already demonstrated a propensity to do—he could assist, even if “Was that the time—well, one of the times—I was unconscious?”
it meant interacting with her. Draco faltered. Honestly, he wasn’t sure.
Hermione engaged in a great deal of frustrated huffing, loud sighs, and heavy Potter clearly didn’t expect an answer; he stepped into the room and dropped onto
footsteps. She was simply very noisy, constantly interrupting Draco’s attempts at a nearby sofa.
leisurely reading or making sense of Blaise’s investment recommendations. “What are you two doing in here? There’s food downstairs in the kitchens if you’re
He snapped his notebook shut. If she planned on leaving the door wide open and hungry.”
making so much noise as she worked, then Draco would do the same. “We’re hiding,” Teddy said before launching himself into Potter’s midsection.
He stood, wand drawn, and tried to conjure a Patronus. Potter made a strangled sound upon impact, but laughed as he lifted the boy and
Except, he couldn’t think of a memory to fuel it. planted him back on the floor.
He thought first of Hermione’s mouth, how he loved kissing it, touching it, “Got room for one more?” Potter asked. Teddy nodded enthusiastically. “I get why
watching it as she thought or spoke. He thought of how her lower lip flushed from Malfoy’s hiding, but why are you here, Teddy?”
white to pink after she released it from between her teeth, constantly chewing on it as “Did you know Draco is my cousin?” Teddy asked, completely ignoring Potter’s
she considered something. question. “He’s really cool.”
He couldn’t use those memories. “First cousin once removed,” Draco said beneath his breath. He picked at a loose
He thought of her hair next. Absurd, ridiculous, semi-sentient as it was. He loved thread on the arm of his chair, rubbing it between two fingers and expecting the
the delayed movement of her curls, mimicking her motion as momentum swirled worst. He couldn’t foresee any good coming from Potter’s decision to voluntarily
them around her whenever she titled or turned her head. They were soft and so easy spend time alone—well, mostly alone—in the same room as Draco.
to wind around his fingers. And on the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, no less.
But he could hardly use those memories, either. Potter didn’t spare Draco a second glance. Instead, he laid sideways on the sofa,
He dug deeper, tried something different. still engaging Teddy.
He thought of the day he was released from Azkaban after spending three months “He’s cool, huh? What makes him so cool, then?”
awaiting his trial. He’d spent his eighteenth birthday there, wondering if he’d spend “His hair.”
the rest of them there, too, locked away in the middle of a forgotten ocean. But the “I thought you liked my hair,” Potter said.
Ministry pulled him out, gave him his trial, and sent him to the manor to serve two “His is cooler.”
years of house arrest, calling him wayward, calling him misguided, calling him That probably shouldn’t have pleased Draco as much as it did.
unfortunate, but never calling him evil. Potter seemed to ponder that before he poked Teddy in the stomach, sending the
He’d thought himself evil. child scampering out of reach with a shrill laugh.
That relief, it filled him, but it didn’t feel the same or nearly as powerful as his other “What else is so cool about Malfoy?”
attempts at conjuring a Patronus. “He doesn’t like vegetables, either.”
“Expecto Patronum.” Draco heard Potter suppress a snort of laughter. He narrowed his eyes in Potter’s
Nothing happened, not even a flash of light. general direction, but didn’t have a great line of sight from his seat in the corner. He
He saw Hermione standing in the nearby doorway, watching him. could only see Teddy, animated and excited, talking about Draco as if he wasn’t
“I know you can do it,” she said, a rare sentiment directed at him and not her work. there. More than that, being adorably complimentary about it.
He laughed. For the first time, his instinct wasn’t to run away from her words. But He supposed kids weren’t so bad. At least they didn’t come with any predisposed
instead, to throw them back. opinions about him, his family, or his past. Teddy simply saw him as a cousin with
 168 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 177

cool hair who didn’t like vegetables, which to be fair, was really all someone needed if he hadn’t known Theo since they were toddlers. But that hum wasn’t just
to know in order to make a reasonable character assessment. acknowledgement. It was avoidance. It was something else.
“I’ve got bad news for you, bud,” Potter said. “There are definitely vegetables “What?” Draco asked, voice tight with annoyance as he helped himself to an
downstairs in the kitchen. And I’m pretty sure I saw your grandmother putting some armchair. He realized he’d left his birthday toffees in the parlor at the manor. If
on a plate for you.” Granger ate a single one of them he’d have her sacked. He’d find a way. He glanced
Teddy grumbled, distancing himself from Potter. at the Floo, wondering if it was worth it to try and sneak back for them. But that ran
“I want cake,” he said, bottom lip jutting out in a truly impressive pout. the risk of coming face to face with her as she’d almost certainly tried following him
Potter held his hands up in defense. “Take that up with your grandmother. I’m not when he’d stormed off mid-gifting.
in charge around here.” “What, what?” Theo asked, as if he had no idea what Draco meant by his question.
“But it’s your house,” Teddy said with a stomp, as if property ownership gave a “What aren’t you telling me? Or what do you really want to say? You need to work
man unlimited authority within his walls. Though technically, at Malfoy Manor and on your tells.”
most other pureblood households, that was exactly the case. Theo prodded at another key on the table.
Teddy switched targets, skipping back over to Draco and leveling him with a “She’s seemed—off, too.”
pleading stare. Draco’s back tensed against his chair. He regretted picking a seat behind Theo. All
“Draco, I want cake. Tell Uncle Harry I can have cake.” he could see was the back of his head, and he needed line of sight on Theo’s face.
Oh no. Draco needed to see exactly how much guilt he’d find there.
Oh no. “And you know because—you’ve seen her?”
Draco couldn’t tell if it was a trick of his metamorphmagus abilities or simply a gift “I’ve been seeing a guy I met while she and I were boyfriend hunting a couple of
of cuteness, but the wide, round eyes Teddy lobbed at him, mouth turned into a pout months ago. We already had an afternoon planned with her and—well, it seemed like
once again, completely dismantled any defenses Draco might have had towards a good opportunity to see how she’s doing. She is my friend, too.”
reason. “Not your lifelong friend, she’s not. And she knows about some guy you’re seeing,
“Potter, the kid wants cake.” but I don't?”
“Malfoy—” Potter started, sitting up. He sounded simultaneously stunned and Theo whipped around, mouth tight despite the air of nonchalance he seemed
exasperated. desperate to project with his casual lean against the table.
Draco gave a shrug, already knowing he’d been played. He’d hardly put up a fight. “I’m not saying I’d ever pick her over you if I had to choose. You’re my best friend
“What? He said he wants cake. I want cake, too. You know what, Teddy? Let’s go when you aren’t in moods like this. So technically, I would pick Blaise over you today.
find some cake.” But from the way you’re handling yourself—I was worried about her, too.”
He stood, gesturing for Teddy to follow and pointedly avoiding Potter’s eyes as Draco gave into temptation. He felt the question forming inside his skull,
they left the room. coalescing into something he both did and did not want the answer to, but that he
Potter laughed and called out: “You can deal with Andromeda, then.” could not rest until he asked, pathetic as it made him.
As it turned out, Teddy had already had one slice of cake, and Andromeda did not “Did she—say anything about us? And what happened?”
take kindly to Draco smuggling him another. “No. And trust me, I tried. But she definitely seemed off.”
It was a worthwhile endeavor, however. Draco and Teddy had a great time, “Don’t know why. She wasn’t in a relationship, apparently. It’s not like she lost
sequestered in the corner of the kitchen, indulging in a sugar high, and discussing anything.”
some of the finer points of Quidditch, such as: it’s called a bludger, not a bugger, that’s a Draco saw a flash of sadness cross Theo’s face before he hid it, wrangling the
naughty word you shouldn’t say around your grandmother—or ever and no, the quaffle isn’t the mood in the room into something less depressing, more Theo.
most important ball just because it’s the biggest. “It’s your birthday. Now is not the time for such conversations. What is your drink
of choice for the occasion?”
Draco gave a noncommittal shrug, not quite willing to drum up the level of
enthusiasm he knew Theo would require of him.
“Milly,” Theo said, summoning one of his elves.
“You seemed more relaxed once Teddy found you,” Hermione said as they stepped Crack.
through the Floo and into Draco’s flat. “How is Milly of service, Master Theo?” the elf asked, nearly at eye level with Theo
As it was a Friday, making the next day Saturday—his day—with her, Draco had where he sat.
high hopes of segueing his offer of late night drinks into an overnight stay. Heavy “A variety of our best liquors, if you will, as well as the requisite accouterments. It’s
scheduling and a litany of commitments made slowing Hermione down long enough Draco’s birthday, so we are willing to splurge.” He winked at the elf, as if they were
to stay the night a gargantuan task. He’d yet to have the honor, the pleasure, of
 Beginning and end 169

-1.666, -1.750, -1.833 having her spend the night in his bed. There was always a brunch she had planned or
an out of town lecture she wanted to pop to before spending an afternoon with her
parents or something else—anything, everything else, it sometimes seemed—that
JUNE kept her away, kept her busy.
It bred an insecurity that Draco found decidedly distasteful and unnerving. It
wasn’t as if they hadn’t been intimate. They might not have had an excessive amount
of sex yet—fucking schedule—but it wasn’t as if he didn’t know how she flushed when

T
ICK TOCK she came, how she’d bite her lip to near bleeding, how her attempts at coherency
“Do you have any idea how impossible it is to avoid someone you’re dissolved into babbles and desperate pleas for more, yes, there and a slew of pretty,
supposed to be supervising all day?” Draco asked, stepping into Nott unintelligible noises.
Manor well before the end of the workday. He’d completely given up the facade of And it wasn’t as if she’d never put her hands or her mouth on his cock, like he had
keeping an eye on Hermione for the afternoon. His simmering frustration had no familiarity with the ridges of her soft palate and the desperate, dangerous things
become far too much to handle. she could do with her tongue. And how she was eager, so eager, to learn every way
“Well hello, and happy birthday. I take it we’re starting festivities early?” she might steal his breath—smiling a wicked grin every time she discovered a new
Theo sat on the parlor floor with a book propped open in his lap. Several antique- method.
looking keys sat on the coffee table in front of him, laid out in neat, precise rows. He They’d even showered together once: soap and skin and lazy kisses against too-cold
didn’t look up from his work when he spoke. tile as they risked injury and tricky positioning for the accolade of having fucked in
It had been over a month since the argument Draco still didn’t fully understand— the shower.
apart from the bit where it crushed whatever meager happiness he’d managed to He didn’t even want her to spend the night exclusively for sex. Sure, that would be
build for himself—and he and Hermione had exchanged barely a handful of words in nice, more than nice—mind-blowing, he assumed. But in the scant few opportunities
all the meandering in-between time. The mood between them froze with tension, he’d had to hold her in the afterglow of one or several orgasms, Draco discovered a
laden with awkward, uncomfortable glances that prodded at the aching places inside newfound passion for having her in his arms, for burying his face in her curls, for
Draco’s chest. pressing himself so close he could feel her heartbeat against his, everything else
Sometimes, he wanted to kiss her so badly it downright startled him: desire around them utterly silent as he imagined them syncing.
careening from an unknown place inside his mind. Draco’s solution came in the form of a gift, an offering to show her that she meant
Even more than that—more alarming, too—he wanted to talk to her, hear her run something to him, that this was something, difficult as it may be to articulate. He found
through all the things on her schedule that week, hear how her progress towards the a lovely necklace in one of his family’s many vaults, selected for its rubies, something
Eliot biography was going now that her shop had stocked an extra fifteen books suitably Gryffindor for the color of her soul. He checked it for dark magic himself,
she’d have to read. He wanted to hear about her day. Tell her about his. He wanted just to be sure that his gift would do no harm.
to make fun of her hair and then bury his face in it. She may have been raised by muggles, may not have a lifetime of pureblood
He was a fucking pathetic sap. courting practices ingrained in her brain, but she was still a learned witch. She would
“She tried to give me a birthday present.” know what it meant, to give and accept family heirlooms. She had to know that
Theo finally lifted his head: focus diverted from his keys and whatever strange giving something like that meant his time horizon ran longer than he was
experiment he had planned for them. comfortable admitting, truth be told.
“How did that go?” “I like Teddy,” he said.
“I just—walked away.” “He’s really fun. Harry loves being his godfather.”
Theo poked at one of the keys with his wand, straightening it. She unfastened her cloak, shrugging it from her shoulders. Draco took it, hanging it
“I’m going to be honest with you, that doesn’t sound like the best way to handle on the hook by the door as he shed his own outerwear as well.He guided her to the
yourself.” sofa and procured two tumblers and a bottle of firewhisky.
“I fucking know, Theo. I can barely look at her. It’s like she’s not even bothered at “I can’t stay long,” she told him. “There’s a book signing at Flourish and Blotts
all; she just does her work in that gods damned guest hall. I’m furious, all the time. tomorrow morning. I know it’s your day, so I was hoping to head in early before we
I’m also paranoid she’s going to get hurt. But that doesn’t mean I want a birthday gift met for lunch.”
from her.” He offered her a glass, eyes flicking to the drawer beside the sofa, where the
Theo made a humming noise, one that sounded like it was meant to be an necklace sat, waiting to be presented.
agreement, but had an edge of something else. Draco might not have picked up on it “I could come with you,” he said, sitting beside her.
“Oh, that’s kind of you to offer. But I was going to go as soon as they open, and
then I wanted to take care of a few other errands while I’m out—”
 170 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 175

“We could get breakfast and then go to the signing,” he offered, treading
dangerously close to a ledge it seemed increasingly likely she had no idea existed.
“I wouldn’t want you to have to get up so early just to meet me—”
“I wouldn’t have to meet you if you were still here and we went together.” The next week, he sent Topsy to keep an eye on Hermione and ensure the guest
He took a sip of his whisky to stifle the swell of frustrating nerves. He shouldn’t be hall didn’t kill her. Beyond that, he spent his time corresponding with Blaise about
nervous. He had no reason to be. He and Hermione—they were something. They his failing investment accounts and revisiting the idea of opening his own potions
were close. This was a simple, easy conversation for a couple to have. business.
She stilled, staring at the drink in her hands, resting it against her leg. She blinked He needed something to occupy his time. Something to occupy his mind.
several times and looked up at him, mouth slightly parted into an ‘O’ shape. He’d forgotten to ask Topsy for her discretion. Not that she’d ever intentionally
“You mean—I could stay here?” She sounded genuinely confused. spill his secrets to Lucius, but evidently her occupation did not go unnoticed, and
His nerves vanished, burned away by the laugh bursting from his throat. He tried when asked where she spent all her time, she happily reported that she’d been filling
to hold it in; he had no intentions towards cruelty or humiliation. But the idea that in for Draco.
such a thing could be surprising to her, well—there was something distinctly hilarious “An elf is no substitute for an actual human member of this household, Draco,” his
about it. father had said, terse over dinner. “The elf isn’t even bound to the estate any longer.
“Yes, Hermione. You could stay here.” It has no loyalties.”
She frowned, narrowing her eyes at him as she took her own sip of Draco might have given some paltry excuse about having other work to attend to.
firewhisky.”You don’t need to laugh. It’s not like I’ve done—that before.” Might have defended Hermione’s work ethic; they were under no threat of
“Not for my lack of trying,” he said into his drink and mostly under his breath, unprofessionalism from her. She’d been nothing but a consummate, eternal
recognizing it for the idiocy it was as soon as he’d said it. professional, aside from the part where she’d let him believe he’d been in a
“Lack of trying? You’ve never even asked,” she said, setting her drink aside and relationship with her. He might have even defended Topsy as something more than
scooting away. She crossed her arms: never a good sign for him. an it, as Lucius referred to her. But he did none of that. He accepted his scolding and
“I—I’m sorry, do you mean if I had just said ‘Hermione, would you like to stay the left the dinner table as soon as his mother dismissed him.
night?’ you would have?” Lucius made it abundantly clear that Draco’s presence in the decommissioning
“Well—yes. Maybe. I don’t know. This is the first time you’ve brought it up. I process was required, whether he wanted to be there or not. It was a burden he
didn’t think you wanted me to—” would have to bear for his family—like all the others—no matter how much it hurt
“Didn’t want you to? What? Spend the night? Share my bed? Of course I do.” him to do so.
“How am I supposed to know that? You never said anything. You just—kiss me, A week after everything went wrong, Draco waited in the parlor for Hermione’s
and other things, and afterwards we talk or read or something and then—well, then I arrival. She froze as she exited the Floo and found him standing there, like before.
go back home.” This before and after differed vastly from the one they used to have. This one
“You always made it sound like you had to go. You’re so busy all the time—” involved dreams and nightmares and the belief that he’d been in one, only to wake
“That’s not—Draco. I—” Her indignation, a physical tension holding her tight, up and find himself in the other.
loosened: shoulders dropping, hands unclenching. She rubbed a hand along the back She parted her lips to say something, a half step of momentum bringing her
of her neck.”It’s been a long day. It can be emotional for me, the anniversary.” towards him.
“I know,” he agreed, and the room felt off, unusual, out of sorts. If they had a “Don’t—Hermione. Please don’t.”
fancy diagnostic spell for a mood being flipped upside down, he imagined his living They were the most difficult four words he’d ever had to force out. Unease
room would register heavily with red runes. He knew just the thing to flip it back, to slithered beneath the surface of his skin as he cut her off. Whatever she planned to
correct this strange shift between them. say—platitudes or apologies or expressions of relief—he didn’t want them.
He twisted, reaching for the table drawer. He pulled out a wide, flat, velvet jewelry He turned and left, heading to the guest hall, where he made himself comfortable
box. on a settee as far from where she worked as possible. Pretending she wasn’t there.
“I have something for you,” he said. If this didn’t tell her what he meant, he didn’t Pretending he wasn’t there. Pretending the last year wasn’t there, lingering in his
know what would. memory.
She didn’t immediately reach for the box. He watched her swallow, eyes fixed on
black velvet. He cracked it open, savoring the sound of her breath as it hitched.
But she didn’t reach for the necklace, either. He set the box down between them,
lifting the gold chain with its dangling rubies from within.
“This was my great grandmother Theresia’s. I thought the rubies were appropriate
for you.”
 174 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 171

Theo started towards the settee where Draco most certainly did not want company She still didn’t move. He started to feel a bit ridiculous, wondering if he should ask
or comfort. He just needed Theo to—be Theo. that she turn so he could help her put it on.
“Just break into your fucking vault, Nott.” “Draco, I can’t accept that.”
Theo stopped in the middle of the corridor, watching Draco with a look so close to “What?”
pity that it made him want to scream, throw something, take it out on Theo even “That’s—a family heirloom? It looks historic, and expensive. I couldn’t possibly.”
though it wasn’t his fault. “Of course you can. I want you to have it.”
Theo cleared his throat and stepped away again. She stood from the sofa, hands flexing at her sides. She shook out her arms, took
“Right, well. I’ll just be here trying to crack open the secrets to my family legacy several steps away, pivoted, then returned, standing next to the coffee table.
that no one saw fit to include me in. Might as well be a little moody about it myself The necklace grew heavy, a weight he wasn’t prepared to bear. He lowered his
since that appears to be the general tone of the evening.” hands, jewelry resting in his lap as he looked up at her, not understanding, wishing he
He summoned the scotch and took a swig straight from the bottle. did, but also fearing what that meant.
“I just want to know what’s inside,” Theo said. “And why my father never “You can’t just— I can’t just. A family heirloom?” she asked again, as if it was
bothered to show me.” some kind of inconceivable, wildly unbelievably concept to her.
“I don’t know. You might be better off with him never trusting you. That account She’d repeated herself, and he found himself doing the same.
Lucius gave me to manage? It’s officially losing money. One account, and I’ve fucked “I want you to have it.”
it up, too.” Her mouth twisted into a shape foreign to him, one he had neither met nor
Theo sent the bottle floating back across the hall. catalogued. She laughed through a strained sort of grimace, hovering near a frown: a
“Just swallow your pride, would you?” he said. “Ask Blaise for help. You know he host of conflict born by her lips.
lives for investments.” “Draco you can’t just give me a family heirloom—expensive, historic jewelry like I’m
“In property. Specifically, properties that make wine.” your—your—”
“Well, he still knows plenty about finances. It’s a plight of the nouveau riche, I “My what?”
assume. They have to know that kind of shit because they barely have a single “Your girlfriend.”
generation worth of gold in their vaults.” If her words were a meteor and his chest its destination: she’d carved a crater
“I just wanted to be good at something my father actually wanted me to be good where his heart used to beat and his lungs used to breathe.
at.” “You—are my girlfriend.” He probably should have emphasized the are. But none
“You’re good at other stuff,” Theo said. It was the right thing to say, a kind, best of the words had emphasis. They tasted sour.
friend sort of thing to say. It made Draco regret all the times he’d tormented Theo Her look of genuine, unfiltered confusion crumbled at the crater’s still smoldering
with the Malfoy peacocks when they were young. edges in his chest.
“Not the right stuff.” “I know you’ve joked about that before but—”
Minutes ticked by. Draco didn’t know how many. Time started blending and “What do you mean I’ve joked about—Hermione, I have never—wait.” He had to
blurring as Theo fiddled with the Cyrillic alphabetic and a wall of complicated wards stop. Impossibly, the crater grew deeper, wider, more cavernous. Hot fear,
Draco didn’t have the first clue how to comprehend. Time stretched; it shrank. It embarrassment, and something like shame spread from its borders: soaking him,
waxed; it waned. Moments passed in minutes, maybe hours, all spent sitting on a drowning him. “Am I not your boyfriend? Are we not—what is happening right
settee and trying to discern if the tingling feeling in Draco’s toes came from poor now?”
circulation or an overindulgence in alcohol. The necklace slipped from his lap, sliding to the floor with a metallic clatter. He
He wondered how long it was before Hermione left his flat. How long did she stay, made no move to retrieve it. Rubies on the floor should have been offensive, but he
standing there in the mess she’d made? couldn’t seem to bother with the offense.
He wouldn’t go back that night. Theo had a literal abundance of guest rooms He tried to speak again.
Draco could make use of. He had no desire to risk the chance that she tried to wait “What do you call this, then?” he asked, swallowing back the self-consciousness.
him out, offer some kind of pathetic excuse as to how he’d been so idiotic, so She stood just there: three feet away, but impossibly far. “If it’s not—a relationship,”
presumptuous, to assume that because they did the things people do when they’re in he faltered, stumbling over his words, “what is it?”
a relationship, they must have been in one. She didn’t look at him. He watched as she chewed anxiously on the inside of her
While Theo fought with a particularly frustrating tangle of wards, Draco closed his cheek, hands twisting and stretching her knit jumper. She’d stretch it too far if she
eyes, engaging every ounce of his self-control to think of anything other than kept going; she’d have to magic the knit together again, but it would never be the
Hermione. He failed miserably. same. And if her charm ever failed—unlikely for her, but still possible—she’d have
His chest hurt. His head hurt. His vision spun. that same stretched bit of fabric, contorted from the stress she put it through now.
 172 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 173

“Well that’s the first time you’ve asked me, isn’t it? We’ve—been enjoying He sipped his scotch, having switched to something more expensive and enjoyable
ourselves. I thought you didn’t want—and it’s not like we could ever, with your now that he’d reached an acceptable level of drunkenness to simply—exist in his
parents. We could never be fully honest about—anything.” Her words came out world as it was now.
stunted, choppy. “I would be yelling at this door and trying to teach myself the Cyrillic alphabet.
“You said you didn’t want to tell them, either.” He meant to protest with force, his Why did someone in my family think they needed to borrow ward-theory from the
own indignation. But exhaustion pulled him down, pinning him under a trap she’d Slavs just to protect whatever’s in here?” He kicked the door again, wincing. “You
set months before. That thought sparked a wave of hot anger at being deceived. didn’t pick up any Cyrillic during your mastery, did you?”
She finally looked up at him, tearing her gaze away from the seat cushion that had “Not a drop,” Draco said, trying to keep his words steady despite the thick, fuzzy
held her attention. Draco hated how he wanted to comfort her, take away the watery feeling in his mouth. “Can’t read it, can’t speak any of the languages that use it. I’m
look in her eyes, even when she was the one doing the hurting. useless.”
Why? He might not have the most extensive dating history—the most recent of “That last bit seems like a lot to unpack, so I think I’ll be ignoring it for now.”
which took place on the other side of the continent—but he knew when he was in a Theo turned back towards the warded door he’d been trying to break into for the
relationship with someone. He had a day of the week. A whole day, his: a dedicated last year. “Must be something worth protecting in there if they went through all this
portion of her life. How was that not a relationship? trouble, you know? When I finally get in—gods, it’s going to be the best fuck you to
“It’s not that I’m not enjoying it—I am,” she said, taking a tiny step closer to him, my father for never showing me the wards.”
arms halting halfway through the movement, like she meant to reach for him but “What do you think’s in there?” Draco balanced his tumbler in the space between
thought better of it. “This just—it’s not real. It—it can’t be.” the settee’s tufting buttons, too exhausted to manage the effort of holding it when
That, above everything else, gutted him. Not real? Pretend, then. not actively indulging.
His whole body flushed hot, surges of heat by the names of anger and shame and “We’ve got plenty of gold and jewels and whatnot in our Gringotts vaults. So, I
doubt and embarrassment battling to take up residence in the crater where so many imagine it’s dark stuff, experimental magic, maybe some ancient family grimoires. I
lovely things used to live. don’t fucking know, really. But it better be good. It’s been almost five years of this.
He stood. Between that fucking painting”—he turned his head, glaring at the painting on a
He couldn’t do this. Handle this. He didn’t even feel compelled to occlude in order hinge beside him—”and now this stupid door, I feel like I’ve spent half my life
to survive it. He simply needed to leave. breaking these wards.”
He looked at her face just long enough to register that she’d started crying, jaw Draco ran his nail through the intricately carved designs in his glass, tracing the
opening and closing as if she sought words she didn’t know how to verbalize. pattern to focus his attention.
She’d said enough. He didn’t want to hear any more of it. He couldn’t. “Five years. Right. Because it’s still the anniversary.”
He didn’t say anything either, merely walked to the fireplace and Floo’d to Theo’s, Theo hadn’t gone back to his curse breaking yet. He stood there, on the opposite
leaving her alone in his flat. side of the corridor, surrounded by books on ward theory and curse breaking
scattered on the floor around him.
“How did your afternoon at Potter’s go?”
“They mostly ignored me. I did the same. I hung out with Teddy for a while.”
“Well, do you think because it’s—you know, the day —that might have had
Draco poured himself another drink, watching as Theo tried and failed—yet something to do with the fight I assume you’ve had with Granger?”
again—to break through a series of complicated Slavic wards protecting the door to Draco laughed.
the Nott family vault. “A fight.”
Theo made a frustrated noise, kicked the door for good measure, and then turned He laughed some more. The noise careened through the long corridor, sounding as
to Draco. hollow as it felt.
“You’re sure you don’t want a drinking companion? I can think of several better “If that’s what you call being told you were never in a relationship with someone
ways to spend a Friday night than trying to break into this impenetrable, fucking you thought you'd been in a relationship with for—fuck.” He couldn’t finish the
irritating vault.” thought.
Draco shook his head and sank back against the settee, head heavy and limbs warm “Wait, she said what?” Theo stood very still across from him, grip on his wand
from the three shots he’d taken since barging into Theo’s home. flexing.
“I want you to pretend like I’m not here. Do whatever you’d be doing if I never “What do you think it was? Did she need to get some kind of perverse Death Eater
showed up.” attraction out of her system? I suppose she was disappointed, then, that I glamour
my mark every day. I’m—fuck I’m mortified, Theo. All this time I’ve been—” falling
for her “—and she’s just been, what? Using me for a good time? I don’t understand.”
 -1.166, -1.250, -1.333 -1.500, -1.583, -1.666
DECEMBER AUGUST

T T
ICK TOCK ICK TOCK
Draco spent the entirety of Christmas morning on the verge of throwing “It bit me.”
up. Breakfast sloshed uncomfortably in his stomach; conversation with his Draco would have loved to say those words came out strong, that his
parents soured, stilted as he tried not to fidget and twist in his seat. Gift giving was a voice carried even, controlled, and devoid of unreasonable worry.
perfunctory affair, an obligation on a traditions checklist that meant very little when But all he could think, after the words left his mouth, was how similar his voice
gifts were unnecessary. What did one give to people who could buy whatever they sounded to the time that great bloody Hippogriff had tried to maim him.
wanted, whenever they wanted, and truly, wanted for nothing? At least nothing that Hermione had given him one shelf. One shelf with one measly yellow rune to handle,
could be given as a gift; Lucius’s wand did not sit under a tree, nor did Narcissa’s and he’d clearly done something incorrectly, because the lattice work frame meant to
social status, nor Draco’s courage. house rows and rows of expensive wines had splintered and surged, goring his right
Draco sat quietly, nursing a single cup of tea, smiling when he was meant to smile hand with several wooden shards. He supposed technically that meant the shelf had
and listening dutifully while his parents conversed as if nothing was amiss. But the stabbed him, not bit. But biting was the first word that came to mind when the sting
day had lost its magic, leaving Draco dry and uneasy, waiting for the moment he had of pain shot up his arm and blood welled in his palm.
to tell them he wouldn’t stay, having put it off until the very last possible moment. Hermione appeared at his side, wand drawn, already extracting the splinters from
Topsy appeared with a crack, announced that lunch had been prepared, and his hand.
vanished again. “Oh, yes. This has been happening a lot in here,” she said, an image of the
Narcissa rose from her chaise, smoothing the lines of her lavender robes. composure he wished he’d had. His first instinct had been panic, then a ridiculous
“Shall we?” she asked. Lucius stood, shoulders relaxed, posture loose, more at ease thought about his own demise via disgruntled shelving, then the more reasonable
than Draco had seen him in a very long time. Not even Lucius Malfoy could resist thought, which he vocalized, about having been bitten. And while that had been the
the touches of comfort offered by Christmas day. He offered Narcissa his arm, which most reserved of his initial reactions, it still erred towards ridiculousness.
she took, a graceful smile on her face. It was a lovely, simple, rare moment of “A lot?” he asked, hissing as she removed a particularly large splinter from his skin.
affection that Draco had the honor to witness. And he would ruin it all in a matter of “They’ve been registering as orange on my runes, though,” she said. “I wonder if
moments. the runes take into account the perceived threat due to blood status…” she trailed
“I won’t be joining you,” Draco said, still sitting in his chair, delicate teacup clasped off, a thoughtful expression crossing her face as she healed him.
between his hands. She didn’t drop his hand once she’d finished. She laced her fingers between his,
His mother paused mid-step, head tilting at a most minute angle as she took in his taking a quick glance around the cellar, as if she expected to find an audience,
words. admonishment for a display of affection when she was meant to work. When she
“Whatever do you mean, darling?” looked back up at him, he saw her eyes dart to his mouth, broadcasting her thoughts.
“I’ll be spending the rest of the day with my girlfriend and her family.” “You aren’t thinking of kissing me, are you, Ministry Representative Granger? You
Draco watched as his mother’s grip tightened around Lucius’s arm. His stomach know you’re on duty right now.” He grinned at her: easy and lazy and simple, how it
sank, flipped, tore itself to shreds in an attempt to escape his body. He had to set his should be.
tea aside, damp, sweaty hands threatening his grip on the expensive heirloom china. She frowned, eyes narrowing as she lifted an index finger and jammed it in the
Something else, something stronger than his nerves, surged from Draco’s chest, a center of his chest.
rush like wildfire tearing through him as adrenaline took hold and shook him. Not “Don’t you dare pretend like you have any interest in me maintaining professional
unlike when he’d dissolved his betrothal with Astoria, he felt like he might do boundaries.”
anything, be anything. He might finally take charge of something for himself. He reached up to grab her offending finger, halting her ruthless attack on his
Lucius’s jaw unclenched. sternum.
“You will not insult your family by spending time on a holiday with some harlot “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Hermione. I’m very invested in your
we’ve never met.” professional boundaries.” He released both her hands, stepping back.
She made a small, annoyed sound.
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“So, if I were to request that you kiss me until I can’t breathe or have me on one of “Would you like to come with me to Theo’s?” he asked, voice low as he twisted a
these casks you’d decline out of respect for my professional responsibilities?” curl around his knuckle, distracting himself from her mouth.
He felt his focus contracting, as if everything else in the room had dropped away: She smiled. “I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be on a Friday night.”
leaving her and that beautiful sentence and nothing more. Fuck his banter. Now he
had an image in his head of her bent over a wine rack, and if she was offering—
“Show me to the nearest safe surface,” he said.
She laughed, stepping forward to give him a light, wholly unsatisfactory kiss. When
he tried to pull her closer, she wriggled out of reach, still smiling.
“I’m not saying it isn’t tempting,” she said. “But you were right. I’m working.”
Well, that had backfired spectacularly. It wasn’t so much that he actually expected
her to shirk all her responsibilities and let him shag her senseless in a mostly
decommissioned wine cellar, but having so recently been reintroduced to a version of
his life where he could touch her again, he opted to take any chance he got.
He massaged his recently healed palm, not even a twinge of pain beneath the skin.
She’d vanished his blood, too. He’d barely even noticed.
“Thanks for saving me, Granger,” he said just as she’d turned to tackle more work.
She tilted her face, features mostly in profile as she acknowledged him, a smile
pulling at her lips.”You’re welcome,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay me
later.”
Playful Hermione, almost irreverent to the rules Hermione: she’d discovered how to
tease him, and he loved every minute of it.

Draco loved sex in the high heat of summer. If he already had to suffer and sweat
under the several layers of robes and cloaks that magical fashion required—and that
cooling charms never could quite chill in the right way—he figured he might as well
make the most of every opportunity to disrobe.
Hermione liked to banter when the heat got to her. It was as if the temperature
literally boiled something in her blood, turning her irritation into a sharp tongue that
had her sniping at his every move, every word, every thought. It riled him up in the
best kind of way.
Kissing her stalled that sharp tongue, robbing her of retorts he’d only paid half-
attention to anyway, distracted by how freshly fucked she looked with humidity
inflating her hair and glistening on her skin.
Cooling charms could only do so much in the throes of a heatwave. But taking
one’s clothes off? Well, that always did the trick. If Draco’s flat had to feel like a
heating charm gone awry, even with the large windows thrown open for the sake of a
cross breeze, he would at least enjoy his ability to cast a privacy charm and divest his
girlfriend— confirmed, discussed, decided between the two of them—of her clothes.
He might not love being hot, but he loved making Hermione sweat. Making her
squirm. Making her flush red and pant for breath as she struggled to form coherent
words with that brilliant fucking brain that never stopped.
He dragged a knuckle down her spine, dropping a kiss on her shoulder blade as she
whimpered from the contact. He rocked his hips forward, driving into her from
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“I need you to know,” he said, still watching the cat. “How real this is for me. How behind, and appreciating every nuance of the shudder it wrested from her. She made
really, very, truly real it is.” a louder sound, something half-breathed, half-moaned, against the velvet cushion.
He waited, practically begging the cat with a look to accept his offering, to accept Draco wanted to see her face. For as lovely as fucking her over the arm of an
him. antique sofa was, she’d buried her head against the green seat cushions and beneath
“Come to Christmas dinner with my parents,” Hermione said, kneeling next to her mass of hair. He not only wanted to hear the pretty sounds she made, but he
him, equally fixed on the cat. “It’s real for me, too.” She placed her hand on his knee. wanted to watch their origins in strangled expressions that danced across her face.
“I regret ever saying it couldn’t be.” He slipped into a lazy, easy pace: one meant for sweltering days and meandering,
Crookshanks took a step towards them. Draco’s fingers twitched around the treat, delicious sex. He leaned forward again, breath releasing as a groan from the new
arm growing heavy. He refused to waver. angle. He brushed her hair to one side, exposing the beautiful line of her throat. He
“Christmas dinner?” he asked as Crookshanks blinked his big yellow eyes. sampled her skin there, tasting the salt on her neck, the heat radiating off of it. She
“I want you to meet them. Things are—well, more normal. Better this year. And I arched against him, a halting, broken moan wrenched from her lungs.
think—I think they could meet my wizard boyfriend.” “Quiet, love,” he said into her skin, winding an arm around her ribs to pull her into
Draco’s brows knitted together, barely breathing as Crookshanks took another step a standing position. “The windows are open.”
closer. Hermione’s hand flexed against his knee. She let him move her, pliant clay beneath his touch: warm and moldable on a hot
“Even if I fought on the wrong side of a war that affected them so much?”He had day.
to ask the question, but he didn’t want to know the answer. “You cast a privacy charm,” she said, sentence ending on a whimper as he
“Yes,” she said, after only the briefest hesitation. “And we won’t—we won’t tell withdrew from her completely, stepping back just enough to turn her towards him.
them all that. It’s—we don’t talk about the war, so they don’t need to know.” He smirked, memorizing the tide of her flush as it rose and fell on her chest and
Crookshanks took another step, followed by three more, then took the treat from cheeks.
Draco’s hand. He placed his head beneath Draco's palm in a barely-realized show of “Did I?” he asked before capturing her lips in a kiss, desperate to taste her. She
acceptance before he retreated to perch on the windowsill: not hiding, but not canted against him, and he could feel her stretching on her tiptoes, trying to bring
participating, either. their hips as close together as possible. She made a desperate, whining noise when he
Hermione tilted her head, letting it rest on Draco’s shoulder. rolled a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, dipping his head to follow the
“I’ll come,” he said. “I already told my parents I have a girlfriend. I’ll just have to action with his tongue.
tell them I plan on spending Christmas with her, too.” “We’re long past foreplay, Draco—please.”
“They’ll be okay with that?” Her hands skimmed the surface of his chest, descending, before she gripped his
“No.” hips, pulling him closer. She kissed his chest, hot, open-mouth kisses tempered by a
Draco stood, offering her his hand. soft, delicate brush of tongue. She kissed once at the center of his chest, then again
“Theo got into his family vault,” he said, watching Hermione’s face shift from directly over his heart. He wondered if she could feel it, the way his pulse sputtered
slight melancholy to wide-eyed wonder. Her excitement dimmed as she saw his and stuttered, starting and stopping entirely at the behest of her lips and tongue,
expression. “It was empty. He’s—he could use his friends right now. Blaise is with hostage to her in every way.
him at the moment.” He wound her curls around his fist, gently angling her head away, stemming her
Hermione nodded, squeezing his forearm before she stepped into her tiny kitchen. assault on his heart. She pulled at his hips again, a desperate plea in the action as she
She bent, opening a cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of wine with a ribbon tied looked up at him. She bit her lip and begged again, hitching one of her legs around
around the neck. She held it up, looking unsure of herself. his.
“I got him this to celebrate whenever he got in,” she said, cheeks coloring. Draco’s “Please.”
chest tightened: such a lovely, thoughtful, beautiful witch. “Do you think he’d be How could he possibly deny that?
upset if I brought it over? I still think it’s worth celebrating. All that work. Even if He pressed her against the arm of the sofa again, lifting her to sit on it, angled
there was nothing there.” She shrugged, letting the bottle rest on the countertop. towards the wall. She’d need support. He’d had his fill of languid strokes and slow
“He’s brilliant—to be able to do that? And self-taught?” sex; he intended to earn this swelter.
Draco walked to her, two measly steps required to cover the scant space. One hand He brought his lips down on hers, one hand trailing along her collarbone, soft
found her jaw, the other, her curls. He bent to kiss her, to convince her of the way he touches as the spaces between them shrank, slick skin coming together to generate
felt. Her fingers danced across his chest, finding a home at his shoulders as he drew even more warmth. He groaned against her mouth as he sank into her: the best kind
her in. of heat. She swallowed his sound, greedily kissing and clinging to him with arms
He let his forehead rest against hers, forcing himself to focus, lest he sink into the wound around his neck, nails dragging through his hair.
beguiling quicksand that kissing her could easily become. Every thrust, every kiss, every shiver, every moan. They were his. Draco did this to
her. He drove coherency from her brain and watched her fall apart beneath him: a
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writhing tangle of limbs and curls and pants pleading for more, yes, Draco. These were “Find Hermione Granger,” he told the Patronus— his Patronus. “Tell her I’ll be
the moments when he felt like she might keep him, might let him stay in her visiting her shortly.”
schedule, planned into her life over months and years, not just days and weeks. Or It gave a short roar, a grumbling sound, before it galloped through the wall and out
maybe she’d give him even more time to please, and fuck, and love her, unbound of sight. It didn’t quite hit Draco until that moment, watching it leave.
from a single day in her busy week. He’d just cast a corporeal Patronus.
He buried his face in her neck, sucking at her skin, committing her taste to “Did you know Chimaera eggs are extremely illegal?” Theo asked from the floor,
memory. He could feel her teetering on the edge, all quivers and flutters and broken his whole demeanor had shifted from the broken, disappointed version he’d been
attempts at speaking his name. just minutes before. “Maybe I should get some.”
Two syllables were all it took. He measured the depth of her pleasure in the “Did I just see a Patronus? Was that a Chimaera?” Blaise asked, entering the hall
number of shattered seconds between dra and co as she tried and failed to speak and sending Theo into another fit of laughter.
through the sweet torture he delivered via friction, and fire, and sheer willpower to
please her.
His concentration slipped. His words, his thoughts, his dreams, all spiraling into a
single set of sensations, monopolizing his focus: the sound of her breathy whimpers
against his ear, the smell of her vanilla shampoo wafting from her curls, the taste of Draco apparated to Hermione’s doorstep as soon as Blaise took over managing
salt on her skin beneath his lips, the feeling of her cunt enveloping him with each Theo’s disappointed grief: five years of work that yielded literally the worst possible
thrust, and the sight of stars, bursting in and out of existence behind his closed lids, a outcome.
personal constellation. Her door swung open almost as soon as his lungs decompressed from apparation.
He held her steady, both arms bracketing her, keeping her angled against the wall as She stared at him, eyes wide and glassy.
she perched precariously on the edge of the sofa. His arms burned, ached from He smiled, completely against his will, expression breaking across his face as he saw
ensuring she stayed where he wanted her. her.
She fastened her legs around his hips, heels digging into his backside. He hissed as She smiled, too.
her nails dragged down his neck and shoulders—too hard, harder than she intended, “Do it again,” she whispered, stepping aside so he could enter, lest he cast a
probably—but he’d savor the red lines they left behind. She could mark him as much Patronus directly on her doorstep.
as she liked. He already belonged to her. He pulled out his wand.
Her head fell back, exposing more skin for him to explore. Her curls tumbled over He thought of her. He thought of family. He thought of Theo, of Blaise, of Pansy,
his forearm as she rested against it, lost to the world. The first grip of her orgasm when he had her in his life. He found the good. He didn’t let the bad taint it. And he
stole his breath: uneven, broken gasps of air against her neck as she spasmed and said the incantation.
writhed beneath him, a magnificent example in undoing. “Expecto Patronum.”
The privacy charm had been a good call: between the pitch of her whimpered Hermione gasped. The Chimaera circled them, several laps as they both watched it,
moans as she came apart, and the staccato of his grunt as he found his own release, entirely entranced.
they’d made little effort to hold back. When it dissipated, she asked, “What did you think about?”
He heaved several labored breaths against her chest, echoes of an orgasm buzzing She didn’t shy away from the question this time, from her curiosity, like she did the
beneath his skin. Hermione barely moved, barely breathed, body taut beneath him. last time she’d asked what he used to power his magic.
Still inside her, Draco pulled her against his chest with his remaining, unsteady “You.” He pulled her against him, burying his face in her hair. “And my friends.
strength and straightened to his full height. My family. But mostly you. And I don’t care that you said I shouldn’t.”
He brought one hand beneath her thigh, offering both support and warning before Love could literally make magic; what a marvelous and unexpected thing.
he lifted her off the sofa’s arm. Sentimental, too. He’d been accused of that once.
“Hold on, love,” he breathed in her ear. Despite his considerable build and her Her hands clutched at the shirt fabric against his back; her cheek pressed to his
compact frame, he’d been thoroughly spent. The two steps and a pivot it took to chest. He ran a hand through her curls, trying not to lose himself in such an easy
walk them around the arm of the sofa nearly did him in. contentedness. He didn’t mind that Hermione hadn’t yet verbalized whether or not
They melted into the cushions in a tangle of sweat and limbs and heavy breathing. she loved him, too. He could still love enough for the both of them, even now.
Gods it was hot. He pulled away, stepping back. He found the jar of cat treats on her counter,
She practically burned him with her skin, with hot air against his neck as she grabbed one, and crouched in an attempt to endear himself to her monster of a pet.
burrowed against him. But gods, was it worth it. Even as he could barely think, world He made eye contact with Crookshanks as he slinked out from behind Hermione’s
still struggling to coalesce, he could imagine no finer use of his time than holding this sofa, drawn by the promise of a snack.
woman in his lap and trailing his fingers up and down her spine.
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cracks and crevices, slipping little kindnesses—novelties of loving someone—in He dropped a kiss to the top of her head. A wild curl assaulted him, tickling his
places where Draco did not know such things were possible. cheek. She squirmed, her mouth finding his neck, then his jaw, before beginning a
He let that feeling fill him up: the hope he found in loving her, in a legacy he might sated exploration of his lips. Draco closed his eyes, savoring the impossibility of
not hate, that he might find pride in. having her after the uncertain stretch of time when he thought he’d lost her.
His magic swelled. He knew this feeling: warm and comforting as its tendrils She ran a finger from the base of his throat, down his sternum, and let out a quiet,
spread, spiraling from his chest and towards his extremities, channeled by his wand. happy laugh.
He focused on loving, on being loved. “We need a shower,” she said, voice quiet against his lips. “We—made a mess.”
It wasn’t enough, he could already feel it: a wealth of happiness but not quite He hummed a chuckle in agreement, letting his hands knead her arse.
enough, not yet complete. The Floo flared to life across from them. Draco pulled her closer, instinctively
Draco tried to relax his jaw, softening his stance, closing his eyes. He leaned into wrapping both arms around her in a feeble attempt to shield them.
his magic. He found relief, concern for Theo, happiness that he hadn’t been hurt: a Theo’s voice followed the flash of green.
different love, that for his friends, filling up the spaces he couldn’t quite reach before. “Draco, you would not believe the progress—oh. Oh no. No—gods.”
He thought of his mother, of the parts of her he knew struggled against her own A series of several unfavorable things happened over the course of the next five
expectations. He thought of the birthday toffees she bought him every year. He seconds.
thought of his father, of better, different times, when he’d been gifted an heirloom First, it took one solid, horrified blink—wherein Draco, completely naked, post-
pocket watch, passed from father to son, an emblem of pride. Pieces of love that coitus, with his girlfriend in his lap, made direct eye contact with his lifelong friend—
didn’t have to be perfect to be happy. for Theo to whirl back around, frantically grabbing for the pot of Floo powder.
And he still thought of Hermione, at the center of it all. Next, Hermione squealed, jumping away from him. Perhaps she had intended to
“Expecto Patronum.” hide, but she only ended up exposing even more of both of them. Thankfully, Theo
He gasped as he said it, a burst of unfamiliar, powerful magic exploding from his already had his back to them, mitigating the potential amplification of everyone’s
wand. embarrassment and discomfort.
Theo laughed. Last, Draco groaned, failing to summon his wand, distracted and incapable of the
Draco kept his eyes closed. requisite focus. Hermione found a throw blanket and haphazardly and belatedly
“Oh gods. It’s perfect, mate.” preserved her modesty.
Draco cracked an eye open, carefully at first, fighting against the urge to hide from Scant seconds had passed but it felt like a lifetime’s worth of humiliation.
finally knowing. His whole body unwound, other eye opening. His shoulders fell, The Floo pot shattered.
countenance caught between a laugh and a groan. Theo twisted to reach for it, still frantically muttering to himself, a bright red flush
Theo did nothing to suppress his laughter, mutterings of so fucking perfect escaping crawling up the back of his neck. He grabbed a handful of powder from the floor,
between gasps for air. leaving the shattered pieces of the pot behind, and threw it into the fireplace,
“It’s a—” Draco stared at the silvery, glowing beast illuminating the hall around spinning away with his eyes screwed shut.
them. Draco wasn’t sure he’d breathed during the entire, agonizing five-second event.
“Chimaera is the word you’re looking for. You’d know if you took Care of Magical He glanced over at Hermione, wrapped in an atrocious crocheted monstrosity that
Creatures past OWLs.” Molly Weasley had given her, blushing redder than he’d ever seen her. She hovered
“I know what a bloody Chimaera is, Theo. It’s got—” near the corner of the sofa, one large step from disappearing into the hallway.
“A lion’s head. Fucking Granger. And a dragon’s tail”—another laugh—”Draco, “Thank you for not abandoning me,” Draco said with a smirk. He couldn’t drum
dragon, gods. So fucking perfect.” up the self-consciousness to be embarrassed about nakedness, still planted on the
“And the goat legs? Where do those fit in?” sofa. He’d already spent every drop of mortification on Theo’s interruption.
Theo shrugged, still snickering from his place on the ground. “I thought you were kidding about not putting up privacy charms,” she said, lifting
“A Chimaera is a beast cobbled together from different things, seems perfect for the back of one hand to her cheeks, testing the heat of her blush. “I was—a bit loud
you.” He cracked a smile, lifting his brows. “Maybe I’m the goat; I’m kind of springy. at the end there.”
I eat a lot. Skinny legs.” Draco’s smirk turned to a full-on grin, pride swelling at that statement.
Theo’s relief, bound to his laughter, broke through the cloud of disappointment “I did spell the windows. I just”—he waved his hand at the fireplace—”forgot to
choking out the rest of the air in the corridor. “You should go show her,” Theo said lock the Floo.”
with an uncanny, genuine awe in his voice. Deeper, a touch of jealousy flashed in “How could you forget—”
Theo’s tone. “I was clearly more focused on getting in your knickers.”
The silver beast took a step, eye to eye with Draco. Hermione sent him an exasperated look before she cast a cleansing charm and
retrieved Draco’s wand from the table, tossing it to him.
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“I suppose Theo has learned a valuable lesson about inviting himself over “You still have your family legacy. You have an account to manage that you don’t
unannounced.” She handed him his shirt and trousers as well, still wrapped in the even care about. If Blaise wasn’t helping, you’d probably have run it into the ground
blanket. already. You still have your history.” Theo looked like he might pass out, breath
“Unlikely. It’s a horrible habit, been doing it for years.” coming in pants, face red as he blew out the window across the corridor, glass
“This wouldn’t have happened at my flat. My friends don’t barge in uninvited.” shattering around them.
Draco snorted. “I’d have to actually go to your flat for that to be the case.” Draco didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.
“You can. You’re more than welcome to, whenever you’d like. It’s just—small. Theo threw his wand down the hall, where it clattered and rolled across the stones,
Your bed is literally twice the size of mine.” catching on shards of glass. He gripped his short hair, dragging his hands through it
Draco leaned into his smirk, lazy and satisfied. “Not that we made it there.” with force that could very well rip it from its roots.
She drew her lips together, shielding the smile that might have been his reward. “Five years,” he said, quieter now, but if possible, even more furious. “Five fucking
With a sigh she said,”It sounded like Theo had news. Why don’t you pop over and years and what do I have? I have a fucking manor and some vaults at Gringotts filled
see what he needed, and I’ll get cleaned up?” with more gold than I know what to do with. This—this was supposed to be”—he
He didn’t immediately respond, eyes lingering on the way she had the blanket swallowed, sliding down the wall until he sat on the floor, head cradled in his
clutched around her chest, slipping off her shoulder: criminally distracting. hands—”this was my family’s history. Where the fuck is it? What did he do with it?”
“I’ll just throw some clothes on,” he finally said. “I suppose I was hoping to get Draco vanished the glass surrounding them and walked to Theo. With a sigh,
cleaned up with you.” Draco sat next to him. Theo didn’t look up, knees bent, elbows propped, head
If not for the fact that Theo was likely experiencing a mortification-related crisis on dropped in his hands. They sat for several minutes, saying nothing, doing nothing, as
the other side of the Floo, Draco would have locked the Floo grate and never left. their respective disappointments settled around them.
“That legacy of mine? It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Draco said, staring dead
ahead, straight through a blown out window. “I think I hate it.”
Theo expelled a breath, a noise like a choked laugh. He lifted his head, resting it
against the wall, gaze straight ahead, the same as Draco’s.
“What the fuck, Draco?” “I thought you were hurt and I didn’t know how to get help,” Draco said.
Theo had a tumbler in his hand, filled to at least four finger’s worth of liquor as he “Hermione has been trying to teach me to cast a Patronus.”
lounged in a dramatic leather wingback. Draco shook his head. “Doesn’t she know that’s impossible for people like us?” The anger in Theo’s voice
“No,” Draco said. Theo didn’t get outrage. Draco did. “What the fuck, Theo?” slipped, flat and toneless, a kind of resignation.
“That poor sofa.” “She’s painfully optimistic. I clearly can’t find—or don’t have—the right kind of
“My poor girlfriend.” memory to make one. Been trying it with the moment when I realized blood purity
“My eyes.” meant nothing to me, most recently. It’s done nothing.”
“My cock.” “Why aren’t you thinking about Granger?”
“Couldn’t see it, Hermione was in the way.” Draco saw Theo’s head tilt towards him, more actively engaged in conversation.
“Were you looking, Theo?” Draco puffed a hollow laugh from his lungs.
“No, I was not. But there was a moment of staring I wish I could take back. It’s “She told me I shouldn’t. I can’t—and I quote—hang my happiness on her.”
burned in my retinas. Do you think Hermione would be willing to obliviate me?” Theo’s brows drew together, thoughtful.
“No, and don’t ask her to.” “She might not be wrong,” he said. “At face value, I suppose. And I don’t know
Theo blinked at the sudden steel in Draco’s tone. much about it; you don’t see me casting any Patronuses. But”—he knocked the toe of
“I should apologize to her,” he said, tilting back his drink and gulping at least three his shoe against Draco’s—”I imagine it would be hard to find a witch or wizard
shots worth of liquor. who’s not thinking of a loved one when they cast that spell. It’s based on happiness,
Draco lifted a brow. isn’t it?”
Theo set his glass down with a thud, sucking in a strangled breath through his “Your happiest memories, yes.”
grimace. “That was not the good stuff,” he said. “I really wasn’t planning on being Theo simply arched a brow, a fine-tuned language they’d crafted over years of silent
drunk tonight.” looks and facial expressions. He could read full sentences, paragraphs worth of
“It’s barely half two in the afternoon.” information in any look Theo decided to lob his way. And that look: it wasn’t just a
“I’ll need a sobering potion. You have one at your flat? I can apologize to Granger statement, it was a demand.
while I’m there.” Theo stood suddenly and then paused, as if assessing whether or Draco relented, standing.
not that alcohol had taken effect. He liked Theo’s version of that logic better. Draco liked the idea of being able to
Draco held up a hand, stopping him. think of Hermione, especially now that she’d so fully wound her way through all his
 226 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 199

Theo leapt to his feet, as if waiting for permission to do something selfish had been “Wait a full sixty seconds before coming through. I’ll make sure Hermione has
the only thing tethering his concern in place. dressed.”
“Okay,” he said. “Right, yes. Okay.” Theo threw his hands up, pushing out an exasperated sigh. “Is there a question that
He continued talking to himself, quiet reassurances as he gave Draco a final she might not be?”
assessing look. He disappeared into the passageway again. Draco waited, ears “We were spending the day together.”
prickling as he expected to hear whoops and hollers at any moment, exclamations of “That doesn’t explain nearly as much as you think it does.” A pause. A frown. A
excitement and success. groan. “Actually, it explains too much.”
Instead, silence. “Sixty seconds,” Draco said again. He pulled out his grandfather’s pocket watch,
It carried on longer than Draco would have liked, forcing a niggling sensation of made note of the second hand, and grabbed a fistful of Floo powder, returning to his
unease. He twisted, craning around the corner to try and catch a glimpse of the flat.
promised intrigue beyond the narrow stone passage. When he stepped through, he called to Hermione in warning, apprising her of
Then the screaming started. Theo’s imminent arrival, or, as it were, return.
Crashes. She walked into the room just as Theo stepped through the Floo. Draco’s pocket
A flash of light and a bang. watch had only counted forty-five seconds. Theo clearly had a death wish.
Draco scrambled to his feet, poised in a panic at a threshold he could not cross. Draco’s inquiry into whether Theo had actually used a clock or just counted in his
“Theo!” he shouted, his own voice mocking him as it echoed, fading into nothing. head—as if that were a precise unit of measurement—stalled in his throat as
For all the breathing he’d lacked mere minutes before, it suddenly became all Draco Hermione stepped into his field of view, piling her curls into a messy bun atop her
could manage: quick shallow breaths as he struggled to think of something, anything head.
to do. He needed to get Theo out of his flat.
Another scream: definitely Theo’s voice. Draco’s knees nearly buckled, thrown Hermione wore a pair of his boxers and his Slytherin Quidditch jersey. Green
back in time. looked good on her. And he desperately wanted her to turn around so he could see
Theo. Under his father’s own wand. A crucio. Theo never explained why, what it his name written across her back. She looked indecent, more alluring than if she’d
had been punishment for. Draco had only heard because he’d Floo’d to Nott Manor been standing there stark naked.
unannounced, escaping a new influx of Death Eaters at his own home. When it was “What are you wearing?” Draco managed to ask, throat dry, already half hard in his
over, they’d Floo’d to Blaise’s instead, and got drunk on Italian wines. trousers.
Draco needed to get help. He needed another curse breaker: Hermione, fucking She smiled, lifting her shoulder in a small shrug. “Isn’t this what girlfriends do?
Potter if he could manage it. Anyone. Wear their boyfriend’s clothes?”
Theo screamed again, closer to a shout, closer to Draco, too. He heard her attempt at sounding casual, confident, like her statement was nothing
He needed to cast a Patronus; how else could he get help, and get help quickly? but a face-value series of words strung together. But hesawthe uncertainty lingering
Draco grasped for happiness, shoving away the panic, banishing the fear, trying so beneath, the hint of a question. He would have kissed every ounce of it away if Theo
fucking hard to just breathe. wasn’t standing right next to him, freshly traumatized.
He closed his eyes, lifted his wand, and nearly fell backwards when Theo crashed “This is not better,” Theo said, pulling Draco from his dangerous thoughts about
into him. It took several seconds of panic tangling with relief for Draco to realize he his gorgeous fucking girlfriend. “In fact, this might be worse.”
was being hugged, unannounced. Hermione seemed to have remembered her recent embarrassment, expression torn
Further, Theo’s shoulders shook as he made a terrible gasping noise. between anger and humiliation.”Have you perhaps learned something valuable today,
“Theo?” Draco asked, trying to get a good look at him. “Are you—are you hurt, Theo?” she asked him, putting her hands to her hips.
did something happen? What—” Draco smirked; he rather enjoyed seeing that posturing directed at someone else.
“It’s fucking empty,” Theo said through a heavy, panting breath, tearing himself “Yes. I’ll never be touching that sofa again.”
away. He shot a reducto at the painting, achieving absolutely nothing. His eyes were She frowned, narrowing her eyes at him.
wild, wide and red-rimmed, furious and panicked and pained in a way Draco hadn’t “I thought you were planning on apologizing?” Draco asked, abandoning his
seen since they were teenagers. lingering stance by the fireplace. He walked to Hermione and dropped a kiss at her
“It’s alright, Theo. It’ll be okay, at least it wasn’t—” temple before continuing to the green velvet sofa, sitting and crossing an ankle over
“No”—he shot another reducto, followed by a bombarda: at the door this time—”it’s his knee as he watched Theo’s wary reaction.
not fucking alright.” He spun, whirling back towards Draco. “What would you Theo cleared his throat.”Right. Apologies, Granger. If we could all agree this never
know?” The words cracked, caught in a tight throat Draco could hear, nearly feel, happened, that would be excellent.”
sympathy choking his own.
 200 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 225

Hermione didn’t give, hands still planted on her hips, eyes narrowed at Theo. She It felt like that moment they’d shared with a time turner, so long ago, staring a
pressed her lips together, and Draco watched as she tried and failed to suppress the potentially reckless, stupid decision in the face and asking the question: do we dare?
smile that ultimately broke free. Theo, evidently, shared a very similar thought. He shrugged.
“Fine. You’re forgiven.” She let her arms drop as she moved to sit next to Draco. “We fucked with time once,” he said, “how bad could my family’s ancient, warded,
Theo looked incapable of processing his level of his disgust at seeing them sitting secret vaults be?”
on the sofa together, which felt like appropriate punishment to Draco, all things “You did say there were skin-melting wards.”
considered. He stretched his arm around Hermione’s shoulder as she curled against “Point taken. But still.”
him. “Still.”
“You came over for a reason, Theo?” Theo rose to his full height again. There had never really been a question, not
“Blaise is my best friend now, so you know. Indefinitely, I think.” really.
Draco rolled his eyes. “That’s what you came to say?” “Can you imagine? What kinds of Nott treasures have been kept in there? Kept
“No, no. That’s a very recent development after”—a pained expression crossed his from me.” Theo turned, chest expanding as he took a bracing breath before entering
face as he gestured vaguely at them—”all this.” the passageway. Cautiously, Draco followed.
“And why were you here in the first place?” “They’re all dead, Draco.” Theo sounded too pleased about that fact. “They can’t
Theo rocked on his feet, looking suddenly like a lecturer presenting to his rapt pretend I’m not the rightful heir to this monstrosity if they aren’t here to—”Theo
audience. broke off and glanced behind him. A lucky thing, as Draco could not breathe.
“The door. Behind the painting. To the vault.” His chest had seized, and no measure of force trying to push or pull air in or out of
A pause, several breaths, as Draco waited for him to elaborate. his lungs could seem to start them again. Pressure gathered in his face first. Draco
“I got it open,” Theo said. “I got the door open.” tried to claw at his throat, beat his chest, pry his jaw open, but he’d frozen: every
“And?” Draco asked, leaning forward in genuine curiosity. muscle, every bone, every drop of blood.
“There’s a hallway. Can’t see around the corner and it’s warded—extensively.” The pressure in his face descended, spreading like flames contained in too small a
“How extensively?” Hermione asked. space, gobbling up all his air and then raging in its absence, simply doubling and
“Melt-your-skin-off, extensively.” tripling in size and space as it consumed his throat, then his lungs, then the entirety
Draco heard Hermione make a humming noise of acknowledgment. Both she and of his chest.
Theo seemed disturbingly unaffected by the idea of skin-melting defensive wards. “Shit— shit,” Theo said, barreling into Draco’s torso and throwing the two of them
They bonded over some of the strangest things. out of the passageway and back into the corridor where they tumbled to the ground:
“Do you think that’s it, though?” Draco asked. a hard landing on solid stone floors.
Theo considered. “There could be another door after the hallway that I can’t see. Oxygen flooded Draco’s lungs the moment he passed the threshold: pressure
But I think I’m close. These new wards have family magic in them, old blood magic, released, fire extinguished. It had been all of thirty seconds.
like the kind for the estate’s primary wards”—he grimaced—”unpleasant, but familiar It had been agony.
enough. I think—maybe a couple of months?” He smiled, bouncing on the balls of Draco rolled, steadying himself on his hands as he heaved, sucking in air, ears
his feet. popping as the pressure in his body recalibrated. For a moment, it felt like all his
“Congratulations,” Hermione said. Draco realized she had a hand resting on his magic had been pulled to the surface of his skin, ready to burst, before spiraling back
thigh. He found it very, very distracting. inward, seeking safety once more.
Theo swayed a bit, still grinning at his accomplishment. “Blood wards. I’d dismantled blood wards. I should have known— fuck —are you
“Can I have that sobering potion now?” he asked. “The whisky’s starting to hit me alright?”
and I need to get out of here before you two start”—a gagging noise, a vague gesture, Theo kneeled, clearly panicking, somewhere around Draco’s head.
a general sense of trauma—”again.” Draco breathed again, pulling air all the way to the bottom of his lungs, holding it,
savoring it.
“I’m fine,” he said on the exhale, words whooshing with a gust. “It was—like a
body bind. But it did something to my lungs, too.”
“There were blood wards. It didn’t even occur to me—it’s spelled to Nott blood.
With Theo sobered and departed, Draco leaned his head back against the sofa and I’d have to do, well, a lot more ward breaking to get you in, too.”
let out a long exhale. Sure, he was excited about the progress Theo had made. He’d Draco sat up and pushed his back against the wall. He already felt mostly normal
been trying to access that vault for five years now, but the timing had been terribly again, aside from the lingering pulse of his magic, unsettled from whatever curse had
inconvenient, and the emotional whiplash sufficiently jarring. filled him up and stolen all the space he needed for everything else.
“Just go, Theo. You’ve been waiting five years.”
 224 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 201

somewhere in the middle distance between where he and his father sat on opposite Hermione stood by the fireplace, wand in hand. She arched a brow at him. Then,
ends of a table too large for just three people. silently, she locked the Floo.
Draco couldn’t bring himself to say it. He couldn’t cross that line, not yet. It was “Shower,” she said. “Now.”
too deep, too far. His mother had been appalled with Lucius’s threat. There was With orders like that, he’d be willing to let Hermione boss him around any time she
enough hope that, with time, perhaps, they could change. Or, at the very least, learn liked.
to accept when they couldn’t. He kissed her halfway down the corridor. As much as he loved seeing her in his
Quidditch jersey, he pulled it off, desperate to taste her skin again, trailing lips and
tongue across her chest.
She divested him of his own clothes as they crossed the threshold to the bathroom,
a frantic, stumbling mess of limbs and fabric and rapidly rising temperatures.
“It’s soon. I promise,” Theo said as he retrieved his wand, having recently thrown She took him in her mouth as the shower nearly scalded him, hot and steaming.
against the wall in a fit of frustration. He had called Draco and Blaise over, insisting But that heat held nothing in comparison to seeing Hermione on her knees, beautiful
he was so close to cracking the last ward guarding his family vault that they were and soaking wet, lips on his cock. The water was hot; his temperature rose, her
required to be present. As such, Draco had been sitting in a corridor for the last two mouth seared, his entire body aflame, feverish. She was burning him up, burning him
hours, smoking a cigar and drinking scotch whilst waiting for Blaise to arrive via the alive.
last-minute international portkey they’d had to set up from Italy. All the while, Theo He realized he’d let her. He’d let her ruin him, melt him down and remake him if
groused and grumbled about how he would just start making his own international that’s what it took.
portkeys if they took this long to procure. He had to brace himself against the tiled walls, a surprising coolness against his
Draco could imagine several worse ways to spend his afternoon—and it had been a forearm as he leaned against it. He wound his other hand through Hermione’s hair,
while since he’d had the pleasure of watching Theo try to break through wards while fisting it as she mesmerized him with the sight of his cock disappearing inside her
shouting about his paranoid ancestors—but he could also think of several better mouth. If this was ruin, he welcomed it. Pleasure and heat and her beautiful face.
ways, and each of those involved Hermione.
However, as the traditional workday had only just reached a natural end, she was
likely still fiddling around in the Manor’s north wing, decommissioning safe, easy,
simple rooms and objects that hardly gave Draco a second’s worth of concern. He
could breathe so much easier, so much lighter, knowing they’d finished that guest
hall and never had to set foot there again.
Theo vanished back into the tiny passageway revealed by the door and the painting
he’d already broken through. Draco wanted to believe, after five years of work, that
Theo might finally get into his family’s most secret, most precious vault. But there
had been false alarms in the past, always another door to open, another ward to
crack. Five years or fifty, and it still wouldn’t scratch the number of generations that
went into building those security measures.
Theo was good, brilliant even, but some things—
“Draco!” A shout followed by a flushed, panting Theo racing back into the hall.
“It’s open. I did it. It’s—I can walk right in. The last door doesn’t have anything on
it.”
Theo looked torn between screaming and crying, eyes wide as he breathed heavily,
in and out and in and out.
“And fucking Blaise still isn’t here,” he said, bending over and bracing himself on
his knees.
Draco stood, dropping the cigar in his tumbler. He walked to Theo and gave him a
solid thump on the shoulders, pulling Theo’s attention from the labored breathing
he’d been doing between his knees.
“I did it,” Theo said again, either as proof or a prayer.
Draco leaned, peering around the corner and into the narrow stone passageway.
“Well?” he asked, arching a brow at Theo. “What now?”
 Beginning and end 223

-1.416, -1.500, -1.583 Draco used to enjoy mealtimes with his family, a family routine of breakfasts and
dinners that bound them together: twice a day, every day.
That was all he could think as his father laid out, with excruciating clarity, just what
S E PT E M B E R was expected of Draco. He used to look forward to dinners with his parents, when
he could tell them about his day, perhaps boast about a new trick he’d executed on a
broom. His mother would ask him questions, dote on him. Lucius would imply pride,
or pride-adjacency if Draco had the right news to share, perhaps his potions scores.

T
ICK TOCK And his parents would talk to each other, about more than their house arrests, more
The eighth room in the guest hall tried to kill him. Not so much in the than their distaste for the Ministry. More than the state of a world that had left them
way that several of the rooms had quite literally tried to kill him. But more behind.
in the sense that his heart might collapse in on itself, the first stage of a supernova, He missed that the most: seeing his father with some measure of kindness, of
before exploding outward in an eruptive display of his cosmic quantities of stress. It fondness in his expression, even if it wasn’t directed at Draco. But he didn’t even
was the second to last room left to tackle, and it had belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange have that anymore. If his parents still showed affection to each other, it happened
during the war. Draco’s skin crawled just looking at the door, imagining the things behind closed doors, perhaps in their wing of the Manor where Draco no longer
inside. visited. He could hardly remember a time now when he didn’t look at his father and
And Hermione—in all her stubborn, symbolic, ruthless wisdom—made it feel a chill, finding only coldness, never warmth.
abundantly clear from the moment he told her who the room belonged to that it was He didn’t know how to respond.
hers to handle, and hers alone. Draco had been relegated, with confident reassurances Perhaps no response was the worst response. Disappointment flashed across
and a kiss for good measure, to practicing his Patronus as he waited with horrifying Lucius’s face when Draco finally dared to look at him. His lip curled: a sneer
anticipation, for something to go wrong. “I am sorry to have disappointed you, Father.”
Dark and ominous and filled to the brim with red runes and haunting memories, The words were stiff; they tasted like parchment. They dried him out, choked his
Bellatrix’s room stole every happy memory Draco might have used to cast a throat, sounded as insincere as they felt.
Patronus. But Hermione insisted he practice, that she could—and should—do her “Should you wish to excuse yourself for your duties to this household, then you
job without him. That didn’t stop the paranoia, or the creeping edge of unease that may also excuse yourself from this family and all of the protections and privilege that
inched its way over cursed carpets and expensive tiles. come with—”
He hated trying to find a way to conjure a Patronus while watching as Hermione “Lucius!”
tackled Bellatrix’s room and all its looming threats. Narcissa turned abruptly in her seat, sharp enough that the feet of her chair scraped
“It won’t work if you let yourself get so agitated,” Hermione said, placing a hand against the tile floors. The sound echoed with a shriek nearly as loud as her voice.
on his forearm after he, yet again, failed to cast the charm. He hadn’t so much as His father barely blinked, either immune or disinterested in Narcissa’s ire. For his
managed a feeble mote of light in nearly a month, worry derailing him. For her part, part, Draco couldn’t seem to tear his eyes from his father. The thing neither of them
Hermione seemed too calm, too eerily unaffected by working, day in and day out, in had been willing to say for over a year, now: laid bare between them, served on their
a room steeped in so much dark magic that it nearly choked the breath right out of dinner table with the aplomb of a rotted meal.
him. “What your father means, Draco, is that there is value in family lines. In producing
“I’m not agitated. I’m fine.” He shrugged away from her touch and immediately heirs to carry on the right kind of legacy. You are our only son. Our only legacy.”
missed the contact. He’d been allowed in the room as she worked, a compromise to His mother’s words did nothing to cover the stench of an ultimatum that lay in
calm nerves that simply could not handle having her out of his sight. Not here. decay on their antique dining table. Her platitudes were nothing but a pretty garnish,
She considered him for a moment, curiosity crawling across her face, before she added to obscure or perhaps finish with a fresh taste.The meat of what had already
came to a decision. She stepped closer, slipping her arms around his midsection and been said still remained.
forcing him to face her in a loose hug. He let his wand arm drop, resting it atop her She didn’t say the words pureblood or mudblood; she didn’t say anything about blood
shoulder with a sigh. at all. But Draco knew what she meant, what hid behind the word legacy, behind the
“Draco. It’s clearly not fine.” inherent blood involved in an heir. She meant, by way of prettier, softer words, exactly
Normally, she knew when to push and when not to. In this instance, he wished she the same thing his father did.
hadn’t. But she offered him closeness and affection in the middle of the workday, He wanted to say no, to reiterate his point—his demand—really. He wouldn’t do it.
which meant that her concern stemmed from something deeper than mere curiosity. If they tried to rope him into another marriage contract, he would not agree.
He’d acted out of sorts enough for her to abandon her sensible working morals in He’d said no before. But saying it again, saying it now, something stalled the word
favor of his needs. in his throat; it should have been an easy, simple syllable to speak. But this no, saying
it here would lead to something more, something bigger, that stared at him from
 Beginning and end 203

-1.250, -1.333, -1.416 He held her closer.

“I just wish you were done with this room so I can lock it and have Theo come
over and ward it. I don’t like you working in here.”
NOVEMBER She stiffened in his arms.
“This is my job and I’m fully capable of handling it.”
“I know. That doesn’t mean I like it. Everything about Aunt Bella gets under my
skin. I want to be done with her. And I don’t want you to get hurt in the process.”

T
ICK TOCK Her grip around his torso tipped towards painful as she squeezed, briefly, before
Draco decided to do a foolish thing over dinner. Foolish: brave by some letting her arms drop. She stepped back, out of his reach, watching him with her
definitions, idiotic by his own. He hadn’t planned it, which was worse. It brows drawn together, lips pursed.
simply burst out after festering and spreading beneath his skin for so long. One Her head swiveled, taking in the dark, mostly empty room around them as if for
sideways glance from his father irritated a wound Draco had tried to avoid. Not even the first time.
the hearty leek soup his mother raved so disingenuously about in an attempt to “I didn’t let her win, remember? It’s just a room.”
control pleasantries could distract him from scratching at the scab. He grimaced.”Then shouldn’t I be allowed to help?”
“I’m not interested in a betrothal,” he said, blood rushing to his ears. “I expected it to be worse, honestly,” she said with a shrug, not answering his
His mother finished her spoon of soup, setting it down gently against the china. question. He wondered if she thought avoiding the flaws in her logic could vanish
Draco shook his head—to himself, at himself—and dared to forge onward. them from existence, evanescos for her inconsistencies. Although, he supposed if ever
“I just wanted to be clear. After the conversation we had a couple of months ago. there was a point where one's logic should break down, the border of madness
There—is a girl. And I’m not going to drop her for the sake of a political Bellatrix so skillfully straddled would be it.
agreement.” “Did she spend much time here?” Hermione asked, another direction, another
In Draco’s periphery, he saw his father’s posture stiffen, an imposing force at the diversion, another deflection.
head of the table. Across from Draco, his mother leaned in, cautious curiosity taking “I don’t think so.”
hold. She crossed her arms, pivoting in a slow circle. Unlike many of the other rooms in
“Who is she, darling?” she asked, pointedly folding her cloth napkin and placing it the guest hall, and quite contrary to Draco’s expectations, this one had been in
atop the table, signalling the end of her meal. relatively good condition when Hermione began, apart from the swath of red
Draco’s jaw flexed. His mother pressed. warning runes. The furniture bore no signs of recent reductos and subsequent
“We do have a legacy to uphold. Any fine lady would understand that. I’m sure reconfigurations. The wood paneled walls had no scorch marks that scarred so many
whoever she is, she has a legacy of her own to consider.” of the other rooms. Even the window dressings remained intact, although they did
Draco laughed, bursting from a place of irony. Hermione’s legacy would be bigger have an inclination towards suffocation that Draco found both unpleasant and
and better than any of theirs; it already was. alarming when Hermione encountered them for the first time.
“If only you knew,” he said, risking a casual glance at his father. “I’m not going to When she turned to face him again, she tilted her head, annoyance melting from
tell you who she is so you can try to pay her off, or whatever plan you already have in her features.
mind.” Draco didn’t know if he meant to address his mother or his father with those “I have my sleeves pushed up today,” she said.
words, or perhaps both in some strange tandem. For all their faults, they worked well And she did; her cream colored jumper must have overheated her, and she’d
as a unit, reacted to problems in similar, efficient ways. shoved the sleeves above her elbows. His gaze flickered to her left forearm.
“Evidently I was not clear, Draco.” “I can have my sleeves pushed up, and it doesn’t bother either of us,” she
His heart dropped at his father’s words. Calm and cold, they cut straight through continued. She took in the room again. “It’s rather nice to be able to do it in here, in
him with a brutal efficiency that said I made you, I know how to unmake you. And he did. a way.”
His father might not know so much about Draco anymore, but he knew the parts that She brought her hands to her mouth. For a terrifying moment, heart jumping to
mattered, the parts he’d helped build. the back of Draco’s throat, he thought she might be crying. But the sound that
Draco clenched a fist beneath the table, spine stiff as he made eye contact with his escaped from behind her hand was more of a giggle, shoulders shaking as she tried to
mother. hold it in.
“You do not have a choice here,” Lucius continued. “If the Greengrasses had not “Are you—” he tried to start, not knowing if he meant to end that statement with
terminated our contract, you would still be marrying that girl, regardless of the mess okay, losing it, or something else entirely.
you’d made. Your duties to this household are not optional.” “I think you’ve corrupted me,” she said through a laugh, finally dropping her hand
and allowing herself the amusement.
 204 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 221

Draco’s entire body tensed, a flare of hot fear slingshotting from his chest to his “And if they aren’t accepting of this?”
throat. He’d what? Draco wanted not to have a reaction to that. He wanted not to fear that possibility.
“No—I’m sorry, don’t look so shocked. I only meant—” she said, breaking off as But he did. A fear solution mixed with liquor seeping from his brain.
she wrangled her giggles, shaking her head as if to shake off her unwanted mood. “I “I don’t know,” he said. Because he didn’t. But he wished he did.
was just trying to think of a way for this room to be less awful, and the first thing that And that wasn’t the right answer. He could tell from the tiny twitch in her brow,
popped into my head was that we should have sex in her bed.” the small downturn at the corner of her mouth. Expressions so loud in a silent room
Draco had never been so stunned in his life. he wondered if everyone in the house had heard them, if everyone knew of his
Had she learned how to cast a wandless, wordless stupefy? He didn’t know if he misstep.
could move his limbs, engage his breathing, pick his jaw up off the floor. Hermione coerced her disappointment into logic, a skill so impressive he
She bit her lip, barely stifling another giggle. sometimes marveled at the things she could do with a single thought.
“I know. It’s so silly and immature. It was just the first thing I thought of. Probably “Well—don’t do anything irrevocable. Not until you know.”
because that’s a lot of what I think of—you. You’ve really invaded my thoughts, you It was a warning and an offering and enough for now.
know. But”—a pause, a mournful glance at Draco, then the bed—”we can’t. I am He kissed her with the intent to convince her that he did know, even when he
working, after all.” didn’t.
Draco dragged himself out of his shock, disturbingly aroused in such a vile place.
He pulled out his pocket watch.
“The workday is nearly done,” he said, lifting a brow at her.
She shook her head, smiling. He didn’t miss the flicker of indecision as it sparked
to life, burned bright, and then fizzled on her features. “You’re very attractive. And
very convincing. But realistically, I don’t think there’s a cleansing charm strong
enough to convince me to touch her bed.”
She pulled up her runes, easily transitioning back to her work, as if the air between
them hadn’t just nearly ignited from the sudden sexual tension. Though he couldn’t
disagree with her; as poetic as the fuck you to aunt Bella might have been, Draco
didn’t much enjoy the idea of touching her bed, either.
Sighing, he thought of Sarajevo and tried to cast a Patronus, failing each and every
time.

“Are you really not going to tell me what we’re doing?” Hermione asked as she
stepped into his flat on the evening of her birthday. Conveniently, Hermione’s
birthday fell on a Friday this year, which meant Draco had the opportunity to plan a
full evening, assume an overnight stay, and then enjoy an entire Saturday in her
company.
She brushed a few shimmering cinders mixed with Floo powder from her dress: a
pretty purple thing that Draco had never seen before. She absently twisted a sleek
curl around her finger before tucking it behind her ear. Briefly, she patted at the back
of her head to assess the twisted updo she’d forced most of her normally wild hair
into.
“Is that a new dress?” he asked in lieu of actually answering her question. He
stepped forward and kissed her cheek, lingering when her hands found his waist, her
breath catching. He felt her skin warm beneath his lips.
She nodded as he shifted, dropping closer to her ear. “You look beautiful,” he said,
savoring the way her fingers tightened their grip on his shirt before he stepped back.
“But no, I won’t be telling you.”
 220 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 205

“Go find your wife if you’re jealous,” Draco called after him, breath gusting out of She pouted, an edge of wariness peeking through.”I don’t love surprises,” she said,
him as Hermione moved her hips again, bearing down against his. The tips of his words slow, cautious.
fingers dug into her hips and the flesh at her backside. “You already know we’re going to dinner. Can a man not at least keep the
“This is definitely your seduction,” she said, dropping several open-mouthed kisses destination a mystery? I can guarantee there will be no huge surprises, nothing grand
to his throat. “Also, it’s a thank you,” she said between swipes of her tongue against or extensive, per your request. And I can absolutely guarantee there will be no jewelry
his skin. involved.”
He held her hips steady as he rocked his, seeking friction. She laughed in a surprised burst, eyes widening as she lifted a hand to her lips, face
A thank you. He assumed, for spending time with her friends. For that not-exactly- blushing prettily at her slip.
combative exchange of words she’d caught him having with Weasley as he’d passed Draco smiled, reaching for her hand, absently drawing patterns against her skin
along a beer. For staying well past her initial estimate that the party would clear out by with his thumb. “You might recall, it didn’t go very well last time.” He kissed her
midnight. For being a part of her life, integrated with the others, an imposter behind before her embarrassment had a chance to grow. She sighed against him. That simple
enemy lines. act, that acceptance, that giving in, ignited a warm and comforting glow inside his
For some reason, that, of all things, stripped him raw, pulled at the ragged edges of chest.
his lingering guilt, of the conversations with his parents, about his parents, that he “I suppose it didn’t,” she said as they broke apart, yet lingered close.
couldn’t quite get out of his head. Draco could have laughed, his turn to appreciate understatement. Instead, he found
He’d given her half a relationship. He’d put up such a fight to have one with her, himself idly playing with her fingers.
and he’d only given her a facade. She’d given him her friends and family; she’d told “I will give you more jewelry one day,” he said, releasing her hand. He kissed her
everyone in her life that he was in it, and that it was their responsibility to accept that cheekbone. “Expensive jewelry.” He wound his hand in her hair. “Heirloom jewelry.”
fact. He’d only given her himself, which sometimes felt like it was all he had to give, He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Meaningful jewelry.” He let his fingers dance
but it also felt too much like passive participation for his liking. down the line of her spine. “But tonight,” he paused, listening for the sound of her
“What if it was really real?” he asked. He could feel the firewhiskey burning his breathing, which he was fairly certain had ceased altogether in the anticipation he
breath and his brain and his caution. He asked the question to her throat, too much cultivated, “the only thing you get from me is a lovely dinner.”
of a coward to ask it to her face. She released a breath in a small whoosh. His own lungs contracted, heart
“What do you—really real?” She’d stilled the rocking she’d been doing in his lap, hammering behind his ribs.
but her hands and fingers still wandered trails through his hair, along his neck, across “If I didn’t know better, Draco Malfoy, I might think you’re trying to make me fall
his shoulders. in love with you.”Her words were quiet, eyes locked to his as they hovered close
“That’s what you said. It wasn’t—couldn't be real. What if it was?” together, in an orbit that could end in a kiss or oblivion, perhaps a combination of
Her hands stopped, slipping like dead weights over the front of his shoulders, both.
landing in her lap. He finally sat back, sat up, looking at her through the slight spin in “You’re a clever witch,” he said. “I’m sure you already know that's exactly what I’m
his vision and the warm blur cast by floating, meandering candles. doing.”
“What if I tell them? And we’ll go on dates in Wizarding London,” he traced a line
of freckles across her cheekbone before threading his fingers through her curls,
cradling her head. “We’ll just be.”
She leaned into his palm, releasing a wistful sort of breath. That moment felt
encased, enveloped, enclosed in time and space as their own bubble of existence The zucchini blossoms weren’t as offensive this time around. In fact, they were
outside the normal passage of time, independent of the forces that pulled it forward. rather lovely, delicious and reminiscent of his absurd experience the last time he’d
It was just the two of them, sitting together on an armchair meant for one, when the been to this restaurant with her. He couldn’t help but find amusement in it.
time wasn’t quite morning and wasn’t quite night, alone and together and strategizing Hermione sipped her wine, smiling at him as the candlelight flickered and danced
a future with brains soaked in alcohol. across her skin.
For the stretch of several blinks, before reality forced her to answer, it was a perfect “I didn’t have you pegged as the sentimental sort,” she said between bites of their
moment: a moment he could never, would never, want to change, even if he could, appetizer. “But it’s rather nice.”
when he could. Draco scoffed.”I am not sentimental.”
“Do you think they’d—your parents—be accepting of that? Now?” she asked after Hermione tilted her head, watching him with a faint, calculating smile playing at her
several wonderful eternities passed. lips. He saw several thoughts, several questions, wind their way through her features
“They’ve—” He struggled to find the words, to explain his hope that was mostly, before she finally settled on one. He savored that anticipation, waiting for her to
inconveniently, unfounded. “They’ve been more open to my independence in the last choose her words, knowing she’d challenge him in some way, or surprise him with
couple of years.” something thoughtful or extraordinary.
 206 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 219

“Why did you choose this restaurant, then?” “As ever, your eloquence astounds, Potter. Is this where you warn me not to hurt
A simple question. An easy answer.”It felt appropriate. And—I value appreciating her like some bumbling oaf defending a woman’s honor? I’ll tell you now, I’m more
the pleasant moments in my life, few and far between as they may be.” afraid of her than I am of you.”
“That is…nearly a textbook definition of sentimental,” she said, distracting him Potter’s face shifted again, back to a smirk. He pushed up his glasses, askew for the
from what might have been a rebuttal by running her foot along his calf beneath the last several minutes. “Good. That’s good.”
table. That certainly hadn’t been an activity on the menu the last time they were here. “Good,” Draco repeated, not really knowing why.
Then, quieter: “When we ate here, that was a pleasant moment for you?” He and Potter didn’t talk much after that, mostly drinking in silence or engaging
“Excluding the part where you’d been injured, yes.” the occasional interloper who dropped in for a chat.
She hummed in agreement.”The injury wasn’t ideal.” But Draco found he didn’t resent him so much, either.
“But it was”—he drummed his fingers on the table, a split-second of indecision
over his words—”almost like a date. Accidental, of course.”
Her foot, which had been gliding up and down his leg, froze. She blinked, a smirk
twitching into her expression, and then resumed her movements, reaching for her
wine again. When Hermione slid into his lap, some time past midnight and after several guests
“I wondered,” she said after a sip. “There were moments—that evening. Sitting had already left for the evening, Draco felt a little bit like he could finally breathe.
here. With you. It felt like it might be something of a date in a strange way.” He hadn’t sequestered himself in his favorite out-of-the-way armchair for the
Draco slid his hand across the embroidered tablecloth, seeking hers. Had they not entirety of the evening, tempting as the thought was. He’d done a lap with
been sequestered in a tiny, dim corner booth, such a public display of affection might Longbottom, refilling their drinks and managing stilted conversation about what rare
have made him uneasy. But in what felt like relative privacy, he pulled her hand to potions ingredients were growing in the Hogwarts greenhouses. He’d chatted with
the center of the table, where he gripped it, leaning forward. one of the older Weasleys—involuntarily, and he didn’t bother to remember his
He dropped a kiss to each of her fingertips, enjoying the way her gaze darkened, name—while trying to see if he could sneak Hermione away from Luna Lovegood’s
eyes fixated on his every movement as she spoke again. never-ending oration about her travels abroad. Most of it sounded made up, from
“But you were betrothed then, so I knew it wasn’t really.” what Draco could gather. He even had a surprisingly robust conversation with the
He hummed against her knuckle, thumb tracing the tendons up the back of her Weaslette about Quidditch, wherein they managed to agree that her brother (the
hand. worst one, Ron) had no taste with regard to his love of the Chudley Cannons.
“And now I’m not.” Draco returned to his chair, or what had become his chair by frequent occupancy
“Now you’re not.” rights, as the party wound down, with more and more attendees slipping out through
He brought her hand back down to the tabletop, still absently tracing her skin, the Floo or disapparating from the back gardens with a pop.
addicted to the comfort of contact. “I’m sorry I abandoned you for so long,” Hermione said, breathing hot, alcohol-
“You won’t be again, will you?” she asked, fingers twisting and flexing within his. laden breath against his neck. Her fingers wandered his chest in a playful exploration.
Draco let out a small laugh. “It took Lucius nearly a year to negotiate that A tipsy Hermione was a handsy Hermione, and Draco had zero objections.
contract.” “We’re going to need a code,” he said, voice just as low, just as suggestive, as he
“It’s been nearly a year since you broke it.” dropped a kiss to her neck. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on you all night, and
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, squeezing her hand when he felt her pulling you had no idea.”
away from him. “He won’t. He wouldn’t—Hermione, it’s your birthday. Let me “Oh, I had an idea,” she said, leaning back to look at him with a wide smile and an
make this a lovely night for you. Don’t worry about things that won’t happen.” obvious glance at his mouth.
She nodded, but he saw a flicker of concern stashed out of sight, dashing in and Draco grinned, tugging her closer as he splayed his hands wide along her back.
out of his periphery. She worried—about many things, he knew—and this, now “Is it time for my seduction?” he asked, mouth hovering close to hers, tasting the
among them. He tried to corral the concern in a different direction, send it elsewhere, faintest hint of cinnamon on her breath. So close.
lull it to sleep for the evening. A disgruntled sound drew Draco’s attention away from the beautiful woman in his
Draco tried to lure it away with expensive wine and rich entrees; he tried to coax it lap who he very, very much wanted to kiss.
into submission with casual, affectionate touches and dessert so sweet he could taste “I’m right here. Just—gross,” Potter said, already standing from the sofa.
it on her tongue when they kissed, stealthily and silently, while waiting for their bill. “Leave then,” Draco said with a bite that came from several drinks and a subtly
And when he still sensed that tiny flicker of unease winding through her thoughts, gyrating witch in his lap. Gods, she was killing him.
her evening, he resolved to banish it through sheer devotion, determined that if he “It’s my house,” Potter said, flipping him two fingers but already well on his way
could not wine and dine her worries away, he could show her with his hands and his out of the room.
mouth: a lovely counterbalance between her head and his heart.
 218 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 207

“A full body bind? In first year?” The purple dress had been lovely, but it looked best on his bedroom floor. For as
Longbottom grimaced, taking a sip of his drink. Potter just laughed. “Ask her,” he much work as he assumed she put into taming her curls into a smooth, elegant updo
said. “She won’t deny it.” for her birthday, Draco much preferred the sight of her hair fanning out around her
Draco tapped the side of his glass with his index finger, considering. The words head, wild and untamed. He preferred to lose himself in those curls, tangling his
fuck it found their way to the forefront of his brain, a kind of loosening of inhibitions hands in them as she threw her head back against his pillows, mouth dropped open,
and an inability to ignore the subtle challenge. cries of pleasure falling from her throat.
“Granger,” he said, raising his voice so that it carried across the room, zipping and Draco loved her brain, he really did. He loved being surprised by it, impressed by it,
winding its way around the floating jack-o-lanterns, the transfigured bats, and the turned on by it. But there was an extra bolt of love and lust he got from seeing it shut
carefully smoking cauldrons. Hermione tilted, her whole body leaning so that she down completely: the woman beneath him reduced to whimpering rapid, broken
could see around Lavender Brown. “Did you put this one”—he nodded towards chants that alternated his name with affirmations of her desire.
Longbottom—”in a full body bind when you were twelve?” In these blinking moments where she stopped thinking and merely existed, she
She didn’t answer at first, and he wondered if his words had difficulty traveling the surrendered so much of herself. He knew, even if she hadn’t said it yet, that his
space between them, forcing their way through other people’s conversations and the devotion was not one-sided. He knew that this overwhelming thing he’d decided to
irritating background noise of The Weird Sisters blasting from the corner of the call love, this thing that scraped and clawed at the inside of his chest, this thing that
room. fought so hard for proximity to her, did so because it knew her as well as it knew
Then she smiled. That same slow, mischievous smile she’d had when she told him itself.
about riding a dragon out of Gringotts. It was a knowing smile, a guiltless one. Just
like it had the first time he saw it, that simple curve of her lips ignited a heat inside
him.
“Yep,” she said. Draco could hear the pop of the ‘p’ from all the way across the
room. She winked at him—bloody winked at him—and then leaned back over, once It took an embarrassing amount of self-control for Draco to pull himself from bed
again obscured from view, rejoining whatever conversation was happening around the next morning. His incentives to remain between the sheets were high, what with
her. a naked, beautifully disheveled Hermione Granger sleeping there. But he’d foregone
Draco looked back at Potter and Longbottom, both of whom wore varying dinner with his parents the evening before and to miss breakfast the next day would
expressions of disgust and discomfort. raise several questions he had no interest in answering.
“Brilliant and ruthless, that woman,” Draco concluded, taking a drink in He felt reasonably confident Hermione wouldn’t even note his absence.
acknowledgement, or perhaps celebration. Considering how late they’d stayed awake—a mess of lips and limbs, thoroughly
Potter shuddered. exhausted—the note he’d left beside her pillow felt superfluous.
“Don’t feel bad, Longbottom. She slapped me in third year,” Draco said. He allowed himself one grossly self-indulgent look at her before he left, chest
“Sent a flock of conjured birds after Ron once,” Potter added. cavity tight, constricting. Blue-tinted early morning light trickled through his
Draco chuckled. “I assume he deserved it.” bedroom curtains, gently illuminating the sleeping woman wrapped in his sheets.
“About as much as you deserved the slap.” There was something so light, something so bright, something so distinctly not dark
Potter smirked. Draco did, too. Longbottom laid his head back against the sofa, about it, that as Draco slipped out of his bedroom he couldn’t quite shake the dream-
barely holding onto the empty glass in his hands. like sensation, the unreality of his life.
Potter’s smirk dropped into something more serious. The manor had a habit of returning him, forcibly and unkindly, to reality.
“She is brilliant and ruthless. She’s also my best friend,” he said, words a little His mother fussed over the efficacy of his ironing charms, dissatisfied with the
wobbly around the edges. “She likes you.” single crease along the shoulder that he’d missed. He pointedly did not mention that
The room blurred a bit when Draco rolled his eyes. he’d hastily pulled this particular oxford from where it lay draped across a settee,
“Careful Potter, wouldn’t want you to say anything you’d regret when you’re forgotten, where Hermione undressed him the night before.
sober.” His father pushed for more details surrounding Draco’s investment account, a line
“She likes you a lot.” of questioning ever increasing in frequency as his numbers continued to stall, and
“I’ve gathered as much,” Draco said. And all he could think about—all his idiotic, worse, dwindle. Not even Blaise’s interference, helpful as it had been, could turn his
single-minded brain could provide him with in that moment—was how much she holding’s downward trajectory around quickly enough to escape Lucius’s notice.
liked him when he had her in his arms or in his bed. Vibrant images of her flushed Over a soft-boiled egg, Draco offered the most bland, perfunctory responses he
face flooded his brain. could muster, lacking both the motivation and skill to dissect the complicated
“She really likes you a lot.” interplay between supply, demand, international trade markets, and exchange rates,
especially at barely half eight in the morning.
 208 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 217

Further, he simply did not care. And for the first time, he got the sense that Lucius “Am I to presume there’s no threat of poisoning?” he asked, only partially kidding.
realized it, too, a sneer pulling at his lips as he reached for his copy of the Daily While Draco didn’t necessarily believe the inscrutable Harry Potter would engage in
Prophet and abandoned their obligatory morning conversation. something as nefarious and plebeian as a run-of-the mill poisoning, he suspected
Narcissa smiled at Draco over her tea, the kind of empty, sad smile he interpreted there were several Weasleys currently present who wouldn’t mind it so much if
as her wish to understand why her breakfasts had taken a turn towards Draco dropped dead.
unpleasantness over these last several months. Potter rolled his eyes, an exaggerated motion, and stole Draco's drink back. He
But she didn’t really want to know; Draco knew she didn’t. The answer likely still took a sip from it, lifting his brows and smiling in a far-too-satisfied display of proof,
lay sound asleep, naked and thoroughly fucked, in his bed. and dropped the drink back in Draco’s hands.
Which brought him to the question Hermione had planted inside his brain. When “I think I prefer poison to drinking after you, Potter.”
he took her worry, banished it with hot kisses against her neck and thrusts so deep Potter merely wrapped his arms around his wife’s midsection from behind,
that his vision spun with each drag and pull, he’d simply siphoned it into his own nuzzling into her neck. Draco, for a horrified moment, hoped he never looked quite
mind instead. He’d sucked the poison from her blood, but taken in too much so absurd when he did similar things to Hermione. At least he never did it in
himself, new concerns burning his bloodstream. public—did he?
Draco sliced a melon on his plate, careful to ensure his silver made neither scrape “Getting a little drunk before Malfoy got here was an excellent idea,” Potter
nor scratch against the china. He speared the fruit, dread gathering in his stomach. whispered too loudly into Weaslette’s ear. Hermione snorted, quickly taking a drink
He noticed his mother’s eyes following him, and he knew he had to ask. to hide the noise. “He’s funny when I’m buzzed.”
“Father,” he began, proud he did not flinch when Lucius flipped his paper down to Potter barely seemed to register his wife’s laughter. Draco certainly noticed
look at him. He wondered when he had last voluntarily initiated a conversation with Hermione’s giggles, shoulders shaking just enough to give her away as she hid her
his father over a meal. Their breakfasts and dinners had been so quiet, so stunted, so mouth behind her drink. Draco locked his jaw, feeling the muscles along his neck
choked by rampant omission that he’d nearly forgotten what his own initiative tensing as he tried to work through an annoyance that felt disturbingly like reluctant
looked like, a perpendicular angle jutting away from his avoidance. amusement.
Lucius inhaled through his nose, nostrils flaring: the only indication that Draco had He abandoned niceties; he had no desire to mingle with however many other
been heard at all. Gryffindors were in attendance. He walked to the chair he so often occupied when
“I was wondering if you were currently engaged in or”—a fumble with his words, avoiding gatherings at Potter’s house and sat, downing his drink in several
confidence melting under Lucius’s stare—”were intending on engaging in any further determined gulps.
marriage contract negotiations on my behalf.” Hermione followed, just long enough to comb her fingers through his hair, a smirk
Forgetting he already had a piece of melon on his fork, Draco stabbed another ghosting across her face. “I’ll get you another,” she said, before disappearing into the
onto it, taking a reluctant bite, chewing, swallowing, and then setting his jaw, all in next room.
the time it took for Lucius to decide whether or not he would answer. Draco made eye contact with a floating jack-o-lantern, bracing himself for an
“They have been unsuccessful thus far,” he finally said. evening with Hermione’s friends.
Something in Draco’s chest dropped to his stomach, cold anxiety winding and
curling, latching onto every nerve it could find.
“Why do you ask, darling?” Narcissa asked from across the table, a curious, almost-
hopeful lilt to her words.
He hadn’t thought this far ahead, hadn’t entirely considered the consequences of Once Draco had a few drinks in his system—alcohol buzzing through his veins,
broaching such a fraught subject so openly. He’d mostly noted the line between warming his blood and fogging his brain—Potter wasn’t all that bad.
Hermione’s brows, the hint of possession in her tone, and sought to do anything, Hermione, the beautiful, lovely, horrible traitor that she was, abandoned him at
everything to eliminate her worry. some point during the evening in favor of Ginny. She felt so distant, all the way
He cleared his throat. across the room, cheeks rosy and smile wide as she chatted and laughed with several
“I would prefer”—he tried not to cringe—”if you did not.” The words felt wrong, of her friends. Draco had been content to nurse his own drinks in his de facto chair
off, too formal or maybe not formal enough. “Please,” he tried again. “Don’t.” of avoidance when Longbottom decided to join him, followed shortly by Potter, who
“Don’t what?” Lucius asked, paper crinkling in his hands where he’d started to flopped onto the nearby sofa.
form a fist. “Don’t provide for the future of this family? That is my role, Draco. And Potter’s extended story about a case of his involving a Goblin—a garbled, rambling
this is yours.” mess of a tale obscured by poor storytelling skills and a fair bit of drinking—nearly
Draco couldn’t look at him. Perhaps foolishly, he pleaded to his mother’s lulled Draco to sleep. But the reminiscing Potter and Longbottom started doing once
sensibilities instead. Potter’s tale found its inevitable conclusion where he solved the case and saved the
day? Those stories interested him.
 216 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 209

“Oh no, you don’t get to laugh at me because your questionably feline roommate “It wasn’t just that it was Astoria,” he said, realizing too late that if anyone would
doesn’t like me.” have sympathy for the implosion of his betrothal to Astoria, Narcissa Malfoy would
“He must know you’re the one who keeps me away from home so often,” she not be that person. She’d had to survive the initial impact damage, after all. “It was
mused, eyes sparkling in her enjoyment of the situation. more...all of it,” he finished lamely. Neither of them would understand.
“I saw your schedule.” He pointed to her planner on the table, countering her with “Is there a girl?” Lucius asked suddenly, rough and demanding.
his own amusement. “I don’t think I ever actually believed you included sex in your Draco didn’t hesitate to consider his response.
to-do lists.” “No.” It was the easiest lie he’d ever told his father. Not out of shame, or guilt, or
She sucked in a sharp breath but didn’t drop her gaze. regret, or all of the many other reasons he might have tried—and mostly failed—to
“Would you rather I not ensure I have time for you?” deceive Lucius in the past, but purely out of respect for her privacy, out of a need to
Draco laughed. He saw her digging in, determined not to balk. He loved it. protect her from his family’s judgement, from their wrath. “If there ever is one,
“Do you plan on scheduling our entire sex life?” he asked, a bit of a poke at her though, I wouldn’t want to worry.”
armor. Lucius sneered again, letting out a heavy breath.
She crossed her arms, rooted to her spot. “Well, it’s not always written in advance, “There is a girl,” Lucius said, as if that might be the most offensive thing he could
you know. You’re very—we can be spontaneous. Sometimes I pencil it in after. I like imagine over breakfast. “You’re transparent, and you’ve been quiet, and your clothes
to account for my time.” are creased. Are you keeping her in that secret flat of yours?”
Draco let his gaze wander to the open page for that very week. Draco placed all of his effort in not letting his fork wobble out of fury and fear as
“I seem to be taking up quite a bit of it these days.” he brought another bite of melon to his mouth, forcing some measure of control into
“You are.” his posture. He glanced at the large grandfather clock on the opposite side of the
“You have a little something written in for this evening,” he said, grin breaking room: nearly nine, an acceptable concluding time for breakfast.
across his face. He set his fork down, sliding his chair away from the table.
Finally, she flushed, crossing the space between them and snatching up her “Please do not engage in any further contract negotiations on my behalf,” he said,
notebook. Draco caught her wrist, a light touch to halt her retreat. attention focused on the ornate silver egg cup just in front of his mother’s right hand.
“Were you planning on seducing me tonight, Hermione?” He watched as she flexed her fingers around her own fork. He couldn’t bring himself
He couldn’t suppress the self-satisfied smile, or the heat winding its way through to look her in the eye.
his chest, reaching for her. He nodded to no one in particular and excused himself, a quick pace down the
“It crossed my mind.” manor halls and through the Floo, back to his flat where peace took precedence over
His eyes flicked to her planner. decorum, over duty.
“I don’t know if I’m available, you see. I may need to consult my schedule.” He’d said there was no girl. The easiest, boldest lie of his life. His lie greeted him as
She narrowed her eyes and shrugged, stepping out of his orbit. He lamented the he stepped back into his bedroom, still curled beneath his covers, a book propped
loss as soon as it happened. open in her hands, and a wide smile offered freely upon his return. Of course there
“We’ll see,” she said. And they knew, the both of them, that he’d abide by any was a girl. A woman. The girl. The woman.
plans she had for him, any time. And he couldn’t imagine how there could ever be any other.
“I look forward to it.”

“Weaslette, you’re looking ghoulish. I was under the impression this wasn’t to be a
costume party,” Draco said in greeting, offering a bottle of firewhisky as their
contribution to the evening’s festivities.
“Then why have you come as a vampire, Malfoy? Do you miss the sunlight?”
Hermione’s hand tightened around his forearm, something shocked, something
warning.
He held Ginny’s gaze long enough for each of them to arch a brow at the other,
not exactly smirking, but close. Potter interrupted with a drink in each of his hands—
a little stumble, eyes a little glassy—shoving them at Draco and Hermione.
Draco hesitated as Hermione took her drink.
 Beginning and end 215

-1.333, -1.416, -1.500 “Incredibly.”

She shook her head, curls bouncing as she did. She didn’t hide her smile.
“I’ll be right back. I just want to change into something more comfortable and we’ll
O CT O B E R go.”
Draco almost followed her, just for the pleasure of watching her change, of seeing
her bedroom, and perhaps testing his luck on how late she’d be willing to arrive at
Potter’s little get together. But she’d already disappeared into a room and closed the

T
ICK TOCK door behind her by the time he realized how much he favored the idea of being as
The last room in the guest hall, an enormous luxury suite that occupied late as possible. He imagined there would likely be a heavy Weasley contingent in
the majority of the upper level, hadn’t seen the light of day since the war. attendance; he did not relish the idea of spending an evening with an indeterminable
Draco had vague memories of his mother trying to force the room open in the weeks number of Gryffindors.
following their sentences, when it was just the two of them under house arrest, He examined her space as he waited: a tiny living room with the fireplace, walls
wondering how Lucius was faring in Azkaban. predictably lined with shelves, crammed to bursting with books, a small, adjacent
Narcissa had wanted everything cleaned—immaculate—redecorated, redesigned, kitchen that looked relatively unused, and a tiny kitchenette table shoved in the
and renovated from panelled ceiling to tiled floor. Everything, that is, except for two corner.
rooms: the drawing room, which she paid to have locked and warded and His gaze caught on her planner, left open on the table, each day crammed with a
conveniently erased from her memory, and this one, which she could not enter no huge checklist of to-do items, including their upcoming gathering at Potter’s. He
matter how hard she tried. She wrote the entire guest hall off as a loss, furious that paused, laugh catching in his throat as he took in some of the other—more
neither she nor her elves could find a way in. scandalous—details of her life that she included in her schedule.
Hermione Granger could, though, in her own Ministry-mandated version of He meant to tease her, but she’d reentered the room with an orange monster in her
cleaning house that, under any other context, Draco might have imagined his mother arms.
grateful for. After all, Hermione was only doing exactly what Narcissa had done “Ah, the other man in your life,” he said. “I suppose this had to happen eventually.
immediately after the war, just with much finer detail and a lower tolerance for Did he take it poorly?”
cursed objects and poisoned wines. Hermione nuzzled into the creature’s fur, impressively ignoring its yowl of protest.
Hermione heaved a sigh when the door to the suite finally clicked open. Draco had “This is Crookshanks,” she said, returning the animal to the ground. It did a few
only been paying partial attention, making half-hearted attempts at conjuring a lazy, appraising circles in the space between them, yellow eyes fixed on Draco.
Patronus as he fully expected the door to flummox her for months. Instead, it took “Hermione, someone lied to you. You told me you had a cat. That is an
her days. And a substantial amount of sweat. And the occasional angry cursing, experimental transfiguration project gone wrong.”
which Draco found both hilarious and arousing coming from her mouth. She huffed, reaching for a jar on her kitchen counter. She tossed Draco something
She turned to Draco, door swinging open behind her, a satisfied but somewhat that he caught out of reflex. He recoiled at the texture: almost-damp, spongy, a bit
reluctant smile on her face. “I almost thought I’d have to get Theo a consultant grainy.
permit to help on this one.” “Be nice. He’s half kneazle. Not unlike Hippogriffs; he’ll know if you’re being nasty.
“He would have loved that. Never let you forget it.” Try offering him a treat.”
“Hence my resistance.” “Bringing up that Hippogriff is a low blow, Granger. I thought you were a highly
“So stubborn.” moral Gryffindor.”
She smirked. She just grinned at him, a pointed look of amusement crossing her face. Draco
“It wasn’t easy,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the dark, cavernous room didn’t know exactly what she expected, but her wide, hopeful eyes told him she had
behind her. certain expectations for a specific outcome in this introduction.
“It was his room, after all. I don’t expect anything about it will be easy.” He sighed, crouched, and held out the treat: an offering to the beast.
Draco tried to ignore the twisting and grinding sensations warring their way Crookshanks surveyed him with round, assessing eyes, sniffed the air, swished his
through his intestines, his bones. If he had a choice, Hermione would never step foot tail, turned, and trotted into Hermione’s bedroom without a second glance. This left
in this corridor again, would never even so much as look at this room that once Draco crouching awkwardly, arm outstretched, a smelly cat treat in his hand,
housed The Dark Lord. disturbingly embarrassed over having been shunned by a cat.
But he had no choice. Not only was this her job, but this was Hermione Granger. He looked up at the sound of Hermione’s stifled giggle.
She didn’t need to be saved. She did the saving. Even from the ominous room in “I honestly didn’t expect anything different,” she said through her fingertips,
front of them. pressed over her mouth and chin.
Draco vanished the treat and stood.
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ligament in Draco’s being begged him to demand that they abandon the room “It’s the middle of the afternoon,” she said, turning away from him and peering
altogether. through the doorway. An obvious, errant observation that seemed so innocuous at
He held that instinct in the bottom of his lungs, a breath he refused to exhale. He first that Draco nearly let it slip by him, hurtling down the hallway and into oblivion.
followed Hermione’s direction instead. But Hermione did not often speak without purpose. He caught her words first,
And finally, nearing six in the evening on Friday, the 31st of October, Hermione then her meaning.
used her Patronus to drive out the last remaining black tendrils from the room’s “It’s very dark in there.”If Draco focused hard enough, he could almost see the
darkest corners, forcing light into the darkness, turning the nightmare into a dream. darkness moving, like tendrils of black smoke curling in the air, winding their way
about the space.
“Suspiciously so,” she said in agreement.
She cast her diagnostics at the threshold to the room, still standing in the corridor:
a level of caution Draco both appreciated and approved of. He wondered if she did it
“Just come on through with me to mine so I can change, and then we’ll head to for him. His chest preemptively ached with worry.
Harry’s together.” She stepped back, into him, at the force of red runes that erupted from her spell.
Draco barely heard her, still high off the success of finally ridding The Dark Lord’s He’d seen her runes look complicated before—a myriad of symbols both familiar
former room of all its evil, hateful magic. Seeing that room flooded with purple and unfamiliar, some rooms entirely in the red when she began—but he’d never seen
light—happy, satisfied runes floating around them—had burned from his brain every them overload in such a way, symbols flashing and expanding, fighting for attention
drop of anxiety he had over attending a Hallowe’en party at Harry Potter’s house. or notice.
His step paused just shy of the Floo when her words caught up with him, a knock With her back against his chest, Draco braced her, preventing her from falling over
at his eardrums announcing their irregularity. entirely in her surprise.
“Yours? As in your flat?” “Well,” she started, relaxing into him a bit. The small action soothed some of the
Hermione rolled her eyes, but gave him an exasperated sort of smile all the same. uncomfortable anticipation in his chest. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by that.
“I haven’t been keeping it from you—” But still. That is—that is a lot of red.”
“—But you’ve never actually had me over—” Anxiety swirled in an uncomfortable eddy in Draco’s stomach, collecting in a
“—I’ve told you you could come over whenever you like, but yours is so much blackened rectangular frame, a door through which Draco had no desire to pass. He
more convenient—” kept Hermione held against him for calming, seeking a sense of stability in the face of
“—I’m only teasing—” something so unknown and imposing. His hands, which had curled around her upper
“—I know.” She sighed. They both smiled, lost in pointless not-banter. Her arms, wandered, brushing her hair off her neck, tracing a line from her elbow to her
mysterious flat had become something of a joke, a bruise with no pain that they fingertips. He leaned down and kissed the bit of skin he’d just exposed.
poked and prodded at when they felt like needling with no hurt. “It’s just”—she “Good thing you have me to help,” he said, trying to sound flippant and
swayed a bit from side to side, as if physically weighing her words on her shoulders— unconcerned. But he desperately needed her to know that he wouldn’t be able to sit
”it is a very small flat and yours is very— not small.” on the sidelines for this one. He’d let her have Bella’s room. He couldn’t let her have
He smirked. “Would you believe me if I said I’ll withhold judgement?” this one, too, both for her safety and his peace of mind.
She laughed, head thrown back as the sound burst out of her. Draco poked at her She leaned further into him.
side, pulling her into the Floo as he tossed the green powder down. “You do make an excellent assistant.”
He’d been about to tell her that it wasn’t that funny, not enough to warrant such a “Assistant? I’m your supervisor.” He wound a hand around her hip, pulling her
throaty, involuntary sounding laugh. But then the spinning stopped and he realized against him for good measure, or emphasis, or simply to feel her arse against him. All
she had not been exaggerating. were valid reasons.
She turned to him, crossing her arms, foot tapping as she arched a brow. “You are not my supervisor,” she said, and he assumed she meant for her emphasis
“It’s—certainly not as large as mine.” to sound authoritative.
She shook her head with a snort as if she’d expected nothing less, but she drew her It sounded breathy, beautiful, and entirely at odds with the looming threat in front
lip between her teeth as she dropped her arms. of them. But Draco could hardly bring himself to care. What was a dark, cursed
“Relocating and healing my parents was expensive, even with help from the room when he had a brilliant, pliant woman pressed to his chest, near-vibrating with
Ministry. And, well—I wouldn’t let them pay me a ridiculous salary just because the kind of energy that with the right sort of encouragement, would have her
I’m...” She shrugged, dropping the end of her sentence. grinding against him?
“Their most brilliant employee, no doubt? Can’t imagine why they’d want to pay “Are you sure you don’t work for me? I spend a lot of time watching you, ensuring
you an obscene amount of money.” you do your job correctly.”
“You’re biased.”
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“Ignoring the problematic nature of power dynamics at play if I were to be sleeping “That may be my favorite sentence you’ve ever spoken.” He hiked up her skirt,
so enthusiastically with my supervisor, at best, you are my coworker.” determined to drown out the glow of red runes with the sounds of her coming,
He chuckled against her ear, both hands now on her hips, mouth trailing hot breath panting his name.
and tiny, fleeting kisses against the side of her throat. He didn’t care that they stood
in the middle of a hallway, he didn’t care that she had work to do, or that angry red
runes drowned the bright mid-afternoon light in a ruddy glow.
“Coworker? I don’t care for that terminology. I’d say we’re more of a team.”
She hummed, whether in acknowledgment of his words or the path his fingers had It took the entire month. Honestly, the brevity of such a timeline impressed Draco.
just taken, dipping under the hem of her blouse, he didn’t know, hardly cared. Walking into The Dark Lord’s former chambers had felt like stepping back in time.
“I suppose we have made a fairly efficient team,” she said. She gripped his thigh The unnatural darkness curled around him; a soft, sensual greeting that tasted like
with one of her hands, fingers bunching his trousers, releasing them, dragging along smoke and felt like memory. Everything about the space felt putrid, rotting, vile, but
his muscle. they could see none of it; darkness acted as the room’s first and primary line of
“More than efficient,” he said, fingers exploring the peaks and valleys between each defense.
of her ribs. He explored her skin with a rough touch, something primal seizing Hermione worked carefully, more so than he expected, given his personal witness
control of his limbs. “We work well together. Good balance”—he traced a line of her habits over the last several months they’d spent in this hall.
beneath her bra—”great chemistry.” They worked in near-complete darkness for days. Their diagnostic runes served as
He heard her swallow, the back of her head thrown against the soft flesh beneath the only source of light, pointing out that yes, this chair had lingering dark magic
his shoulder. soaking through its upholstery, straight to the wooden frame. And yes, these curtains
“We do work well together.” were cursed to strangle if given the right opportunity and target. And yes, these
“And there’s so much more to do,” he said, voice dropping to a whisper as he books have been banned for centuries and have several layers of complicated blood
slipped his fingers beneath the cup of her bra. magic keeping them sealed and dangerous. And yes, literally every object, every step,
Her wand clattered as it bounced against the tile floor, rolling away. every gulp of air in the room carried with it a level of hatred, of history, and of harm
She made a noise she might have intended to sound questioning, but that came out lying in wait.
distressingly close to a moan instead. “Do you feel like the dark is trying to say something to you?” Draco asked one day,
“There’s the north wing,” he said. “The guest house, my parents' wing, the cellars, putting words to the uneasy, prickling feeling at the back of his neck.
and the attics. You’ve been busy”—he palmed her entire breast with one hand, “Say something? No. Do something? Yes. I keep expecting it to attack me, if I’m
pulling her arse against him with the other. He shamelessly drove his erection against honest.”
her lower back, and she shuddered under his touch—”but this manor is very, very “It feels like it's trying to whisper to me, like it’s trying to get in. Like smoke blown
large.” against my face, and I’m holding my breath.”
Her breath caught on the inhale, but she swallowed, forcing steady words. “I’m not “This is an unpleasant room.”
bored yet.” “To be expected.”
“Neither am I.” Her hand found his.
“I rather think we’re just getting started,” she said, breathing heavy. “I’m being cautious,” she said, and he knew she meant to reassure him.
“I agree.” “I’m being bold—though it feels more foolish than brave. I know a Gryffindor
“Good, that’s good.” who insists those are similar sensations.”
Draco rolled her nipple between his fingers, bra shoved up beneath her blouse as “They are.” He didn’t need to see her face to know she smiled. He felt it in the way
he sucked at the taut tendons on her neck: nipping and laving and worshipping her her hand pulsed against his, an increase in pressure that acknowledged him.
skin with hot breath and an eager tongue. “It’s straightforward though,” she said. “This room. We work well together, we
“Draco?” she asked as one of her hands lifted, reaching blindly for his neck, fingers have a system. It’s been weeks already and neither of us has been hurt.”
grappling for purchase at the nape. He pulsed his hand against hers in turn.
“Hmm?” he hummed against her neck. It took them until the very end of the month. It took two blood curses, one of
“I think I’d like to have sex while the Ministry is paying me to work. And then I’d which required another trip to St. Mungo’s, a suffocation jinx, a terrifying moment
like for you to never mention it again.” where Draco thought Hermione’s eyes might burst from their sockets, and a waking
He tightened: his grip on her hips, on her breast, his latch on her neck, the feeling terror not unlike a boggart that left Draco collapsed on the floor, screaming, as
in his chest, all of it. Hermione kneeled next to him, pinning his shoulders such that he didn’t thrash too
violently. Every fiber, every stretch of sinew, every tendon, every muscle, every
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Distinctly worded and spoken as a statement, not a question. She had her hands on Anger careened down Draco’s spine. He shoved his hands in his pockets, hiding
her hips, standing in the doorway. Blaise hadn’t moved from his reclined position, the way they shook. He took a deep breath—in through his nose, out through his
but looked moderately alarmed, even by his standards. mouth—and dug himself a grave, right there in the sitting room.
He dropped his feet from the desk and stood. “Oh, you’ve met her.”
Draco shook his head, holding up a finger to halt Blaise’s imminent departure. Narcissa let out a tiny gasp, arms falling to her side. Lucius’s jaw clicked shut, fury
“I might need a witness.” winding it together as his nostrils flared.Confusion and betrayal mingled in the air
He’d not seen this temperature-shifting, heart-stopping sort of fury from Hermione between them. Questions, too.
since they still used each other's surnames—honestly, probably not since the time Draco had already said so much. He might as well say the rest. He could do it. He
she’d slapped him. would do it. He’d told her it was real, real enough for this.
“Yes, you might need a witness, Draco Malfoy. You didn’t tell them.” “It’s Hermione Granger. And, not that you care—though mother might care a bit,
He couldn’t quite decide if the flush crawling up her neck and the clear effort she I suppose—but I love her. Very much. And I’m going to spend the day with her
made not to stomp her foot made her anger adorable or all that much more muggle parents, and I’m excited about it.”
terrifying. Considering the impressive magic he knew her to be capable of, he settled Draco realized he should probably stand, lest he look like a child receiving a
on terrifying. lecture.
“Our breakfast got interrupted this morning,” he said, standing from his own seat, It took several seconds for either of his parents to say or do anything. Narcissa’s
gaze volleying between Hermione, to convey his contrition, and Blaise, to convey brows had drawn together, arms crossing in front of her body as she watched him
that he was under no circumstances allowed to leave him alone with such a furious like he’d just polyjuiced into someone entirely unfamiliar. Lucius, on the other hand,
woman. “You were right, there’s never going to be a perfect time. I’ll tell them had turned red, blood rushing to the surface of his skin.
tomorrow, I promise.” “Disarm him,” Lucius said, voice tight and clipped as he spat the order at Narcissa.
He tried to sound reasonable; he was reasonable. This could be a reasonable “He’s our son.”
conversation. He’d spent too long looking for the right opening, he knew that, but “He’s planning to spend the day with muggles. You heard him. He’s clearly lost his
that didn’t mean he hadn’t tried, didn’t mean it. She had to know that. faculties. That girl probably has him under an Imperius. Take his wand.”
Her laugh echoed in his eardrums, sharp and quick and entirely unsettling. Blaise Of all things, Draco felt tremendous gratitude to the Ministry for having relieved
took a step towards the door, but she stood in his path and didn't even seem to Lucius of his wand for the duration of his house arrest. Draco might not have been
notice him. able to defend himself if his father had decided to disarm him so suddenly. But his
“Oh, there’s no point telling them now, Draco. They know.” mother’s hesitation, much as it broke Draco’s heart, was enough of an opportunity to
“They know?” avoid prolonging this any longer.
His body betrayed him, a bombarda’s worth of anxiety battering his ribs. He He cast an expelliarmus, hating the way the spell tasted on his tongue, directed at
shouldn’t have cared that much, been so afraid for the implications. Narcissa.
Blaise inched closer to the doorway, a lean in his posture as he seemed to consider He caught his mother’s wand as it flew to him. Lucius took a furious step forward
the space required to simply slip by without interrupting. before Draco switched his target, leveling his wand at his father.
“I’ve been decommissioning your parents’ wing for the last week. They’re “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said, not taking his eyes off Lucius. “But I’m sure you
supposed to stay away but—well, I ran into your mother.” prefer this anyway, not having to make that choice.” He flicked his gaze to her, just
Draco swallowed, wishing his brain hadn’t turned to slush inside his skull, long enough to see the tangle of grief and fear and anger bunching up her pretty
incapable of complex thought and coherent speech. features. “I choose to believe you wouldn’t have done it,” he added, knowing it
Hermione continued, blowing out an angry breath. Worse than the anger, though; wouldn’t be enough.
he could see the disappointment, almost glassy, in her eyes. “She seemed very Draco took a deep breath, lowering his wand and silently begging his father not to
confused that you weren’t around. It was”—she faltered, lifting and dropping her move. He didn’t. No one did, not for an uncomfortable several seconds while they all
hands as if to say she didn’t know— “difficult to explain why Topsy was there. So I, stood in the aftermath of the things he’d said, of the things he’d done.
well—I explained that we’d decided we needed more clear lines between home and “I’ll be leaving now,” Draco said, lacking any other way to conclude what might
work since we moved in together. You can imagine how well that went over.” very well be the single worst conversation he’d ever had with his parents. “I’ll send a
Hermione finally seemed to notice Blaise standing near her, methodically checking Patronus letting you know where I leave your wand, Mother. I don’t—I’m sorry, I
each and every one of his pockets, steadfastly refusing to look at either of them. don’t trust you to have it just yet.”
“And what did she—my mother—what did she say?” Draco cleared his throat. He He grimaced, seeing the hurt flash across her features. He turned and left before he
felt ridiculous, suddenly, upon realizing he still stood behind his desk. He took a step could change his mind and beg for forgiveness, trying to force them to see Hermione
around it, towards her, but froze when Hermione lifted a hand to tell him to stop. as he did.
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He could have facilitated returning his mother’s wand in a variety of different ways. “We could try running it out of the flat,” Draco said, reviewing the parchment in
Topsy, for example, would have gladly performed the duty. But his Patronus was front of him. “We wouldn’t necessarily need a dedicated space, and I’d do all the
something he wanted them to see, wanted them to know about him. He wanted them brewing, anyway. If you’re investing some of the startup costs plus advertising, we
to see the lion’s head and know that it was a part of him, just as much as the dragon’s can negotiate a share in the profits.”
tail. Blaise pulled a cigarette case from his breast pocket and shook it questioningly
He counted seconds as he counted his steps, inching closer to the Floo and feeling towards Draco. He declined. “Hermione hates them. Have one if you want; I’ll
more and more like a terrible excuse for a son. He’d wanted to be a good son all his scourgify the room later.”
life. Lacking that, at least he could be a good boyfriend. Blaise pulled a cigarette from the case and lit it. With the tiniest smirk he said,
Boyfriend. “Theo insists scourgify doesn’t get it all out.”
He threw the Floo powder down and, in a flash of green, realized that didn’t feel “Well. Theo’s neurotic about cleanliness.”
like the right word for what he was, what he wanted to be. “And you’re delusional if you think we’re going to have any profits to negotiate if
The word husband crossed his mind as he spun out of sight, away from the manor we just buy some potions ingredients, brew some stuff, and take out some
that might have trapped him in another life, another time. advertising space.”
“Is that not how one starts a mail-order potions business?”
Blaise scoffed, agitating Draco, hackles raised.
“What incentive would anyone have to switch from the shops in Diagon to a mail-
order service, especially one with your name on it? Attracting customers won’t be
Hermione gave his hand a squeeze as they stood at her parents’ front door, waiting easy.”
to be let in. Despite that dour prediction, Blaise looked utterly unconcerned: head tilted back as
“I’m dying to know what you got them,” she said, smiling and serene and happy in he took a drag from his cigarette. The slightly ajar office door creaked further open
a way that soothed him by sheer proximity. and Draco’s heart dropped, half-expecting Hermione to find Blaise smoking in their
He smirked. He’d spent the entire month searching for the right gift to give her flat, despite the fact that it was still the middle of her workday. Crookshanks
muggle, teeth-healing, academic parents, and he’d found the perfect thing. Naturally, sauntered in instead.
he refused to tell her anything about it, intent on impressing her as well. Blaise blew a ring of smoke across the desk and dropped one of his hands to
His heart skipped as he heard a noise from inside the house, footsteps approaching. dangle beside his chair. Infuriatingly, the cat walked right up to Blaise’s hand and
Draco’s nerves felt normal this time, not like those he’d had with his own parents. pushed his head into his waiting palm.
These were the typical kind of nerves a man experienced when he met his girlfriend’s Draco narrowed his eyes, first at the cat, then at Blaise. “He likes everyone.”
parents for the first time. At least, he suspected as much. He didn’t have much Blaise arched a brow. “Of course he does.”
experience to use for comparison. “Besides, the incentive is that they wouldn’t have to go to Diagon Alley at all. A
He turned to Hermione. customer can simply mail in an order without having to leave their home.”
“Before we do this,” he started, regretting immediately the way her eyes widened in “Apparating takes almost no effort and they can get what they want without having
concern. “I just need you to know how much I love you. So much that I’m going to to wait for an owl to deliver.”
pretend the televisor in there doesn’t confuse or unnerve me a little bit.” Draco scowled, mouth tight. He folded the parchment in front of him in half, then
He brushed a curl behind her ear as she laughed, a bit manic as it burst out of her in half again, and again, and again, until he couldn’t possibly fold it another time.
with a force not dissimilar to accidental magic, like she couldn’t have held it in if she Only then, did he speak.
tried. “Why are you trying to talk me out of our business plan? Are you backing out?”
“Gods, oh gods. I just—oh, I’m nervous and—can you imagine? A year ago, I could Draco nearly leapt across the desk and throttled his almost-maybe-former-friend
have never imagined you’d willingly to subject yourself to a television for me. A meal when Blaise rolled his eyes.
with my muggle parents.” “Of course not. These are smart things to consider when starting a business—”
“A year?” He tilted his head as he watched her smile crinkle at the corners of her The door creaked again—this time with force—and Hermione burst across the
eyes. So light, so genuine. threshold. Crookshanks scampered, slipping under a gap in the front of Draco’s desk
“No,” she said, calming, voice dropping. “Longer than that.” She reached out, and winding himself between his feet. Considering the look on Hermione’s face,
hand finding his jaw. “I—I love this version of you. This man you’ve become. I Draco probably shouldn’t have spared a moment to feel pleased that the cat ran to
just—I love you.” him.
It wasn’t that Draco had been waiting. And that look? On Hermione’s face?
Fury.
“You didn’t tell them.”
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His morning with Hermione had been magnificent, the best imaginable way to start Except that he had been. Desperately so. Hoping he might somehow convince her
his day, perhaps a new routine he could cement in his life: one with far better that he could be worth that, despite what he knew must surely be several thousand
intimacy than the perfunctory, awkward conversation he forced himself to sit reasons to the contrary.
through with his parents. He kissed her without thinking. Without care for the crevasse that had opened up
Hermione couldn’t be a part of this routine, not yet, at least. So she’d made her in his chest or the fact that they stood on her parents’ doorstep in the middle of
own, probably scheduled it into her overwrought planner. Fuck Draco’s brain out winter. He kissed her in a way that felt like the first time. Or rather, like the first time
while he’s still sleep addled and pliable? Check. Nearly make him late for his daily she might actually keep him and let him keep her in exchange, like she could be his as
breakfast with his parents, appearance slightly disheveled? Check. Occupy his every much as he was already hers.
waking thought thereafter? Check—ongoing check. The door swung open, and Hermione’s father had the pleasure of witnessing Draco
She was a deviant, delicious, wonder of a witch. He smirked, thinking of how she’d with his tongue in Hermione’s mouth, hand creeping towards her breast, and a not
react to his assessment that their morning romp had been entirely her doing. insignificant erection building in his pants.
Narcissa’s head tilted, a barely-there movement to convey her curiosity. “Hi, Dad,” Hermione said, pulling away from him. The flush of her cheeks could
Treacherously, he wanted her to know—not the explicit details, gods no—but he have been from the cold, embarrassment, or arousal. “This is Draco.”
wanted her to know, and accept, and appreciate, the enormous part of his life that And considering what came before, he wouldn’t have traded such a terrible
Hermione had laid claim to. The part of his life that they steadfastly ignored at every introduction for anything.
meal together.
Draco drew a deep breath, holding the air at the bottom of his lungs as he steeled
himself. He could do this; he had to do this. The opportunities he’d been waiting
for—seamless, tactful ones—didn’t seem to exist. He needed to make his own.
He set down his toast, only half-buttered, with the rest of his uneaten meal. Things got better before they got worse. Hermione’s mother welcomed him to
“Mother. You might have noticed—” their home with a hostessing grace even Narcissa Malfoy would have approved of,
That I’ve been happier. other unbecoming details of her existence excluded. As uncomfortable as their
That my cuff is unbuttoned. introduction had been, Hermione’s father greeted Draco with a handshake and an
That I have so much to say, but never do. evaluating look, eyes narrowed and knowing.
But anything he might have said died somewhere beneath his voice box as Tilly The torture show began at dinner.
appeared with a crack, announcing the arrival of a Ministry Representative. Draco Hermione found it hilarious. Her parents seemed to think it funny, too. Draco
swallowed against his pulse, eyes darting to the clock. Hermione had no reason to couldn’t decide if they were pulling an elaborate prank on him or if Hermione’s
arrive for another fifteen minutes. Surely she wouldn’t waltz in early and announce family was simply just as fucked up as his own, and she’d failed to mention that
herself after all the time and effort he’d expended searching for the right way to detail.
reintroduce the idea of her to his parents. “Drills?”
Instead, a man walked into the dining room mere seconds after Tilly’s “Drills,” Hermione said, not even bothering to hide her snicker.
announcement. Cheap robes, a generally disgruntled disposition: Lucius’s case “I’m not sure I’m understanding the definition of the word in this context.” Draco
representative had arrived, interrupting breakfast as he so often did. set his fork aside as he shoved away a lingering, unpleasant sensation of exclusion.
Draco couldn’t do it again, couldn’t stand with his parents as they faced the He didn’t care for it, not knowing. But he supposed his own fish-out-of-water
Ministry, unrepentant, only to have gross unprofessionalism flaunted in their faces. experience, and the humor it seemed to provide the rest of them, offered a preferred
The whole of it made Draco slightly sick to his stomach. He dropped his serviette on alternative to the pureblood ideologies and exclusionary belief system that would
his plate and rose quickly, announcing his departure, and left the room before either have been served at his parents’ Christmas dinner.
of his parents could command him otherwise. “I’m sure I have one around here somewhere,” Mr. Granger started, pushing out
his chair before his wife reached out to stop him.
“Not at dinner, dear,” Mrs. Granger said. The words carried with them a quiet
authority that rung of Hermione’s own confidence when she did something she knew
how to do, simply acting for herself.
Blaise had his feet propped up on the edge of the desk, and Draco couldn’t bring Draco smiled, finding Hermione’s hand beneath the table.
himself to care. Theo did a fine enough job fighting the good fight for all of them, “Are you familiar with machinery?” Mr. Granger asked, conversational and kind
insisting that Blaise respect their furniture. In Theo’s absence, Draco just rolled his where Lucius would have sounded condescending, derisive.
eyes, letting Blaise do as he wished. “Only in theory,” Draco said. “I think. I’ve seen films with Hermione. Those are
powered by machines, yes?”
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Mrs. Granger smiled, brows crinkling. Hermione squeezed his fingers before him. Even the space required for their lungs to expand and contract created too
releasing his hand; he could see her teeth grazing her bottom lip from his periphery. much distance. He needed her heat, needed to burn, needed her flesh searing him.
“That’s not—quite the same,” Mrs. Granger said. “A drill is—well, it spins very She expelled tiny puffs of noise, carried on wisps of air. He could see a flush
quickly and it’s used to bore a hole in one’s teeth to—” creeping up her neck, imagined it blooming across her chest. He loved her like this—
Draco turned to look at Hermione. he loved her every way, but especially like this—rendered mostly incoherent as he
“Pain potions?” he asked. had her quick and hard and fast in what little time they had before the real world
“Of a sense. Injected with a needle, usually.” imposed its will on them.
He grimaced. All of it sounded excessive and inefficient and horribly painful, This brief moment, before he had to face his parents, before she had to face her
despite Hermione’s insistence that it was all perfectly normal and routine. Morbid, job, could simply be theirs and theirs alone. A moment of peace and passion
more like it. crammed between busy schedules and competing priorities. With the sun barely
“Well, I feel confident you’ll enjoy my gift,” he said, trying not to think about holes risen, they could hide under their covers and devour every second they had left.
in his teeth as he ate his dinner. “I believe it’s quite appropriate for your line of He sucked at the skin on the side of her neck, nearly incoherent himself with every
work.” drag and pull inside her, snapping hips and choked groans. She pushed her back
Unfortunately, they did not enjoy his gift. against him—an unspoken plea for more —chest rising and falling, a frenzy growing
Hermione laughed at first, then looked horrified, then laughed again. Her parents as their formerly quiet room filled with pants and fucks and whispers of adoration. He
experienced an opposite reaction: horror, then tentative laughter, supplanted by worked his fingers in quick, desperate circles around her clit, demanding her pleasure
horror once more. Mr. Granger called it unusual, while Mrs. Granger opted for the before he gave into his own. White light flashed behind his eyelids as she came
word unique, graciously thanking him while looking on in confusion. around him, a ragged voice repeating his name like an incantation.
Hermione—dutifully, and once her own surprise had subsided—tried to explain He groaned against her, into her, spilling and falling and shattering all at once.
that the ancient human mandible he’d procured and presented them with was meant They stilled, breath heavy as the silence blanketed them again.
as a means of decoration, to display in one’s office. Though the extended eye contact Draco pressed his lips to her shoulder, her neck, her jaw, the spot behind her ear
she sent his way suggested that she needed confirmation of that fact. She concluded that forced her to flex against him, drawing another groan from his throat.
by informing her parents that such modestly unsettling displays weren’t uncommon “I love you,” he said, so quiet she might have to decipher his words from the
in a witch or wizard’s office or laboratory. Hermione’s tone oscillated wildly between feeling of his mouth against her ear. Or perhaps she could simply sense it, a language
uneasy amusement and strained embarrassment. unique to them, meaning conveyed through touch and the silences between inhales
Mrs. Granger gave up trying to school her expression partway through Hermione’s and exhales. He said it again with every breath, every kiss, every trail with his fingers
explanation, simply letting her jaw open and close with unspoken confusion. Mr. across her skin: I love you, I love you, I love you.
Granger poured himself a hefty glass of brandy. He offered one to Draco, which he She sighed, leaning her shoulders into his chest, limbs melted and lazy. She turned
drank quickly and indiscriminately, silently wishing it contained a Draught of the her head and kissed him, offering so much of herself for him to take. “I love you,”
Living Dead. she said, miraculously managing emphasis on every syllable as she spoke against his
With a warm trickle of alcohol-infused courage numbing his gaffe, Draco dropped lips.
a hand on Hermione’s knee, quieting her ongoing attempts at explaining away his She sighed again: less sated, this time.
odd choice of gift. “You have to be at the manor in fifteen minutes.”
“I apologize, Mr. and Mrs. Granger. I did not realize my gift was—so unusual.” Draco opted to ignore such an inconvenience, burrowing into her curls instead.
He very much wished for the brandy to knock him out. He needed more, “But you’re much more fun.”
significantly more. “You’ll tell them soon, right? I’m starting to worry too much time has passed…”
Mr. Granger drained his glass and picked up the mounted jawbone, examining the He burrowed deeper into her hair, murmuring an assenting sort of noise as he
display. rocked against her, very seriously considering the logistics of sneaking in a second
“It has”—he looked to his wife as if searching for the right word—”lovely teeth. round before he had to leave.
Could have used a dentist though.” He didn’t end up crawling out of their bed until five minutes before his parents
Hermione groaned as her parents laughed, a kind of tension breaking through the expected him, which left barely any time for ironing charms and hair-smoothing
stifling discomfort in the room. Draco could do nothing but pinch the bridge of his potions and, evidently, the buttons to his cuffs.
nose, incapable of meeting anyone’s eye, while willing the heat beneath his skin to He looked up from his wrist and met his mother’s gaze. Of course she’d noticed
subside. He needed to reconsider how often he made Hermione blush, having his missed button. She probably noticed that slight wave to his hair that day, too.
recently experienced so much of it himself. Mortification threatened to crack his Determined not to draw any more attention to himself, Draco picked up his butter
bones to bits. knife and a slice of toast.
 268 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 237

“Like the surprise that you aren’t supervising me anymore?” He released a low
growl, dragging his teeth in a line down the side of her neck. Her breath caught,
stunting her words. “Or that you still have an elf following me everyday?”
Her cajoling wouldn’t work. She knew he was working towards it, that he would tell “Thank you for coming,” Hermione said with a small sway, feet unsteady as they
them, that it required time and delicacy. An early morning lustful haze—with her apparated to his flat. “I think that’s the longest uninterrupted time I’ve spent with
warm body pulled so close against him that even the slightest motion from his hips them since before the war.”
shot delicious pleasure coursing through him—was neither the time nor place to She hugged him, sliding her hands into his back pockets under what he suspected
rehash such a well-tread disagreement. was a guise of steadying herself. Draco’s embarrassing gift giving had required several
Draco inhaled through his nose, against her neck, pressed close to her ear, glasses of wine and bouts of giggling between Hermione and her mother in order to
drowning in her curls. She breathed, too. A slow pull from the still air around them, come to an agreement that Draco was not, in fact, slightly insane.
cautious, as if everything else in the world waited in stasis for what they might do “Are you certain you want to thank me?” he asked, sweeping her curls over one
next. shoulder, thumb brushing across her cheekbone. “They—must think I’m very
He skated his hand upward, beneath her loose cotton shirt: from soft stomach to strange.”
sturdy ribs to the swell of her breast. His name slipped from her lips, a quiet whine “They do.” She preempted his instinct to put space between them by pulling him
that rang through the silence with impossible volume, straight through his skull. He closer instead. “But they think most things about the wizarding world are strange—
had no control over the way his hips responded to that sound, canting forward and which is better than the outright contempt they had for it a couple of years ago. That
grinding against her. could have gone”—she sighed, resting her cheek against his chest—”much worse.”
With the pad of his finger, he trailed a light touch along the curve of her breast, He wrapped his arms around her.
coming to a halt at her nipple. He traced agonizingly light circles around it as he “Happy to mitigate the damage with my decided failure of a gift.”
memorized the sound of her breath, hissing on the intake when he finally rolled it She chuckled, coasting warm breath through the fabric of his shirt.
between his fingers. “You mitigated it with your excellent manners and preternatural charm.”
“I have to get ready for work, too,” she said, head thrown back, neck completely “I was raised by Narcissa Malfoy, after all.”
exposed as she arched against him and made absolutely no attempt to move. He stilled, not realizing what he’d said until he said it. He never quite knew how to
He rolled his hips against her again, lost in a sort of mindless fog that consisted talk about his parents around her. He hadn’t told her about his morning, about telling
exclusively of her warm skin and breathless noises, back pressed to his chest. She his parents that she was the woman in his life. He didn’t want to bring it up now,
rocked against him in kind. either, knowing that his parents’ negative reaction would sully the lovely buzz of
He rolled her nipple again, tongue tracing the shell of her ear. alcohol they shared.
“Did you have to get ready right now?” he asked Hermione seemed neither to notice nor take offense. Instead, she squeezed his
“You’re the one with the earlier obligation.” backside from inside his pockets, giggling as she did, forcing a laugh from him in
He hummed into her neck, hand dropping from her breast, traveling a familiar path return.
back down her stomach, slipping easily into the front of her knickers. He kissed the “So handsy when you drink,” he said, leaning to kiss the crown of her head, lost for
corner of her mouth as she twisted towards him, a hand gripping at the back of his a moment in a wild, lovely tangle of curls.
thigh. She made a happy, humming sound against his chest before she leaned back, a
“I can always make time for you,” he breathed, ripping a whimper from her throat, smirk twisting her lips.
silence shattered as he slid a finger—then a second—inside her, finding her wet and “You don’t mind.”
wanting and ready. She followed her whimper with a gasp. Her hand at the back of “Not a bit. I’d say I’m strongly in favor, in fact. But I’d like to give you your gift
his leg flexed, clawing, then vanished. before you have your wicked way with me.”
He had barely a moment to mourn the loss of contact before he realized she’d He looped his hands beneath the crook of her elbows, lifting her arms and
started shoving her knickers down. His attempt to voice his agreement—a gods yes, he removing her hands from his pockets. She pouted, the ghost of a smirk twitching at
wanted to breathe—came out as a broken groan. He buried his face at the back of the edges of her mouth. He would have kissed the look from her face if he felt
her neck as he did the same with his pants: inconvenient barriers pushed just far confident enough it wouldn’t entirely sidetrack him.
enough away that he could replace his fingers with his cock, driving into her with one He led her towards the green sofa and nearly jumped out of his own skin at her
deep thrust. squeal of delight. She grabbed her copy of The Count of Monte Cristo from the coffee
Draco panted, air gusting out of him as the room warmed, space contracting, table, noting his bookmark in the back cover.
everything of consequence in his life tangled up in those sheets. He curled his arm She looked up at him with lifted brows, with a smile, with a bit more hope than he
beneath Hermione’s shoulder, palming her breast and pinning her in place against deserved. He sank onto a velvet cushion.
“That is not my gift,” he said. “It’s already yours.”
 238 Mightbewriting

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and shook her head all at once. She curled up next to
him on the sofa, limbs loose as she tucked her feet beneath her.
“Did you finish it?” she asked, tugging at the bookmark in the back of the book.
-.916, -1.000, -1.083
“I did.”
“And?” MARCH
“Haven’t I made this Christmas uncomfortable enough, what with my gift to your
parents—”
“You still didn’t like it?”

T
He wished he’d let her have her way with him. And that he’d had the foresight not ICK TOCK TICK TOCK
to leave that book right there on the table in the middle of his living room, knowing Draco had no idea what was happening around him. Intellectually, he
he intended on bringing her home with him tonight and, ideally, not letting her leave knew he sat in the main dining room at his family manor, taking breakfast
until morning. Or perhaps, ever. with his parents as they engaged in occasional conversation about all manner of
“It was not to my tastes,” he said. Simple, without judgement. A fact. inconsequential topics, so long as those topics steered clear of Hermione.
“Your tastes? Well, maybe if we discussed some of its—” Draco, however, couldn’t get her off his mind. Between every sip of his tea and
“—Hermione—” every attempt at spreading jam on his toast, he could still hear her breathing, heavy
“—you know, thoughtful discussion can sometimes illuminate things you might and stuttering, as he’d done everything in his power to delay the inevitability of
not have—” joining his parents for breakfast.
“—Hermione, I hated it.” In an effort to survive what was meant to be a mundane meal, Draco diverted his
Her hands, which had been holding the book as a prop between them, a reference thoughts from images of his morning with her. He made an attempt to eat, reaching
for her passion, dropped. Draco winced as the book landed with a thud against his for his fork.
thigh. His unbuttoned cuff sidetracked him all over again, hoping his mother wouldn’t
“But I love you,” he said. Then, with a smirk, “So, I won’t hold your literature notice his dressing oversight.
preferences against you.” He’d woken that morning with a face full of Hermione’s hair, wild curls escaped
“Against me? Against me? What do you— I should be holding it against you.” from her nightly plait and tickling at his cheeks, draped across his neck, invading his
He knew that would wind her up; he laughed. He pried the book from her grip, lungs with their scent. He rolled from his back to his side, pulling her against him as
ignoring her indignant little huff, and set it aside on the table. he buried his face in the cloud of vanilla, amber, and spice that clung to every coil.
“Of all the things you could hold against me, this isn’t it.” He found the juncture between her neck and her shoulder with his mouth, planting a
She softened, affront draining. kiss through her hair as she made a sleepy sound, stretching against him.
“I wish you’d stop saying things like that.” Morning noise always felt intrusive in such quietness. The air felt different, heavier,
“It’s the truth.” settled, like a blanket meant to dampen sound as they slept. Draco whispered when
She frowned, lifting a hand to cradle his jaw. A year ago, the contented little noise he spoke, not wanting to disturb the lovely quiet that morning offered them.
originating in the back of his throat, almost inaudible, would have embarrassed him “There’s nothing I want less than to pull myself out of this bed and go meet my
with its raw vulnerability. In the present, he raised his hand and placed it atop hers, parents.”
extending his moment of contact for several thumps of his heart, beating behind his Hermione attempted a sleep-addled response, arching her back. Under the cover of
eardrums. early sunrise and expensive burgundy sheets, Draco let his arm tighten around her
Regretfully, he peeled her hand from his face, dropping a kiss on her knuckles middle, pulling her flush against him as he sampled the skin at her shoulder with his
before releasing her entirely. tongue. Slowly, lazily, she managed coherent speech.
“May I give you your gift now?” he asked. “You could stay and have breakfast with me instead?”
She sighed, letting the sound dance through her throat, deepening into a giggle. She whispered, too. Soft sounds for the soft mattress and silken skin.
Gods, she was beautiful. Draco groaned quietly against her shoulder blade, loving the suggestion and hating
“I suppose you can,” she said with a long-suffering tone of obligation. She smirked. that he couldn’t take it. He lifted his head, slotting his chin behind her ear, conveying
“I’m not sure how you can possibly top last year’s literally life-changing, bespoke, his regret with warm breath and wandering fingers across her abdomen.
experimental potion.” She waved her hand as if the whole affair were beneath her, “I’d have to give them more notice”—the cheeky fucking witch shifted her arse
pulling her lips between her teeth as she fought a laugh. “Impress me,” she said: an against him—”they don’t handle surprises well. And we’re almost making progress.”
order, a command, a new ideology around which to build his entire purpose. Her chuckle broke some of the quiet peace in their room.
When her eyes met his, she stilled, perhaps noticing the severity of his look, or the
way the tone in the room had shifted, or the way his hand, formerly resting on her
 266 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 239

Divination. He knew this about her; Hermione had complained on a number of knee, had crept closer to her thigh, hardly acknowledged by either of them. She
occasions about her distaste for the discipline and her struggles having to listen to swallowed, and he watched the motion travel down her neck, knowing intimately
Lavender and Parvati drone on and on about it in school. how that action felt beneath his lips.
Draco had two options: engage in a conversation about divination, which He cleared his throat, dragging his eyes from her skin. “Now, before you try to
admittedly wasn’t his favorite subject, either, or continue watching as the golden trio insist we’re not together—and I would be sorely offended should you do such a
plus one (now two, he supposed) participated in an excessive amount of hugging. thing—know that this is not jewelry.”
He drummed his fingers against the armrest and took a stabilizing breath. He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. “Not jewelry,” he said again,
“What’s interesting?” watching her eyes widen briefly.
“There’s a lot happening in the leaves.”Lavender squinted, holding the cup She leaned forward, perched on her knees and hovering for a moment as she
comically close to her face as she rotated it round and round. steadied herself. She kissed him, meant as a quick action that he stole more from, his
“There’d be a lot less going on if Hermione knew how to use a tea infuser. She other hand finding the back of her neck, threaded into her curls. He took her quick
makes an uncivilized cup of tea.” reassurance of a kiss and made it his own: a brush of his tongue, a piece of his soul.
Lavender smiled, still staring into the dregs at the bottom of his cup. “It’s kind of Just in case.
nice to know she’s not perfect at everything, I suppose.” She braced herself on his shoulders, not pulling away even as the kiss broke.
Draco snorted. “We’re definitely together,” she said, an arrow of honesty nocked and aimed so
“Well. That’s about the only thing she can’t do, so we have to take our victories perfectly at his heart that it pierced him with barely a breath’s worth of effort.
when we find them.” “That’s good.” His voice came out hoarse, nowhere near as sure as he’d wanted it.
Lavender’s teeth flashed for a moment as her grin spread wider. “She’s not so great He pressed the box into her hands, pushing her gently to lean back on her heels
at hair smoothing charms, either.” against the cushions again.
Draco glanced at Hermione, feeling a fond smile break across his face at the sight “In fact,” he said as she opened the velvet box, “I’d like to be together more
of the enormous, haphazard bun she’d forced her hair into that day. She didn’t often regularly.”
wear it up; she complained it tangled too much and ended up as more hassle than it “A—piece of parchment?” she asked, pulling a tightly folded parchment from the
was worth. And while he generally loved the wild, untamed quality her quagmire of box. “With spells on it? What are these? They look like—”
curls presented, he didn’t mind the opportunity to admire the line of her neck. “My wards. Here. I—I know you’ve been keyed into them for a while, but I wanted
“It’s twisty,” Lavender said, pulling him back to his mostly-involuntary you to have the spellwork, to know it. You should always know the wards to”—a
conversation about divination. “So many paths—but loopy. Shapes that might mean pause, a gulp, a leap—”your home.”
one thing become something else entirely if I turn the cup just so. It’s as if things are If Draco’s heart beat any harder, he might need a visit to St. Mungo’s for certain
changing. Or will change. Have changed? Isn’t the future fascinating?” spontaneous combustion.
Draco’s throat had gone dry, desperate for something to quench his thirst. She read the spells silently.
“Titillating,” he allowed, as any potential further conversation died in his lungs. “I—was hoping you would want to live here. With me. Together.” He couldn’t
seem to stop talking in the absence of any sort of response from her. “You’re here so
often already. And I don’t especially enjoy watching you leave, and that flat of
yours—it’s just so small. I have the space—”
Draco’s fingers prickled, the surface of his skin suddenly vibrating at the same rate
his heart hammered in his chest. It might have been easier when she told him they
weren’t in a relationship. At least then she’d said something. Now, she’d yet to tear
her eyes from the parchment in her hands.
Carefully, she refolded it and returned it to the box, snapping the lid shut, flinching
at the sound.
“That’s—are you sure?” she asked. “I’ve never lived with someone before, outside
of school, that is. Never with—Ron and I never even—”
“Please don’t compare this to him.”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way.” She finally looked up at him. “Crookshanks could
come, too?”
His breath rushed from him in a surprised gust.
“What? Yes—of course, Crookshanks would come, too.” Draco blinked. Was that
really a question?
 240 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 265

She clutched her heart: literally, hand to chest, fingers flexing at the neckline of her sofa across the room and shared a sheepish, nervous sort of look before he cleared
dress, leaving red splotches on the skin dragged beneath her fingertips. She looked his throat again, as if he didn’t already have everyone’s attention.
like she was experiencing physical pain, confusion etched in the furrow between her “We wanted to have you all over for a specific reason, tonight. It was important to
brows and the tight pursing at her lips. us that we tell you in person—” He broke off, hand massaging the back of his neck
Draco cracked a knuckle, fingers pulled so tightly into a fist that his thumb popped as his mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times. Weaslette leaned into him
from the force, startling in the silence. with a rather nauseating sort of smile.
“If you need time to think about it—of course. That’s—I completely understand.” In the intervening seconds between Potter’s failure to express himself properly and
And he did. Except that he didn’t. He wanted Hermione Granger in his life, all the his wife ultimately taking over, a nervous warmth crept up Draco’s spine: climbing
time. He wanted a piece of every day in her heavily scheduled week, and that the ladder rungs of his vertebrae towards his head and into his ears to call him an
probably made him exceedingly selfish, but it didn’t change the intensity of the want, intruder. He had the distinct sense that he was about to bear witness to something
the need. Self-consciousness heated him, creeping towards a boil in his throat. The personal, something special—just not to him. Oddly, it flooded him with something
idea that she might not feel similarly, want similarly, burned away all the brandy he’d that felt a lot like embarrassment.
had to drink, all the liquor he’d used to find bravery. “I’m pregnant,” Ginny said.
“What will your parents say?” she asked, deep crevices of confusion finally Silence dropped in the blink it took Draco to recognize that he’d been right; he was
relinquishing their hold on her features. They smoothed as she asked the question an intruder on an intimate moment between all these friends. And then the silence
that presumably bothered her the most. exploded with a shriek as Hermione launched herself off the sofa, sloshing her
Draco, mostly relieved she’d said something, had no control over the laugh that lukewarm tea all over both of them.
escaped his throat. And all Draco could say—tone outraged as his eyes locked with Potter’s—was,
“I already told them.” “You let me insult your pregnant wife?”
Hermione’s gaze snapped to his before he’d even finished his sentence.
“You what?”
“I told them. About you, well—I told them I was spending the day with you and
your muggle parents and that you were my girlfriend and I love you and—”
She had her hand at her mouth, covering her awe. With the tea spillage quickly evanesco’d, and Hermione crying quiet tears of
“I told you this was real,” he said. “It was the most defiant I’ve ever been. I—I sympathetic joy as she engaged in semi-regular hugging every time she or Potter or
disarmed my mother. I just left them there and went to you. I think it was brave? Weaslette or Weasley went more than thirty or so seconds without touching, Draco
You’re a horrible influence, really.” found himself with Lavender Brown as his only company.
He saw the moment her shock shifted into something else, something exciting, He couldn’t reliably remember if he’d ever had a one-on-one conversation with her
something that looked an awful lot like she might be several seconds from launching before. He felt a strange kinship as they both witnessed the intimacy in front of
herself at him, from having her way with him as earlier promised. them. Lavender seemed happy enough; Draco felt mostly indifferent. They were both
outsiders accidentally present for a staggeringly important moment in someone else’s
lives.
“It must be nice to have friends like that,” Lavender said, initiating the conversation
Draco sensed he wouldn’t be avoiding. Far be it for them to simply sit in silence,
“What does it say?” Hermione asked, delivering the whisky he’d requested. Draco adjacent to each other. Conversation needn’t be a requirement.
needed substantially more alcohol in his body to handle a letter from his parents, Draco shrugged. He supposed.
considering the state he’d left them in. He imagined Theo and Blaise were like that for him, though he couldn’t fathom
He stood near the window, watching the owl’s wingspan silhouetted against the bursting into tears if either of them decided to burden the world with their progeny.
moon as it flew away. He ought to close the window, but the chill did something to He set his drained cup of tea on the small end table between his sofa and Lavender’s
brace him, reminding him of the sharp difference between the pleasant warmth armchair.
cozied there, with Hermione, and the consequences of actions he’d taken that She followed the motion, glancing at his cup, then back up at him. She blinked and
morning, knowing they would not be met favorably, but done all the same. looked at the tea again. Another blink. Back up to Draco, eyes wider than they’d been
He thought about burning the parchment, throwing it out his window, vanishing it, before.
flushing it down the toilet for all he cared. And yet, he couldn’t seem to unclench his “That’s interesting,” she said, reaching for it.
fist, bunching it in his hand, crinkling it where he couldn’t quite let it go. Oh gods.
 264 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 241

He glanced down at Hermione, warm and soft, tucked against his side in perhaps “I want us to have a nice holiday,” he said, looking neither at Hermione nor the
the coziest, most intimate display of affection they’d intentionally allowed in the letter. He blindly accepted the drink she’d brought over, stared at the amber liquid,
presence of others. He smirked at her, an effort to offer some comfort. and then set it down on the windowsill.
“The Weaslette has tolerable opinions about Quidditch teams. And a decent skill He changed his mind. He was already comfortably buzzed, happy and pleasant. He
set in menu setting; the meal was passable.” didn’t want to tip that scale into something desperate, not at his parents’ words
Hermione smiled, beaming at him as if he’d just doled out effusive praise and not a delivered at the end of the day.
moderate expression of tolerance. “Draco.”
Weasley laughed at something Lavender said, leaning back on the table, still sitting Her hand found his shoulder before it slipped down his back. Ultimately, she
so nonchalantly—right in the middle of the room—on a coffee table. settled on encircling his waist from behind. He could feel her lips pressed between
“I don’t think I care for the idea that he’s seen you naked,” Draco whispered as the his shoulder blades. “What does it say?” she asked again.
thought struck him. “They want you removed. From the decommissioning. They’ve said they plan to
Hermione shook from the force of her laughter as she tried to bury the sound inquire with the Ministry.”
against his shoulder. Across the room, Potter arched a brow from behind his stupid Her hands squeezed him for a flash before she broke away, stepping back. He
spectacles. When Hermione’s giggles abated, she let a hand rest on his thigh, always turned when he heard her sharp intake of breath, his own wallowing abandoned the
just a touch too high, a touch too close to the inside of his legs. moment he saw the shine in her eyes, glassy, as her jaw clenched tight.
“I thought you said you weren’t jealous of him.” She leaned closer, voice quiet as “I’ve been nothing but professional,” she said. Then, quieter, “Mostly.” She
she looked up at him with what he assumed was meant to be an innocent, faultless wrapped her arms across her front, gripping her waist with pointed, painful-looking
expression. fingers digging into her sides.
She knew exactly what she was doing, fingers flexing against his trousers. He’d be a fool if he thought she hadn’t kept track of every kiss, every touch, that
“I’m not. Though by my former logic, I can't say I’ve fucked you over that table happened while she was meant to be working. That guilt crashed with the force of a
he's sitting on, which I find irritating.” Her grip on his thigh tightened. She pressed rockslide spilling across her face, stone after stone beating her sense of
her lips together, scowling as a ruddy bloom erupted across her chest, peeking out of professionalism, the sensibilities that she took so seriously.
her shirt’s neckline. “I think I rather dislike the idea that I’m not the only man in this “My career,” she whispered. It wasn’t so much a statement as it was a question.
room who knows how distractingly beautiful you look naked.” Perhaps a eulogy.
“I think you’re conflating jealousy with possessiveness. I’m not sure I find either to “Hermione you haven’t done anything wrong. They have no basis to have you
be particularly attractive qualities.” removed—you’ve done incredible work.”
“No?” he asked, dropping his eyes to her grip on his leg. The conversation in the He pulled her to his chest, hands threading through her hair, a stroke at her jaw, a
room around them could have stopped and he wasn’t sure either of them would have brush of her arm, a pressure to her waist. Any motion, any action he could conceive
noticed. He realized quite suddenly that his entire focus had narrowed to the feeling to quell her worry. With both hands occupied by comforting her, he realized he’d
of her pressed up against his torso, hand fisting against his trousers. dropped his parents’ letter somewhere between worrying about himself and worrying
“No.” about her.
“You’re sure? You look like you might. You’re flushing a lovely shade of pink.” “Don’t let them do this,” he whispered into her hair. “Don’t let them ruin a
She inhaled a deep breath. “Stop making me blush.” nice”—she wrapped her arms around his waist, finally unwinding the self-soothing
Draco smiled. He’d had his fun. He kissed her temple, intent on relaxing further she’d been engaged in—”mostly not-awkward holiday that we got to spend
into the sofa, dutifully sipping his textured tea, and adamantly ignoring any further together.” Her breath came out in a stutter, an acoustic laugh against his chest.
commentary on the Chudley Cannons. Hermione surprised him when she leaned She slipped her hands into his back pockets again.
close to his ear. “Did it say anything else?” she asked, melted against him.
“Rationally, no. I think it’s very unbecoming to feel possessive or jealous of a “My father has revoked control of the account I was managing.” He forced a small
person. But irrationally”—her breath coasted hot across his jaw and to his ear—”I shrug. “I hated it anyway so—”
think I’m going to head to the loo. Upstairs. And you should follow me in two It still hurt. And he hated that it did, as much as—perhaps more than—he hated
minutes.” the account itself. He didn’t want its loss to mean anything.
Draco’s mouth dropped open as several errant, yet entirely welcome, thoughts “You’re disappointed,” she said, as if counting the scale of his conflict in the beats
barreled through his brain, ultimately landing on the most important: he fucking loved of his heart.
this witch. “But I don’t regret it.”
Harry Potter ruined everything. The chill from the open window stopped feeling like a reminder of the balance—
Potter cleared his throat. For a wild moment, Draco wondered if they’d been the push and pull his life required of him—and felt instead like a creeping threat,
caught being a bit too handsy. But rather, Potter and Weaslette had risen from their
 242 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 263

seeping beneath his shirt, attacking his skin. His only defense: Hermione’s arms, He’d rather suffer through a lucid meal with the likes of Harry Potter and Ronald
wrapped around him and providing a tiny scion of warmth to batter the cold. Weasley if it meant avoiding a massive headache and Hermione’s wrath. He only
“You’d hoped you could have both,” she said. liked her wrath in small doses, and when it led to a shedding of clothes.
“I dare say I was optimistic. I told you, you’ve been a terrible influence on me.” It took all of fifteen minutes for Draco to reconsider that assessment—right
“We should talk about this again tomorrow,” she said. “When we’re not both so around when Weasley brought up the Chudley Cannons’s pre-season starting lineup
tipsy.” for the third time, before Draco had even taken a bite of the surprisingly tasteful
“You’re probably right.” appetizers the Weaslette provided.
He knew she was. He couldn’t separate the types of heat in his blood: liquor, guilt, Draco started keeping tally of the Cannons mentions, making eye contact with
love, longing, failure, shame. They felt so similar, so jumbled. A twisted tangle of Ginny halfway through the meal and catching her rolling her eyes as well.
confusion where one kind of heat gave him the woman in his arms, a kind of “Do you have a divergent opinion, Weaslette?”
comfort, of love. And another gave him shame for having failed his father again— “My brother has no loyalty,” she said in a low voice, picking up her water and
and again—and perhaps for the last time? Or just another one of many? taking a huge gulp. Draco felt Hermione still on his right, hovering between engaging
What did it matter if he couldn’t tell one type of heat from the other, if they all with Ron and Lavender at one end of the table and listening in on Draco’s
boiled his blood in the end? Did it matter what burned him alive, after the fact? He’d conversation, one he’d just voluntarily engaged in. Potter chuckled across from him.
welcomed it once, at the behest of Hermione’s touch. Ruin had felt romantic, then. “Just because you play for the Harpies doesn’t mean he’s required to root for
Now, it mostly felt like disappointment. them,” Potter said, flinching almost as soon as the words left his mouth. Draco had
“I keep going back and forth,” he said, quietly, to a curl in his periphery, glinting the distinct impression the Weaslette had kicked him beneath the table, or sent a
golden as it swayed in the tiniest gusts of cold winter air. “I need—lines. Clear lines. stinging hex at him. Either way, Draco failed to contain his snigger as Potter winced.
Not this winding, meandering back and forth. I keep gaining ground with Father and “That’s exactly what it means, and he has no loyalty.”
then losing it nearly as fast.” Draco reached for his wine with his left hand, letting his right snake under the table
He dropped his head to the top of hers, requiring her support lest he fall—down, to rest on Hermione’s thigh. She still pretended, valiantly, like she had any interest in
apart, or back in line—she held him up. Had he done this to himself? When he first Ron’s excited ramblings about his subpar choice in Quidditch teams. But when her
came back to England, it had all looked so simple: a clear path with a clean, hand found his and squeezed, Draco knew who really held her attention.
straightforward relationship with his father, a healthier power dynamic.
But it hadn’t been simple at all. He’d fumbled, he’d fallen apart. He’d barely put up
a fight, accepting a betrothal, accepting what his father wanted of him. He’d touched
a time turner nearly as soon as he’d returned, and who knew how that act alone had
sent cracks spiderwebbing across his life’s trajectory. Was any of this meant to Draco accepted a cup of tea from Hermione with a smile bordering on a grimace,
happen? Was anything meant at all? jaw tight as he forced the expression through. Hermione didn’t seem to notice, or at
He held her tight, an anchor in a choppy sea as he lost sight of the shoreline, least, didn’t comment on it as she settled onto the sofa next to him. He glanced down
drowning in an expanse of self-doubts and what-ifs and regrets. at his cup and wondered how such a bright, beautiful, exquisite example of a witch
“Maybe this is your line,” she said as her hand rubbed a calming path up and down and a woman could have survived twenty-four years of life and yet make such a
his back. They’d stood there long enough that the chill had taken over, more cold air horrendous cup of tea. He knew she understood what a tea strainer was. He’d
than warm inside his flat. pointed several of them out to her in their kitchen on a number of occasions.
His bones pulled him down, heavy inside his skin. Guilt was an exhausting thing. I thought I’d move the tea strainers here, closer to the mugs.
“What do you mean?” he asked, finally lifting his head from the cushion her curls I bought a new strainer today, I’ve added it with the others.
offered, leaning back so he could see her face. Could you hand me a tea strainer, love?
“Here, tonight. You and me. Maybe this is the clear line you need between who you And yet: leaves swirled and swam in his cup. It reminded him of drinking turkish
are and who your parents want you to be.” She gave him a small smile, and he coffee in Sarajevo, a bit sludgy, too much texture; he wanted his liquids liquid.
realized she’d been crying, tiny watery trails slipping from the corners of her eyes. Evidently, Hermione didn’t have the time or inclination for something as simple as
“Does it make me conceited to think that me moving in with you might be worthy of straining her tea.
such a thing?” “You look a little tense again,” she said as she leaned into his side, taking a sip of
The heat he’d thought might burn him up buoyed him against the chill instead, a her own tea with no complaints. “I thought dinner went well. You and Ginny
new flood spiraling from his chest. seemed to have a nice conversation about Quidditch.” Her statement had the subtle
“Are you? Moving in with me?” lilt of a question at the end. He stretched an arm around her shoulder, silently
“You’ve spent an awful lot of time being ahead of me in this relationship,” she said, watching as Lavender took a seat in the armchair next to him, with Weasley perching
definitely not an answer to his question. “I don’t like coming in second. But—I like like an unmannered heathen on the coffee table across from her.
 262 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 243

When she did, some of the frustration melted. He watched the same happen in her even less that you keep choosing me and, well, you should know, I’m choosing you,
eyes, tightness loosening at the corners. too. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to catch up.”
She stood. “We’ll talk about it more tomorrow.” Fuck her apology; he would have waited however long it took.
“Looking forward to it.” He could have kissed her. He could have fucked her. He could have done any
She rolled her eyes, fighting a smile. As she stepped around the table, he offered number of things. But instead, he nearly crumbled, holding her as close as possible.
her his arm. She took it. They travelled through “This is the line,” he said, words nearly drowned out by his pulse roaring inside his
skull.
He almost didn’t hear her, head buried in her curls once again. I love you.
It came through louder the second time, as she broke from their hold, hands
cradling his face, steadying him. “I love you,” she said on a whooshing kind of
It was just that, a disagreement, not a fight. They didn’t fight; that wasn’t who they breath, as if she had to force it out. She smiled, saying it again, steadier this time. “I
were. They occasionally disagreed. They bantered and sniped at each other for sport, love you.”
but they didn’t fight. Not in earnest. Not since the fight they’d had when Hermione When she’d said it that afternoon, he hadn’t had the chance to respond, not
told him they weren’t even in a relationship to begin with. And that hadn’t been a properly.
fight so much as it had been a public execution, an evisceration he’d somehow Now, he had the pleasure of saying, “I love you, too.”
managed to survive. She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, fighting the motion with a smile that
As they stepped through the Floo and into Grimmauld Place, arm in arm, they stretched her mouth wide, beaming. Her hands glided down his neck, down his chest,
could ignore the little things that weren’t all that important in favor of an evening before winding their way around his torso again.
with Hermione’s friends. “Crookshanks is going to love that sofa,” she said, laughing into his shirt like it was
“We’re here,” Hermione called. the funniest thing in the entire world.
She squeezed his arm as they stood in Potter’s living room, awaiting a greeting. In their world, in that moment, it was.
“Are you nervous?” she asked. “You’re a little tense.” She squeezed his forearm
again for emphasis.
“Nervous? For an intimate dinner with your two childhood best friends? Both of
whom were once my mortal enemies? And one of whom has seen you naked? Not at
all.”
She let her head shift to the side, tilted enough that her temple rested against his
upper arm.
“That seems a touch dramatic. Does that mean I was your mortal enemy, too?”
“Oh, certainly. Perhaps more so.” She looked up at him, bright eyes asking him to
elaborate. “I’m not nervous to spend time with them. I’ve just not done it in such an
intimate setting before. The risk of an allergic reaction is high.”
“Ginny and Lavender are here, too.” She smirked up at him, a beat, before a smile
broke through.
The Weaslette entered the living room with Potter trailing close behind. Hermione
engaged in enthusiastic hugs, whereas Draco offered a handshake to Potter and an
insult to Ginny about freckle density, which she returned with a similarly acerbic
comment about the color of his hair.
He handed off a bottle of firewhisky to Potter, who accepted it with a thanks
hardly appropriate for the rarity of the batch. But what did he really expect from
Potter, after all?
With a sigh, he followed Hermione and her friends down to the kitchen, lamenting
the days he could use Occlumency to avoid this type of socializing. But if Draco
wished to stay firmly in not fighting territory, Occlumency as a social buffer remained
solidly off his list of appropriate coping mechanisms. Hermione hated it. If he
admitted it to himself, he hated it, too.
 Beginning and end 261

“Not yet.” He tried to hold the grimace at bay. “Meals have been—strange. I’m not
really sure what’s happening. But they’ve been oddly agreeable. I think I can ease
them into it.”
“Into what, the idea that I don’t need supervision?” She’d started tapping the cover
of her planner in annoyance.
Draco forced himself to take a deep breath before he responded. Things were
spiraling, opposing viewpoints brushing past each other instead of coming head to
head. They couldn’t hash it out if they couldn’t see the problem. And he certainly
didn’t see the problem with being concerned for her wellbeing, or trying not to blow
up his parents’ already precarious opinion of her by making a wrong turn in a maze
of complicated conversations.
“No. Just you. Generally. I’d like to warm them up to the idea of you.”
Her expression caught, straddling affection and frustration. Draco felt much the
same way, trying so hard not to be annoyed with her unending stubbornness, wishing
she’d appreciate what he was doing. She held too much optimism for the outcome of
P ART T HREE : these conversations she expected him to have. Too much faith that it would all
somehow work out.
She blinked. She took a breath. Draco relaxed his posture.
“We have to be at Harry and Ginny’s soon,” she said.
“We do.”
2004 He slid out his chair, only to halt when Hermione spoke again.
“I also wanted to talk about something else.”
What else could she possibly want to layer into this tragedy of a conversation?
He blew out a breath, brow arched, as much of an encouragement to continue as
“In my beginning is my end. In succession he was willing to give. He watched a muscle flex in her jaw.
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, “I was thinking,” she said. “Since you already own this place and aren’t paying rent,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place I can’t exactly split that expense with you—”
Is an open field, or a factory or a by-pass.” “—As if I’d allow that—”
“—Don’t you dare. That’s very unbecoming. I’m planning on paying for all the
— T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker groceries, at the very least.”
“Planning on it? We’re not going to discuss it?”
“We’re discussing it now.”
“Hermione, I don’t pay for groceries. Topsy stocks the kitchen from the manor.”
The muscle in her jaw flexed again.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“This conversation is ridiculous. There’s nothing for you to pay for. I invited you to
live with me, not pay me.”
He finished pushing his chair out, standing and ignoring the yowl of protest from
Crookshanks, who he hadn’t even noticed had been loitering near his feet.
He glanced at the clock in the living room. “We need to leave.”
Calmly, Hermione gathered her parchments, folded them, and slid them in between
her planner’s pages. She didn’t look at him, eyes fixed on the table. She pulled her
bottom lip between her teeth and rolled her shoulders backwards.
His chest ached watching her frustration, both at being the cause of it and knowing
she’d caused the same for him. He carded a hand through his hair; the urge to have
her look at him overtook every other desire he might have had.
 260 Mightbewriting

“Touche, my brutal witch.”

She lobbed an unamused look in his direction while fighting off the smile pulling at
-1.083, -1.166, -1.250
the corners of her mouth.
“We need to stop working together.” JANUARY
Deja vu struck strangely.
“We—already have? We’ve had this conversation before. Haven’t we?”
She sighed, maintaining her unamused expression. Draco leaned back in his chair,

T
finally relaxing now that he felt assured he wasn’t about to have his heart broken. He ICK TOCK TICK TOCK
stretched an arm across the back of the chair next to him and crossed an ankle over “You’re sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Hermione asked,
his knee, fully prepared for whatever it was Hermione needed to overthink with him. perched on the foot of his bed, legs tucked beneath her, hair wild and
“So, have you told your parents you aren’t supervising me anymore? Also, I bedraggled.
don’t—well, I don’t want Topsy to have to do it, either. It’s not fair to her.” Draco secured the button on one of his cuffs, fighting the urge to run a hand
“I need someone to keep any eye on you in case something hurts you again.” through his own hair, or perhaps hers. “Trust me, it certainly isn’t a matter of want.”
The twitching smile at the edges of her lips vanished, sinking into something He sighed, sitting next to her as she reached out, taking his other arm and fastening
genuinely displeased.”She shouldn’t be ordered to look after me. I’m expected to do his cuff for him. “I haven’t seen my parents in nearly two weeks. We—have to talk.
my job alone, anyway.” About so much. And I think your presence would only irritate an already raw
Draco scoffed, arm falling from the nearby chair as he leaned forward, propping wound”—he glanced at her—”don’t you?”
his elbows on the table to control an impulse towards wild gesticulation in order to She considered it, fingers idly entwining with his as she did. Her grip tightened,
make his point. pressure increasing with the force of her thoughts.
“And what if you’d been alone that day in the guest hall, with the blood curse?” “If you think any harder you’re going to break my fingers.” Carefully, he pulled his
Just thinking about it made his nostrils flare and jaw clench. She could have died. hand from her grip, massaging his knuckles.
“I would have used a Patronus to get help, or something. Found the Floo.” She clasped her hands together.
“Hermione.” “I feel sick to my stomach,” she finally said.
“I wouldn’t have gotten hurt in the first place if you weren’t there, because I “It’s been two weeks. They clearly haven’t said anything to the Ministry—at least
wouldn’t have been so distracted by”—a vague gesture across the table at him—”you nothing the Ministry has taken seriously. It’s already well known how much they
doing all your you things.” don’t want you working in the manor—I can guarantee no one will take my parents
“Are you—are you blaming me for the blood curse?” seriously should they file a complaint against you.”
“No. I’m not. I just—please don’t order Topsy to watch me.” He’d lost track of how many times he’d told her as much, tried to convince and
“She’s not ordered. She’s asked very nicely.” reassure and melt the tense knots in her neck where she hoarded her anxieties.
“And she’s inclined to say yes. You know that.” She untucked her legs and swung them over the edge of the bed, mouth tight and
“Well, I can’t help that part, Hermione.” twisting towards a frown.
“You could if you simply didn’t ask her.” “They”—she pulled at a curl, stretching it taut as she struggled to vocalize whatever
Draco thought about saying something else, but instead clicked his jaw shut, teeth thought had stalled in her throat—”should be taken seriously. If they have a
coming together with an almost painful force. His confidence that he wasn’t about to complaint. Their concerns should be heard fairly.”
have his heart broken wavered. Did she have to be so fucking stubborn all the time? Draco liberated the tortured curl from her fingers, allowing it to spring back into
Didn’t she get it? Danger stalked her every moment she spent inside that manor. If he place. With a quiet laugh, he swept her hair away and dropped a kiss to her exposed
wasn’t allowed to be there to protect her, or at least facilitate her protecting herself, shoulder.
he’d be damned if he didn’t at least have one other set of eyes there to make sure “You don’t want them to interfere with your work, but you want them to be
nothing catastrophic happened. allowed to? Because it’s fair?” He chuckled against her skin. “You beautiful witch.”
Just the idea of it, the spine-collapsing fear that she might one day encounter “You’ll ask them?”
something that caught her off guard just enough—just in the right way—for “Yes. I’ll find a way to make sure they don’t take their anger out on you and your
something terrible to happen, curdled the milk in his stomach from that morning’s career.”
tea. Somehow, he’d find a way to work that point in. He dreaded navigating the long
“Have you told your parents you aren’t supervising me anymore?” she asked again, overdue conversation with his parents regarding the breadth and depth of his
more directly. Damn her. omission that he’d been in a relationship with Hermione for as long as he had. He’d
 246 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 259

not spoken to them since Christmas, apart from the owl required to coordinate and Well, he could hardly avoid Hermione as a topic now. Perhaps this was the build,
confirm that he would take breakfast with them that morning. how he got there.
A small, guilty, part of him missed the routine, especially since Hermione wouldn’t “It was a gift,” he said, eyes glued to the peeled egg he’d yet to take a single bite out
be moving in until later in the month. He’d found his days off to a strange, lonely of.
start without his family. Even if he didn’t so much enjoy the conversation or the In his periphery, Draco saw his mother’s posture stiffen. Lucius picked up his
company, the routine had an engrained place in his day-to-day. Outside of his time paper.
spent at Hogwarts and living abroad, he took almost every breakfast and dinner with Narcissa drew a deep breath through her nose before speaking. “The recipe as
his parents; not doing so had been a strange, surreal sort of shift he didn’t know if he well? Could you not submit it for publication or sell it to St. Mungo’s?”
should celebrate or mourn. The muscles in Draco’s cheeks twitched; he’d never considered it.
Draco did not enjoy eating alone. He preferred to start his day with family, with a That didn’t feel right. He’d never intended to profit from it. It had always been, and
routine that launched his day forward. only ever intended to be, a gift. For Hermione. No one else.
Hermione relaxed against him. Fresh guilt heated his bones.
“Thank you,” she said. “You should get going. And I need to get ready for work. Because surely there were others? How many people had cursed scars they wished
I’ll see you for dinner, yes?” to be free of?
Draco smiled as she rose, launching into her own morning routine. He kissed her He’d been quiet for too long; Narcissa cleared her throat. He didn’t have an answer
goodbye and marvelled at the oddity of it all: the two of them preparing to go to the for her, so he said nothing. He sliced his hard boiled egg, helped himself to a
same place, separately, and for vastly different reasons. chocolate croissant, and ultimately left breakfast with a tight brow, tired from
furrowing as tension took up residence in the lines on his face.

Narcissa greeted him in the dining room as if nothing were amiss, as if he hadn't
been absent from their family meals for the past two weeks, and as if his last “Could you come sit with me?”
appearance hadn’t entirely disrupted the peaceful facade they’d all been hiding Draco looked up from his spot on the sofa where he’d finally managed to convince
behind. Lucius barely greeted him at all, sitting calmly at the head of the table with a the angry orange ball of fluff who’d become his reluctant roommate to occupy the
copy of the Prophet open in front of him. A disinterested—normal—welcome. same piece of furniture as him. He glanced to where Hermione sat at their kitchen
Draco sat in his usual seat across from his mother, accepting the cup of tea she table: planner, books, and parchments spread out around her. He arched a brow but
poured for him. The muscles around his mouth ached, strained from forced did not move. He had no intention of ceding the ground he’d gained with
neutrality as he maintained a steady show of being unaffected by the disconcerting Crookshanks unless he absolutely had to.
normalcy around him. “We need to talk.”
His mother said something about having recently tried a new tea blend. His father Ground ceded.
said something about Ministry overreach with exotic herb imports. Normal, safe, A small surge of chilly anxiety fluttered behind his lungs as he stood, arched brow
unexciting conversation topics criss-crossed the table, conversations that had nothing slipping into worry as he approached the table.
to do with Hermione, or Draco’s omissions, or the fact that he hadn’t joined them “What about?” he asked as neutrally as he could manage. The chair scraped against
for a meal in a fortnight. wood floors as he pulled it out and took a seat. He wondered if she could see his
Draco nodded a thanks to Topsy as she served him a plate of eggs, tomatoes, toast, heart thudding inside his chest from her vantage point. Surely she could, judging by
and an assortment of melon balls topped with fresh cream. She returned a moment how loud it beat inside his skull, how painful each beat felt against his ribs. Her
later with a collection of flavored butters, jams, and aiolis. On the other side of the words—her tone, they rang so ominously, rattling against lovely vaulted ceilings.
table, Tilly served a tray of smoked salmon and toast points, followed by a second “Oh, please don’t look at me like that,” she said with a fond sort of annoyance in
tray filled to bursting with a variety of sausages. Between Topsy and Tilly, the table her voice. She rolled her eyes before continuing, “I’ve just moved in with you. I’m
filled quickly with a veritable feast’s worth of food. hardly about to announce this isn’t working for me.”
Somewhat stunned, Draco ripped his gaze from the spread in front of him and It made a good deal of sense when she put it like that.
looked up at his mother. She merely offered him a serene smile and speared a melon “You’re cruel, you realize that, don’t you? You had to have known what that
ball from her plate. phrasing would sound like.”
“The weather has been lovely so far this year, an appropriate chill for the season. “It sounds like a business meeting.”
Wouldn’t you say, darling?” she asked Draco as he contemplated whether or not he “In that case, I’m not convinced you’ve ever been in a business meeting.”
had the appetite for anything on the table. “Oh, and you have? And who here is actively employed?”
 258 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 247

desperate for something resembling normal conversation with his parents. Now, he Almost involuntarily, his eyes flickered to his father before he answered.
didn’t know if any of this was better, just different. “It’s been nice,” Draco said. “Crisp.”
“And how are your experimental potions coming, darling?” Narcissa asked, spoon “Indeed. We haven’t even had to renew the manor’s warming charms this season. I
just barely tinkling against the edges of her teacup as she stirred. “You have such a do enjoy a mild winter. Don’t you, Lucius?”
bright, vibrant mind. I’m sure you’ve made tremendous progress in whatever you’ve “Mild, yes.” His voice travelled through the paper in front of him, muffled by the
decided to set your sights on.” barrier of black and white ink.
Draco’s diaphragm seized. His mother looked like she truly meant the compliment, Narcissa smiled.
fierce pride undeniable behind her eyes. It stole Draco’s breath, having earned her Draco broke the yolk on his poached egg, watching as it ran into his toast.
pride in some small way. “Did you have the opportunity to see Theo and Blaise over the holidays, Draco?”
“I haven’t been doing much experimenting recently.” He peeled the shell from his He forced a bite of breakfast into his mouth, trying to avoid his mother’s question
hard boiled egg. “I’ve been—rather distracted, recently.” for as long as possible. And for a moment, he forgot he’d been asked anything at all,
That was his moment, his opportunity, one of many, to introduce Hermione into savoring the rich, buttery quality of a runny yolk as it coated his tongue. Gods, he’d
the conversation. It was an opening for the questions that needed to be asked and missed elf cooking.
answered. Why had he been distracted? Well, Hermione had moved in with him and He swallowed, resisting the urge to immediately take another bite and prolong his
they’d begun navigating a life that integrated the both of theirs. conversation avoidance. His mother’s eyes followed him: from his fork to his mouth
But instead of inquiry, a deathly kind of silence met Draco’s statement. to his plate to his hands to his unease. He cleared his throat, hand beneath the table,
Conversation paused. Lucius cleared his throat. Narcissa sipped her tea. fisting his cloth serviette.
Draco considered how else he might bring it up, but the air had staled: like pastries “Yes. We did. We spent New Year’s with them, actually.”
left out too long, growing stiff and unpalatable. It was a rare slip, but the strange We. A plural pronoun. A declaration. A sideways acknowledgement. An inescapable
detente of their breakfast mood had shifted into something unsavory. truth.
Narcissa crawled out of the lingering unease first. Narcissa escaped it with a smile and a glance towards Lucius.
“What about the one you already completed, dear? It worked, did it not?” “We should have those boys over for dinner sometime soon. Don’t you think,
She glanced pointedly at Draco’s neck. Lucius? It’s been so long since we’ve seen them.”
He resisted the urge to tug at his collar, suddenly constricting, suffocating. Of Lucius folded his paper, setting it aside. Draco had never known such a simple act
course she’d noticed. The length of his Sectumsempra scar that once poked out of his could feel so damning, so weighted.
collar and inched towards his left ear had vanished. And while he didn’t advertise or “Indeed, it has been. Perhaps dinner this weekend.”
announce the change to them, Narcissa would surely have noticed such a change in Narcissa nodded as Draco stared, trying to make sense of this strange, surface-level
his appearance. She’d been distraught over the scars in the first place, and had there conversation.
not been several other life or death concerns vying for her attention, Draco imagined On the surface of a frozen pool, if they talked softly enough—skated delicately
she would have fought tirelessly to have Harry Potter expelled for his part. enough around the things they did not wish to acknowledge—they could avoid the
But considering that The Dark Lord moved into her home that same year, cracks, avoid a dip into frozen waters and deeper conversation.
expulsion likely seemed minor in the face of planned murder. Draco swiped his toast through the runny yolk on his plate, revealing the blue
“I—” he started. “Yes, it did work. It worked very well.” willow pattern beneath. Not knowing what else to do, he took a bite, caught on a
He wanted to tell her exactly how well it had worked. Draco wanted to tell both of string pulled tight between his parents, balancing the fine line they’d drawn for him.
his parents how Hermione no longer had to wear the letters Aunt Bella had carved “That would be lovely,” his mother said. “Perhaps you can see if your friends have
into her skin. He was sure they would remember—after all, it had happened in this availability this weekend, Draco.”
house, happened while Hermione had screamed and begged and writhed on their He stared at her, savoring a bite of cream-topped cantaloupe: ridiculously out of
drawing room floor, happened not so very long ago, and surely not long enough that season melons served fresh in the beginning of January. His mouth pulled tight after
any of them had the right to forget. he swallowed, confusion held in pursed lips. His brow twitched from the force
With a tray of fancy French pastries and a previous failure at steering the required to prevent it drawing together.
conversation towards Hermione between them, Draco struggled to imagine how Lucius spoke before Draco could decide if this surreal and extravagant meal was a
bringing her up now could possibly fare any better. He temporarily tabled the topic, dream, a nightmare, or an accidental peek into a window through time.”I hear Mr.
with all the other ridiculous delicacies presented before them. He could build up to it. Zabini has developed quite the skillset for financial investments.”
“Have you thought about selling it?” Narcissa asked. “He has.” Draco clutched his serviette tighter beneath the table, at a loss as to
“My potion?” whether or not he was meant to be offended by that statement. It was the closest
She nodded. they’d come to acknowledging the account Lucius had taken from him two weeks
before.
 248 Mightbewriting

Narcissa gave Lucius a sharp, singular look, as if to say he’d tread too close to the
thing Draco now realized they were all pretending didn’t exist: his relationship with
-1.000, -1.083, -1.166
Hermione and the fallout from announcing it to them.
Draco hated the relief he felt in not having to have that conversation. It felt like an F E B RU A RY
offering in a way: the quiet between battles in a larger war. Time to regroup, tend to
one’s wounds, and consider the lengths to which one was willing to go in order to
win.

T
He could accept a temporary cessation of aggressions in exchange for the first ICK TOCK TICK TOCK
semi-pleasant family meal he’d had in months. Breakfast with his parents felt a bit like a recurring nightmare. Except,
Just shy of nine, when his mother set her serviette atop the table to signal the end oddly, closer to a dream. Every day still just as surreal; his parents just as
to their meal, she asked a question that shattered the illusion. obfuscating, just as disinterested in any substantial conversation as they had been
She rose from her chair, forcing eye contact. Her brows furrowed: a question in her since he’d returned to the manor for his daily routines in January.
face more than her words. On this particular morning, over a hard boiled egg and a dragon fruit Narcissa had
“We’ll look forward to seeing you for dinner, darling. We have missed you.” specially sourced to add variety and intrigue to their enormous breakfast spreads,
Draco’s heart sank, a quick clench and pulse of guilt shooting from behind his ribs. Lucius spoke freely, openly, and with only the barest hints of contempt.
He stilled, only partly risen from his own seat, utterly immobilized by the question in “With a close eye on the Asian markets, we can track relevant climate disruptions
his mother’s voice and the slightly wide, wondering eyes she sent him. that may impact imports. With so many rare growing zones for magical herbs and
He recovered, standing to his full height. He could feel Lucius watching him from plants, their value amongst experimental portioners, especially, is paramount.”
the head of the table, a quietness creeping across the tablecloth, steeped with Lucius cut the green top off a strawberry before spearing it with his fork. Draco
judgement. Narcissa’s expression tightened as her questioning eyes narrowed, lips swallowed and tried to dislodge the awe from his throat. These were the things he’d
pulling thin across her teeth. She didn’t allow such an unflattering expression to last. wanted to know, needed to know, long before he’d been unceremoniously handed—
“Unless”—a smile melted the tension lines in her face—”you already have other and ultimately, unhanded—an account in the extensive Malfoy portfolios.
plans?” “And, have there been—relevant climate disruptions?” he ventured, dragon fruit
She’d given him an offering, forced through a pleasant smile. It felt both like an abandoned in favor of conversation.
opportunity to retreat and his last chance to make a stand. Draco tried. He did. Lucius grunted an assenting sort of noise. “Only in Tibet this year. But some prices
“I do, with—” have surged as a result of the supply shortage.”
“Then breakfast tomorrow,” she said, cutting him off. Her smile grew, flashing Draco knew that. He actually knew that. He hadn’t predicted the shortage, despite
perfect teeth that had never seen a dentist in all their days. It keenly reminded Draco advice from Blaise and several owls to and from Gringotts about exchange rates that
of another meal, another family: another life, altogether, it seemed. he hadn’t fully understood. He knew the prices had surged and his holdings had
Lucius finally stood, stern gaze dissecting Draco before he nodded a perfunctory suffered because supply could no longer meet demand.
farewell, excusing himself—and therefore the rest of them—from the dining room. Draco’s fascination with the conversation evaporated, feeling more like damnation
Draco wondered, if not for the table between them, if Narcissa might have tried to than a lesson.
hug him then, or offer him a brief kiss on the cheek in farewell, or squeeze his arm, “The greenhouses are blooming beautifully this year, Draco. Have you had a
his hand, some kind of contact in goodbye. But the table separated them, weighed chance to visit them recently?”
down by several course’s worth of food, barely touched. Her smile quirked instead, a “Not recently, Mother. No.”
silent acknowledgement that didn’t come anywhere close to meeting her eyes. “You should, dear. The winter yield has been exceptionally fruitful. Tilly has done a
Left alone, surrounded by a feast and confusion and more guilt than he’d started lovely job managing them. I’m sure there are a number of ingredients you would find
with, Draco called for Topsy. useful for your potions.”
His chest felt hot, churning with disappointment. He’d been lulled into Topsy placed a new tray on the table, one overflowing with pastries: butter-laden,
complacency with a delicious meal and something that tasted almost like forgiveness, sugar-crusted, custard-filled, compote-topped, chocolate-dipped, on and on and on.
like acceptance. But he’d failed Hermione spectacularly. He’d spent the last hour Draco’s stomach turned, already brimming with eggs and toast and jam and tea. But
accepting a charade that ignored her importance in his life. Further, he failed to the elves kept delivering more food—a buffet before him—and his parents kept
inquire about whether or not his parents still intended on trying to have her removed acting as if such an illustrious spread was a perfectly normal daily occurrence and not
from the manor’s decommissioning. yet another strange new version of their reality.
With the crack of Topsy’s arrival, Draco vowed to do better the next morning. This Draco made a noncommittal noise—the barest acknowledgement that he’d heard
had been a fluke, a complete surprise at odds with everything he expected from his his mother’s suggestion—as he surveyed the feast. Once upon a time, he’d been
 256 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 249

He pushed off the railing and brushed by Draco in one single, baffling motion. parents. He hadn’t been prepared. He hadn’t pivoted fast enough. But that didn’t
Before Draco could blink the confusion from his eyes, Theo had gone, back into the mean he couldn’t, or wouldn’t.
flat and far away from their conversation. Conversations with his parents—important conversations, especially—took time,
they took finesse. If anything, their demeanor this morning had only proven that he
couldn’t brute force Hermione into their lives. Gryffindor tactics wouldn’t work on
these Slytherins; this would require skill. And time. He had plenty of time. And a
willingness to invest.

“I don’t understand where all this stuff came from. The books especially.”
Draco fell back onto the velvet sofa in his—their—living room, surrounded by
more boxes than he could count, recently re-enlarged after several trips through the
Floo from Hermione’s tiny former flat and into his—again, theirs. He loved
remembering that, a quick cognitive correction to remind him that this space no
longer belonged exclusively to him. While sharing his things had never been a
particularly favorite pastime for Draco, somehow sharing with Hermione felt like a
gift, like she’d given something to him instead of taking up the spaces that formerly
belonged exclusively to him.
“The books should not surprise you,” she said on the edge of a laugh, taking a large
step over a box separating her from the sofa. With a small hop, she landed next to
him, wedging herself into his side. “Can you imagine doing that without magic?”
He couldn’t. They’d mostly just shrunk and unshrunk the plethora of boxes
Hermione had packed and prepared, bringing them through the Floo, and finding a
place to unshrink them before sorting through it all, combining her things with his.
“I just don’t know where you kept them all. You had a very small flat and”—he
gestured to the obstacle course of boxes littering the living room—”I’m starting to
suspect you’ve cast more than one illegal extension charm in your day. There’s no
way these all fit.”
She leaned against him, hands idly trailing up and down his pant leg, a light massage
on his thigh.
“I might have been using most of my meager closet space to stack some of my
lesser used titles.”
Draco swallowed against a groan in the back of his throat as her hand continued its
entirely innocent touch. Casual, absent-minded, but still shooting desire up and down
his spine.
He placed his hand atop hers to stop the drag of her knuckles. He glanced
sideways, giving her a look— the look—that said she better have intentions of
following through with her touch if she wanted to keep going. She blinked three
times as she registered his expression and the implication behind it.
The first blink was sheepish.
The second, coy.
The third, mischievous.
She released a breath and sat up, away from him, to his immense disappointment.
Rapidly, his disappointment cycled through surprise and satisfaction when she
twisted, raising onto her knees, and lifting one leg over him, straddling his lap.
 250 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 255

It was his turn: hands on the tops of her thighs, creeping higher, around her arse, “Must you tell everyone at our housewarming party about the incident with the
pulling her flush against him. sofa?”
“I was thinking,” she said as she looped her arms around his neck, frustratingly out Theo scoffed, holding his hand palm-up and balancing his glass on it. Draco
of reach for a kiss. watched with a sort of morbid fascination as Theo’s hand shook beneath it, sloshing
He grinned. “Well that’s unexpected and entirely out of character. Go on.” the liquid enough to make him nervous.
“How do I win this sofa if we’re sharing it now? I would hate to miss out on “First of all, you’ve lived here over a year. It's hardly a housewarming. Second of
winning this bet that I’m highly invested in over a technicality of shared ownership.” all, I’m only informing people who try and sit on it. They have a right to know, don’t
She smiled, pulling the edge of her lower lip between her teeth. Draco played with you think?”
the waistband of her denims, fingertips hopping from skin to fabric and back again. “No, I don’t think. Cleansing charms do wonders for upholstery”—Theo
“Would you prefer we make it magically binding? A spell to transfer ownership and snorted—”and it’s Hermione’s housewarming because she just moved in, so perhaps
possession should you fulfill the terms of our agreement?” He shifted, one arm try not to ruin it by antagonizing Potter.”
wrapped around her waist to hold her steady as he tilted them, pulling his wand from That earned Draco an outright laugh.
his pocket. “I’ve done several with Theo and Blaise over the years.” “Never in my life would I have imagined hearing you tell someone not to
She laughed, shrugged, nodded. Draco mumbled the simple wager spell. antagonize Harry Potter. Is being in love really that fantastic?”
A golden cord slithered from the tip of his wand, coiling around Hermione’s wrist, Draco almost reeled, almost staggered back at the force of bitterness that sucked all
then Draco’s. It glowed brief but bright, before releasing them and disappearing into the oxygen from the balcony.
the sofa’s fabric. “Are you—okay, Theo?”
Hermione tilted her head, watching him. Theo closed his fingers around his drink, ending whatever balancing act he’d been
“So that’s it? When I reach Eliot, the sofa is mine? Magically? Permanently?” using to hone his attention. When he looked up at Draco, his eyes didn’t fully focus.
Draco laughed, discarding his wand beside them. He looked caught in the foreground. Or the background.
“I think you underestimate how highly invested I am in winning.” His fingers “I think I accidentally insulted Potter.”
hopped from fabric to skin again, slipping beneath her jumper, counting vertebrae in “And I’m sure you’re very proud of that.” With a hesitant step, Draco reached out
her back as he meandered up and down her spine. and took the tumbler from Theo’s hand. “You seem a little—I don’t know, ghostly?
She shivered. “I had another thought, too.” Strung out?” Desperate. Sad. Drunk.
“Oh?” Theo laughed through his nose, sharp puffs of air punctuating a noise that sounded
“Lines. We—got lucky that your parents haven’t implied anything untoward about far from amused. His eyes wandered wildly: from Draco, to the door back into the
my performance to the Ministry. And you said you need clearer lines too, so—” flat, to the balcony, to the London skyline in the distance.
She smirked, ducked closer, pressed her palms to his chest. Muggle denims were “Do you ever think about the time turner?”
both a blessing and a curse: her arse always looked so lovely in them, but now, Draco would wonder later if his answer shouldn’t have been so immediate.
straddled across his not-so-inconspicuous erection, he wished desperately for fewer, “Yes.”
flimsier, layers between them. “Do you ever wonder what we changed?”
“This. Here. This is us, together.” She placed a kiss at his jawline. It struck Draco, Not if. Not if they’d changed. What.
with a sort of distinct absurdity, that he was in the process of being seduced. “Sometimes,” Draco admitted. “It’s odd. There are moments where it pops up, in
Specifically, seduced as a means to make him more amenable to whatever it was she the back of my mind, a reminder—almost, that it happened. But no, I wouldn’t say I
wanted from him. It was downright Slytherin of her, and he didn’t mind in the think about it often.”
slightest. Instead, he pulled her hips closer and explored her clavicle with his tongue. Theo looked away, drumming his fingers on the railing.
“But there, that’s my work. And it’s not your home anymore. I think you should stop “You would,” he said. “If something terrible happened, something you wished you
supervising me. We need clearer lines between personal and professional.” could change. You’d wonder, then.”
She pulled back, enough to look him in the eyes, to gauge his response. Draco tilted his head, trying to see from a different angle: searching for his friend
The tiny furrow between her brows said she expected him to disagree. In reality, beneath the perennial source of clever quips and unbridled enthusiasm. Theo clearly
he’d been considering the same thing himself. had something— something —going on.
“I agree,” he said. “I’ll tell my parents that Topsy or Tilly can do it, and that will be “Theo, is there something you want to—”
that.” “I don’t think I’ve said hello to Granger, yet,” Theo said suddenly, interrupting
He silenced the protest he saw forming on her mouth with a roll of his hips as he Draco’s attempt to be a fraction of the friend Theo probably deserved. “Been here
skated one hand up her ribs, towards the side of her breast. He could play at the almost an hour, haven’t even seen her.”
same game she did; he’d taught it to her, after all. What might have been a complaint
 254 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 251

interesting, something about nitrites? The article I read incorporated more muggle about having the elves do his bidding turned into a stuttering breath he swallowed
science than I really understand, but I thought of you.” with a kiss.
It took most of Draco’s willpower not to laugh at the bewildered expression that She allowed him to kiss her in a lazy, unhurried sort of way. Warm, wet lips,
took Hermione’s face hostage as she simultaneously rose from her seat, took his languid tongues, slow asphyxiation by shared air, a closed system of recycled
offering of wine, and tried her best to smile a demure sort of apology about her breathing. The way a couple might kiss when neither had anywhere else to be,
departure. because they were already home. She pulled away with a reluctant noise just as his left
He pressed his mouth to her temple, attempting a mollifying kiss as he steered her hand made contact with the clasp of her bra.
towards the kitchen. “Are you sure you can do that? Truly—I don’t mean to be cruel, but it doesn’t
“I’m dropping you off with the Weaslette; you looked like you needed an seem like much of, well, substance, is happening at those meals you’ve been taking
extraction.” with them.”
“I’m happy that Ron is happy.” It sounded like something of a chant, or an attempt He froze, watching as the regret filtered through her expression. He indulged in a
to convince herself. long blink, seeking safety behind darkened eyelids as he sorted anger from guilt. She
“Are you, now?” wasn’t necessarily wrong, but she’d said it terribly. She’d said it exactly how she
“You don’t need to be jealous.” expected him to with his parents: straightforward, to the point, like going toe to toe
“Oh, I’m not. And do you know why?” with Lucius Malfoy on her very first day in the manor. But she’d only experienced
She rolled her eyes. As if she knew. To be fair, she probably did. the satisfaction of that moment; Draco had been forced to endure the aftermath.
“Regale me,” she said, tipping back her glass and downing a large gulp of wine that “Yes. I can,” he said through a tight jaw. “They’ve actually been quite amenable to
really ought to be sipped. He savored what he was about to say, letting the smug most topics so long as you aren’t explicitly named.”
satisfaction twist its way around every syllable. Stopping them just inside the kitchen, He felt horrible the moment he said it. He’d told her about the surreal avoidance
he leaned in close to her ear, voice quiet, as he felt her palm automatically press exercises that dining with his parents had become, but laying it out in such a
against the center of his chest. straightforward way—not unlike how she wanted him to tackle it—he saw the
“Because I know how many times I’ve made you come right there, right against disappointment flexing at the corner of her eyes. So close, he wanted nothing more
that wall he’s leaning against.” than to kiss that tension away.
She rolled her eyes again. “I imagine it might be difficult to avoid my name if I’m the topic of conversation.”
“We’ve only had sex against that wall once.” He pulled his hand from where it still rested against the bare skin of her waist,
Ginny nearly choked on a grape, having evidently closed the distance between tucking a wild bunch of curls away from her face.
them. She grinned. “Scandalous, please elaborate.” “It’s not as straightforward as you—or I—would like, but I will tell them. You
Draco’s amusement drained with all the blood from his face. Hermione only work there. I have family meals there. We live here. Together.”
laughed as he found he didn’t quite have the courage to face the Weaslette. She held his gaze for several heartbeats too many, just enough that he’d started to
“The last party you dragged me to, we needed a signal. This only solidifies it. I’m rethink his words, ruthlessly assessing them for the flaw, for his error. He began
about to go wrangle Theo. If I tap my glass three times, it is your sworn duty as the preparing an alternative, something to convince her that he meant it, that she could
love of my life to save me from being the outstanding friend to that idiot that I am.” trust him, that he would do anything to preserve this precious thing quite literally in
His heart leapt, brain catching up with the words that spilled from his mouth. his lap.
Love of my life. But then she leaned in, face hovering so close he could feel heat from her skin
Perhaps she didn’t catch it. Perhaps the Weaslette didn’t, either. radiating oh-so-gently onto his, spiraling similar warmth inside him.
Who was he kidding? They were the two smartest people in the room besides him. “We should probably start organizing my books,” she said, voice barely above a
Of course they caught it. He took a deep breath, steeling himself as if nothing had whisper as a grin pulled her mouth wide, beautiful and teasing as she let her forehead
just happened. He kissed Hermione’s cheek. rest against his.
“Wish me luck,” he whispered, retreating before either of them could begin to Draco allowed himself a dramatic groan.
unpack his verbal slip. “You’re certain? It may take us all night, especially with that extensive collection of
Draco crossed the living room in several purposeful strides, hooked Theo under biographies you have.”
the elbow—interrupting a mortifying retelling of the day he’d walked in on Draco Her laugh coasted through him, winding itself around every bone in his back,
and Hermione having sex—and hauled him out onto the balcony. encircling his esophagus, settling in his stomach. It became him: a lovely, joyous
“You’re very drunk.” sensation. He’d not known a woman’s laugh could do that, transform him as
“It’s a Friday,” Theo said with a shrug, leaning against the railing. Draco hadn’t effectively as polyjuice into someone lighter, someone more hopeful. Or perhaps it
even noticed that Theo somehow still had a tumbler in his hand. He took a sip of his wasn’t any woman's laugh, just this woman’s. His.
liquor.
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“It’s especially extensive in the ‘E’ sections, but you wouldn’t know anything about could rub a man raw. “However,” he added against her lips, leaving her almost no
that, would you?” space to rebut or regain her control. “Fuck only having you on Saturdays.”
Diversion via seduction came back into play, but the Quaffle had entered his half “You can have me now,” she breathed. In the space of a single blink, Draco
of the pitch. He surged forward, mouth meeting the juncture between her throat and realized that this, indeed, had become his new reality—any day he wanted with her,
jaw, hands driving her hips against his. He felt the surprised rush of air escape her he could have—she pulled her wand from her pocket and vanished the rest of their
throat as he sucked on a spot that vibrated with her whimper. clothes.
“This flat is very large,” he said between nips and sucks and brushes of tongue The denims made her arse look fantastic. But he much preferred her without them.
against her skin, cataloguing the expanse she’d left wide open as she tilted her head
back, opening herself up. “We’ll find a home for them.”
Her fingers threaded through his hair, short nails dragging along his scalp as they
sent a small series of pinpricks cascading down his spine, tangled up with the sound
of her laughter, and the desire from her touch. “Right there, right on that sofa. I’m telling you, Potter; you don’t want to sit there.”
He kissed her jaw, down her throat, to her clavicle where he reluctantly pulled his Theo was drunk. Draco could see it from the moment he arrived at his and
hands from her waist to shove her jumper up and over her head, deposited Hermione’s housewarming get together. Not exactly a full party, more of a small
somewhere amongst the many boxes surrounding them. gathering of their friends—their first attempt at blending said friends—and Theo had
Revealing a whole new swath of skin, Draco wandered; he explored; he made a arrived drunk and a bit belligerent and utterly insistent that Potter shouldn’t sit on
leisurely activity of kissing a slow trail along the ridge of her collarbone. When he their green velvet sofa because of that one time he’d walked in on Draco and Hermione
reached her shoulder, he dropped a kiss to it before following it with a gentle drag of on it.
his teeth, smiling as her laughter filled every last empty crevice in his—their—home. Between Draco’s general anxiety at having to spend any time around Harry Potter
She sighed as her laughter quieted, fingers dancing down his chest—when had she (would they try to kill each other? Would they accidentally become good friends?
undone his buttons? Both possibilities sounded miserable), his unsuccessful attempt to insult the
He smirked to disguise the catch in his breathing when her hands dipped to his belt Weaslette (evidently she thought it was funny when he said her hair gave him
line. “On the topic of lines and boundaries. Would it be crossing any to write myself headaches), the fact that Hermione’s ex-boyfriend was in attendance (ex-destiny as
into that planner of yours?” most people seemed to see it), and Theo showing up drunk (with Blaise not far
The sound his belt made as she pulled it through the metal buckle felt obscenely behind), their small housewarming gathering had careened off course from the very
loud, clanging throughout the room as she considered his question. His heartbeat start.
jumped from his chest to his neck, pounding behind his throat, ascending towards Draco’s only real consolation came from the unexpectedly fine bottle of wine the
his ears, drowning everything else out as she burned him with her touch. Weaslette brought as a gift, which he promptly opened, lubricating his own stress
“And where would you write yourself in?” she asked, matching his smirk with a with alcohol. He caught Hermione’s eye across the living room, where she’d settled
cheeky grin of her own. His belt buckle clattered: the sound of leather being pulled into an armchair opposite Lavender Brown. She wore a tense smile on her face as she
through wool belt loops. nodded along with whatever conversation she’d been sucked into. He turned,
“Most places. Everywhere, every day. A little sex here”—he swallowed the groan searching for more wine, only to find the Weaslette holding a filled glass out to him.
that nearly spilled out when she unbuttoned his trousers—”a little cuddling there. “It looks like she needs it,” Ginny offered with a bit of a smirk and—in a strange
Perhaps some wooing. A few dates”—she scooted her hips back so she could unzip moment of solidarity—it occurred to Draco that they’d both had the same idea at the
his trousers, palming his erection as she did so. His voice wavered—”you know, same time. “That’s Hermione’s please-help-she’s-talking-to-me-about-tea-leaves-again face.”
typical things that boyfriends can do when they aren’t beholden to a single, measly Draco made a thoughtful noise, committing the expression to memory. He took
day of the week.” the wine glass and lifted it in thanks. “I suppose you have your uses. I see why
His head fell back against the sofa; that had been one of the most difficult Hermione keeps you around.”
sentences he’d ever had to speak in his life. She took no pity on him, pulling his cock “I’m certainly the least offensive of my siblings.”
free of his pants and giving it one slow, measured pump as she smiled a wide, “I’ll drink to that.” And he did, taking a sip of his own wine as he crossed the living
innocent smile at him. He’d forgotten who was meant to be in charge of this room, offering the new glass to Hermione. “If I could borrow Hermione? We’ve had
seduction. If it was meant to be him, he’d lost control of it entirely. a charcuterie emergency in the kitchen that only her expertise can solve.”
“You sound like you might be a bit bitter about that one day of the week thing.” Lavender looked up at him, blinked, looked back down at the tea in her hands, and
“Bitter? Me? That’s absurd.” He rallied, lifting his head and pressing his lips to hers then to Hermione. “I didn’t know you had an interest in charcuterie arrangements,
before she could waylay him any further. If not for those fucking denims, he would Hermione. We’ll have to discuss your thoughts on the controversy surrounding
have pulled her back on top of him, thrusting against her out of desperation for more kosher and curing salts and their impact on crystal ball readings sometime. It’s very
contact. But that was another thing he’d learned very quickly about her denims: they
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conversation, avoidance, or outright anger. The stares felt like judgment. The silence, “Draco.” He’d never hated his name as much as he did just then, when spoken with
damnation. such venom, such disappointment, such fury, from such a lovely, lovely mouth. “You
After each of those failed attempts to salvage what had started to look more and didn’t tell them we’ve been living together.” Some of her anger seemed to bleed from
more like an unsalvageable thing, Draco went home to Hermione and fucked her as her pores, exhaustion taking up residence.
if his life depended on the depths to which he could prove his devotion. He poured He opened his mouth, closed it again, opened, failed to speak.
his desperation into proving that he could maintain, protect, and appreciate at least “I thought they knew that part,” she said, quieter. “I assumed they did when you
one relationship in his life. They all seemed to crumble, seemed to break: brittle little said you told them we were together over Christmas.”
things he snapped with just a touch too much pressure. “I hadn’t asked you to move in yet. So I didn’t—that part didn’t come up.”
The third dinner he took with his parents included one stilted apology from “Or in the three months since.”
Narcissa for how his birthday had panned out. Silence from Lucius. The space between his desk and the door, between the two of them, grew wider,
Notably, the apology had been for the state of his birthday, not for the things that deeper than he’d ever seen it. He couldn’t bear it, and in two deep strides, he stood in
turned it into what it became. She apologized for no words, no actions, only the front of her. As much as he wanted to reach out and touch her, to wind a curl
results—as if those things were entirely divorced from each other. around his fingers or trace constellations between her freckles, he settled for
He stayed until he finished his entree, declined dessert, and left. When he held proximity.
Hermione that night, he couldn’t understand the cleaved feeling in his chest, cracking “I’d wondered why you were having such a hard time bringing up the fact that you
his breast bone in two. If he held her tight enough, close enough, he wondered if she haven’t been supervising me anymore,” she said. It looked like she was staring at one
could fit inside those spaces, fill the cracks herself. of his shirt buttons, just beneath his collar. “But now it makes more sense. You
“You shouldn’t give up,” she told him, lips taking his pulse at his neck as they lay in hadn’t told them the bigger thing.”
bed together. The worst part, the feeling that settled so sickeningly in his stomach, was that he
“You, of all people, should not be advocating for them.” hadn’t even been aware of that particular fault. He’d been so singularly focused on
Her breath skittered up his neck, coasting around his ear and weaving its way into the issue of his supervision that he’d accepted the omission about their living
his hair. Warm and fresh like her muggle spearmint toothpaste. Intimate in a way that situation as a sort of given. And all this time, she’d thought they knew.
awed him sometimes, recognizing the sheer closeness required to feel someone else’s “I don’t know what to say,” he admitted, hating how raw his voice sounded. “I was
breath on his skin. trying to find the right time.”
“It’s—a mess. I know,” she said, running a hand up his chest and hitching a leg Blaise made a relieved noise just beyond Hermione’s shoulder as he pulled a key
around his hip as they faced each other in the bed. “They keep saying and doing from the interior breast pocket of his overcoat. The next moment, the air pressure in
awful things, but—they also keep inviting you, even though they know about me. the room shifted, a tiny gust of wind swirling around where Blaise had been standing
That must—it’s progress, though perhaps reluctant. They don’t want to lose you.” a moment before.
She kissed beneath his jaw: a bespoke incantation that sent shivers cascading “Ah,” Draco said. “That’ll be one of Theo’s portkeys.”
through his nerves. Hermione narrowed her eyes at the space where Blaise had just been, confusion
“I know you don’t want to lose them, either. We can figure this out.” and wonder etched in her features. She shook her head, casting off the distraction as
“So optimistic,” he’d said, holding her tighter, filling the cracks. she turned back to Draco.
The fourth dinner he had with his parents included a dessert service and an Her anger seemed to redouble, a flush creeping up her neck again, and not the kind
inconsequential conversation about how lovely raspberries and chocolate of flush he preferred to see on her.
complimented each other. When he left, Narcissa told him she liked how he’d been “Were you ever going to tell them?”
styling his hair a bit longer. His stomach turned. That felt unfair, uncalled for, a jinx she knew would land with
Her eyes were watery when she said it. force.
Later, at home, when he kissed Hermione, she smiled. She told him he tasted like a “Is that really a question you’re asking me? Of course. I told you I would. I
chocolate raspberry cake. He lifted her onto their kitchen counter, vanishing her promised I would.”
knickers as he did, and told her, desperately, that he’d rather taste like her instead. Maybe it was simply a delayed reaction to being shouted at—or what a Gryffindor
This fifth dinner, happening so shortly after pulling a ring from the Malfoy jewelry might call righteous indignation, or a defense mechanism—but proper anger
vault—a ring that now sat in his pocket as a reminder, a token of what this all was exploded from his chest. “I told you this was real, it’s always been real for me. And I
meant to be for—could be different. It had to be. If Hermione believed they could told them about you, didn’t I? But not everything has to comply with your timelines,
make progress, find hope in the hopeless, then he would choose to believe her. She Hermione. It can’t all end up on a schedule.” He shoved a hand in his pocket,
was the smartest person he knew, after all. desperate that she not notice how hard it shook. “I can’t just—brute force telling my
Lucius and Narcissa greeted him at the Floo. parents something like that. It just—it takes time, finesse.”
“And I have no finesse?”
 274 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 311

“Generally speaking? No, not really. And I love that about you.” He couldn’t bear “Well, I’m sure that’s how your parents feel about each other. And you. Isn’t that
the tiny step she took away from him, the drop in her features, the war that anger why your family has always done those regular meals?”
fought with distress across her face. “I do. You’re an open book and I never have to Sometimes, in the nooks and crannies between Theo jokes and his performances,
question your motives. I trust you. Do you have any idea what a relief that is?” wedged up against his cracks of sincerity and the other things Draco could never
His anger bled out quickly, tapped straight from the vein. Her face softened as they seem to get him to talk about, Theo had these bursts of understanding, so
stood so close, yet so far apart. sympathetic that they honestly astounded Draco when they happened.
“No other part of my life is like that, Hermione. They’re not like you. But I “I suppose,” Draco said. And he did. His parents enjoyed a routine of
promise, I am trying. Even if I’m doing a poor job of it.” togetherness, had drilled as much into him throughout his life. It hurt, ached in
Her hands finally fell from her hips, limp against her sides. Draco’s chest, to consider that the joy he got from his new routines with Hermione
“Well”—a breath—”now they know.” might bear any sort of resemblance to how his parents felt about him.
“So, are you planning on telling them?”
“I’ve agreed to have dinner with them tonight.”
“Does that work on Granger?” A sudden, sharp tone. “That’s not what I asked.
Here, I’ll even clarify: are you going to ask their permission to use an heirloom?” He
They stood in silence just long enough for the rest of Draco’s annoyance, formerly waggled the box in Draco’s general direction.
pure anger, to mix with his guilt, his sense of failure, his disappointment at having Draco’s lips thinned, pulled tight. He’d brought Theo along for assistance, for a bit
disappointed her. Finally, Hermione released a tight breath, eyes, mouth, and brows of companionship, to share something exciting —fuck— life-changing, with his
all turned down as she processed everything they’d just said—too much, if Draco friend. He inhaled through flared nostrils, held the breath, then finally spoke.
had to make an assessment. She gave him space, asking for her own, muttering “I don’t need their permission, Theo. A Malfoy heirloom belongs as much to me as
something about finding a book to read. it does to them.”
Draco holed up in his office for the next two hours, trying and failing to review the Theo rolled his eyes, brows lifted nearly to his hairline. “Apologies, orphan here.
business plan that Blaise had so thoroughly skewered before Hermione’s I’m a little rusty on the parental approval process on ancestral heirlooms.” Theo
interruption. It wasn’t that it was a bad plan; Draco knew that, but Blaise seemed dropped his hands from how he’d been gesturing, rather forcefully, as he spoke. He
insistent on pointing out every last potential flaw, every point where they could fail. tossed the box back to Draco. “You’re sure you have the right to your family
He needled away at Draco’s attempted optimism, deflating him with every word. heirlooms?” Theo asked the question quietly, almost silently, as if he wished he didn’t
Strategy looked a lot like pessimism under a different name. As much as Draco ask it at all.
appreciated Blaise’s business acumen, sometimes he needed his friend, not his “What does that mean?”
potential business partner. Theo sighed. “Just that—well, you don’t really seem like you want to be much of a
He shoved several parchments, cluttered with ingredient and potions lists, into his Malfoy heir.”
desk drawer and stood. The sun had started to set, suffusing his office with a warm “I don’t want to be their kind of heir.”
orange glow that—if Draco allowed himself the wandering thoughts—reminded him “Is there a choice?”
strangely of his time with Hermione at the manor: the glow of yellow, orange, red, Draco snapped the velvet box open in his hands, took a breath, and snapped it shut
and purple light coloring so many of his memories with her. again.
He stood and drew the curtains closed. “Would you just provide an opinion on jewelry?”
He found her in the living room, darkened east-facing windows already void of Theo did. And without another word about Draco’s parents, too.
light. He’d missed sunset with her; he didn’t have many opportunities to share them.
Missing this one felt heavy, weighted against him.
She sat on the green velvet sofa, eternally her pick if given the choice. It was a silly,
stubborn habit: her insistence on loving the thing, staking her claim to it, even with
its unsavory past as a Malfoy family heirloom. Crookshanks slept in a tightly-wound Technically speaking, Draco exchanged more words with Topsy and Tilly over
ball beside her as she sat cross-legged, book open in her lap. dinner that evening than he did with either of his parents. He hadn’t meant it out of
“I owled my parents earlier,” Draco said as a way to announce his presence in the spite, or in any sort of defiant display flouting Lucius and Narcissa’s traditional
room. He leaned against the wall, just barely free of the corridor. “I told them I sensibilities. But when presented with the option of conversing with house elves or
wouldn’t be at dinner this evening.” conversing with his parents, the elves quelled his anxieties where his parents did not.
Hermione looked up from her book, expression neutral, body still. He’d had dinner with them four times since his birthday.
“Don’t they require more notice than that?” If Draco didn’t know any better, he Two meals had to be aborted halfway through the appetizer courses, lest the silent
might wonder if she’d learned Occlumency despite her personal dislike for that anger swallow him alive. Stares and silence were infinitely worse than awkward
 310 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 275

“The reason we’re here.” particular brand of magic. Her words came out even, non-accusatory, but they stung
Draco watched as Theo finally took in his surroundings, recognizing the vault all the same.
they’d entered for what it was. “I think of all days, the short notice tonight was probably expected.”
“Ah—your family’s heirloom vault.” His eyes darted to the box in his hand. “A Her cheeks twitched, a forced smile and an attempt at acknowledging the
ring, I assume? You mean to propose.” discomfort between them.
“I almost already did.” Draco trailed a finger along a shelf of tiaras, wondering idly “Can I take you out?” he asked. “Is there a film you want to see?”
when any of them had last left this underground prison for priceless things. “You hate movies.”
Theo seemed to consider that for a moment, tossing the box between his hands. “Well, I want to apologize. I want you to be happy.”
Tension tightened Draco’s spine as he struggled to fathom why Theo hadn’t opened “They make you sick.”
the box yet. Did he not realize he’d been brought along to provide an opinion? “I don’t have to watch it. I’m plenty entertained watching you.”
“It’s been well over a year now. I’m surprised you waited this long,” Theo said, “We don’t have to stay in muggle London all the time. Your parents have known
tossing the box back to Draco. about me”—a pause as she cleared her throat—”to at least some extent for a while
He caught it with ease, irrationally annoyed that Theo hadn’t looked inside. now. We could spend time together in the magical world, you know.”
“Things were—are—always complicated.” It was the best explanation Draco knew “Yes. Of course, wherever you want to go.”
how to give. A fearful, intrusive thought wondered if she thought he meant to hide her. It
Theo released an overly dramatic sigh, leaning against the closed vault door. “A certainly looked like it, if he thought about it like that. He’d dragged his feet finding a
true Romeo and Juliet, you two.” way to tell his parents the extent of their relationship and the lines they’d drawn for
“Who?” themselves. He took her on dates almost exclusively in muggle London, but only
“Muggle Literature. Granger taught me.” because that was where they’d started, where they spent so long. It was easy, simple.
The laugh that bubbled up Draco’s throat startled him, unbidden, as images of The It didn’t come with judgmental stares and impolite implications about him using
Count of Monte Cristo hurtled to the forefront of his mind. Unforgivables on the fabulous, ineffable Hermione Granger.
“She’s done the same to me. If she comes at you with anything by Alexander She closed her book.
Dumas, run.” He hated fighting, didn’t know how to do it. But this was very clearly a fight, not a
“Do your parents know?” Theo asked, sidestepping Draco’s meager attempt at disagreement. His chest ached. A desperate desire to convince her how much she
humor. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, eyes narrowed, head tilted, brow meant to him tore through his bones, cracking him to bits. He was trying. Always
lifted. Everything about him screamed of suspicion. Draco didn’t especially trying. Usually failing. But trying nevertheless. He needed her to try, too. They could
appreciate that look. do this.
“Gods, you sound like Hermione.” He arched a brow at her, an offering in familiar expressions, a tone they knew how
“It’s a valid question.” to navigate.
“I know.” Draco snapped the box open, glanced at the ring inside, and snapped it “Which book is that?” he asked, seeking safety in old conversations.
shut again. “I know.” “Einstein. I’ve been on it for ages.” She set the book aside and gave Crookshanks
Theo didn’t say anything, just kept watching him with an admirable posture that one long stroke from the back of his ears and along the length of his spine, a spiraled
reminded Draco quite keenly of Blaise when he knew something the rest of them motion. “Magic has rotted my brain a bit; I’m struggling with all the muggle science.
didn’t. This isn’t an abridged version.”
Draco tossed the box to Theo who, once again, barely caught it. Draco made a thoughtful noise, crossing one ankle over the other as he leaned
“Everything with Hermione is complicated,” Draco said, eyes fixed on the against the wall, transfixed by her beautiful face in the most inopportune of
unopened box in Theo’s hands. “But everything with my parents is downright moments.
impossible. I’ve taken maybe a handful of meals with them since my birthday.” “I wonder why that little bookstore of yours would stock something like that.”
“And how has that been?” The fact that she chuckled nearly crushed him with relief. He’d never known the
Draco knew he meant to ask about the meals with his parents, but all he could sound of a person’s laugh could be so intimately tied to his lungs, his heart, his soul.
think about were the many, many more he’d spent with Hermione. “Ha-ha, you’re very funny,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “But if you’ll recall,
“I enjoy having my mornings with her. I make better tea, and I can manage toast or they had this one stocked the first time we were there, before all your meddling.”
eggs just fine.” A self-conscious crept up Draco's neck, hot and uncomfortable. If “Meddling? What meddling? Regardless, I don’t recall. I was rather distracted by a
there were ever a person in the world Draco might dare to make such admissions to, beguiling little witch.”
Theo was that person. “She’s been cooking dinners. I get to start and end my days The whole conversation felt like a two-way apology in many, many more words. A
with her—it’s just—” he failed to articulate further, eyes landing on the box again: a roundabout way of meeting each other in the middle after making several painful
pointed example of exactly how much he loved the things he spoke of. stops along the way. There was hope in that though, meeting in the middle. He didn’t
 276 Mightbewriting

have to prostrate himself, stretch to meet her at one end, and he wouldn’t ask that of
her, either. What he had with her was too warm, too comforting, too wonderful to
-.583, -.666, -.750
resist finding equilibrium as soon as possible when thrown off balance.
That desire to find peace didn’t ease all his worry though, couldn’t melt all the J U LY
tension in his shoulders. He saw the same in hers as well.
Hermione sighed, still scratching Crookshanks behind his ears.
“What if we tried to get along?” she asked, eyes fixed on her cat.

T
Draco remained against the wall, watching her, cautious, seeking calm waters in a ICK TOCK TICK TOCK
choppy sea. Draco ran a hand through his hair as the Gringotts cart came to a stop,
“Get along?” entirely disheveled from the long, winding trip underground to the old
“With your parents. We could—I don’t know. We could have a dinner or estate vaults. The damp chill that clung to every surface so deep underground
something? Try to be civil?” rendered his hair potions completely ineffectual.
She looked up at him, brows drawn tightly together as the grandfather clock in the “I thought the trip to my vaults was comically long,” Theo said with a low whistle.
corner of the room ticked the seconds between her ask and his answer. She The sound ricocheted off the moist, blackened boulders that Draco assumed existed
continued instead. somewhere in the caverns with them. Huge spaces and low lighting left much to his
“I just—Draco. I feel like we’re—well, we’re kind of stuck together, all of us. imagination.
Aren’t we?” “You should have warned me to bring snacks,” Theo said, stepping aside so the
His arms, which had been folded across his chest in what was probably too goblins accompanying them could begin unlocking Draco’s vault. “I would have
obvious a defensive posture—literally holding himself together as he held his breath, grabbed some chocolate frogs or something.”
searching for the right things to say if such words even existed—dropped, falling to “You’re being very dramatic.”
his sides. “Well, I was promised a pint and an evening at the pub. I’ve been kidnapped, I
He grew warm, a trickle of adrenaline coating his veins as an overwhelming think.”
fondness crashed over him, dunking him beneath the surface. Choppy sea, roiling “You’ve hardly been kidnapped. We’re on a quick errand.”
waves, battered shores. He dragged himself to land and found her there, suggesting The vault doors opened beside them; orange light spilled from the perpetual
with such pure, delightful innocence that they were stuck together. As if there was sconces mounted on the interior stone walls. Draco nodded his thanks to the goblins
anything else he’d rather be. and grabbed Theo by the elbow, forcing him inside.
He heard her breath catch in her throat as she inhaled; she had to have seen the Theo grumbled a bit more, something about losing his precious friend time to bloody
shift in his posture. He wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted her more than he did in that errands.
otherwise inconsequential moment. But the gall of her, the unadulterated audacity of “We’re still getting drinks,” Draco said. “After.”
her implication. It lit his marrow on fire. “Granger has stolen you from me. And now I’m but an errand companion? How
“Come here,” he said, finding his voice very low, very quiet, very serious— sad.”
somewhere between a request and an imperative. “Hermione has stolen me? You’ve stolen her—back to boyfriend hunting. You
Quietly, carefully, she stood. She stopped in front of him, and Draco couldn’t help know, Saturdays used to be my day with her.”
himself, hands winding through her hair, twisted up in her curls, cradling her skull as “Yes, well now you have the rest of the week. And what do I have? Blaise?”
he bent his head, forehead resting against hers. Draco tossed a small box at Theo, who fumbled as it smacked his open palm, and
“We are very, very much stuck with each other.” Her hands came to rest at his belt, juggled it frantically to prevent it falling to the floor.
fingers hooked through the loops as they stood close enough that he could feel the “I thought Blaise was your best friend these days?”
heat radiating off of her skin, the warmth of a star just for him. “As it stands, he’s my only option, what with you being all coupled up and
“In fact,” he continued, utterly lost to the intoxication of having her so close. He nauseatingly happy.” He held up the box, giving it a shake beside his ear in what
could count her freckles and catalogue the colors in her eyes: every earth tone Draco could only assume was an attempt to discern the contents via auditory clues.
imaginable. “I’d dare say I’m beholden to you, indentured, a servant to your every “I’m reluctant to make his position as my best friend permanent, however. One can
whim so long as you will have me.” He leaned closer, lips finding hers and feeling of only stomach friends who sit, stare into the middle distance, and ruin antique
home. furniture with smoke damage for so long before one starts to think—perhaps one
It didn’t answer her question. It didn’t address whether or not they could all find a needs more friends.”
way to coexist in a peaceful, productive way. But it laid bare his values, the most “Sounds exhausting being you, Theo.”
important of them. “Truly, it is.” Theo tilted his head and held the box out. “What is this?”
 308 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 277

“Thank you,” he said, eyes shifting to each of them. He clapped Theo on the “I don’t want to go to a movie,” she said, breathing her words into him. I don’t want
shoulder. “Truly, thank you.” to fight, is what she meant. He knew, because he could read between her lines. He’d
In the aftermath of a day that had started so beautifully, transitioned into studied her face and her words and every last bit of her that she allowed him to learn.
something terrible, and now found him surrounded by those he loved most with the He knew what she meant to say and what she said were two very different things.
rest of the day ahead of them, Draco smiled. And he heard both.
“I don’t want to, either.”
It responded to both her sentiments, meeting in the middle.
 Beginning and end 307

-.833, -.916, -1.000 Hermione did the exact opposite of what he wanted and took a step back, out of
his reach.
“You don’t want to abandon Theo and Blaise; they might not give you their
A P RI L present if you do.”
Draco attempted to close the space between them, only to have Hermione step
back again, a playful smile breaking like a sunrise across her face.
“Whatever they got me I’ll just buy it for myself.”

T
ICK TOCK TICK TOCK Hermione shrugged and giggled, another step out of his reach. “I don’t know about
The poached eggs, cultured butters, and sugar-crusted pastries didn’t that,” she offered in a sing-song sort of voice.
taste quite the same. They no longer offered the same richness, the same “Granger doesn’t know something? Impossible.”Theo and Blaise had returned,
sense of familiarity, of routine, that they once had. They’d started tasting stale, changed into Quidditch attire. Theo looped a casual arm around Hermione’s
boring: a repetition of the things he’d eaten his whole life, day in and day out. Made shoulder. “So, what is it you don’t know?”
with too much butter, too much fat, too much excess emulsified into every last sauce “Divination, mostly. And how to make tea,” Draco supplied, a brow arched.
and spread and sausage offered as a feast on a table only serving three. Hermione didn’t even huff, not a drop of indignation. She only shook her head with
Topsy and Tilly cracked in and out of the dining room, dropping off more platters a half roll to her eyes.
and trays of fruits and pastries and eggs than his family could possibly consume in a Theo made a dismissive sort of gesture, waving vaguely towards Blaise. “We keep
week, let alone a single meal. His parents barely seemed to notice, hardly even him around for the Divination part.”
blinking an eye at the sharp sound each time an elf cracked into the room with them. Hermione elbowed Theo’s side and nodded towards Draco. For a split second,
Once Draco noticed it, realized just how often the elves came and went, tending to Theo put on an excellent show of having been debilitated by Hermione’s elbow. To
their juice glasses, tea temperatures, and errant crumbs, he couldn’t tear his eyes and be fair, having been on the receiving end of them, Draco knew she had a fondness
ears from the intrusion they caused, the unending labor they provided. Hermione had for wielding them as weapons to her own devices. As Theo straightened himself,
wholly and truly invaded his brain, carved sympathy for these creatures that his clutching pitifully at his side, he pulled out his wand and sent an envelope flying to
parents barely even noticed. Draco.
He frowned at his porridge. He didn’t want to have this taken away from him, too. He caught it and lifted a brow, peeking inside.
He’d lost his beliefs, his enchantment with his family home, could he not at least “Is this—”
keep an innocent companionship with the elves? They weren’t even bound to the “Quidditch World Cup tickets for August,” Theo confirmed. “For all of us because
grounds anymore; they stayed of their own free will, however much of it they had we want to come, too. But it’s your present. And they’re good seats.” Theo advanced,
left. liberating the envelope from Draco’s hands and pulling out one of the tickets. “Not
Everything about this routine meal with his parents felt excessively complicated, greased-hands-with-the-Minister-of-Magic-good, but respectable boxes,
overly traditional and steeped in elf magic: anachronistic in every sense. nevertheless.”
He stared into his porridge. “Oh. I could have asked Kingsley for you.”
They still hadn’t talked about her. Hadn’t so much as broached the subject. It had Draco could practically see Hermione’s statement wash over Theo from behind.
started driving him a little mad. Their first meal together after Hermione informed His eyes went wide, then narrowed, before he released a sigh and shook his head:
him of her run-in with Narcissa had been a test, an experiment to determine how far “Of course she could have.” Theo sounded caught somewhere between being
they were willing to stretch their adamant insistence that she simply didn’t exist. Each impressed and distraught for not having thought of such a thing himself.
day since—five of them now—had become another of several heavy, hard Another thought stole Draco’s attention. He leaned, peering around Theo to catch
hammered nails in coffins containing his hope for them. Hermione’s eyes.”In Italy?”
His mother said something about having taken tea with Sakura Parkinson the day She smiled.”Italy.”
before. Narcissa’s shoulders, arms, wrists, and fingers all moved in a stiff, unnatural “And is that why you’ve agreed to come?” he asked, simultaneously teasing and
way as she spoke, pointedly making eye contact with Draco, forcing dialogue. The serious.
one-way conversation stalled, then swelled again when she mentioned another friend, She reined her smile in, lips pursed, an attempt at coy. Her right shoulder lifted
someone whose name he couldn’t bring himself to retain. toward her ear, just a bit: a tiny shrug.
Panic surged when she mentioned her friend's daughter, who had made an inquiry “I have always wanted to see Italy.”
after him. Such a simple statement, standing with all of them, about to play Quidditch and
celebrate his birthday, filled Draco with a warmth not unlike the magic he used to
cast a Patronus.
 306 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 279

She smiled. “I even brought a book. Mr. Dwight D. Eisenhower will be keeping me “Isn’t that lovely, Draco? A fine, pureblood witch who’d be amenable to your
company this afternoon.” courtship? I’ve invited her to tea next week; I was hoping you might make room in
“I can’t tempt you to take a ride on my broomstick?” Draco asked, leaning into her. your schedule for an additional visit with us.”
He felt the wide grin stretching his face. Pinpricks raced up Draco’s spine. A rush of cold immediately followed by a flare of
She pressed her hands to his chest and pushed him back.”I’m choosing to believe heat: anger in sensation, if not name.
you did not intend that as innuendo because one, it’s quite the overdone joke and “Excuse me?”
you’re cleverer than that and two, you’re being gross in front of your friends. Theo is His mother blinked, fork paused halfway between her plate and her mouth. She
gagging.” tilted her head just enough to convey she hadn’t expected his tone.
She wasn’t wrong; Theo had taken up his retching again, one hand braced against He hadn’t expected it either, but the bite ripped through his throat with a force he
Blaise’s shoulder for support. But even as she’d said it, Hermione smirked, flashing had no intention of controlling.
him the kind of smile that told him even though she thought he was being ridiculous, “Tea, next week,” she repeated, placing her fork back down on her plate. At the
she loved him for it anyway. head of the table, Draco heard his father fold and place his copy of the Prophet aside.
It was one of his favorite fucking smiles. “Are you mad?”
She reached into her tiny beaded bag and conjured an opaque shield between “What do you mean, darling?”
herself and the rest of them. Her question sounded so innocent, so uninformed, as if she had no idea what she
“No peeking, you three,” came her voice from behind the milky white oval was doing. But her eyes hardened to sapphires, solidified by a desperation to
partitioning her from them. withstand whatever he intended to put her through.
Draco looked to Theo and Blaise and tilted his head to ask the question, what is she More than that, she silently begged. He could see it in the twitch at the corner of
doing? Theo just shrugged. Blaise didn’t bother with a response. her mouth, in the tension settling around her eyes, in the way her palms had flattened
When she dropped the barrier, Draco’s jaw dropped in tandem. She’d swapped her against the tablecloth.
shirt for his Slytherin jersey and, Merlin, did she look imminently fuckable. “I’m not having tea with your friend’s unattached daughter.”
“Oh gods, now I really am going to be sick,” Theo lamented, turning to face away. “She’s training to be a healer. Very intelligent. And their family isn’t so appalled by
Blaise just chuckled. the Malfoy name—they’re open to the idea of you as a suitable match—”
“Two for one, Granger: gift for Draco and torture for Theo. Impressive.” “—Mother—”
Hermione practically beamed at the compliment from Blaise. Even Draco felt a bit “—She’s bright, lovely, and I’m told she plays the piano just beautifully—”
of second-hand pride that she’d impressed the generally unimpressible Blaise Zabini. “—Mother—”
“I’m getting the game set up. Blaise, come help,” Theo called, already walking “—And I’d dare say we aren’t exactly in a position to decline such a potentially
towards the pitch. Draco took the gift of privacy for what it was and stepped right advantageous—”
into Hermione’s personal space, fingers playing with the jersey’s hem. “—I am. In a position to decline. Because I’m living with my girlfriend.”
Hermione bit her lip: a hesitant glance up at him as a tiny hint of blush bloomed to Tilly cracked into the room with such startling force that unwarranted images of
life in her cheeks. splinchings flitted through Draco’s brain. Even Narcissa recoiled at the sound. Tilly
“Do you want to know what I have on under this?” placed a tray of croissants in the center of the table and disappeared again.
Draco didn’t pause to consider his response.”Please say nothing.” Everything seemed to collapse: the mood in the room, his mother’s face, the sham
She laughed. “Sorry to disappoint. It’s not nothing—but it’s the green version of Draco had been calling optimism.
that red lingerie I was wearing this morning.” The strange dream-like quality of their breakfasts shifted, warped into something
She rocked once on the balls of her feet, an almost-unnoticeable pause before she closer to a nightmare.
committed to her movement; she lined herself up against him, flush. Her voice came Slowly, Narcissa pushed her plate away. Barely an inch, but enough to signal her
out breathy, a whisper, but with enough force to double him over. distaste, the souring of her appetite. The hurt hidden in her gaze hit significantly
“If you play extra well for me, maybe I’ll let you take it off me later.” harder than the anger and the frustration simmering beneath it. Narcissa wore her
“Maybe?” he asked, voice rough in a strangled throat. “You’re telling me you don’t disappointment, anger, betrayal, and sadness like diamonds: precious, multifaceted
already have it written in your planner?” stones with several hard edges. Beautiful, but unyielding.
She bit that damnable lip and Draco very seriously considered abandoning his “As this is the first I’m hearing of this from you, my son, you can imagine my
friends in favor of this witch. surprise.”
“You don't want to know all the things I have written in my planner for you “You aren’t surprised, Mother. I know you spoke to Hermione last week. And it
today.” isn’t as if I didn’t tell you about her at Christmas. You’ve just been doing this”—a
“We don’t need to play Quidditch. Let’s go home. Right now. Gods, I love you.” broken, pleading sort of gesture at the buffet between them—”whatever this is.”
“You will not speak to your mother in that tone.”
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Draco’s attention snapped to the head of the table, where Lucius had issued his She still looked concerned—not exactly a push, but a check to make sure he was
command. For the first time in several meals spent together, Draco looked his father alright. Meals with his parents tended to go either fine or spectacularly awful and she
in the eye, matching grey for grey, each as unyielding as galvanized steel. clearly knew which one his morning had been.
Draco set his jaw. Excluding how horrible it all was, he found something distinctly “Blaise, if I ever start looking at someone like that you have my permission to hex
surreal in the avoidant extremes his parents engaged in to pretend his decisions didn’t me,” Theo said. He clapped Draco on the shoulder, a clear reminder that he and
exist—at least, not the ones they disagreed with. Hermione were not, in fact, alone.
“What tone?” He volleyed his dissent right back at his father, not quite a backhand, Draco looked away from Hermione in time to see Blaise’s arched brow, the faintest
but with enough force to move the ball back in Lucius’s court. “One that asks her to trace of a smile pulling at his lips.
respect my relationship?” “Deal.”
“Relationship?” Lucius’s tone cut Draco down in an instant. They weren’t playing a Theo just shook his head and pulled something from his pocket.
game, volleying points back and forth to come to an understanding. Lucius had “So, we’ll just do our after lunch plans before lunch?” he asked, holding up a rusted
issued an edict, and he expected Draco’s compliance. No conversation. No bronze key.
disagreement. And certainly no resistance. “It is one thing to—exercise a bit of Hermione looked from the key to Draco to Theo and back to the key again.
distasteful rebellion. But to invite her into your home, Draco? It’s unseemly. It will “That’s not—is it?” she asked.
damage your reputation if it gets out.” “A portkey to our destination, Granger,” Theo twirled the key between his fingers,
Draco’s spine met the back of his chair, every muscle in his torso painfully tensed held right at her eye level.
by a fresh crest of anger, carrying with it disbelief. Waves of disappointment lashed at “And how questionable is its legality?” she asked as she folded her arms across her
his nerve endings, as if his skin had been hit by an ennervate, suddenly awake and chest.
aware and prickling with recognition that this situation had no clean exit, no finesse- “Entirely questionable. But keep your voice down about it.” Theo leaned in, a
able escape. conspiratory smile flashing across his face. “There are ministry employees afoot and
“Gets out? Father, it’s not a secret. We had a fucking housewarming party. Anyone we wouldn’t want them to catch wind of it.”
who isn’t a hermit”—a quick, flippant gesture towards Lucius—”self-imposed or She rolled her eyes. “Could we not just apparate?”
otherwise, knows.” “This is much more fun.”
“That’s enough.” Lucius’s cane came down on the table with a sharp crack. For a With a wink and a glance at Blaise, Theo reached out and took Hermione’s hand
moment, Draco wondered if the force had split the wood open, either in the cane or just and Blaise caught Draco on the shoulder. Draco sighed and shook his head,
the table. But both seemed reasonably intact when Lucius lifted the cane again. wrapping an arm around Hermione’s waist.
Malfoy Manor didn’t contain nearly enough tapestries to dampen the echo that “Hold tight,” he whispered in her ear as the portkey whisked them away.
rattled around the dining room: that sharp crack repeating and repeating and repeating
until it was all Draco could hear, ringing in his ears.
“I have warned you,” Lucius said. “We have warned you. You are making a
mockery of this family and it will not be tolerated any longer. I will tell you this only
once: end this dalliance, now.” They landed with surprising ease in what looked like—
The wild thumping of Draco’s heart supplanted the ringing in his ears. His chest “A Quidditch pitch?” Draco asked.
physically ached, seized and clenched and ready for a fight. Gods, he felt like he’d It took Hermione a second longer to recover herself than it did the rest of them.
just dueled for his life and barely anything had happened at all, apart from the More than anything else, Draco could see a reluctant wonder crawling across her
absolutely impossible order his father had just made. face. Theo’s portkeys were smooth, almost pleasant, with less spinning and much less
Draco couldn’t decide if it helped or hurt that Lucius looked equally as pained. torque at the navel.
Redness climbed up his neck, jaw ground together with such force that Draco could She blinked a few times, clearing whatever thoughts had taken control, before she
practically hear his teeth groan in protest. turned to him.”I thought you might want to play a little Quidditch on your birthday.”
He didn’t necessarily consider his next move. He employed no caution as he forced Fresh cut grass, country air, a light breeze: Draco had hardly realized how much he
his chair away from the table and left the room: hands shaking, heart aching, head missed it until that moment.
pounding. “My broom?”
“Theo has it.”
“Kit?”
“Blaise.”
Draco smiled, wrapping his arms around his thoughtful, beautiful witch.”Well,
you’ve just thought of everything, haven’t you?”
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Abruptly, Draco stood. Draco managed to ignore the footsteps echoing behind him right up until he
“Thank you for taking me out for my birthday,” he said, trying to control the opened the parlor doors, momentum delayed long enough for Narcissa to catch up
furious waver in his voice as he made eye contact with his mother. It killed him that to him.
she looked on the verge of tears. “I have to go.” “Draco, darling—”
Narcissa blinked, looking up at him from her place at the table. Draco had the He didn’t look back—wasn’t sure if he could, honestly—with his spine held so
sense he’d just witnessed her experiencing her worst fears actualizing. “As a ramrod straight by tension that refused to release its grip on him. She called to him
reminder,” he said. “I won’t be dining with you this evening.” again as he reached for the Floo powder.
It was another blow, he knew it. But Draco was feeling spiteful, furious, offended “Draco, please. Darling, I do not dignify begging but—I am asking, son.”
for himself and for Hermione. And he felt so, so disappointed in his parents. Son. But what kind of son? One she could be proud of? One who’d disappointed
Narcissa physically recoiled at his words, hands falling limp off the table. Draco her? One who’d tried? One who’d failed? One who’d finally attempted to be his own
didn’t dare look at Lucius. person, and in doing so had somehow missed the mark on becoming who his parents
“I don’t think I’ll be dining with you for the rest of the week, either,” he added. A wanted him to be?
pause for consideration. “Or for the foreseeable future.” It hurt more than he wanted The anger that had carried him from dining room to Floo parlor sank into
it to, saying such a thing, such a damning, permanent-feeling thing. It felt like taking disappointment, weariness. He turned to face her, and as he released a breath, his
what last little scraps of hope he’d clung to and bombarda’ing them to bits. “I just—I chest finally unclenched. That type of anger simply wasn’t sustainable, lest he wish
don’t know,” he said as a final, inconclusive sort of apology, even while knowing they for it to turn him to stone like Lucius.
didn’t deserve one. “And what, exactly, are you asking?”
His box of toffees remained on the tabletop as he walked away. Narcissa’s lips thinned as she considered her words, almost as if she hadn’t
He’d wanted it to work with his parents. He’d hoped for years now that they could expected to elaborate.
evolve, that they would, with the right amount of time. They kept resisting him every “Please, Draco. Consider the long-term, the generational consequences of what
step of the way, and he, a tired, worn-down traveller, needed a break. you’re doing. The longer you entertain this, the longer you let this endeavor continue,
the more painful it will be for both of you when it must end. I don’t relish the idea of
seeing you in pain.”
Draco had never known Narcissa to look uncomfortable in her own home.
Normally, she captivated every room she occupied, a star around which expensive
Thank the gods for Hermione’s wild, distinctive hair. He spotted her, and by decor and grand architecture orbited as supporting players in her elegant game.
association Theo and Blaise, down the street when he exited the restaurant, heart Seeing her standing in front of him, with her arms hanging loose at her sides and
pounding from the furious, disappointed, and appalled looks his parents had given genuine concern bleeding from her features, forced a sense of fallibility to the
him as he excused himself from his own birthday meal. surface. He wasn’t used to thinking of his mother as anything less than perfectly
Draco caught up with them as they paused in front of a used bookshop. composed.
“—in two hours, are you capable of spending less than two hours in a bookstore, “Why must it end, Mother?” he asked quietly, needing to, but not wanting to wear
Granger?” Hermione swatted Theo’s arm in response. Dramatically, he massaged his her down any further. For as furious as she’d made him—she and Lucius—she was
bicep, hissing about her violence. still his mother. And he, too, did not relish the idea of seeing her in pain. “Perhaps
Draco wrapped his arms around her shoulders from behind, dropping a kiss at the we will all be stuck with each other for a very long time. You and Father should find
crown of her head. a way to accept that.”
“Careful,” he said with a wink. “She bites, too.” “Draco.” She sighed. She closed the distance between them by half, trying. “I know
That earned Draco a swat of his own and a retching sound from Theo. Blaise only such things don’t register in the mind of a young man who is”—he watched her
rolled his eyes as he leaned against the storefront. swallow, struggle against her choice of words—”in love for the first time. It is a
Hermione turned in his arms, looking up at him with a tiny furrow between her consuming feeling, and I sympathize. But when the time comes for children—to sire
brows. an heir—Draco, you carry two pureblood lineages in your veins. That—you can’t
“We weren’t supposed to meet for another two hours.”It was a question disguised simply throw that away.”
as a statement, but he knew exactly what she meant. He leaned down and kissed her She reached up and smoothed a hand over her already perfect, silken hair. “I realize
temple, lingering near her ear. it’s not ideal,” she continued. “Not especially with times—with times as they are.”
“I’ll tell you later,” he said in a quiet voice, offering her a small smile as he pulled She stopped again. Draco had the sudden sense that he was witnessing a
back. breakdown of her understanding of the world, and of her place in it. That same kind
Her tight smile in return asked another question. It didn’t go well? of breakdown that ripped his thoughts, heart, and conscience to shreds while he
He gave a single, short shake of his head.
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toiled away under house arrest, studying for NEWTs and a future potions mastery in Draco tilted his head. The loveliness had nothing to do with it. More likely, the
an attempt to drown out the overwhelming hypocrisy inside his own head. prime real estate spot—which Draco had learned from experience looking at shop
She straddled a line—a crevasse—too wide for her petite frame to bridge. She options with Blaise—would have been prohibitively expensive for those without
wasn’t built for it, raised for it, trained for it. Draco, though, he’d fallen to the generational vaults at Gringotts or an extensive list of connections who could remove
bottom of it, sinking on one side before he climbed his way up the other. His mother barriers. Beyond that, it was the overt, excessive use of magic for every little thing.
was too battered to make such a journey. Too war-worn. And she looked Narcissa’s gaze slipped from his face, out the window behind him instead.
heartbroken, like maybe she could see the other side, or at the very least imagine it, “Oh, is that Theodore? We still haven’t had him over. And Blaise, too.”
but knew of no other path than the one she already walked. So she clung to it with Her eyes widened, hardened, and closed off completely in the space of a blink.
everything she had, because it was, in fact, everything she had. What had been a casual sort of interest on her face transformed into disbelief,
Draco realized that somewhere, somehow, their roles had been reversed. Perhaps waylaid by something that almost looked like betrayal.
by the war or by the rebuilding that came after. He used to look to her for comfort. Draco turned to follow her stare and felt immediately as if he’d been dunked into a
Now though, he realized how badly she needed comfort from him. frozen lake. Theo and Blaise had just walked out of the Quidditch supply shop across
She must have felt it, too, his slipping away. He didn’t know how to give her the from the restaurant with Hermione at their heels.
comfort she needed. He could not and would not lie or omit to spare her feelings; “Disgraceful,” Lucius seethed, fork falling onto the tabletop.
he’d already done too much of that to Hermione. Draco knew he must have looked murderous—his own face contorting itself into a
When had she gotten so small? Objectively, he knew he’d surpassed his mother’s scowl and a furious stare as his father spoke—because whatever else Lucius had
height somewhere in his fifth year. But here, now, as he stepped forward to envelope intended to say stalled in his throat.
her in a hug, she felt distinctly delicate and frail against him. Draco fisted the tablecloth where it draped over the edge of the table, falling onto
Narcissa smelled like flowers every day of the week, a different perfume for each his lap. He twisted it up in his hand, a tight, angry fist holding him together as he
day, probably enough to fill an entire month with a garden’s worth of floral notes. tried very, very hard not to make a scene in public, not to draw any more attention
Today it was gardenias; he hadn’t smelled that particular one on her for years. It than they already attracted.
reminded him of being a teenager, of different, younger times. Draco’s plate, silver, and glassware all slid closer to him as he bunched up the
Was this what growing up felt like? Was this the moment that made him an adult? fabric from the tablecloth, tugging everything a bit closer to the ledge.
A man in his own life: comforting his mother instead of the other way around? The “What exactly is so disgraceful, Father? They’re just walking. Shopping. Do you even
last time he’d truly hugged his mother had been after his release from Azkaban. She realize how—don’t you understand who she is to me?” Anger ate his words, so he
had offered him comfort, warmth, and stability after two months spent locked away, tried again. “Could you, perhaps—just on my birthday—pretend not to abhor the
alone in a cell in the middle of an ocean. Her hug had felt like a promise that he woman I love?”
would be alright. Lucius matched Draco’s anger breath for breath, disdain carved into his features.
He couldn’t help but feel like he’d already failed to offer her the same comfort. “It’s not about such silly sentimentality as that, Draco. If I am not allowed to abhor
Would everything be alright? He didn’t know. her for being a bastardization of magical ability, for flaunting her substandard
He spoke into her hair: “I’m not changing my mind.” breeding and manners in our faces, or for gutting my ancestral home, am I not at
She stiffened, but did not break from the hug, not for several more beats of her least allowed to abhor her for taking my son from me?”
heart against his torso, out of sync with his own. When she finally pulled away, she Draco did not often think of his father as being snake-like. Not when he’d had The
looked around the parlor thoughtfully, brows drawn together, wandering gaze Dark Lord for comparison. But Lucius hissed the word son with such venom that
looking for—something. Draco couldn’t help but imagine spitting snakes: vipers or cobras or whatever kind it
“It’s different in here,” she said after a moment. “Nicer.” was that reared and spat and put everything it had into self preservation in the face of
Draco knew exactly why: Hermione Granger. She had left her mark in many, many a threat.
places. Worse than the venom was the hurt, lingering just beneath the surface, tugging at
“Where has your grandfather’s sofa gone?” Draco, encouraging him to sympathize, to take pity on his father’s position.
Draco ground his teeth together.
If Lucius had wanted to better preserve a relationship with him he should have
done something—something different, something else—long before now.
Hermione’s bright, fierce, ruthless voice flared to life inside his head: things she’d
Draco took a deep breath upon returning to his flat. He needed new air in his said about actions being what counted. Lucius’s actions accounted for very little, if
lungs, a different atmosphere. A blur of orange flashed in his periphery. Draco Draco really stopped to consider them.
turned in time to see Crookshanks bolt into the kitchen. He followed, rolling his eyes He would not let Lucius make Hermione a scapegoat for his personal misfortunes
now that he could no longer blame her for his political ones, not publicly, at least.
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likely expected of him: cufflinks left on the dresser, hair in place, but wavy. He’d as the cat stopped, turned once, and then sat with a theatrical tail swish in front of his
opted to look just a bit more casual, a bit more freshly fucked. food bowl.
A muscle in Lucius’s jaw flexed—the pterygoid, Draco thought: a muscle attached “This is our Saturday routine, is it?”
to the mandible he only knew about because Mr. Granger had insisted they make an Draco pulled Crookshanks’s food from the cabinet and filled his bowl. He had no
anatomical lesson out of Draco’s Christmas gift the year before. But only after the problem feeding the cat every Saturday morning if it meant Hermione got even a
initial shock had worn off and the brandy had started to sink in, of course. minute more sleep. She never indulged, rarely slept in, except on Saturdays, a strange
Without another word, they Floo’d to the Leaky and proceeded to their restaurant. twisting of his former day into a time for her to relax, unwind.
Stepping inside, Draco knew exactly why his parents might want to patronize such a From the distinct lack of a human greeting, he suspected she still slept soundly. He
place: expensive, exclusive, and touting a robust, authentically French menu with glanced at the clock over the sink: barely half eight. His breakfast had been cut
novel, self-seasoning dishes that adjusted to an individual’s palate. The entire terribly short by—well, by all of it, by everything.
establishment screamed of old money in new packaging, side ventures for the extra He left Crookshanks to enjoy his breakfast—one of them should, after all—and
Galleons earned from extraneous accounts long forgotten by old estates. Just the sort walked to the bedroom. She could have as much of Saturday for her relaxation as she
of thing that looked and felt like progress—new dishes, fresh linens, updated wanted. He’d managed to finagle every other day of the week for himself.
architecture—but that still excluded anyone and everyone who couldn’t afford the Suspiciously, her evenings had more time these days, too. She’d decreased the
literal and figurative price of entry. number of hours she spent at the manor into something resembling a normal work
Draco had almost stopped noticing the stares, having grown more accustomed to schedule.
them in the time he spent with Hermione in the wizarding world. With his parents, She didn’t seem to appreciate his implication that the only reason she’d worked so
though, his skin crawled under the inspection of several sets of eyes as the host led late in the past had been because of him. She’d flush a little bit pink, too.
them to a table. He paused at the threshold to their bedroom. The creep of sunrise trickled through
Lucius made it worse: head held high, haughty expression pulling his lips into a partly-drawn curtains on the east facing windows, casting a soft lemony glow about
sneer, ostentatious fucking cane clicking on the wooden floors with every step he the space. She’d invaded the room so fully he couldn’t help but marvel at the touches
took. Everything about his posture challenged the other patrons to say something, of red and gold warming his cool Slytherin sensibilities. The room felt still, preserved,
look for too long, pass judgement on them. a place out of step with time and space. Burgundy sheets, a bedside lamp with a gold
Draco sank into his chair, staring out the nearby window into Diagon Alley, base, a perpetually unused cat bed near the dresser with a Gryffindor crest
desperately wishing for an escape. embroidered on it. He’d take the admission to his grave, but here, in this stillness,
Breakfast with his parents at a restaurant felt much the same as breakfast with them this unrealness, he could admit he enjoyed the warmth of it: the warmth it brought
at the manor, but with the added benefit of an audience. Uncomfortable stares. Tight him. He never could have imagined such a thing before she’d invaded far more than
facial expressions. Stunted, awkward attempts at conversation. The change of scenery his home.
didn’t change the actors in the stage play his family had become. Toe to heel, he popped one of his dragonhide shoes off, discarding it by the door.
Draco reeled from the emotional whiplash. His morning with Hermione had been He shifted his weight, toe to heel again, and kicked off the other.
so perfect, so mind-numbingly lovely. But this? This was awkward and Hermione released a deep, sleepy breath from the bed across from him. She looked
uncomfortable. Every clink of silver against their plates sent a cringe careening up entirely otherworldly: curls splayed away from her face where they escaped her plait,
and down his spine, seeking release in expressions he kept forcibly neutral. one arm tucked under her pillow as she lay on her side. The covers had slipped to her
Narcissa glanced around the restaurant, a cascade of faces looking away as she hip; she’d probably thrown them down in a particularly vicious readjustment. She ran
scanned the room. She released a small, but tight breath. hot when she slept and was prone to heavy tossing and turning; a less-than-ideal
“We won’t be forced out of public from a few stares,” she said, dragging her knife sleeping companion, truth be told. He didn’t mind in the slightest.
through a perfectly rolled french omelette. He’d never seen anything more beautiful.
Lucius gave a stiff nod. “We have just as much right to dine here as they do.” His father couldn’t possibly understand what he demanded.
“Do we?” Draco asked without thinking. He blinked up at his parents, who had His mother mustn’t know what she asked.
both paused mid-bite at his sudden participation in their conversation. He resisted Draco sighed: contented, happy.
the urge to sigh. He’d already committed, he might as well dig himself a little deeper. He popped the link out from his french cuffs.
“What if the owner of this place is muggleborn?” He doubted it, based on what he’d Cuff links, for a breakfast on a weekend. He wondered what a breakfast routine
seen of the restaurant, but what-ifs made for important questions when trying to with Hermione would look like. He imagined a much more relaxed dress code. His
unravel absurdities. heart pushed against his ribs, yearning for something that simple.
His father scowled. His mother tittered a nerve-grating laugh. Draco waited for an He popped out the other cuff link and dropped them atop the dresser. He began
answer. unbuttoning his shirt, pausing halfway down his chest. She shifted, stirred.
“Don’t be silly, dear,” Narcissa said. “Such a lovely place like this? Quite unlikely.”
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Draco approached the bed. She wasn’t fully awake yet, but her face lacked the total How he loved to tease her, to string her impatience along as far as possible, a thread
serenity it usually had when she slept, which meant the day’s obligations had started stretched to its snapping point. And when it snapped, gods she was breathtaking.
making themselves known in the early morning fog inside her brain. He pulled “Draco,” she breathed, a frustrated growl edging out her tone. “I woke you up with
himself onto the bed, up on his hands and knees, crawling over her. plenty of time before you have to go.”
She shifted again, eyes blinking open. Her hands found his chest as he propped “Oh, did you?”
himself up on one elbow. With his free hand, he wrangled her mass of freshly slept Her fingers threaded through his hair, nails against his scalp.
hair away from her face. “I did.”
“Hi,” he said. “And what were you hoping to accomplish in all that time?”
She smiled, tired and slow, but glowing like nothing else. An entire fucking star’s “Draco Malfoy, if you do not take this ridiculous underwear off me right now, I
worth of light in his bedroom, spilling from her smile. swear to Merlin I will do it myself. And then take care of my own needs, you
“Hi.” She carded a hand through his hair, sending waves of relaxation rolling down frustrating man.”
his spine. “How did it go?” He laughed against her stomach before doing the opposite of what she asked,
He knew what she meant. She’d asked the same thing at least once a week for sliding back up her body and kissing the pout from her lips.
months now. For the first time, he could tell her, a small seedling of pride prepared “I have two questions,” he said, willpower nearly failing him as he relished the
to bloom in his chest. feeling of her body beneath him, her skin on his, two flimsy layers of fabric
“They’ve heard it from me. Definitively.” separating them. He ground his hips against hers as he asked, “Do you promise? And
Her hands fell from his hair and his chest; she blinked several times. Surprise can I watch?”
registered in the camera shutter technique her eyes had adopted, perhaps an attempt He’d never had a better birthday in his life.
to memorize the moment. She rolled fully to her back, hands finding him again.
Her shock melted into a smile, an even brighter star than before.
“What did they say?”
He couldn’t dim her happiness, not now. He’d told them. That they’d reacted as
poorly as expected, despite his hoping otherwise, needn’t ruin the day. Lucius and Narcissa met Draco in the Floo parlor, dressed in their traveling cloaks
Draco released some of his weight from his elbow, settling more fully atop her, one with tight, wary expressions on their faces. True to his word, and finally feeling like
leg slotted between her thighs. He knew her reaction was probably entirely reflexive, he’d found something of a balance between his old, obligatory routines with his
but that didn’t stop his smirk as she rocked against him, just enough that he couldn’t parents and his new lifestyle with Hermione, Draco had removed breakfast at the
deny the motion had happened. He dropped his head to hers, nearly forehead to manor from his schedule. He still spent nearly every evening dining with his parents,
forehead. She flushed, just as he’d hoped. She bit her lip, arched her spine, pressed strained as it was. But he gave his mornings to Hermione. His afternoons, too. His
against him. nights. His dreams. As much of himself as he had to offer.
“It could have gone worse,” he told her. But evidently, his parents had made reservations for a birthday breakfast at a new,
And that was his crime, always his crime. A lie by omission. expensive restaurant in Diagon Alley as soon as Lucius’s sentence had been
It could have been worse, so much worse. He could have been cursed, kicked out, commuted.
disowned. But it also could have gone substantially better. The gesture was—thoughtful. Though inconvenient. It would mark the first
She seemed to have lost interest in her question anyway, hands finishing his occasion that he ventured back out into public with his parents.
remaining buttons, slipping beneath his shirt to find skin. She pushed the fabric from He’d barely accepted the box of toffees from his mother, greeting her with a
his shoulders. He shifted his weight, from one arm to the other, freeing himself of perfunctory kiss to the cheek and a murmured thanks, when Lucius gestured for
the shirt. them to leave.
Her hands found his belt at the same time he lowered his lips to her neck, tracing “Our reservation was for ten minutes ago,” Lucius said, jaw tight, fingers flexing on
the long line of her throat with his tongue. the head of his cane. Draco followed the motion with cautious eyes; it felt unreal,
Leather slipped through belt loops. knowing his father had a wand there again. Something about his father’s wand felt
Air escaped lungs in panted whooshes. less like a tool for everyday life and more like a weapon he could wield. Knowing
Bodies pushed and pulled: desperate for contact, friction, more. Lucius had it in his possession snapped the muscles along Draco’s spine to stiff
She arched her back again, more intentionally this time, core grinding down against attention, incapable of feeling at ease.
his thigh as a tiny, broken noise found its way to the surface, traveling from He met his father’s eyes.
somewhere deep inside her lungs to the very tip of her tongue. “I apologize. I got held up at home.” Fucking my girlfriend through the mattress, over and
She trailed her hands down his chest, and he did the same to her. Lazily, his over and over again. Draco knew he probably looked a little bit shagged. Not excessively
forefinger found her bottom lip, pressing with just enough pressure to pop it free so, but he hadn’t bothered pulling himself into the pristine condition his parents
 300 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 285

“Oh, Draco. Don't embarrass me.” from where she’d trapped it between her teeth. He descended, over the delicate point
She only managed to cover half of herself before he was on her, body wedged of her chin, the underside of her jaw, following the same path down her throat that
against hers. He resisted a very vocal, yet nonverbal acknowledgement—a groan or a his tongue had just travelled. He paused at the hollow between her collarbones,
grunt or a moan—of just how much he loved the feeling of silk and lace against his nestled at the base of her neck. Flushes of red and pink, blood shooting to the
skin. surface of her skin, spotted her chest.
“Embarrass you?” His voice came out low, deadly serious. “Why would you be She inhaled; his palm rose with her breast bone.
embarrassed?” He descended again, lazy fingers appreciating every inch of satiny skin he came in
She blinked several times: tension melted from her muscles, seeped from her skin, contact with, memorizing every pink flush and drawn out shiver.
banished from their bed. His finger caught on the neckline of the cotton camisole she’d slept in. He pulled it
“You said it yourself,” she started. He kissed near the base of her throat, along her taught, drawing a line between her breasts, stretching the thin straps as he forced the
clavicle, restraint wavering. “This is hardly my usual—I thought you might like it but neckline into a vee shape. She’d stopped her own ministrations, hands falling limp at
I’m not”—she swallowed—”well, I’m not really sure I’m cut out for such impractical her sides in a boneless, breathless sort of way. Her chest had stilled, and Draco knew
undergarments.” without looking that she held her breath. If he did look, he knew he’d find her eyes
Draco literally could not fathom such a thing. Did she not look at herself in the trained on him, daring him to make another move, desperate to know what it would
mirror when she put on this glorious, outstanding, utterly debilitating collection of be.
fabric scraps? But Draco had already lost himself entirely to the sight of her newly exposed skin
He surged against her, one arm around her middle, lips traveling up her neck, as he pulled her camisole down. He slid his finger to the side, pulling the fabric taut
finding her ear. beneath her right breast, exposing it to their warm, Saturday morning bedroom.
“Do you feel that, Granger?”She shivered when he used her surname again. He She finally drew a breath, rattling through the room, echoing through his skull.
rocked against her, cock painfully hard against her hip. If he loved her enough, earned enough love in return, wouldn’t that suffice?
“You have to know how gorgeous you look, how badly I want you.” He canted his Couldn’t it negate everything else that said no, they couldn’t have this? When it was
hips again, enjoying a fractional burst of pleasure. “You putting on this ridiculous, just him, and her, and their tacky burgundy sheets, it certainly felt like it was enough.
impractical, fucking divine lingerie is the greatest birthday present I didn’t even know I He kissed the skin above her breast, where a purpling, mottled scar used to live,
wanted.” erased by the potion he’d made for her. Her hands moved again, tracing lines across
He forgot to breathe when her hand wrapped around his cock through his pants. his chest and torso where his own scars once thrived. This had to be enough. It had
“You are”—a kiss behind her ear—”the most”—a kiss beneath her jaw— already done so much good.
”beautiful fucking creature”—a kiss at the base of her throat—”I have ever seen”—a “I told my mother we’re stuck together, as you said. Stuck for a very long time.”
kiss through flimsy lace, tongue teasing her nipple—”in my entire life.” He spoke directly into her pores, lips to skin.
She writhed beneath him, squirming for contact just as desperately as he needed it, “How long?” The question rode on a quiet gust of air, barely breathed into
already flushed and panting and well beyond her embarrassment. He pulled away existence as he kissed his way down her chest.
enough to look at her face. Despite his impulse to have her quickly and desperately, “As long as you’ll have me.”
he intended to make the most of this glorious deviation from their norm. She hissed when he rolled his tongue around her nipple, hands grabbing at his
He placed tiny, barely-there kisses along the laced edges of her bra, memorizing the shoulders, either to push him away or pull him closer, depending on the torture she
shape, color, and feel of it against her skin, against his lips. If he wasn’t careful he preferred. He could hear the whining, pleading tone strangling her voice when she
would devour her. spoke.
“I’m very seriously considering skipping my birthday breakfast with my parents. “That’s—that’s a very long time.”
And they’ve mentioned on no less than six occasions how disappointed they are not That kind of confirmation, that she might want him as long as he wanted her,
to have me joining them regularly in the mornings any longer.” ignited a warm glow in the center of his chest. Relief and awe and wonder made a
She whined: a needy, instructional sound meant to tell him that he was talking too home behind his ribs.
much, that his lips had strayed too far from her skin. Her hips lifted off the mattress, “The rest of my life, hopefully.”
driving against this thigh. He said the brave, bold words quietly, still nuzzled against her skin as he touched
He dragged his tongue down her sternum, down the center of her stomach, straight and teased and tried his best to show her what it might look like. He’d been unbound
over the lacy fabric on her garter belt —fucking garter belt— and stopped at the edge of from just one day of the week, but could he be greedy? Could he steal whole years
her deliciously tiny knickers. for himself? A lifetime?
“I’d also be willing to miss our lunch with Theo and Blaise if it means I can keep She responded with a moan. Her fingers dug painfully in his shoulders. If he could,
you in this bed all day.” He angled to look back up at her as he let his breath coast he’d steal several lifetimes for himself, too. Eternities.
along the wet trail left by his tongue. She released a small, frustrated huff; he smiled.
 Beginning and end 299

-.750, -.833, -.916 “I’ve caught up with you again.” He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone,
memorizing the way her eyelids fluttered. “I’m twenty-four, you’re twenty-four.
Always just a bit behind you, I am.”
MAY He tasted her small laugh. Her eyes fluttered back open as she rolled them in
response to his weak, self-deprecating jab. Not so long ago, he wouldn’t have been
capable of such a statement, not even of conceiving it.
He disentangled a hand from her curls, slipping it beneath the covers in search of

T
ICK TOCK TICK TOCK her skin, twining his legs with hers, pulling her close.
Draco tried his best to ignore the stares. They could be worse, he told He found her skin. Easily. He found a lot of skin, and something distinctly lace-like.
himself. Theo seemed resigned. Hermione, entirely unfazed. Draco nearly choked on his own tongue as he threw the covers back.
With six years separating them from the war, and four from his house arrest, the “What in the— fucking hell, Hermione.”
frequency of suspicious or hateful looks sent his way had decreased, just as his skill at He might require emergency services. He didn’t much fancy spending his birthday
ignoring them grew from practice. in the hospital, but Hermione Granger had just made an attempt on his life via her
However, Draco always felt more visible than usual with Theo at his side, and even undergarments. She flushed a bright pink from her chest to her cheeks as he
more so with Hermione. Though, she’d disappeared somewhere in the antique shop struggled to regain his ability to speak.
as she monopolized the shopkeeper’s time with an unending stream of questions “You weren’t wearing that when we went to bed last night.”
about the history of each piece she found even remotely interesting. She held a curl hostage between her fingers, twisting and pulling it as she chewed at
Theo hadn’t spoken for several minutes, bent over a box of antique keys, pulling her bottom lip.
what felt like every last one out for a careful, obsessive evaluation before it either “No, I—woke up a little early and changed.”
went back into the box or earned a place among the others lining the floor beside She reached for the blankets in an attempt to pull them back up. Draco snatched
him. Draco tilted his head as he watched, opting to ignore that a woman had turned them from her, silently grateful for his Seeker’s reflexes.
the corner, eyes caught on Draco’s frustratingly identifiable white-blond hair, and “Oh no you don’t, Granger.” Impossibly, she flushed a deeper shade at his slip into
immediately retreated. using her surname. “Is this my present? Because if it is”—he flipped an errant curl
Draco counted another sixty seconds in his head before he gave into the impulse to over her shoulder and then let his forefinger trace her collarbone, towards her
crane his neck, needing a better look at Theo. With Hermione around, Theo had shoulder, finding a satin strap—”you have truly outdone yourself.”
seemed almost normal, but now that she’d busied herself with rare wandwood She groaned, one arm crossing her middle in a futile attempt at protecting her
antiques, he’d slipped into another mood entirely, cloud cover dulling his usual shine. modesty. Draco couldn’t fight his smile; the apples of his cheeks strained from the
He’d been off for months, since that conversation at Draco’s housewarming get- force of his grin. He slipped his finger beneath the strap and encouraged it to slip
together in January that—despite occasional, unsuccessful attempts on Draco’s over her shoulder, falling limp against her upper arm.
behalf to rehash—they’d never fully revisited. “This is so outside your norm, love. There’s so much lace and silk and fucking
Draco saw Theo’s shift manifesting in subtle things: strained smiles, bags beneath Merlin.” He paused, pulled in a breath through his nose. He’d missed it the first time,
his eyes, an inability (or perhaps a disinterest) in bending every room he entered to predictably distracted by her tits. “Is that a garter belt?”
his charismatic will. He and Hermione had a very healthy sex life. He knew this. He’d never in his life
It unsettled Draco. Such a subtle shift, he doubted anyone outside of himself or been so obsessively attracted to a woman. And she’d told him once, in the afterglow
Blaise had even noticed. Hermione only brought it up recently because it had started of several outstanding orgasms as he struggled to catch his breath, that she hadn’t
affecting her impeccable scheduling techniques. even known she could come more than once during sex. They had physically
“Hermione mentioned you haven’t wanted to do any boyfriend trawling lately?” satisfying sex. Emotionally satisfying sex. The kind of sex that Draco literally
Theo held up a huge, ornate silver key for inspection. His eyes narrowed, mouth fantasized about getting to spend his entire fucking life having.
twitched, before he dropped it back into the box. And now she’d gone and made it better by several orders of magnitude. She had
“Not really,” he said without so much as sparing Draco a second glance. purchased and put on a gorgeous little red lingerie set—he could forgive her
“You—you haven’t done much with her recently?” It sounded like a question. predictable Gryffindor color choice—and she looked completely otherworldly in it.
Draco thought he meant it as a question. But he wasn’t sure what the question Beauty that transcended his understanding of reality as it ground his brain to a halt
actually was. Worse, he wondered if it sounded more like an accusation. and sent all his blood rushing south. And all of it for him.
“I don’t want a boyfriend right now.” He settled back against his pillows, fingers laced together behind his head as he
Draco nodded. But as Theo continued staring at the bronze key currently under his stretched, settling in.
inspection, the motion had been entirely pointless. Draco grappled for another topic, “Well, let’s have a look, love. I’d like to get the full view.”
She clawed for the sheets again, refusing to meet his gaze.
 298 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 287

for something he could say. He didn’t have the first idea what criteria Theo searched
for in the antique keys he liked to turn into portkeys.
-.666, -.750, -.833 “You’ve been fiddling with portkeys more? Blaise used one the other month.”
Another question not quite question enough for its own good. He knew how to be a
friend to Theo. He did. They’d been friends their entire lives in varying degrees of
JUNE closeness. It ebbed and it flowed, but it still bore a constancy that could only be
shared by the last remaining heirs to two Sacred Twenty-Eight families.
But this felt foreign. Good intentions stuck behind ill-placed question marks and
statements that sounded like accusations. He just wanted to be sure that Theo was

T
ICK TOCK TICK TOCK alright. He’d been distant, disinterested in conversation bearing any substance, ever
The thing about fights with Hermione—which often ended up more like since that conversation in January, drunk on a balcony and probably a little more
runaway, misfired conversations drowned in good intentions—was that honest than he’d meant to be.
they never seemed to last. They were never more important than the other things in “I’m getting better. They’re more precise. Blaise landed in the middle of the
their life. Sure, they sometimes happened. Occasionally with the same spectacular gardens on my estate. I’d intended inside the greenhouse, but it was a very, very close
sort of implosion as Draco’s complete and utter fumble wherein he didn't-exactly- thing.”
not-propose to her. But at the end of the day, they could both agree that it would Two more keys made the cut, lined up carefully amongst the others in a row on the
never trump them. floor by Theo’s feet.
It was a unique sort of conflict management in which Draco learned he could “Where else do they go?”
simply decide not to let something affect him, or his relationship with Hermione. They “Anywhere. Everywhere.”
could move on: together. So he didn’t propose. Though he didn’t not propose, either. “So you need more keys?”
Not yet. He’d left a stasis charm on a bigger relationship milestone—the biggest, he Hermione wound her arms around Draco’s torso from behind. He stiffened
could probably argue—and he knew he couldn’t manage it indefinitely. immediately, nearly jumped, but settled as he recognized the hands wrapped around
Such impending considerations for his future only registered in a peripheral way as his waist: devious, dangerous hands that he loved. Her small laugh coasted through
he woke on the morning of his birthday: rested, contented, and with a breathy, his shirt fabric and straight to his spine.
beautiful voice singing in his ear. Theo looked up, eyes instantly more alert as he lobbed a smirk at her, a break in the
He smiled, eyes still closed as he laid on his side, back facing Hermione. He clouds.
savored each and every warm touchpoint where her body pressed against him as she “Ah, too early, Granger. My selection process is rigorous; I need more time. You’ll
leaned over his shoulder, hot breath gusting across his ear, fingers walking a flaming have to find another historically significant antique to learn about. If you ask nicely,
path up his ribs. I’m sure Draco will even buy it for you.”
He dared to open his eyes, bedroom awash in a faint blue, early morning light. He She laughed again, arms tightening around his middle. The Weaslette might enjoy
twisted to see her, smile shifting into a smirk, the sort of affected snark he was making snide remarks about the pointiness of his features, but Draco could tell at
allowed to indulge in on his birthday. exactly what angle Hermione had tilted her head to peer around his torso based on
“While this is undoubtedly the best start to a birthday I have ever had, your lyricism the way her own chin of not-insignificant-pointiness dug into his ribs. It didn’t seem
might require work. I don’t know that you can repeat happy birthday to you over and so pointy, just looking at her. But gods the woman knew how to weaponize it if she
over again and call it a song, lovely as the tune may be.” leaned into him in just the right, or perhaps wrong, way.
He rolled more fully on his back, infected by her smile as she giggled, quieted, then “I’d much rather he’d buy me books. We’re going to Flourish and Blotts after this.”
sobered. “And here I thought we were going to lunch together. Once we set you loose in
“No, Draco. It’s a—you know what? Never mind. I’ll forgive your pureblood that bookstore we won’t be free until dinner, at the earliest, perhaps not even until
ignorances just this once. But only because it’s your birthday.” breakfast tomorrow morning.” Theo arched a brow as he spoke, weighing two keys
He smiled, not even remotely riled by her implication that she knew something he between his hands and maintaining what looked so much like an effortless smile.
didn’t. He leaned in, hands winding through her hair as he kissed her: lazy, sweet, She released Draco’s middle. “I’ll let you take as much time as you like with your
smiling birthday kisses for the beautiful woman he had the pleasure of waking up to keys if I can have as long as I want with my books. Deal?”
in his—their—bed. Theo stuttered a short, disbelieving kind of laugh, the first genuine expression
Her breath caught against his mouth as he pulled her bottom lip between his teeth, Draco had seen on his face the entire day.
a gentle pressure as he endeavored to savor every last touch from her. He let her lip “Wagers? From a Gryffindor? Who taught you that?” His eyes flicked to Draco.
pop free, smiling, still nose to nose with her. “Nevermind. I do not want to know what sorts of things you two bet about. But you
have a deal.”
 288 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 297

Draco glanced down at Hermione, who had stepped into view beside him. She important than the witch standing in front of him. He lifted his hand, cradling her
smiled, first at Theo, then at him. She leaned, bumping her hip into his—well, more cheek in his palm as he held his face near hers.
into his mid thigh—before she left them again, presumably to find another antique to “I love you,” he said, needing her to hear.
learn about. “I love you, too.”
Theo’s demeanor shifted immediately, clouds rolling back overhead. Draco didn’t He needed to hear it as well.
know if he ought to take solace in the fact that Theo didn’t seem to be making any
effort to hide his unusual mood around him. Theo returned to his keys, more careful
and methodical in his selection process than he had been with Hermione watching.
When she’d been standing with them, he almost looked light-hearted, like he enjoyed
the process. But now, each selection had a strange undercurrent to it, a sense of
urgency, of desperation, of need to identify just the right one.
Draco hovered, failing to ask the right questions, as Theo sifted through the rest of
the keys until he’d finally made his selections, concluding their time in the antique
shop. Theo’s strange demeanor—now focused on the bag of keys that jingled with
his every step as they walked to Flourish and Blotts—resurfaced any time Hermione
dipped out of sight.
Draco wondered how much energy it took to turn on whatever performance he
turned on for Hermione. It had to be exorbitant, based on how it so instantly slipped
as she abandoned them at the threshold to the bookstore, beelining to her favorite
corner packed with works on Arithmancy and Ancient Runes.
Theo paused at an atrocious display of new releases; far too many versions of
Potter’s face stared back at them from the dozens of covers on display. Theo picked
up a book, flipped it over, and made a thoughtful noise as he read the back. Draco
found he didn’t particularly want to look at Potter’s unblinking face for too long and
opted to gaze elsewhere, perhaps in search of a riot of chestnut colored curls.
“An unofficial biography,” Theo said from beside him. “They’re calling Potter the
‘master of death.’” Draco snorted, glancing back at Theo.
Theo’s mouth twisted into a considering frown before he shrugged, head tilting
with the motion. “Seems a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
“It’s Potter. Of course it’s dramatic.”
“Thought you two were not-friends-but-not-enemies anymore?” Theo returned the
book to its kin, dozens of Potters blinking at them from behind his stupid black
spectacles.
“He’s fine. His wife is more tolerable than he is but—he’s a bit of an inescapable
entity in Hermione’s life, so.” Draco gestured vaguely to his person, shrugging as he
did so. “I’m being civil, making—something peace-like. He throws a tolerable party.”
Rather than respond to that, Theo stared at the books, brows drawn together.
They’d just had an almost-lively, normal conversation. But as he stared at Potter’s
unofficial biography, Theo’s liveliness fell away again.
“I wouldn’t mind a title like that,” he said, eyes narrowed as if something on the
cover of the book required solving, understanding. “Perhaps I’ll go for ‘master of
space and time.’ I’ve already got the time turner. Working on perfecting portkeys—
maybe that’s the thing I can do. That I’m good at.”
Draco couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
“Theo, you’re good at literally almost everything you try. It’s obnoxious, honestly.
If you hadn’t been my housemate and childhood friend I’d have called you a swot as
ruthlessly as I did Hermione.”
 296 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 289

with each other? Break up? His stomach, which already felt as if it had descended Draco fought the impulse to step between Theo and the book display; the extended
into the earth, managed to drop even further. eye contact with Potter’s photograph had started to veer towards menacing. It didn’t
“Draco,” she started. “Your family barely even—” even appear that Theo had heard him.
“—You’re my family.” If nothing else, he knew that much. “Maybe that’s my curse,” Theo said, finally looking up at Draco. “Constantly
She cleared her throat. “Your parents. They’ve barely gotten over the shock of—” wondering about the ‘what-ifs.’ What could I have changed? Where could I have
“—My father’s sentence is being commuted. He’ll have his wand by the end of the gone? But never doing any of it.”
week. He’ll be able to leave the manor.” It was as if they’d used the time turner in question, stepped back in time to January,
It felt important that she knew, even if he couldn’t explain to himself why. He’d on Draco’s balcony, drunk and a bit despondent. Had these thoughts been plaguing
lost complete control over this conversation, over what was meant to be an attempt Theo for months?
to help her feel at ease in their home. Instead, he’d probably made it so much worse. “Theo. I’m—worried about you. Are you okay?”
He might as well have just pulled out that notorious ruby necklace and tried to give “You asked me that before.”
that to her again. “And the answer was clearly no, but you walked away. And you haven’t let me ask
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—why don’t you see if Theo wants to build again for months. You’re just—pretending.”
new wards with you? He much prefers building them to breaking them. And he does “It’s exhausting.”
need to get out of his manor more.” There was a bit of honesty, a tiny sliver of truth. Theo’s eyes widened. He shook
She seemed grateful for the diversion, tension around her eyes loosening. his head, and Draco got the distinct impression that he hadn’t meant to reveal so
“That’s a good idea.” She spoke slow words, as if expecting an interruption, or much, speak with such candor.
perhaps to change her mind. “It’s fine,” Theo said, taking a half step away. “I’m handling it.”
Draco nodded his assent. His whole body had tensed, sinkhole haphazardly filled “Is this about the vault? I know it being empty was a disappointment but—maybe
with shifting sands that only masked the damage if he stood very, very still. you could fill it? You’re good at so much—your portkeys and stuff.”
“Well. I have to meet Blaise—potions stuff.” “It’s not—it is—Draco, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m just having an off
“I’ll see you later?” she asked, bottom lip pulled between her teeth, flesh washed couple of months.”
out as she held her normal blood flow hostage. “Theo—”
“After I have dinner at the manor, yes.” “Have a nice lunch with Granger. I’ve got to go.”
She frowned. “Right. But we’re still having dinner together tomorrow, aren’t we?” And before Draco could object, or even blink to clear his thoughts at the
He nodded again, a new thought rushing him. “And I was thinking. Two meals a suddenness of Theo’s shift, he’d been left alone, standing in front of The Unofficial
day—it’s a lot. Perhaps I could see if, well, maybe I could stop taking breakfasts with Biography of Harry Potter and his disconcerting stare.
them.” “Did I just see Theo leave?” Hermione asked, sliding up beside him and tilting her
She swallowed, a small nod, a smaller smile. head at the dozens of Potters in front of them. “Well that’s unsettling,” she added
“I was planning on cooking for you—tomorrow.” with a slight shiver.
“I could take you out instead?” “He had to go.”
Another idea unfurled. His parents knew—had known in some capacity—about She frowned. “Oh,” she said, posture dropping. “I’d been looking forward to
them for months. They still spent so much of their time in muggle London out of lunch. Is everything alright?”
habit, but they could go anywhere, wizarding or not. Make a scene. Be grand. And he Draco didn’t even consider lying to her, hiding the truth, or otherwise omitting in
could already see her dissent forming. any way.
“I haven’t been able to spoil you,” he said. “I’m not sure.”
“I don’t—I don’t need to be spoiled.” Her hand found his arm, squeezing at the inside of his elbow.
“Paris. I could take you to Paris?” “We’ll have to have him over soon, check in on him?”
“For dinner?” Draco agreed, already planning an owl to Blaise, hoping he could help.
“Or the weekend.” A wild curl called to Draco, spiralling away from Hermione’s face. He reached out
“Tomorrow’s Monday.” and tucked it behind her ear before leaning to kiss her temple. Her frown persisted,
“The week, then.” but he knew that frown, knew that expression; she layered it with thinking, and
“I have to work.” concern, and a tiny dose of scheming that he found far more attractive than he would
Draco’s excitement ground to a halt.”Right,” he said. have ever thought of himself.
“So I’ll cook.” He could read her. He knew her.
Draco glanced at the clock. So much time had passed and yet he barely felt like And it struck him, absurdly in the middle of a Flourish and Blotts with Harry
he’d blinked. He was already late to meeting Blaise, but that seemed far less Potter’s fucking face staring at him from a few dozen different book covers, that he
 290 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 295

could read Hermione better than he could read Theo. And he’d known Theo his “Yes,” he said. And he meant it. To him, she was family. And saying so felt brave
entire life. and stupid and reckless like a certain Gryffindor he knew but, weirdly, it also
That revelation simultaneously made him want to mourn the loss of something exhilarated him. “Yes,” he said again. “Yes, we’re family? Don’t you think?”
with his best friend and celebrate the cementing of something that felt so real, so He found something very interesting about the brickwork around the fireplace: an
powerful with Hermione. easier thing to focus on than Hermione’s face. He’d let too much out. In a lifetime
He offered her his hand and they walked to lunch. This time, he ignored the stares; spent holding in the things he really wanted to say, Hermione had the astonishing
they meant nothing, not by comparison, not by a long shot. ability to break down every last wall used to keep the words back. But now that he’d
started, now that the words had slipped through, he couldn’t stop. So long as he kept
his focus on the bricks or the grout or the mantel, he could say the things he’d yet to
figure out how to say directly to her face.
“I think it, at least,” he said, perhaps clarifying, perhaps digging a deeper grave.
Meals with Draco’s parents deteriorated. He attended purely out of obligation, out “And when we’re married, I don’t want you to feel like this isn’t your home.” A
of disintegrating respect for the fact that he had very little else in the way of a thought struck him. Finally, he tore his gaze from the fireplace. “Should we move?”
relationship with them, and that realization managed to somehow both relieve and Hermione blinked, doing nothing to mask how wide her eyes had grown. She tilted
terrify him. His efforts to maintain what routines they still had though, did not her head, some of the color draining from her face.
guarantee any sort of comfort. He’d almost grown accustomed to the strange, “When we’re married?”
avoidant conversation his parents had been engaging him with since the beginning of Draco’s skin felt alive, panicked and crawling. He couldn’t help but see an image of
the year, since he’d dropped the idea of Hermione on them over Christmas. his father, forcing his way between them. She must have seen a question in the way
Now, their meals had returned to the awful, awkward quiet of the post-betrothal- he failed to respond, his manic mood rendering him momentarily mute.
explosion days, poised between not knowing how to interact and not having the “You said—when we’re married. Like it’s a fact. Or an inevitability.”
energy to make the effort. It created a strange undercurrent, riptides threatening to Draco’s mania stalled; his world stopped. The earth, for that moment, ceased
pull him under at every crack of house elf magic and tink of silver against china. rotation. Time paused. How had he ended up so deep in such a conversation he
If Draco considered the raw volume of food presented at their meal, it had hadn’t even intended to have?
dropped as steeply as their conversation topics. What had been a veritable “It—I—it is?” He didn’t know if he was asking it as a question. “You’ve moved in
smorgasbord of dining options in the months prior had whittled, probably out of with me. That’s—well that’s normally not done until after marriage, but this is hardly
spite, to an assortment of pastries, fruit, tea, and eggs—but only if he so fancied a traditional courtship, is it?”
making a special request with Tilly. He couldn’t ignore how she tensed at the word courtship. Like it was some kind of
Despite this decline in grandeur and the disquiet weaving its way across the dirty, terrible word that offended her many and varied progressive sensibilities.
tablecloth, a different undercurrent swept beneath them. Her breath caught before she could fully speak her sentence, as if her words stuck
Draco consumed his breakfast in near-perfect silence for almost forty-five minutes on sticky vocal cords. He watched as something unreadable and entirely
before someone finally spoke. His mother cleared her throat, setting her teacup on its overwhelmed overtook her features.
saucer. “Is that—a proposal?” She looked legitimately terrified, voice quiet and contained.
“You’ll be pleased to hear,” she started in a perfectly normal tone and as if nothing Eyes still wide, conveying every ounce the confusion that he, too, felt.
about their morning meal had been awkward and silent and awful to endure. “After “I—” he started. He kept doing that. How did he keep doing that? Stumbling into
several years of no progress, your father’s request to commute his sentence has been milestones with her. First an accidental date and now what, an accidental almost-
heard.” proposal? He supposed, technically, it wasn’t not a proposal. But it certainly wasn’t a
“Heard?” proposal, either. He felt a little like he might be sick.
“Accepted,” Narcissa said, offering him a close-lipped smile before taking another “Would you?” he asked, only belatedly realizing it had barely even been a sentence.
sip of her tea. “Would I what?”
His mother’s words were an undertow, pulling Draco’s feet from beneath him, torn “If I asked you. Would you say yes? If—if this, or at some time, if there was a
from safe shallows and dragged to open sea. The entire surface of his skin tingled, proposal?”
pinpricks of anxiety battering him like waves. He turned to see Lucius watching him He definitely felt like he might be sick. Because if that hadn’t been an accidental
from the head of the table. When he’d decided to abandon his ever-present copy of proposal before, this certainly was. He wanted to hop back into the Floo. He couldn’t
The Daily Prophet , Draco could not say. go to the manor, but Theo’s place would suffice.
Draco swallowed; he could feel his Adam’s apple dragging down his neck. He She’d been right, too. He had thought of marriage as a sort of inevitability, even if
resisted the urge to clear his throat. he’d never outright admitted it to himself. What else did people do after they lived
 294 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 291

She leaned away under the guise of examining the room, searching for her answer. “But—the Ministry. They haven’t wanted anything to do with”—he looked from
“I’ve just—been providing for myself since, well”—her eyes glassed over and his father to his mother and back again, implication mostly understood—”any of us.
widened, a swell of tears catching her off guard—”oh, no. Why am I crying?” They bin your files every year.”
He didn’t know. But he’d started to panic, caught between wanting to reach out Lucius lifted a brow, a dangerous, proud sort of amusement flickering across his
and offer her comfort and give her space to pull herself together. face. Draco hadn’t seen that kind of satisfaction on his father’s face in years.
“Gods,” she continued, dragging a finger beneath her eye to wipe away the tear she “We finally found the right palms to grease. The right incentive, for the right
barely gave a chance to fall. “I guess it’s been since the war? When I obliviated my person, goes a long way.”
parents? And we—we were on the run after that and since then, really, I’ve just— “And they—just like that?” Draco couldn’t comprehend it. His father’s house
provided. But especially after Ron and I broke up—” arrest had felt so permanent, so immutable. That it might actually be shortened—
She sighed. With a halfhearted grasp, she reached out to hold his hand, fingers he’d taken the Ministry’s dismissal of them at face value.
barely entwined with his, but a comfort nevertheless. “My little flat—I know it wasn’t “Just like that,” Lucius said, the corner of his mouth lifting to a smirk. Draco knew
much, but I paid for it. Which, I know doesn’t mean much the same thing to you that expression; he used it regularly himself. It only occurred to him—right then and
since money just—is different for your family. But I bought my own groceries and there—where he’d learned it, who he’d fashioned it after.
managed my own wards and I—it was mine. None of this is mine.” “I don’t—” Draco started, gaze pinging between his mother and his father. “I don’t
She pulled her hand away, wiping a fresh well of tears with a frustrated growl. “It’s understand how.”
not worth crying about. I don’t—I don’t want to cry about it.” “This is how things like this usually work,” Lucius said. A supreme satisfaction
A sinkhole opened up inside Draco’s chest, a painful seizing as it swallowed his seeped from his aura. “You don't get what you want. Until you finally do.”
heart, his lungs, his ribs: blood, muscle, and bone all consumed by the agony that Something about seeing his mother looking at Lucius, with a pride and fondness
Hermione didn’t feel at home with him. Draco hadn’t seen so overtly in so long, made it all that much worse. His father
She’d gone quiet, slow breathing, tears held at bay as she looked helplessly at the seemed more like himself, his mother seemed pleased about it, and that rapid orbit of
book-inundated room around them. the way things used to be couldn’t possibly be sustained for long. Orbits came in two
He didn’t know how to help. He had so little control. Almost none. So he clung to forms: stable or degrading. This one felt doomed straight for a black hole.
the things she said that he could control, that he could give her. Draco addressed the tablecloth somewhere between his mother and father when he
“Do you want to manage the wards? Build them from scratch yourself? I’ve been spoke again. “So what does all that mean?”
using a variant on my family’s but—you can change them—make them yours. Ours. Narcissa answered, teeth bared in something that looked like a true, genuine smile.
Gods, Hermione, I—” “As of the end of the week, your father will have his wand back. And he will be
He’d already drawn his wand, conjuring the flat’s wards and dismantling them rune permitted to leave the property. He will be a normal, respected member of society
by rune. Hermione watched him work, saying nothing. “All of this is yours. You again.”
don’t”—he pulled back another layer in the wards—”I don’t want you to feel guilty Once upon a time, Draco might have held his tongue, might have choked on words
for not having to do everything on your own, by yourself.” left unspoken. But time and distance and an insistent Gryffindor had softened his
Draco took a half step towards the Floo, addressing the access wards directly. He’d reflex to hold it all in. Sometimes—in this case, the worst time—the words spilled
entirely lost himself in the process, determined that Hermione should never feel that out anyway.
way again. “That’s not—not how family works. You get support, you get help, you— “He will never be a normal, respected member of society again.”Draco sucked in a
” breath, surprised with himself. Cresting on that wave of surprise: invigoration. Fuck,
“—is that what we are?” Hermione’s question, quiet and breathless, pulled him if it didn’t feel good to just say it. “Don’t you see that? Money and a commuted
from his fixation with the wards. He’d hardly even paid attention to his words, sentence won’t convince anyone to forget what this family has done. I still get looks.
babbling as he worked. Theo gets them and he wasn’t even marked.”
“Are we—what?” His world caught up with him in an echo, finally remembering It was his explosion over Hermione all over again. Was he stuck in some kind of
the things he’d said. His heart gave one huge, painful thump inside his chest as he loop? Some sort of inability to have a meal with his family that didn’t include an
swallowed. emotional outburst involving far too much cathartic candor?
“You said—are we a family? Is that what we are?” He heaved, lungs stinging from what must have been a lack of oxygen he hadn't
Draco realized he’d gone a little agape, a little panicked. Of all things, an image of even noticed. He powered on, poorly restrained by his parents’ stunned silence.”I
his parents’ pleased faces discussing his father’s impending return to society flashed don’t know what kind of world you think exists outside this property, but it's not one
behind his eyes. Draco had no idea what their return to normal life would require of that will welcome you. Not as you are now.”
him, how that future dynamic would look. Lucius finally snapped, cane cracking against stone floors.
He only knew what he wanted in his dynamic with Hermione. He abandoned
caution. He’d already essentially said it, anyway.
 292 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 293

“I know exactly what kind of world is out there. One where my son thinks his attempt to avoid falling on her, falling on books, or simply falling on the floor. Her
duties to this family mean nothing. That they are optional. I raised you to respect our hands found his upper arms, stabilizing him.
traditions, our history.” “What is—Hermione?”
Draco couldn’t feel his fingers, possibly not his toes, either. Whole extremities Based on his quick assessment of the space as he righted himself—claiming a tiny,
blinked out of existence as he tried to control his breathing, tried not to lose his open spot of floor—every single book owned between the two of them had been
temper. So much had already been fractured at this table. He didn’t want to break stacked on their living room floor. Draco might have taken a step back in surprise if
anything else. he’d had any room to move. But at the smallest shuffle, his dragonhide shoes
His jaw ached as he held his temper tightly. “You raised me to believe you blindly.” bumped up against the spine of a book.
“Draco, stop this,” Narcissa interjected from across the table. Her smile had “I’m organizing.”
vanished, replaced by pursed lips and wide eyes that begged him not to ruin this for “I—think we have different definitions of that word.”
them. “You should be pleased. We will finally be able to resume normal life.” She shrugged, scanning the room with a fond smile as she tucked a curl behind her
“Normal life?” He couldn’t help but laugh, head shaking at the absurdity of such a ear.
thought. “I have to see everything that needs organizing in order to organize.”
Then the thought more fully sank in. Normal life. What did that entail? What would “And why, might I ask, are you reorganizing our books?”
that entail? Whatever their normal life looked like before had been completely “I keep having to buy more biographies I’m not interested in for barely
obliterated and deemed illegal, fallen entirely out of favor. Normal life didn’t have a recognizable public figures whose surnames begin in ‘E.’ So, it’s a good thing you
place in modern life. have so much space here. You might even need to buy some more shelves.”
It occurred to Draco that his parents had been treating the past several years—this He chuckled.
house arrest—like some kind of extended stasis charm. They waited, biding their “You mean we have so much space here. This is your flat, too.”
time until they could have their version of normal again. A cold dread settled in the Her smile didn’t vanish, but it did freeze, going perfectly still in a way that said,
pit of Draco’s stomach. Did that mean they had no intentions of evolving under the without focus, it would have disappeared entirely; only her willpower kept it in place.
pressures that had changed the world around them while they paid their penance in “I know.”
this manor? He felt suddenly like she needed convincing. Which he couldn’t understand.
Neither offered any sort of response to his question, if it was really a question at all. “It is.”
He locked eyes with his mother. “I know,” she said again. “I just—well, since I don’t pay for anything, I don’t really
“This is like a horror movie.” He felt enough fear and dread, at least, for it to be feel like I’m contributing.”
such a thing. “You don’t have to.”
She tilted her head, a line forming between her brows. The books caged Draco in and separated him from her, a tower of tomes between
“Movie?” them.
Draco blinked, air whooshing out of him. Of course. She had no idea what a movie She scanned the room again, this time her smile twisted towards a grimace. “It
was. Neither of them did. Movies had no part in their version of normal, in either the doesn’t so much feel like my home, in that sense. So I decided to reorganize the
past or present. books today. I thought maybe—if our collections were better integrated—”
He stared at the strawberries on his plate, incapable of looking at his parents’ Draco stepped over a stack, a strangling tension in his chest requiring that he close
unsettling excitement. He didn’t want to think about what their new version of the distance between them. How many months had it been now? She’d moved in
normal looks like. with him in the middle of January and now, in May, she’d had this realization?
The last time they’d had normal, he’d ended up as cannon fodder in a war that He’d just assumed she shared his wild, incandescent happiness. He assumed their
meant absolutely nothing. new arrangement worked as beautifully for her as it did for him.
He tried to close the gate to an unwelcome stampede of thoughts inside his head,
but they broke through his faulty latches, barreling to the forefront of his mind.
What if she decided the flat didn’t feel enough like a home?
What if she’d grown tired of feeling that way?
Draco returned from breakfast with his parents at his usual time, having suffered What if she decided this wasn’t working for her anymore?
through the remainder of the meal in an uncomfortable silence. Acid churned in his What if she left?
stomach as his parents moved onto excited conversation about the expansion of their “How can I help?” he asked. He had to know. He needed to know. “What can I do
social calendar now that Lucius would no longer be bound to the manor. to make it better?”
As he exited the Floo, Draco tumbled into Hermione. He looped his arms around He took another step closer. If she picked up one of her hundreds of books, she
her middle out of instinct, twisting as he took a large step over a stack of books in an could fit it between them, but just so, nothing more.
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convinced him that perhaps he’d arrived at the wrong time. He pulled his Lucius cleared his throat as Draco dusted a sparkling cinder of Floo powder from
pocketwatch from his trousers. his trousers. “We’re pleased to have you here, son.”
The watch told him what he already knew; it was dinnertime at Malfoy manor, and Draco straightened. A deep breath. Strained words.
yet, the esteemed inhabitants were nowhere to be found. “I’m pleased to be here.”
Draco sighed and called for Topsy. When she arrived with a crack, she spun, ears “Are you?”
flopping, giant eyes squinting at the concentrated light from his lumos. Narcissa’s arm shot out, viper fast until it found its target, laying a gentle hand on
“Hello Topsy,” he said, crouching as he held his wand to the side, allowing the light Lucius’s forearm.
to better diffuse around them. “I’ve come to speak with my parents. Are they out for “Enough,” she said. “We’d like to enjoy our evening. The elves have prepared a
the evening?” lovely six courses for us. Classic french cuisine. Your favorite, darling.”
“No, no,” Topsy squeaked, hands holding onto the tips of her ears. “They is having Draco must have made a face, a slip of an expression where otherwise he meant to
their dinner.” have none.
Crouched at eye level with the elf, Draco tilted his head, a brow lifting. He looked “Is that—not the case anymore?” she asked.
pointedly at the vacant, dark dining table beside them. Such a simple question. But the passage of time, of space, of distance that it
“Not here,” Topsy said. “The small dining room.” implied, of a divergence in paths, placed his preferences and her knowledge of them
And before Draco could marvel, or ask a clarifying question, or do anything else in on opposite sides of the ever growing valley between them.
response to Topsy’s words, she reached out with her little hands and whisked them Draco put considerable effort into the smile he forced onto his face: a small, tight,
away in a crack of elf magic. insincere thing. But an attempt nonetheless.
A moment later, they landed in the small dining room with its table for six, seating “I’ve been partial to Italian cuisine recently.”
two. Lucius and Narcissa sat together at one end, staring at him with identical The smile his mother returned, much more elegant in its insincerity than his own,
expressions of surprise. Then it shifted. On Narcissa, surprise became a smile as she wedged its way inside his cracks and tried, fruitlessly, to fill them up.
rose, already approaching with a greeting. On Lucius, surprise became suspicion, As they walked to the dining room—his parents two paces ahead of him as he
making no move to acknowledge Draco’s sudden arrival. trailed behind, a reluctant dinner guest—Draco couldn’t help but focus his every
“What are you doing here, darling? We would have prepared a full service had we thought on the ring in his pocket, stretching his trouser fabric with every step. It felt
known you planned to join us.” She wrapped her hands around his forearms, as if to like a tiny star he carried with him, a bright spot of hope from Hermione, for
determine his solidity. Then, with confirmation of his physical form, she pulled him Hermione.
into a hug. A light jasmine scent followed her movements, lingering in his space even Topsy and Tilly greeted them in the dining room. He nodded to Topsy as she
as she pulled away. She turned to Lucius, hands back on Draco’s forearms. This time delivered a glass of wine to his seat.
it felt like she meant to keep him in place, unwilling to let him go. “Did we receive an “It’s nice to see you, Topsy. Mopsy sends her regards.” He missed having Topsy
owl?” around, even if just to stock his flat with food. But autonomy and respect for
“I would have told you if we did. Unfortunately, I believe we had no advance working conditions—Hermione’s words, not his—were the price he paid to keep his
notice of this intrusion.” witch happy in their home.
Narcissa ushered Draco towards the table, pressure from her fingertips insisting Topsy flushed, stuttering her thanks, tiny hands grabbing at her drooping ears out
that he follow. “Don’t listen to your father, darling. It’s no intrusion at all.” of embarrassment.
“I didn’t come to dine with you,” he said. It was a weak protest, punctuated with Tilly appeared on his left with a crack and a warm towel for his hands.
defeat as he took a seat, regardless. “Tilly, thank you. Lovely to see you as well. Milly says hello from Nott Manor.”
Lucius lifted a brow. At a much smaller table, the action felt more personal, so Tilly nearly dropped her tray of towels before squeaking her thanks and hurrying to
close. “You know what time we dine.” his parents. When Draco looked up, gaze flicking from his mother to his father and
“I—” he faltered. His logic, his reasoning, it felt so sound not so long ago. Narcissa back again, he found that they wore near-identical expressions of confusion, brows
reclaimed her seat across from him. drawn tight.
“Yes?” she asked, resuming her meal as if his appearance hadn’t been entirely out Draco’s mouth dropped open in preparation to defend himself, recognizing the
of nowhere. struggle for comprehension on his parents’ faces.
“Why are you eating in here?” “Theo,” he started. “He does this thing with the sibling elves between our manors.
Of all the things he might have asked: that was what he went with, still a bit stupefied Just little bits of correspondence.”
from disorientation. Narcissa took a long, slow sip of her wine. She held it by the glass, not by the stem,
“We—hardly need a full service for the two of us,” Narcissa said. and that tiny break in protocol, especially for a white wine, felt important somehow.
“But you always eat in the dining room.” She set the glass down and looked at him, engaging in a rapid series of blinks as lines
carved their way across her forehead, broadcasting her confusion.
 314 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 351

“And—why?” she asked. had so few pillars left, carefully arranged and painstakingly maintained. He knew
Draco tilted his head. He heard two cracks in rapid succession. Both Topsy and enough about Pansy to know that she could topple them if she wanted to; he didn’t
Tilly had disappeared. know enough about her anymore to know if she would.
“They enjoy it?” he said, not intending for it to sound so much like a question. “I might have mentioned over tea the other day that you’re with Granger now.”
“I—imagine it’s nice? Hearing from their siblings at another estate.” That shouldn’t have made Draco nervous, shouldn’t have dropped a cold stone of
Lucius made a derisive sort of sound into his Viognier. unease in the pit of his stomach. But as he turned towards Theo in the back of the
Narcissa said nothing, made no noise at all. shop, he felt the first chilly tendrils of dread making their presence known.
They consumed five courses in silence, punctuated by cracks of elf magic, silver on “What did she say?”
china, and Draco’s new, rebellious insistence on establishing further correspondence “She was surprised. Bit nasty, you know Pans. Laughed when I told her we like
between Topsy, Tilly, Mopsy, and Milly. Granger now—”
During dessert service, Narcissa finally said something.”You needn’t fuss so much “Oh we do, do we?”
over them, dear.” “—but you want to know what she asked me?”
It had been nearly a half hour and suddenly, there they were again, discussing house “Honestly not sure that I do, but I’m certain you’ll tell me.”
elves as if they’d never stopped. “She wanted to know if you’re happy. And she was glad to hear that you were.”
But he supposed that was how it went. Carrying on dead conversations couldn’t be Theo hopped off the counter and clapped his hands together. “So. I’ve done all the
nearly as cumbersome as carrying on dead beliefs, and his parents had done that for hard work for you, really. Just owl her.”
years. “I already told Hermione she could help me pick out the fixtures.”
He felt sick. The inside of his mouth had a buttery, saturated quality to it, Theo rolled his eyes at what Draco could freely admit had been a feeble excuse.
overindulged from rich foods and spite-driven conversations with elves. He thought “Good thing you don’t actually need to pretend you want Pansy’s help to talk to
of the ring in his pocket. her.”
He knew he didn’t want their permission. He wouldn’t inform them of what he “You’re a menace.”
planned to do. They knew about Hermione and that would have to be enough. They “You wanted me to be happy—fixing this is going to make me happy.”
knew how long they’d been together, roughly, at least. They knew she’d moved in “You’re a manipulative menace,” Draco amended, already feeling as a seedling took
with him several months prior. If they failed to divine from those obvious clues root from the idea Theo had so forcibly planted inside his skull.
where his relationship with her was headed, then that was their own doing and he
would not take responsibility for their intentional ignorance.
More than that, asking for permission to use the family heirlooms, heirlooms he
absolutely had a right to whether they wanted to acknowledge it or not, felt like asking
to continue his life in the way they saw fit. He had no intentions of doing anything of Draco arrived at the manor mid-dinner service for no other reason than because it
the sort. felt like the right time to go. Meals with his parents had always been a sort of
He kept the ring in his pocket. constant for him, a beginning and end to his day. He started his days with family,
He kept chatting with Topsy and Tilly. closed them as well. The breakdown of that routine over the last year, as he
And he kept his questions to himself when his mother informed him that they were discovered something else to greet his mornings and nights, still couldn’t erase the
planning a gala at the manor to celebrate Hallowe’en. lasting effect of feeling drawn to the manor at a certain hour, of rhythms in his body
He didn’t have to ask the questions anyway; he knew the answers. Hermione would that reminded him of where he ought to be and what he ought to be doing at a
not be welcome, which meant he would not attend. specific time of morning or evening.
He didn’t owl ahead, didn’t ask for Topsy or Tilly or any of the other elves when he
stepped through the Floo. He simply brushed the sparkling green cinders from his
trousers and exited the parlor, headed to the dining room. He cast a lumos, letting the
light from his wand illuminate the cavernous stone corridors that his parents
Draco loved few sounds on this earth as much as he enjoyed listening to Hermione evidently did not feel bothered to keep lit. They weren’t expecting company, after all.
attempting to withhold a sigh as she discovered yet another new biography stocked at He paused at the door to the dining room, flattening a line from shoulder to
her favorite little muggle bookstore. She turned, hair whipping in violent spirals as shoulder, resisting the urge towards a rounded posture, caving in on himself.
her hands found her hips. She leveled him with her best how dare you Draco Malfoy He did not knock; he simply entered.
face, and he doubted he could love her any more if he tried. The heavy oak door swung open to reveal a dark, empty dining room. His brows
“How much money have you paid this shop to source all these books? I’m never dropped, lids narrowing as he dragged his gaze about the room. Confusion
getting to Eliot.”
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“My family vault was empty. It was my entire purpose for five years. I was allowed One of these days, he was going to convince her to let him fuck her right there,
to be upset about it.” right up against that shelf she spent so much time sighing in front of, glaring at him
Lacking any furniture in the shop, just open space waiting to be filled, Draco could from. He didn’t care if he had to buy the whole shop just to lock it up and give them
practically hear the tension grinding in Theo’s jaw. some privacy, if that’s what it would take.
“I didn’t say you weren’t. I’m glad you’re—recalibrating.” He shrugged, enjoying the undercurrent of foreplay involved in winding her up,
Theo rolled his shoulders, tilted his head, and a crack rattled through the small irritating her just enough that she didn’t know whether she wanted to smack him or
shop. He released a sharp breath through his nose and dragged a finger along the lip fuck him. He’d take either, honestly.
to the wainscotting lining the shop walls. “Some,” he admitted. “I’m not sure, haven’t been keeping track.”
“Touch dusty, don’t you think?” He had to stop himself, realizing he’d been tapping his forefinger against the box in
The whiplash grew less painful the more Draco experienced it. And in the last year, his trouser pocket: his constant companion in the form of precious jewelry. He just
he’d toughened, a stiffened spine less susceptible to painful twists and turns. had to survive another hour or so of book browsing before he could take her to their
“Blaise and I have a lot of work to do.” dinner reservation at their favorite little Italian restaurant. There, in the middle of
Theo cracked a smile: sly, snakelike. muggle London, with a Malfoy family heirloom, he would propose to this woman
“So, he’s your boss now?” and promise her, officially and permanently, everything he had.
“Absolutely not. He’s my investor.” The meeting of muggle and magical felt right, felt important, and he hoped she
“With a majority investment. So he can order you around.” thought so, too. He’d asked no one for permission: not his father, not hers. He’d
“Fantasy of yours?” thrown every tradition he knew of out the window, except for the ring itself. Their
Theo’s eyes narrowed. “I can't decide if I deserved that.” life together would betheirs, and no one else’s.
“Neither can I.” The idea of it all both emboldened and terrified him. His father didn’t get a say in
“Do you parents know about this place?” Theo waved his wand, casting a scourgify. this. If Draco never started the disagreement, never included him in it to begin with,
“I told them it was likely happening.” then Lucius couldn’t win.
“And are they—pleased?” Hermione sighed again, hands dropping from her hips. She turned and pulled two
“They did not seem overwhelmingly enthusiastic, no.” more books from the shelf, forcing them into Draco’s hands. She’d informed him
Theo nodded absently, casting meager attempts at cleansing charms that Draco long ago that if he insisted on stocking so many books she’d have to read, he bore
might have made fun of for their inefficiency if he had any room to joke. It wasn’t as the responsibility of carrying them for her. Not her soundest logic, but he complied
if he had much experience with them, either. He’d gotten quite skilled in kitchen regardless, a devoted follower to her word.
cleaning charms, as he’d discovered the easiest way to ease Hermione’s general “Well. I suppose I’ll be excellent for obscure biographical facts for famous persons
tension was through a clean kitchen. But dust? Peeling paint? Creaky, uneven whose surnames start with the letter E in pub trivia.”
floorboards? Draco didn’t have the first clue. Draco hummed a sound of acknowledgement, distracted by the weight in his
Then there was the matter of stocking and organizing the space into something pocket and the drop of anxiety he should probably call anticipation in his throat.
actually resembling a shop. “Though I suppose, we’d have to actually go to a pub trivia with Harry and Ginny
“You know who you need?” to put my skills to use.”
Draco turned to find Theo perched on the counter at the back of the shop, far too He hummed again, eyes searching for a clock somewhere in the shop with them.
comfortable for his own good. They had a very important reservation to keep.
“Who?” She stepped into his line of sight, a brow lifted, hands back on her hips.
“Pansy’s been brokering art and furniture and stuff lately; she could furnish the “Yes, darling, you’ll be fantastic,” he said, hoping it was the response she sought.
place.” She let out a frustrated sound of protest. “That’s not—what’s wrong with you?”
“She’d have to be willing to talk to me first.” The annoyance in her tone brought his full attention back to her. Not tonight. Not
“I really don’t understand you two.” on this date. He wanted intentional irritation, the kind that wound her up. He didn’t
Draco sighed, “I don’t, either. She needed space; I’m giving it to her.” want irritation he didn’t control, not the kind that could sour this day, not when he
“Well, she moved to France. It’s been five years. And now she’s moved back to had such wonderful things planned.
England, did you know? Seems like plenty of space to me. Time, too.” “What do you mean?” he asked in an attempt at devastating nonchalance.
Draco looked around his empty shop, a space now fully in his control, exposed “You’re acting odd.” She tapped the cover on one of the books he held, narrowing
bones over which he could layer flesh and create life. He could have something new, her eyes at him.
something his, something divorced of his very complicated past. “I am not.”
Pansy had been a part of that past, excised from his present, and Draco did not She let out a hollow laugh. “If you insist.”
know if a reintroduction to his ecosystem would bring balance or a total collapse. He “I do.”
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“I think I know you well enough to know when you’re in a mood.” his futures involved Hermione, all his branching pathways narrowed down to the
“I am not in a mood.” idea of her and a home and a family.
She laughed again, but not in a cruel sort of way that would normally make Draco He could run a potions shop; he’d just signed a lease with Blaise. He could occupy
bristle; he hated being laughed at. Hermione’s laugh, even if she was technically his time brewing with a purpose again. He could look into what it would take to sell
laughing at him, always had an edge of fondness, of kindness. Her laugh sidled up or share or lease or whatever the technical terminology would be for letting St.
beside his lingering insecurities and said it's okay to laugh, too. In this instance, Mungo’s see his research for the dark magic removal potion he’d invented. These
however, he did not. Instead, he scowled: an attempt to double down on his things were all within his reach, failsafe ventures he’d been either consciously or
refutation. subconsciously planning for.
“You’re being evasive, nervous. Like that time you tried to give me a ruby necklace Sometimes guilt hurt, a physical tear at his ribs, a battering at his bones. His father
out of nowhere—” had nearly died and Draco spent most of his time planning for a life that barely
Draco felthimself blanching, blood draining from his face as he resisted the impulse included his parents as footnotes. He breathed deeply, arm tightening around
towards a quick, surprised inhale. She didn’t notice at first, still prattling on about his Hermione. He could do better. She was probably right; she usually was. He’d barely
comparative quietness when normally he’d be mercilessly teasing her about the new made any real effort to overcome the hurdles between them; he’d just expected his
books she had to buy. She caught his stiffness eventually, though, because she parents to accept Hermione how he wanted them to accept her. How very
stopped, confusion and intuition battling in her features, analyzing his reaction. disturbingly Gryffindor of him.
“Draco?” “I might be pessimistic,” he said. “But I can be hopeful, too. I’ll stop by
He hummed to acknowledge having heard her as he watched as a muscle in her tomorrow—ask them in person. I promise.”
neck jumped from the tension it snapped down her spine. Not so long ago, Hermione would have had serious reason to doubt his ability to
“About—family heirlooms. You’re not”—she swallowed through a cough— keep that promise. Now, she smiled at him, grateful, hopeful, and the face of
”planning on giving me any, are you?” everything he was willing to do this for.
What else could Draco do but sidestep such a question?
“Well—I did warn you I would. Eventually.”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually.”
She blinked, tilting her head. She opened her mouth to say something else and “It’s not very big, is it?”
Draco experienced a distinct, visceral fear that she was about to ruin everything with “Theo, I will hex you.”
that beautiful mouth and terrible brain of hers. He rushed to cut her off. “I’m just saying. I’ve seen bigger.”
“If I was considering it”—the words practically fell out of his mouth—”it’s been “You’re being intentionally antagonistic and it’s not appreciated.”
over a year. Since the last time—” Theo snorted, crossing his arms. He leaned against the wall opposite the front
“—Barely over a year—” door, appraising the empty shop.
“—and we’d been together in some capacity for months before that. It’s a long time Draco’s shop, just barely in his possession as of that afternoon. He held the keys in
to be with someone.” his hands, freshly owled from Blaise. Draco, being the generous friend that he was,
“I was with Ron for over three years.” invited Theo to share in the excitement of visiting his new business venture for the
Draco sucked in a breath. He twisted, setting the books he held on a nearby shelf, first time.
haphazardly shoving them in sideways, on top of several others being properly “The rent is reasonable, especially with how close to Diagon Alley we are.”
displayed. Even in the midst of this conversation, intense as it was, he saw Theo released a small huff Draco assumed he was meant to take as a laugh. “Barely
Hermione’s focus flicker, stuck on proper reshelving procedures. in Knockturn, this.”
“Please don’t compare us,” Draco begged for what felt like the thousandth time in “You are such a shit. I won’t invite you next time.”
his life. He knew she didn’t do it on purpose, but she did it all the same. Everything Theo lifted his hands in defense, palms out. “Sorry, sorry. Personality calibrations
could be broken down to a compare and contrast for Hermione Granger’s are still a touch off.”
impressive brain. “Three years is—an offensive amount of time for him to keep you “That’s not—how that works, Theo”—Theo rolled his eyes in response—”But
in waiting.” Blaise said you’ve been—feeling better?”
“In waiting?” Her tone pitched higher, question ascending in her vocal cords. “Gods, are you two talking about me? Strategizing my happiness?”
“For a proposal.” “In a sense.”
“I thought we weren’t comparing?” “Revolting,” he said, entirely without inflection. “A couple of Hufflepuffs, the two
“We’re not.” of you.”
“We’ve been worried.”
 348 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 317

Draco’s throat constricted, dried out, a drought where his capacity for speech “I don’t know what kind of antiquated pureblood customs you ascribe to but three
ought to live. He swallowed; his fingers hovering at Hermione’s shoulder shifted, years is”—a pause—”reasonable.”
finding her neck. He dragged his thumb down one side of her spine, then the other, “But not enough? Or enough that you knew?” Where Hermione’s tone had lifted,
holding his agreement inside. his dropped. The edge in it, bordering on anger, shredded his hope for their evening,
“Draco?” leaving gaping flaps where doubt could soar through.
He hummed, focus lost somewhere in an ether composed of indistinct futures. “He did propose.”
“I think—we should genuinely try.” Draco had to take a step back, a stagger under that axis-shifting piece of
“Try what?” His question came out automatically, seeking clarity, as her information.
implications seized his lungs. Try? He’d only just come to the conclusion that he “He what?”
rather liked children. And while he liked them in theory, he didn’t know that they “I said no.”
were quite there. She hadn’t even let him propose to her yet. Surely she didn’t mean Clearly.
children. Obviously.
“To make amends with your parents. You haven’t eaten with them in nearly a Gods.
month. Have you even owled? I don’t—I can’t destroy your family—” She broke off, “This isn’t about Ron,” she said, voice gentler. She matched the step he’d taken
eyes fixed on the baby in her lap. with her own. “It’s not that I don’t—that I wouldn’t—Draco, I love you. I love you
“Hermione.” even though you keep having this shop stock more and more books so you can win a
He shifted, body tilted, an angle designed just for her: his entire world. silly bet we made years ago.”
“You are my family, if you’ll recall.” A smile fluttered through her features as she She wrapped her fingers around his left wrist. More intimate than his forearm. Less
rolled her eyes. “You are not at fault. And nothing is destroyed, it’s—just tense. At intimate than his hand. A middle ground.
the moment.” “I just don’t think now is the right time,” she said, a whisper. “If you were
She tilted her head, a suspicious lift to her brow. considering giving me more jewelry.”
“You’re too optimistic,” he said, an attempt to duel at a different angle. “I know How could one woman possibly have the ability to so effectively break him apart
you want us to find some kind of—equilibrium, even if it isn’t one where we’re all and then pull him back together again? He reached out, put his hand over hers, lifted
unendingly fond of each other.” His fingers slipped from the back of her neck to the it to his lips. He watched as her eyes widened, then fluttered shut, just for a moment.
top of the sofa. “I don’t— not want that. But, I’m not overly hopeful.” “I don't want your life to be in constant contention with your parents. I still think
Hermione’s gaze shifted back to the dozing child in her lap. She frowned, we could find a way to coexist.” She brought her other hand to his face, fingers
delivering a very serious face to a baby. sweeping a lock of his hair behind his ear, not dissimilar to how he so often did the
“I almost lost my parents,” she said. Draco wondered if she meant to tell him or same with her. “I don’t much cherish the idea of making nice with Lucius”—a
James. “It took work, but we’ve figured out how to—put the unforgivable things strained expression—”but I can be civil. Mature. And I know your relationship with
behind us and move forward. So that we can preserve a relationship with each them is complicated. I don’t want to make it any more so than I already have.”
other.” “I don’t care, Hermione.”She blinked up at him.”I don’t care what they think,” he
Draco only realized he’d shifted slightly away from her after he’d done it, warmth said. “I don’t care what they’re ready for. It’s our life, not theirs. Ours.”
absent from his chest, no longer pressed to her side. She pulled her hand away, smile dropping.
“I haven’t lost my parents,” he said. He pressed his tongue against the inside of his “I trust that you believe that. But I worry it won’t actually be the case. I think it
teeth as he restrained himself. “We’re figuring out our new reality.” would catch up to you; you’d regret or resent the fallout that breaking your
“I know what it felt like to almost lose them,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken at all. relationship with them any further would cause.”
“I don’t think I could bear being the cause of that for you.” The ring in his pocket felt like the heaviest stone known to man, weighing him
He leaned back in, desperate to erase that terribly sad look from her face. down, dragging him into the earth. He watched her face, waiting to see if she had any
“I could ask. If you really want to try.” other ruthless assessments to layer onto her already vicious analysis.
“We could have them over for Christmas dinner? We spent last Christmas with my He exhaled, breath heavy, heart exhausted.
parents; it would be fair. A gesture.” He turned, pulling her books from the shelf again. He glanced at the titles and then
“I could ask,” he said again, confidence seeping from a leak he couldn’t identify. nodded towards the checkout.
She just kept pouring her hope into him. “You know a lot, Hermione. But you don’t know everything.”
And fuck, if she’d didn’t look so deliriously hopeful, staring up at him with a baby She didn’t respond as she followed him to pay for the books.
in her arms, so startlingly warm and domestic. That feeling burrowed straight to the
center of his chest. It didn’t feel new, or intrusive, or unfamiliar. Somehow, some
way, it had become something closely tethered to his heart: a sensation that said all
 -.500, -.583, -.666 -.250, -.333, -.416
AUGUST NOVEMBER

T T
ICK TOCK TICK TOCK ICK TOCK TICK TOCK
Draco put the ring away. He took it back to the vault—not in an act of “So this is why they made you his godmother? Free childcare?”
symbolic permanence, but mostly to prevent Hermione from finding it in Draco stood, limbs uneasy, caught between wanting to relax and feeling
one of her bouts of reorganization. She had a tendency towards filling the rare blank utterly disallowed to do such a thing. He didn’t much care for inhabiting Potter’s
spaces in her planner with persistent productivity, a restless requirement that she home without him present. Nor did he find that the addition of various baby
organize a random drawer as she waited for the kettle to boil, or dispose of expired accoutrements improved the already ghastly interior design choices that burdened
soaps and shampoos while her shower water warmed. As time passed, as she grew Grimmauld Place.
more comfortable in the home they shared, she ventured out of her spaces and “Harry and Ginny haven’t had a night to themselves since August. I’m hardly put
started inserting herself into his, too. out.”
The books on your nightstand weren’t in any sort of order. I alphabetized them for you. Hermione didn’t look put out, true to her word. She looked comfortable, happy,
Several of your potions ingredients were nearing their expiration dates. I ordered replacements for bouncing a baby in her lap as she settled into a large, plush sofa.
you. Draco unlocked his joints, finally removing himself from the general vicinity of the
And so on and so on: tiny incursions on his lifestyle that should have irritated him. Floo, where he’d stood since the Potters disappeared through it, just as Ginny
Instead, he found it oddly comforting—endearing, even—that she cared so much dropped a parchment of emergency Floo addresses in his hand with a wink and a
about the state of his life that she took the initiative to make it better. Though, it smirk.
didn’t bother him that his books weren’t alphabetized. He kept them in order of His general distaste at being inside Harry Potter’s home, trusted with his child,
publication date, as potioneering advances tended to build upon each other. He warred with an invasive warmth, shot straight through his veins, every time he looked
didn’t have the heart to tell her such a thing when she’d kissed him on the cheek and at Hermione with her godchild. He wrangled his discomfort, forced it away, and
told him she’d alphabetized them instead. joined her where she sat. As casually as he could manage, he let his arm rest along the
With such a relentless organizer living in his midst, he returned the ring to his back of the sofa, just above her shoulders. With the right sort of twist to his wrist, a
family vault and temporarily set it out of his mind. Instead, he focused his efforts on careful brush of fingers, he could touch her upper arm. Lacking a reason to resist, he
figuring out what requirements their relationship lacked that would propel them from did just that, lightly dragging his knuckles against her skin.
not ready to ready for the next step. Hermione smiled at the baby in her lap, releasing a contented sort of sigh.
“Are you ready?” Hermione asked, stepping out of the bathroom as she struggled “He’s hardly a handful, anyway,” she said, presumably in continuation of the
to clasp a necklace. conversation he’d already long forgotten, transfixed by the texture of her skin.
He’d been leaning against the fireplace, prepared for their dinner at the Potter’s for “Especially if he keeps sleeping like this.” She glanced over at Draco, chin tucked
the last several minutes as she fought with her hair. He’d stopped offering his behind her shoulder as she looked up through her lashes. “If he starts crying, I’ll just
assistance in the high humidity months—her irritation with her frizz ran deeper than hand him off to you since you seem to have some kind of gift with babies.”
logic, and she’d threatened to hex him once when he offered her use of his Draco fought the blanching sensation that overcame him, head tilted as he tried to
smoothing potions should she fancy them. She did not, it seemed, fancy them. So discern her level of seriousness. His face twisted, he felt it, and it must have looked
fucking stubborn. hilarious because Hermione had to cover her mouth, stifling laughter.
He met her halfway between the bathroom and where he stood, taking over the job “It was a compliment, Draco.”
of clasping her necklace. She sighed, allowing him to help as she turned within the “Was it? It sounds like a conspiracy to rope me into babysitting. Or slander. I
circle his arms had created around her. She pulled her mass of curls to the side; he haven’t decided which.”
failed to suppress his chuckles as her hair almost prevented the clasp from meeting at “You’re ridiculous.”
the base of her neck. He pulled her curls free when he finished, lips brushing her He smirked, dipping to drop a kiss to her cheekbone.
exposed neck as the opportunity presented itself so easily, so freely, just there. She sighed again: that same contented sound that he’d formerly believed she
“We should go,” she said. He hummed against her skin. “We shouldn’t keep a reserved exclusively for her most sated post-coital hazes.
heavily pregnant woman waiting,” she added, leaning against him nevertheless. “He’s beautiful,” she said, forefinger traveling the length of James’s tiny brow line.
 346 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 319

“Do you have plans for Hallowe’en, dear? We were hoping you’d come to the gala, He pulled back. “I suppose you’re right. We wouldn’t want you to lose your
though we’ve yet to receive your response.” Narcissa smiled at him, a kind, topic- godmother status for such an offense.”
changing smile. She turned: smiling, laughing, happy. He watched as she walked to the Floo,
Draco assumed she meant it as an offering, a safe change in conversation to pull grabbed a pinch of powder from the mantel, and tossed it in the grate. For that short
them from the tension threatening to snap between father and son. series of seconds his life felt entirely unreal: a wild, unbelievable world wherein the
“I will not be attending,” he said, heart thundering in his ears. She either did not sound of Hermione Granger’s laughter sent warmth blooming from the center of his
know what she just asked, making her painfully oblivious in the most unflattering chest, filling him with an impossible supply of Patronus-worthy thoughts.
way, or she did and she chose to ask anyway, making her nearly as cruel as his father. Draco shook himself. If he looked so directly at such a perfect gift for too long,
Draco did not know which version of his own mother he preferred to have analyzed it too closely, he worried he’d find the cracks, the backdoor to the wards
disappoint him. that would let the nightmares back in. He’d had far too many nightmares in his life.
Narcissa tilted her head, face pinching at his tone. He much preferred the dreams.
“And why not? You’ll be missing several opportunities for social connections that He let her pull him through the Floo, to Harry Potter’s home, where the dream
would be valuable—” continued, beautiful and undisturbed.
“I noticed the invitation I received did not include a plus one.”
Narcissa blinked, brows pulled together before she could stop them. When they
softened, she released a small tittering laugh meant to reduce his words to absurdity:
so ridiculous it was laughable.
When she finally responded, her words came out tight and thin as if being forced to “Don’t you think you’re cutting this all a bit close?” Draco asked over dinner,
speak them at wandpoint. “I suppose, if you had a friend you wanted to bring—” sipping his wine and lobbing a smirk in the Weaslette’s direction, as close to an insult
“I don’t have a friend I want to bring, Mother. I have a girlfriend. And as I know as he could bring himself to sling at a woman solidly nine months pregnant.
she would not be welcome, I have no plans to attend.” She narrowed her eyes instantly.
He did not eat his meal. “Look, Ferret. Which of us is the professional Quidditch player here? If anyone is
He did not apologize for the angry, quiet tear his mother shed, painted by orange annoyed that my due date is irritatingly close to the World Cup, it’s me.” She released
light. a breath, winced, and leaned a bit to the left.
And he did not apologize for offending his father, in all the ways he had: Draco Potter mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Me, too,” through a
had lost count. bite of roasted potatoes.
Weaslette’s gaze snapped to Potter. Draco held back a snort of amusement at
seeing Potter in trouble with his wife. Hermione pinched his elbow in what he
assumed was meant as a rebuke, but her own smirk forced its way to the surface of
her face.
“Don’t you dare, Harry James Potter. This child has a vendetta against my spleen. I
cannot even express how ready I am to evict him, but I am intentionally trying to will
him to wait another week. That way I —not you—can go to the cup after missing
last year because you had a huge case.”
Potter lifted his palms in supplication, fork still in one hand, a potato falling
pitifully back onto his plate.
“Well if someone hadn’t been so put out that her team didn’t even make it into the
qualifiers the year before last—”
“Potter,” Draco cut in. Perhaps this act of goodwill would satisfy the life debt he
owed. “I’m fairly certain there are rules against arguing with pregnant women. Ginny
is inherently correct, in everything she says, when she’s carrying your child.”
The Weaslette burst into laughter across the table from him.
“—used my name,” she said between laughs. “What fine aristocratic manners,
gods.” Hermione seemed to find it funny, too, amusement held in her shoulders as
they shook just slightly from the giggling she appeared determined not to give into.
 320 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 345

Potter, at his end of the table, grumbled something that Draco couldn’t discern Or maybe the sense of foreboding, fluttering in his chest: a freefall to his stomach.
over the sound of being laughed at. He rolled his eyes, shook his head, and sipped his His mother had spoken last, but he turned to Lucius.
Pinot as Potter lifted his voice. Was his inheritance really his?
“You ought to be a little more invested in this timing, Malfoy,” he said, gesturing “It doesn’t feel like it is.”
towards his wife. “Hermione says you have tickets to the cup, too. Do you think Draco watched his father, who hadn’t moved a single muscle, but met him grey
you’re going to get her to go with you if Ginny is in labor? Or has just had our kid, gaze to grey gaze.
her godchild?” Narcissa spoke again.”That’s ridiculous, Draco, why would you ever—”
Draco shrugged, draping a casual arm around the back of Hermione’s chair. “My “Because it has terms, does it not?” Distantly, Draco felt guilty for being so
friends are going. I’ll just spend time with them.” dismissive of his mother. But this conversation, he knew, and had known for a very
Hermione did not hesitate to smack his leg beneath the table. He’d been expecting long time, could only occur between him and Lucius. “You’ve said so. Perhaps not
it, knew he’d earn some display of her irritation with that comment, and as such, explicitly. But I’m not a fool.”
didn’t so much as blink when her palm made contact with the side of his thigh. He Draco took a deep breath, letting the butter knife in his hand finally come to rest
tilted his head towards her, a slow smile spreading across his face. on the table. He forced his jaw open, coaxing out words that he preferred not to
“You wouldn’t really go without me and miss this, would you?” Her question acknowledge, things he’d barely thought about himself, but that he knew held truth
seemed caught between genuine inquiry and performative snark for the benefit of her regardless.
friends. “I’m a Slytherin. I’m hedging my bets and planning for all possible outcomes the
He shoved away his disappointment at the touch of doubt he heard. way you would want me to.”
He indulged in an overly dramatic eye roll, the sort of eye roll that only the likes of Lucius didn’t respond. He breathed through his nose, mouth sealed tight, brow
Theodore Nott could get away with in normal conversation. Here, with Hermione, it lifted in a look that, years ago, might have forced Draco’s compliance. But Draco’s
would tell her everything she needed to know about exactly how serious he had been. didn’t feel compelled towards cooperation, only guilt. He’d not seen his father since
“They’re your friends, Granger. Although, I’ll admit that Ginny has grown on me— Lucius suffered a serious injury and now, Draco had instigated yet another
primarily owing to her taste in red wine.” He lifted his glass in a silent toast. disagreement.
“Flaunt it some more, Malfoy. My hospitality has its limits. I could give you the The guilt burned in his stomach, bubbling like bile up his throat. He realized he
swill Harry suggests every time you visit.” breathed too heavy, chest expanding and contracting as he sat at his family dining
He lifted a brow in her direction. She lifted her own right back. Her gaze slipped to table, waiting for his father to say something damning, half expecting to be disowned,
the glass in his hand, then to the water in hers. right then and right there. Draco had already nearly dared him to do it.
“What I would give for a Cabernet. Or a Zinfandel. Or that Pinot—just right He looked at the food on his plate: a butter basted white fish, haricot verts, roasted
there.” She looked perilously close to snatching Harry’s glass out from under him dutch potatoes. He hadn’t tried a bite of it and couldn’t bring himself to start now.
before she twisted her lips into a frown and blew out a breath, sending a sheet of red His gaze caught on the fish fork beside his plate. A stupid, ridiculous utensil with a
hair flying away from her face. single use that, at its core, was barely any different from a traditional fork. If he never
In a reluctant, dark, terribly embarrassed corner of Draco’s consciousness, he hated saw another fish fork again, Draco couldn’t imagine his quality of life would suffer.
to admit that he didn’t mind his social engagements with the Potters these days. This Narcissa made a quiet throat-clearing sound. Draco tore his gaze from his uneaten
particular dinner had added palatability owing to the absence of one Ronald Weasley. meal. The room smelled rotten.
As if willed into existence by his thoughts, Hermione asked about Ron and He met his mother’s eyes. Orange light flickered across her face and Draco lost
Lavender. himself for a moment in a memory of glowing orange runes. They cast a very similar
“—back for the cup? Are they meeting you there?” light, a similar warning.
Potter nodded, “Straight from America to Italy.” Draco reeled himself in; a fish on a hook just as doomed as the one on his plate.
“I wonder if he’s going to propose,” Weaslette asked with a wistful sort of look at He needed to control the rapid decay in the room, in his orbit.
Potter. He looked back at his father. Forced effort, forced calm.
Draco didn’t like how he tensed: chest, shoulders, neck, back. It took several “How is your convalescence progressing?”
seconds for him to identify why, and she sat right next to him. The question of Ron “Fully recovered.”
Weasley proposing to someone, knowing that he’d once proposed to Hermione, that Lucius’s meal sat untouched as well. Narcissa’s silver tinked against her plate in
she’d declined, and that she didn’t want Draco to propose, either—at least not yet— Draco’s periphery, pulling Lucius’s focus; his nostrils flared.
sent a tension coursing through him, pulling muscle fibers taut. “And how are you, Draco?” he asked: careful, unfeeling syllables.
He realized that Hermione’s hand sat idly, easily, on his leg. Had it been there since “I’m—fine.” He could think of no other response, shocked by the fact that Lucius
her playful slap? Or had she just put it there? Either way, the pressure, the weight of had even asked, and knowing that had Narcissa not been present, the question would
it, didn’t so much as shift at the mention of Weasley potentially proposing. She just have never been posed.
 344 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 321

“So gracious of you to join us, son,” was how Lucius greeted him upon his entry shrugged at Ginny’s question, as did Potter: a quick moment, nowhere near as
into the dining room. The sun had already set, darkening earlier and earlier each day intrusive as it felt inside Draco’s head.
that passed from the summer solstice. The wall sconces, candles, lanterns, and He covered her hand with his, perpetually astonished by the ease of casual touch,
fireplace all cast an orange and yellow light about the room that Draco once found of organic conversation, of meals that—even when served by Harry Potter—brought
comforting, warm and cozy. Now, it only looked like a veneer of color animating a so much more enjoyment than the stark, regimented routine enforced by his parents.
corpse.
Narcissa interjected, a hostess’s grace.
“We’re glad to have you here, darling. We’ve seen so little of you in recent
months.”
Draco allowed Tilly to pull out a chair for him as he took his seat, realizing Four days later, Draco sat at his parents’ table, a meal meant as a concession before
belatedly that he had not waited for his mother or father to sit first. Some habits, he spent a week in Italy with Hermione. First at the cup, then just together: a trip
some parts of his upbringing couldn’t be erased from the surface of his skin with through the countryside she’d wanted to take for most of her life but had never had
even the strongest evanescos. Others, dining protocol among them, it would seem, only the chance.
required a few months of burgeoning routines with Hermione to fall by the wayside, It seemed polite, if nothing else, to engage in a dinner with his parents, formal and
forgotten in a gutter and washed away with the tides of time. stunted and awful as they were, before he disappeared for a week. Short of the
“I’ve made a point to dine with you at least once a week,” he said, even knowing Weaslette going into labor, he intended to accept no owls, respond to no firecalls,
his self-defense would solve nothing. “Normally, at least,” he added at the end. engage with nothing and no one besides Hermione and whatever bed they found
“Normally,” Lucius repeated. “But not this month. Not when your father has so themselves in, in whatever Italian city they travelled through.
recently been attacked.” He kept expecting for the tension at the table to ease, for his parents to find
Draco sank deeper into his seat, heated-through with guilt. His father had a point, a something to talk about that didn’t touch on any of the varied, forbidden topics
valid one. Draco had been present at the hospital, concerned long enough to ensure between them. But dinner with his parents continued to feel like an exercise in
Lucius would survive, and then made himself scarce again. Intentionally or not, he’d silence, a quiet punishment for having said too much before.
abandoned his role as a dutiful son. Objectively, the food was of much higher quality than that he’d been served at the
“I—had several meetings early this month. Blaise and I—he’s been helping me.” Potters’. The ingredients, the technique, all of it technically surpassed that other meal.
Lucius valued business, valued success. Perhaps a venture like the one he’d been Yet, he’d enjoyed his experience at Grimmauld Place so much more. Draco almost
trying to get off the ground with Blaise could ease Draco’s other shortcomings. felt guilty, knowing that the elves had likely worked for hours to pull yet another
“We’ve been considering an investment in real estate, for a potions business.” multiple course meal together, only for it to be consumed in near-silence. It simply
A muscle beneath Lucius’s eye twitched, a forewarning to the sneer that formed a didn’t taste right. It had that same lingering sourness that many of his experiences in
moment later.”A shop? How pedestrian, Draco. Why would you ever consider such a the manor had.
thing?” A headache pressed against Draco’s sinuses, pressure prickling into pain. He felt
Draco curled his fingers around the butter knife in his hand, blunt nails biting into stuck on repeat, a strange sense of rolling repetition in the meals with his parents, a
his palms as his knuckles flushed white. routine he once loved. With each iteration, however, they grew less and less palatable.
“I’m good at potions,” he said, as calm and level as he could manage. “Blaise is Narcissa said something about coming back for breakfasts in the future.
good with finances. It could be—something for me.” “Honestly darling, it does not do to laze about in the morning.” She sliced a
Narcissa snapped at Topsy, who’d just appeared with a crack, ordering her to fill cooked carrot on her plate. Careful, precise movements, as cautious as her words.
their wine glasses. His mother ran a hand along the tablecloth before speaking, “One should start the day with a good meal and vibrant conversation.”
smoothing the fabric as Draco assumed she wished to smooth the mood at the table. He watched as she brought the bite to her lips: chewed, swallowed, smiled.
“What your father means, darling—why would you want to work? You don’t need “I’m hardly lazing, Mother. I’m still starting my day with a meal and vibrant
the money—a shop is so—” conversation.”
“It would be mine. The money would be mine, not like my trust.” At the end of the table, out of Draco’s periphery, he heard the thunk of silver
Narcissa shifted in her seat, posture stiffening.”Your inheritance is yours, darling.” hitting the table, muffled by the tablecloth. Silence swallowed them whole.
The peculiar thing about awful conversations was that sometimes the worst parts Draco knew both his parents had no misconceptions as to what he’d meant. He’d
weren’t even spoken. They were conveyed through body language and tone, a shift in flaunted Hermione by glancing mention in front of them once again. The passing
mood so tangible, so real that even though Draco couldn’t begin to quantify how he beats of silence counted the depths of their disappointment. Draco couldn’t bring
knew something in the room had changed, he knew it changed all the same. himself to care.
The air perhaps: a shift.
Or the temperature: a drop.
 322 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 343

Narcissa diverted, redirected, steered the conversation elsewhere as if they could “Because nothing else has worked—will work. You don’t understand what they’re
simply will the Hermione issue out of existence. Draco might have laughed if not for like.”
the exhaustion biting at his bones, gnawing. “So tell me, let me help.”
“And you’ll be gone this weekend?” “I don’t want to talk about this, Hermione.” He dropped his gaze to the photo that
With a sigh, “Yes. Much of next week, too.” Draco dared a glance at his father, now rested atop her knee.
seated at the head of the table. “With the match on Saturday, we were planning on “I—I think we need to,” she said.
spending the rest of the weekend and some of next week enjoying Italy.” “Why would we need to? They’re my parents. They’re barely even a part of my life
Draco saw it, the moment Lucius’s comprehension caught on the word we. The anymore.”
muscles around his eyes tightened, knuckles around the stem of his wine glass “But they are,” she said, insisting, pushing, forcing a conversation because she
whitening from pressure. Draco expected no other response from his flaunting, from thought it needed to happen. Draco clenched his jaw even tighter, trying to remind
such a casual, careless almost-mention of Hermione. But it disappointed him all the himself that he loved her for her obscene Gryffindorishness, even when he really
same. Every time, without fail. He couldn’t shake the hope that maybe, this time, the wished she would stop. “They’re still a huge part of your life because they’re always
shock would ease, the distaste would waver, and acceptance would sneak in. here.”
Lucius’s mouth pressed thin, gaze locked with Draco’s. She made a strange, vague gesture at him that felt like she meant to imply
“I do hope you enjoy Italy,” he said with absolutely no conviction. If anything, something profound about their place in his head or his heart. He might have rolled
Lucius’s tone suggested that he hoped for bad weather, portkey problems, and a his eyes and shrugged it off if she hadn’t lifted herself to her knees and then crawled
touch of food poisoning. onto his lap, knees bracketing his hips.
Draco looked down at his plate. He had enough of that here. “I love you, Draco. I want—I want to find a way to fix this—this relationship you
“It’s been so long since we’ve travelled there,” Narcissa added, voice overly wistful have with them.”
in what felt like a painful attempt to counterbalance Lucius’s tone. “Perhaps we He placed a hand on her waist, bringing the other to graze her cheekbone, brushing
ought to visit again, this winter?” a curl behind her ear. He didn’t know how to be annoyed with her, inserting herself
Many moments in Draco’s complicated history with Hermione had been very, very where she didn’t belong. Not when she looked at him with such a raw earnestness,
poorly timed. her wide, pleading eyes begging to be let into this very closed-off part of his life.
Meeting her as a child, parroting the things his father said, thinking they made him The sigh he released didn’t feel annoyed, didn’t sound frustrated; it only carried a
sound powerful and impressive when they only made him cruel. That memory tasted sense of fatigue.
like regret. “This isn’t your problem to fix,” he told her. His voice came out flat as he watched
Crossing paths with her at the last Quidditch World Cup he’d attended, just before her reaction, willing her to understand that it was his, and not worth her effort. It
Death Eaters, his father among them, turned the sporting event into a dangerous wasn’t worth a single moment of conflict between them.
political message. That, too, tasted of regret. “Does that mean I can’t try?”
Standing in the manor’s drawing room, not quite capable of avoiding the issue of “I don’t think it means you should.”
her identity, or of doing anything to prevent the terrible pain dealt to her on that day. Their impasse stretched like a canyon, miles between them yet sitting face to face.
That regret tasted so sour, so vile, that it never truly left him. He saw it, when it happened: the stubborn set of her jaw, the way her shoulders
But seeing her Patronus swim through Malfoy Manor’s austere stone walls as if rolled back just enough, her spine straightening. She wouldn’t give this up.
they were nothing but a calm pool of water? That tasted of relief, perfectly timed. “Do you think they can be cured? Of their infection, as you said?”
The silver otter swam through the air, twisting playfully as it did a circle around his His hand slipped from her neck, back down to her waist.
chair before coming to rest in front of him, sitting on Narcissa Malfoy’s fine china. “I don’t know. And you don’t need to worry about it.” She opened her mouth,
Through the semi-opaque silver creature, Draco watched his mother frown. rebuttal ready, always ready. She needed to be stopped before she pushed too far.
More importantly, he felt himself smiling. He could have called the Patronus “This is my problem,” he said again. How many times now had he claimed this
poorly-timed: interrupting a meal with his parents, making the thing they’d been unfortunate thing as his own? “I’ll fix it.”
avoiding unavoidable. But the relief it brought him— the sheer, stupid joy of it—was
the most perfectly timed in thing in the world. Until, of course, it spoke.
Hermione’s voice echoed through the dining room, reverberations catching on
even the farthest corners as her words came out in a rush, too loud, spoken in a
panic. St. Mungo’s discharged Lucius from their care at the end of September. It took
“I’m sorry,” she said, through the otter: breathless, beautiful even though he Draco until the middle of October to muster the courage, resolve, and willpower
couldn’t see her. A nervous, manic sort of giggle followed her apology. He heard her required to join his mother and father for a dinner at the manor. He did not expect
clear her throat. “It’s Ginny. She’s gone into labor. Harry said the baby is coming this fact to go unnoticed.
 342 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 323

Hermione shook her head, likely constructing the exact order of events in her mind fast. I’m heading to St. Mungo’s now”—a pause—”meet me there?” The question in
without him having to provide a single detail. She knew the two of them well enough her tone, the uncertainty, it hurt.
to guess. Silence followed. A new silence, a different silence that sounded of broken barriers
She set the photo aside and pulled out another one. She blinked, amusement and irrefutable truths. The otter didn’t dissipate. Draco counted several breaths
straining, as she took in the scene in her hands. Her brows drew together, but her before—
smile persisted, less light slipping through. “I apologize for interrupting your dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy. I know how much
She flipped it around so he could see. they mean to you.”
“You’re so young here,” she said. The otter finally vanished.
He stood in the gardens, in front of one of Narcissa’s prized rose bushes that Draco laughed.
bloomed a beautiful peach color. In the photograph, he fidgeted, young energy held
at bay by his parents on either side of him. He could just see his father’s hand resting
atop Draco’s left shoulder. All three of them smiled.
Draco could feel his features softening as he took in the scene.
“I was four or five I think—my birthday.” Draco left dinner with his parents almost as soon as the Patronus vanished. He
“Your father looks—” barely spared a second thought for the fact that he would not get to attend the
“—Happy? Young? Healthy?” He didn’t intend for his words to come out quite so Quidditch World Cup. Still, he arrived too late: delayed by Topsy trying to send food
sharp, especially not after the passing nostalgic ache that washed over him. He home with him, Crookshanks insisting on being fed the moment he stepped through
sighed. “I’m sorry, I—you didn’t see him at the hospital. He—couldn’t have looked the Floo, and the incomprehensibly long wait for his visitor’s badge at the hospital.
more different from the man in that photo.” By the time Draco stepped off the lift into St. Mungo’s maternity ward, he faced an
It felt like a dramatic thing to say, an exaggeration. But perhaps the most difficult actual, literal, inconceivable horde of redheads all swarming the corridor outside the
part was how close it came to the truth. The version of Lucius that Draco witnessed Weaslette’s room.
in a hospital bed had no hallmarks of the living. It made him wonder if, at some The visual disorientation alone set Draco’s teeth on edge: so much red, so many
point in recent years—perhaps during his time in Azkaban, or under house arrest— freckles. Then there was the noise. Evidently several members of the Weasley brood
Lucius had simply passed away and his corpse kept animating: a sneering puppet had already started breeding, populating the corridor with redheads, redhead hybrids,
playacting at life. and so, so many voices: talking, crying, screaming. Shoes slapping on linoleum.
The smile hit the hardest. How long had it been since Draco had seen it in person? Sneezing, snotty faces. And then there was Draco, in Italian wool and french cuffs.
Too long to remember an exact moment. But he remembered the feeling, Bright blond in a sea of ginger.
remembered what it had felt like to earn his father’s laugh, to impress him with a Well, not entirely a sea of ginger.
witty retort or a clever parrot of his own words. Draco knew, now, with so much Draco stiffened as Lavender threw her arms around him in a quick, far too excited
perspective, that he probably shouldn’t have ever had to earn that laugh in the first hug. Her blond waves whipped behind her as she turned to announce his arrival to
place. That little voice of perspective sounded suspiciously like Hermione in his head. the swarm. Draco would have preferred to maintain whatever marginal anonymity he
Nevertheless; the version of Lucius in the photograph looked proud, beaming at had when the Weasleys pretended he did not exist.
his son. Draco couldn’t help but miss that look, miss earning it. The draw towards Lavender rounded on him again.
that satisfaction pulled a line taught between reason and impulse. “Ron and I got here not long ago as well—had to grab an emergency international
When she finally spoke, Hermione’s words came out slow.”You all look very portkey.” She smiled, huge and knowing. “Ron didn’t believe me.”
happy.” Draco almost didn’t want to ask.”Believe you?”
“I think we were.” “That the baby would be early. The tea leaves said so—certain of an early birth. I
“Do you—want to talk about them?” told him our trip to New York would interfere. But the shop paid for the portkey
Draco sighed. He didn’t want to be cruel, but no, he didn’t want to talk about because of his work thing so he insisted we take advantage of it.” She sighed, not even
them. He didn’t even want to think about them. If he could manage it, he preferred sounding remotely annoyed.
to avoid that particular mental confrontation for as long as possible. Draco nearly laughed. Hermione would have had his head for such a thing, and
“What is there to say, Hermione? That I suspect my own flesh and blood are a he’d have deserved it.
festering infection that can’t be cured? That in lacking a cure, my only option is “They’re in the room now,” Lavender added. “Ron and Hermione.”
amputation?” Draco glanced at the door surrounded by various loitering Weasleys.
He felt his chest clenching, words shifting from a normal cadence to tight, staccato- “Everyone else has had at least one turn with them, I think,” Lavender said from
like bursts as he forced them out. He ground his teeth together. beside him. When he tilted his head to look at her, she had the most peculiar,
“Why does that have to be your only option?” she asked. expectant sort of look on her face.
 324 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 341

“I don't—” he started. “I’m not—I’m just here for Hermione.” preferred organization by author or topic. Or how some gentleman named Dewy
As if spoken into existence, the door to Ginny’s room opened, and Hermione preferred to do it. Draco didn’t bother offering his input.
stepped out. She smiled, looking around, flushed and excited and happy. Draco She held a hand up over the tower of books that obscured her from view. In it, she
wished he had a camera to capture that look on her face, knowing it showed a very gripped a large envelope he must have left on one of the tables she so often covered
specific kind of joy: new to him, possibly new to her, too. in new books as she purchased them.
Her smile, impossibly, grew when her eyes landed on him. He’d been trapped and He’d completely forgotten about it. His silence must have alarmed her because she
he didn’t even realize it. Lavender gave him a tiny shove forward as Hermione lowered her arm, head appearing in its place as she lifted herself to her knees.
reached out and encircled his wrist with her hands, pulling him towards the door. “Oh, that’s—not much. I brought those home after I had dinner with my mother
Discomfort reared its head, a garrote choking him at the collar. He felt misplaced, last month. They’re photos she found at the manor.”
out of sync, wrong in the same way he’d felt the first time he’d been forced to “Photos?” Hermione shifted, standing. She eyed the barrier of books between them
associate with Hermione’s friends. He’d gotten used to them, but it had taken two before opting to sit atop one of the stacks, rotate her legs over it, and then stand
long years to desensitize himself to the people who’d once so terribly agitated him. again on the other side. She planted herself between Draco and Crookshanks,
But this sort of moment, such a personal, axis-shifting sort of experience: he had no looking far too pleased with her maneuvering.
place in it. “Of me,” Draco said. “And my family, I presume. I completely forgot about them,
It was like being at the Leaky all over again. For the first time in well over a year, to be honest.” He closed The Count of Monte Cristo and arched a brow at her. “Must
Occlumency called to him, a desperate attempt to escape, to defend, to survive the have gotten lost under your many and frequent biography acquisitions.”
unsurvivable. Because there could be no version of reality in which Harry Potter had She rolled her eyes.
any interest in letting Draco around his newborn child. “I spoke to the shopkeeper the other day; he said he’s running out of new ones to
He slipped by Ron Weasley leaving the room as Hermione dragged Draco into it. stock.” She crossed her legs beneath her, turning to sit facing him. Her knees
The door clicked shut behind him; he noticed four distinct things. brushed his legs. “You need a new strategy for your grand plans to win that bet.
First, Potter looking fucking exhausted. Otherwise”—she patted the velvet cushion beneath her—”it’s all mine.”
Second, Weaslette looked even more exhausted. “You think I don’t have other plans?” he asked, reaching for the envelope. He met
Third, they both look obscenely, criminally happy. resistance when he tried to pull it from her hands.
And fourth, that wrongness he’d felt had slipped out the door with Ron. Draco felt She lifted her brows, smirk growing. She tugged it back, out of his grip, and opened
oddly welcome, and that almost unsettled him more than the alternative. it.
After a brief moment of shock, Draco locked eyes with Potter, then the Weaslette. With a small gasp, she pulled out a photo.
“Congratulations Potters,” he said, eyes landing on the small bundle he could only “Oh, Draco”—he snatched the photo from her hands—”weren’t you just the
assume was a newborn child cradled in Potter’s arms. cutest?”
Weaslette laughed. He looked at the photo, sighed.
“Have you run out of hair potion, Ferret? You look positively unkempt. Plebeian, if “I know.”
I had to put a word to it.” She snorted an indelicate laugh and snatched the photograph back.
Draco blinked. Then, he narrowed his eyes: child in Potter’s arms, Weaslette in the “Well don’t have too big a head about it. Is that Theo?” She flipped it around so he
bed. could see it again. In the frame, a young Draco and Theo threw pebbles into a pond
He arched a brow. in the Malfoy gardens, loop ending and restarting again just as Draco lobbed a pebble
“Have you slept this century, Weaslette? The bags under your eyes might have at Theo’s head.
more carrying capacity than Hermione’s little beaded monstrosity.” “It is. We were maybe—eight? Nine? You see the peacock in the background?” She
She held his gaze, a beat of silence, then, she laughed. Draco allowed himself a nodded, leaning to see around the edge of the photo still facing Draco. “It chased
smirk. Beside him, he heard Hermione sigh. When he turned, she shook her head Theo all around the gardens maybe five minutes after that photo was taken.”
with a tired sort of patience, but laced her fingers with his own. She flipped it around, watching the scene as a smile spread across her face. Slow at
She squeezed, a comforting pulse against his palm. Draco squeezed back, realizing first, as if she might want to resist the amusement from such a thing, then suddenly,
too late that he’d been giving her permission. as she gave in.
She leveled Potter with a pointed stare. “Why would it do that? Poor Theo.”
Potter did his best to arch a brow back at her, but he seemed to struggle with the Draco smirked.
expression, everything about his face sluggish and a bit stupid. With a sigh, Potter “I have absolutely no idea,” he said with a poorly concealed grin, having every idea
took a step towards them, bundle in his arms held a little less tightly to his chest. and zero intention of voluntarily admitting his involvement in the aforementioned
“Would you like to hold him, Malfoy?” peacock chase.
 340 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 325

breath, tiny gasps synchronized with his fingers: almost touches, barely touches, Draco wondered how many conversations had come to pass between Hermione
sliding in. She groaned, forehead falling to rest on his shoulder. and Potter in order to culminate in this moment. Potter looked a few seconds from
“Merlin—fuck, seriously?” putting his newborn child in Draco’s arms after what had only been minimal
If Draco never heard Harry Potter’s voice again for so long as he lived it would be hesitation.
too soon. Hermione tensed at the sound of Potter’s shock; Draco stilled, knowing his “No. No thank you, Potter,” Draco said, shifting back. He lifted his hands, a kind
body concealed their activities from view. of defensive posture. “I try not to handle other people’s valuables. Liability
Draco turned his head and found Potter standing with his back turned to them, concerns.”
head shaking. Hermione laughed, intercepting.
“You didn’t even close the door?” Potter asked, voice ascending in something that “I’ll take his turn, then.”
sounded suspiciously like panic. The man had defeated dark wizards, this surely And as if it were the easiest thing in the world, Hermione took the child, who
didn’t even register on his panic scale. “In my house? In my loo? Really?” He let out Draco should probably start calling James, knowing his name and all. A real name for
a heavy breath. “Gin sent me to tell you she has wine ready. She’s had her one glass a real, new person. But very little inside that hospital room felt especially real. From
and wants to live vicariously through you. I’m—going to try and forget I saw this.” the cohabitating exhaustion and joy on the Potters’ faces to the image of Hermione
Without turning back around, Potter left them there. holding a baby.
A hand closed around Draco’s wrist. He turned back to Hermione as she tried to Draco took a cautious step towards her, finally catching sight of the tiny, pink-
lift his hand from her knickers. He arched a brow at her, hand and fingers still firmly skinned human in her arms: raw, and swaddled, and so terribly fragile looking. Draco
in place. almost reached out, the muscles in his left arm tensing as they prepared to lift and
“He’s gone.” Draco smirked. rotate and reach to touch a finger to the impossibly tiny hand flexing open and
“They’re waiting on us.” closed from where it had escaped its blankets.
“I can get you off before they even start to wonder where we are again.” He felt calm. Strangely, oddly, peacefully so. His eyes travelled from James's face—
The pressure on his wrist loosened, less insistent. He watched her indecision fight pink, a bit squished, and not entirely human-looking yet—to Hermione’s—awestruck,
the rising flush creeping up her neck. beautiful, if a little unsure of herself. She swayed, an easy motion in her hips, entirely
She fisted his shirt fabric, pink blooming across her cheeks as she looked him in focused on the child in her arms.
the eye with a most Hermione kind of determination. Distantly, Draco realized that Potter had taken a seat beside Ginny’s bed and that
“Five minutes and you have to close the door.” both of them were watching Hermione, just as Draco did.
“Five minutes,” he agreed. “And then you can tell Potter how he and Theo should His chest panged, something reverberating off his ribs, a longing he couldn’t quite
start a support group.” place. The way Hermione doted and beamed, staring at a newborn child, struck him
Her embarrassed groan shifted into something sweeter. If he only had five minutes, with a sense of rightness, so keenly on the heels of the wrongness that had felt so
he had to get to work. certain mere minutes before. She looked at James Potter as if she’d never seen
something so miraculous in her entire life.
And it suited her.
Draco had never thought of Hermione as especially maternal. Not as a slight to her
womanhood, but it just—never seemed relevant.
“What is this?” Hermione asked from somewhere on the floor in their living room. But the more he looked, watching her reverence, the more he understood it. He
Draco looked up from his reading—another failed, valiant attempt at enjoying The took a small step closer, so tiny that his dragonhide shoes never fully lifted off the
Count of Monte Cristo— and spotted a few wild curls peeking over the top of a wall of linoleum floors. Really, it had been more of a shuffle. Narcissa Malfoy would have
books. When Hermione had told him she wanted to spend the weekend relaxing with been appalled.
their books, he’d naturally assumed she meant reading. Evidently, she’d meant He watched a curl tumble over Hermione’s shoulder. She’d let it grow out, grow
reorganizing. longer, spirals past her shoulder blades now. The curl fell almost perfectly into
After confirming that this bout of organization did not involve a crisis over her James’s tiny hand: it opened, it closed. Hermione made a sound, straddling the line
perceived contribution to their household, Draco excused himself from participation between shock and amusement. Draco took another cautious step closer.
on the grounds that he had no interest in being hexed. She was much more patient Such a tiny person, barely born, and already he knew to hold tight to the precious
with him working at the manor than she was with organization around the flat. things life handed him.
Thus, he’d adopted a strategy of avoidance, peppered with placation by reading her Draco had never really thought about children before. Not too closely, at least. A
favorite book. He and Crookshanks toed a careful line on her nerves, sitting on the thought struck him, wild in how obvious and yet utterly insane it seemed.
green sofa together, as Hermione warred with herself over whether or not she He’d dined with the Potters on Monday. There had been two of them, then. And
now—
 326 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 339

He watched as James opened and closed his tiny hand again, curl expanding and Awkwardness crept up Draco’s spine, an errant observer to this strange, highly
contracting in his grip. strung situation in the Potter household that he really, truly wished to have no part
Three. in. Even Hermione seemed uncomfortable; she’d transitioned from staring at Draco
The Potters had walked into St. Mungo’s as two people and when they left there with confusion to worrying her lip between her teeth as they all waited for—
would be three. Could that really be how that worked? It had to be how that worked. whatever was meant to come next. A meal? Drinks? An informative lecture on the
Obviously, that was how it worked. But it was madness, too. Magic. This little thing in trials of baby rearing?
Hermione’s arms: magic made life. Draco excused himself to the loo, a transparent excuse for a getaway, but
James had been nothing. No one. And now he was. successful nonetheless. It seemed to break the tension in the room as well, with
Draco’s throat had gone dry. He swallowed against a foreign, intrusive, Potter tending to his child and Hermione allowing the rock solid tension in her
overwhelming sensation of want bubbling low in his throat, stemming from his chest. shoulders to loosen, dropping.
Heirs had always been an abstract thing to him: an indistinct, indefinable future He took a moment to inspect his hair, check for creases in his shirt, search for
state that his future self would deal with. They were a duty. Never a want. other general signs that a baby might have disrupted his put-togetherness. When he
He could see it now, and it ripped through his chest with so much want that Draco opened the door, he found Hermione standing there, waiting.
had to wonder if the others in the room could see it as well. He gave into the impulse She stepped forward. On instinct, he stepped back, finding himself pressed against
and lifted his hand, offering his index finger in place of Hermione’s curl. Dimly, he the sink in Potter’s first floor toilet with a very serious Hermione looking up at him,
wondered how long it had been since he’d taken his eyes off this baby, off Hermione eyes narrowed. She looked mere seconds from planting her hands on her hips and
with this baby. accusing him of something unsavory.
Another image gripped him. Hermione with his baby. Their baby. An heir. It didn’t “You look good holding a baby.”
feel so abstract anymore. In fact, it felt like simple maths. Him, with her. Two Not the accusation he expected.
becoming three. Warmth dropped from his chest to his stomach, hot tendrils crawling outward. His
He swallowed, the motion dragging against his dry, aching throat. James’s tiny grip eyes, which had been wide and questioning, narrowed, darkened as a sense of
pulsed against his fingertip. Draco forced himself to look up, to look away, lest he understanding settled in him.
lose himself in this strange, sinew-twisting want. “So do you,” he said, left hand already grazing her jaw, sliding past her ear, winding
“I suppose we have Potter to thank for saving us all from having to deal with into the curls at the base of her neck.
another redhead.” She lifted her chin, angled closer, stepped closer, too, body flush with his.
It was half insult, all instinct. “Why does that make me want to jump your bones?” she asked. Her eyes fluttered
Potter stood, approached, and clapped Draco on the shoulder with a casual shut as he ran his fingers along her collarbone, a light touch over her thin blouse.
familiarity they definitely did not share. And then Potter laughed. He laughed, and He dipped low and pushed forward, shifting their position such that he had her
laughed, and laughed, hovering too close behind Draco, peering over his shoulder at pressed against the wall opposite the sink, mouth hovering by her ear, thigh pressed
the dark-haired bundle in Hermione’s arms. between her legs. She let out a breath-tempered whimper as her back made contact
“Yep,” Potter said, hand still resting, inexplicably, on Draco’s shoulder. “That was with the wall.
all me.” “Because you love me,” he said, one hand still wound in the curls at the base of her
neck, the other toying with peeks of bare skin between the hem of her blouse and her
waistline. “And you can see it, can’t you?”
He slipped a finger just inside her waistband at the hip, sliding between the fabric
and her skin as he travelled inward, stopping at the button closure in the center. He
kissed beneath her ear.
“I can,” she said, hot breath coasting along the side of his neck. He thumbed the
button on her trousers, popping them open. It was an easy thing to see, with her.
He’d seen it at St. Mungo’s two months before when he should have been packing to
go to The World Cup. Instead, he watched Hermione hold a child and alter his entire
idea of what the future might look like while barely doing anything at all.
He dragged her zipper down, just enough to allow him the space to slip his hand
inside her knickers. Her head thumped against the wall, dropping back as her mouth
fell open, spilling a hushed, obscene sound into the tiny room with them.
He dipped his fingers, finding her warm and wet and already rocking against his
hand and his leg. Her hands fell limp against the wall as she sucked in a stuttering
 338 Mightbewriting

almost all of their time at home with their newborn, expressing a readiness to try and
socialize more. And Potter was the one who made Hermione James’s godmother,
-.416, -.500, -.583
thus instilling in her an overwrought sense of responsibility that brought her—and a
reluctant Draco—to Grimmauld Place to attempt having a full, adult dinner with S E PT E M B E R
them, evidently needing to figure out how that worked with a baby. Then Potter had
the audacity to get stuck at work, something about a big case, life or death, and all
that. Predictable.

T
Most things, if Draco thought hard enough about them, were Potter’s fault. ICK TOCK TICK TOCK
He tried to find annoyance in that, tried to resist the strange, peaceful draw of the “I can’t remember if we said we were meeting out in the square or inside
baby in his arms, but he found himself smiling, enjoying himself regardless of his the museum.”
own personal wishes to the contrary. Draco knew Hermione spoke mostly to herself, but he couldn’t resist the impulse
Perhaps babies practiced a subconscious form of siren-style magic. It seemed to respond, an attempt at problem solving. Anything, really, to accelerate his
reasonable, given the effects Draco personally experienced. He considered posing it departure from the extremely crowded square in the middle of muggle London
as a question, but decided he didn’t much fancy being laughed at. where they stood, potentially waiting in the wrong place to meet Hermione’s parents.
“I suppose babies aren’t so bad,” he said instead. The Weaslette let out an “Did you not write it down in your planner?”
unbecoming snort of laughter. She huffed an annoyed breath, clearly a no.
Draco tilted his head, looking down at the tiny bundle in his arms. “You kind of He tried a different approach.
just want to squeeze them, don’t you?” “Well, if we don’t see them here, perhaps we could try the museum? It is—very
“Alright, that’s enough. I’m taking my child back.” Ginny slid her arms beneath crowded here.”
James, wine either finished or discarded. Draco hadn’t been paying attention. “It’s a bit of a tourist destination and we’re”—she blew out a breath, shifting her
“I’m not saying I would. I have developed some impulse control over the years.” He weight as she craned her head around—”well, we’re in a very central area. Oh—I see
folded his arms across his chest when Ginny took James from him. “But they are them across—yes, they’re headed into the museum—”
sort of—squishable, wouldn’t you say?” She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the crowds, across crosswalks—
He glanced at Hermione for confirmation, or agreement, or—something. But she which felt a bit like narrowly cheating death—and towards the art museum where
only looked at him with the strangest sort of confusion crinkling between her brows, Hermione wanted to spend her birthday afternoon with her parents.
head tilted, lips parted as her mouth had slipped open. Muggle spaces didn’t disorient Draco nearly as much as they used to, but there
He supposed, in hindsight, he’d just said a number of things that he would not were occasions—like this one—where the sheer quantity of people crammed into a
have said otherwise—if not for the influence of whatever peculiar magic newborn public space seemed impossible, or at least improbable. It reminded him of his first
babies possessed. few days at Hogwarts; no amount of knowledge he’d had before going to the school
James started crying again and the Weaslette looked like she might do the same, could truly prepare him for all the intricacies of shifting staircases, trick doors, and
shoulders sinking as she launched into a string of unintelligible shushing sounds. labyrinthian architectural choices.
Hermione seemed mere seconds from stepping in, already pushing off the balls of Navigating through the sheer number of bodies in muggle London felt a bit like
her feet to save an obviously distressed ginger and her selectively cranky baby, when that. Put Draco in a crowded ballroom on a Sacred Twenty-Eight estate and he knew
the Floo flared to life and Harry Potter made his majestic entrance. which stairs might have false bottoms, which portraits hid secret passages. He knew
The Weaslette advanced on him before he could kick the cinder from his boots. no such secrets about how the muggle world worked.
“Your child needs a change. Your wife needs wine. I spilled it earlier when the With the mystery of where to meet Hermione’s parents settled, and the din from
Ferret mentioned wanting to squeeze my child.” the square fading behind them, Draco could admit that Hermione’s choice of
“Thought he was my child when he cried like this?” Potter asked, accepting the afternoon entertainment wasn’t without its merits.
baby being transferred into his arms. He liked art well enough. Malfoy Manor had plenty of it decorating its walls and
“You're missing the point. He also stopped crying when Malfoy held him so— corridors. Though, he decided he liked watching Hermione enjoy art more than he
we’re living a nightmare where Draco Malfoy is better at getting James to quiet than liked the art itself. She did a lot of gasping, little noises escaping her lips as something
we are. So again, I’m getting wine.” very literally stole her breath. She didn’t even realize she did it; the first time he’d
And with that, Ginny whirled, exiting the room with a stomp and a huff and brought it up she simply swatted his arm and told him he wasn’t allowed to make fun
something wild crackling in the air. of her on her birthday.
Potter sighed, rocking James. Draco spent a good portion of his afternoon walking with Mrs. Granger as they
“Turns out being a parent is hard,” he said, spectacles trained on his child. trailed behind Hermione and her father.
 328 Mightbewriting

“Art isn’t your preference?” Draco asked as they watched their respective Grangers
taking in a particularly vibrant installation.
-.333, -.416, -.500
“I enjoy it as much as the average person, I assume.” She nodded towards
Hermione and Mr. Granger. “Those two, though, everything interests them. Haven’t O CT O B E R
found the limit yet to what they want to learn or how much they can love.”
Mrs. Granger glanced at a statue looming nearby. Draco assumed it had been
sculpted with exceptional skill, that it bore qualities of fine art, objectively speaking.

T
He just didn’t see much worth marveling at beyond an initial look. ICK TOCK TICK TOCK
“I’m more the sort of person who has one thing that I love, and I love it very Draco couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, what with all the screaming—
fiercely.” She looked away from the sculpture. “I don’t love art.” wailing, if he wanted to be technical. His eardrums ached, sharp stabs
Draco found he couldn’t quite tear his focus from Hermione’s face as she chatted piercing straight to his brain with every fresh shriek.
animatedly with her father, some wild analysis of the painting in front of them, to be “I knew they could cry a lot, but Merlin; he’s very loud.” Draco tried to control his
sure. face, prevent the sneer and the derision and the disdain that crept closer to the
“Neither do I,” he said. surface each time James Potter opened his very small, very loud mouth.
Mrs. Granger smiled, and it felt like an entirely different, completely silent Draco had been standing in Grimmauld Place with Hermione for all of five
conversation had passed between them. One wherein art had nothing to do with minutes and already he wondered if a diffindo to his skull might be preferable to a
anything being said. screaming baby.
The Weaslette looked at him, a blank, dead sort of stare in her eyes as she
attempted to mollify the crying child in her arms.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s very loud. And you know what, Malfoy? I think it’s your turn
for him. You haven’t held him yet, right? Here.” Before Draco could even
Only a lifetime of etiquette tutors prevented Draco from spitting his drink back comprehend the absolutely unfathomable thing happening to him, she’d transferred
into his cup. the baby into his arms. “I’m getting a glass of wine.”
“You don’t like it?” Hermione looked up at him with a face of genuine Hermione, beautiful traitor that she was, laughed at him when he shot her what he
disappointment. Her choice of tiny sandwich shop for their lunch after the museum could probably admit was an excessively panicked expression.
had seemed decently promising, but now, Draco had new doubts about how much He shifted his weight, adjusted his grip on the very small and very fragile little
he would enjoy his meal. human in his arms, and forced his body to relax. He loosened his limbs and rocked
“It’s carbonated. Like a beer.” James in the same way he’d seen Hermione do at the hospital.
“Yes, I told you that. This is a fizzy drink.” Blessedly, thankfully, miraculously, James quieted.
“It’s sweet. Sweeter than pumpkin juice. Gods, Hermione, how can you stand Draco continued rocking, a slight bounce in his torso. Hermione’s giggles died with
this?” James’s wails. The Weaslette rushed back into the room, wine glass in hand. As she
Across the table, both Hermione’s parents laughed. skidded to a stop, some of her white sloshed, spilling out over the edge.
“Well, you’re earning excellent goodwill from my parents, talking like that.” Draco arched a brow at her obvious alarm.
He lifted his brows. “Oh?” “Well, this isn’t nearly as bad as you made it seem,” he said.
“It’s horrid for your teeth,” Mrs. Granger said. “Why isn’t he crying?” Ginny asked, stepping forward as she peered down at her
Draco twisted towards Hermione.”You subject yourself to this tooth-destroying child. Draco shrugged as much as he could with a baby in his arms; it mostly ended
nightmare because…?” up as a continuation of his soft, pacifying movements.
“I was only ever allowed one on my birthday. I figured while we were here, I might “He seems to enjoy being rocked. Have you tried—”
as well indulge. I don’t have them normally—” “Malfoy, are you kidding me? If you finish that sentence I'll have Hermione liberate
“A smart choice, dear,” Mr. Granger cut in. He switched his attention to Draco. her godson from your arms so that I can hex your bloody bollocks off.”
“Did you enjoy the exhibit?” Draco engaged in another half-shrug, half-rock for James’s benefit. “I don’t know.
From his periphery, Draco could have sworn he saw Mrs. Granger’s mouth He seems to be doing alright.”
quirk—just a touch—towards a smile. Draco caught himself smiling down at the little bundle in his arms far too late to
“The—quantity of art was certainly impressive. To have so much of it in one school his features. The women in the room would have seen it, too.
place—where does it all come from?” he asked. This series of events was Potter’s fault, obviously. It was Potter who owled
Several shrugs rotated around the table. Hermione about how he and Ginny had started going a little stir crazy, spending
 336 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 329

In the quiet moment that followed, at a table meant for six, in a dim, rarely-used “Donations, I think,” Hermione supplied. “Willed from estates, wars. Stuff like
dining room, Draco wondered if that was the first time he’d directly mentioned that.”
Hermione by name. He genuinely couldn’t recall. All the things he was meant to say “I can’t imagine most old wizarding families would want to give their precious art
about her, ask for her, tell them about her, had been muddled and jumbled in the away. How unusual.”
graves of good intentions he kept digging with his bad decisions. Hermione jumped in, head tilting, mouth turned to a thoughtful smile as she picked
Narcissa didn’t say anything about it. Her hand appeared again, reached for her up the threads of his thought and continued with them. “I suppose now that I think
wine, sipped, returned the glass to the table, and disappeared. Draco couldn’t help on it, most old estates are their own sorts of museums. Malfoy Manor certainly is.”
but feel like she’d considered and dismissed several potential responses in the space It wasn’t necessarily that anyone said anything, or that there was a sharp intake of
of that single, smooth action. breath, or any other typical indications of surprise. But Draco saw the posture at the
“I went to Gringotts earlier this month,” she said, startling him with a conversation table shift, only just, as Hermione’s parents heard, understood, and reacted to what
topic he hadn’t expected in the slightest. “With our Hallowe’en gala approaching, I she’d just said.
wanted to select from a few lesser-used jewels in the family collection.” Draco glanced across the table to find Mr. Granger’s brows lifted above his glasses
Draco found himself reaching for his own wine, delay and distraction all in one. frames. “Manor?” he asked, something of a teasing smile on his face. “Your family
“The goblins mentioned that you’ve been to visit the heirloom vaults more than has a manor—an estate?”
once this year.” Draco cleared his throat. He’d never, in all his life, felt uncomfortable about that
She didn’t quite look at him, instead staring at his left ear, or just above his left fact before. The closest he’d ever come were the times when he and Hermione had
shoulder. He watched as her jaw tensed, mouth sealed shut as she pulled a breath struggled to balance her want to financially contribute to their living situation with
through her nose. He didn’t know what to say. his complete disinterest in taking money from her—he’d always had plenty of his
“Did you?” she asked, and it could have meant several things. He took it to mean own. But something about their less-than-spacious booth in a crowded restaurant
the smallest thing. Did he visit the vault? made that status, that inextricable part of who he was, feel—judged.
“Yes, Mother. I did.” “Ah—yes. We do. We are a very old wizarding family as you may”—he glanced at
Her eyes travelled the short distance from the space just next to his head to find his Hermione, who shifted her head just enough that he knew she intended it as a shake
eyes. Light from the dining room fireplace reflected in hers, obscuring her blue with a to the negative—”or may not know.” He tried to suppress the tension in his chest,
watery orange. He wasn’t sure what he would do if his mother started crying. torn between an impulse to brag that he could probably buy the whole bloody
“Do you have”—her voice slipped, a crack in a facade for just a moment— restaurant if he wanted to, and shouting that he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t. He’d been
”anything important you might want to share with me?” born to the family he’d been born to.
Had he asked Hermione to marry him and not told her about it, she meant. The money felt like both a gift and a burden, depending on the day.
“Not yet, Mother.” Hermione’s mother released a short laugh. “I suppose that explains the manners—
She almost looked relieved, and it was a most terrible conversation to be stuck ”
inside of. He’d honestly thought it might be better, not having Lucius looming and “—and the posture,” Mr. Granger added.
silent at the end of the table. Draco had been weirdly, guiltily optimistic, that a meal Draco blinked away the sensation of being under inspection.
shared with just his mother might yield something a little more relaxed, a little less “I—the what?”
fraught. “Well you are very posh, aren’t you?”
He almost didn’t hear her when she asked her next question. “I—yes?”
“Are you happy?” They wouldn’t know it, based on Draco’s sudden inability to speak a sentence
Draco looked up from where he’d been seriously considering whether or not he without stumbling over his words.
could discern the tablecloth's thread count with the naked eye. It struck him that he Hermione just nodded in agreement, giggling into her disgustingly sweet, fizzing
couldn’t reliably say if she’d ever directly asked him that question in his adult life. drink. The tension in Draco’s chest morphed, a transfiguration from judgment to
If he really thought about it—she’d asked him in school, though not quite as joke.
directly. Are you enjoying your classes? Are you making friends? Are you having fun with “We’re just kidding with you, darling,” Mrs. Granger said. For a moment, she
Quidditch? All ways to ask after his happiness without ever actually doing so, he sounded just like Narcissa—the same term of endearment and everything. But from
supposed. But this, it was direct. And it looked honest. Genuine. brown eyes, olive skin, and chestnut hair, the whole sentence colored differently. “It
So he answered as plainly as he’d been asked. isn’t as if Hermione hasn’t had a comfortable life, herself.”
“More than I ever have been. I think one day you may need to decide how much “We’ve done well for ourselves,” Mr. Granger said. “Not manor well, but she’s not
that means to you.” had to want for anything.”
Draco wasn’t sure when Hermione’s hand had found his beneath the table, but she
squeezed it so tightly he started to worry she might break a bone. It took him several
 330 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 335

seconds to understand why, as he watched her parents smiling, unaware, across the While Lucius lay unconscious, Narcissa hovered at his side. Draco loitered, and
table from them. Hermione waited nearby. It all had a strange backwardness to it that made him
She’d wanted for plenty in her time spent without them. He wondered if they wonder how they’d all gotten there, game pieces in the wrong squares, not properly
knew, if they had any idea what her life had looked like when she’d literally foraged playing their parts.
for her meals while fighting a fucking war. He swallowed, throat tight in rising anger Draco dined with his mother in the smaller dining room that evening, a table that
that had no real target. only sat six, at maximum. The menu had been reduced to three courses, and only
He knew one thing with certainty: he’d just taken charge of the conversation. Tilly cracked in and out, delivering food and clearing it away. It was still a fine meal,
Hermione would need a minute. limited though the service may have been. Draco’s lingering guilt, and fear, and
“I see,” he said, offering a pulse of pressure to Hermione’s hand beneath the table. confusion, soured his taste buds, rendering what might have been an otherwise lovely
“I think I prefer those sorts of jokes over the threats to use your tools on me—those autumn soup into something more closely resembling bile.
drills and such. I can never quite tell if you truly mean those in jest.” “I’m having Topsy clear out one of the spare rooms in our wing,” Narcissa said,
Mr. Granger laughed a big laugh, a hearty laugh, the sort of laugh that caught the eyes on her wine glass. “It has better morning-facing sun—good for Lucius’s
attention of strangers from its sudden volume. Mrs. Granger made a meager attempt convalescence.”
to rein him in. Draco cleared his throat, swallowed his discomfort, pushed his soup bowl away.
“Don’t worry, son,” he said, spearing Draco with his own use of an endearment, “And how long do the healers think that will be?”
one with implications that latched like vines onto Draco’s skin, then burrowed into “Not long. But I’d like to make it as enjoyable as possible. Lucius does prefer
his bones. “That’s the sort of thing we’d only ask of family.” Mr. Granger’s laughter mornings, so a bit of morning light—I’m having the windows moved to ensure
had abated, replaced instead with a casual, but pointed lift of his brows, just enough optimal sun.”
to sway his statement towards a question if one chose to read it in that way. “Moving the windows—of course.”
Draco thought of the ring he’d once again pulled from his family vault. Of the Narcissa’s hand, which had been resting flat against the tablecloth, slid off the edge,
portkey he’d had Theo create that would lead to a weekend in Italy to celebrate disappearing out of sight. Based on the way her arms and shoulders moved, Draco
Hermione’s birthday. And then hopefully, to celebrate so much more. got the sense that his mother had closed her hands together in her lap: a careful,
Hermione’s hand had loosened enough that Draco could feel his fingertips again. measured motion whenever she had something to say but didn’t want to let too
She didn’t look at any of them though, suddenly quite interested in her drink. much out.
“One day, then,” Draco said. “I bring this up to tell you that I’ve found a few things I thought you might like to
Mrs. Granger smiled, her husband said very little, and Hermione continued her have”—a pause, a flicker from the sconces that shadowed nearly as much light as
fascination with her drink. they produced—”now that you’ve decided to live on your own.”
After they’d eaten, stumbling their way through adoration of the exhibits they’d Draco genuinely could not tell if she meant her wording to intentionally exclude
seen and casual conversation about their respective plans for the evening, they said Hermione from his living situation, or simply to emphasize that he no longer lived
their goodbyes on the busy footpath outside the restaurant. with them at the manor. In light of Narcissa’s recent stress, painted in blue-ish
“You should consider getting a cell phone, dear. It would make coordination so shadows beneath her eyes, Draco opted to give her the benefit of the doubt.
much easier,” Mrs. Granger suggested on the tail end of a hug with Hermione. “What sorts of things?” he asked carefully, suspicion taking hold.
Hermione’s face lit up, more excited than she’d looked for much of their meal. “Photos, mostly. Of your childhood.”
“I should—yes. I could get one for Draco, too.” “Oh—thank you. That would be nice to have.”
He didn’t understand why he would need one, and he expressed as much, as they Narcissa smiled, closed lips stretching her face, brows turned down as her
walked to their apparation point. expressions fought against each other. She hummed an acknowledgement and sipped
“Well, it would be nice not to have to send a Patronus if I need to contact you her wine, pretty painted nails tapping on the crystal in an absent moment as she set
quickly.” her glass down. Her eyes darted to the sound as if only then realizing she’d done it.
“But it’s a thing? That I’d have to carry with me?” His brows furrowed, trying to Her hand retreated beneath the tabletop again.
make sense of why on earth she would think carrying a little muggle technology box “I’ll have Topsy send them over?”
would achieve for him anything his wand could not. Draco shook his head, probably too quickly, to decline the offer. “I’ll bring them
She smiled as he steered them into an alleyway and towards the apparation point. with me, if you don’t mind.” He couldn’t avoid the confused tilt to Narcissa’s head.
When they stopped, she lifted onto the tips of her toes and kissed his cheek. “I have new wards. They—aren’t set up to allow for elves. We—well, we haven’t
“I’m probably going to get you one anyway.” been using Topsy the past few months.”
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She’d said it as if that settled that. He watched as Narcissa’s confusion sank into a frown, disappointment.
“I had a nice time today,” he said. “Did you enjoy your birthday afternoon with “New wards?” she asked.
your parents?” “Yes. Hermione set them up with Theo.”
 334 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 331

suspect they’ll put as much effort into this case as the Wizengamot did Lucius’s She bit her lip, but nodded. “It was nice, overall. Every day is a little better, you
appeals.” know? This whole afternoon seemed very normal.”
She kept her eyes trained on her husband, expression crossed between distress and “And that part during lunch?” He twined his fingers with hers, a reminder of the
adoration. Draco felt like an unfortunate voyeur. attack she’d launched on his phalanges.
And despite it all, despite the threats, the ultimatums, the general feelings of “They don’t know.”
worthlessness, the truth remained. Draco’s father was still his father: lying “Will they ever?”
unconscious in a hospital bed, having narrowly escaped death. She shook her head.
This wasn’t the first time Draco had worried he might lose his father. And it didn’t He apparated for them. She managed so much, he could handle the magic.
feel any different than it had before.
Was there something so wrong with wanting Lucius to be healthy? Alive? Despite
all the rest?
With a sigh settling like resignation, Draco sank into a chair in the corner of the
room and waited. The Malfoy eagle owl came in the middle of the night. It was the first official day of
Guilt burned him up, sweating him out. Desperate, Draco occluded. It had been a autumn, hours before Draco’s surprise Portkey to take Hermione to Italy activated.
long time, over a year, at least, since he’d turned to this mental magic. It greeted him Draco had spent the evening before brewing several standard potions to build up a
in coldness, but with the warmth of an old friend, a reliable way to cope. stock for the shop that he and Blaise may or may not end up leasing at the edge of
What else could he do? Draco stared at his father, a huge part of this tiny family, as Knockturn Alley. Draco had been almost certain he’d finally convinced Blaise that an
he lay in a hospital bed. He looked so breakable, so human. And Draco didn’t know owl-order business model could work, right up until Blaise walked into his office
how to handle that. Not something that big, that small. with a lease agreement and an unspoken reminder about who of them had the more
Perhaps that was where the guilt came from. After trying so hard to convince successful business track record.
himself he didn’t, Draco couldn’t exactly deny that all he wanted—even as ice Hermione sat with him while he brewed, reading a herbology periodical that
flooded his veins and he chipped it all away—was to love his father and be loved in included work Longbottom had been doing with dittany. She orated the more
return. interesting passages and absently scratched behind Crookshanks’s ears while Draco
Lifelong dreams like that didn’t die overnight. They died in pieces. In hospital chopped, diced, crushed, and mixed his ingredients.
rooms. At dining tables. Over marriage contracts. In war. And if they didn’t die Later, with his potions under a stasis charm, he crowded her against one of the
completely, even the tiniest shards left beneath the skin, they festered. workbenches, bodies sealed together from head to toe. She pretended to be
concerned about jostling his potions just like he’d pretended to care about the latest
and greatest discoveries in plant grafting.
He fucked her on the tabletop, wooden edges biting into the back of her thighs
that he healed with a salve he’d brewed mere hours before. She left scratches down
Draco hadn’t planned on taking any more meals at Malfoy Manor for at least the back of his neck, blunt nails digging into his nape; those, he didn’t heal.
another week, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of his mother sitting in that So, hours later, when the owl arrived long after he’d found peaceful sleep, Draco
obscenely huge home, eating by herself. Hermione insisted he go. Always so gracious woke with his heart knocking behind his ribs, in rhythm with the tapping at his
and kind, she insisted he needn’t keep apologizing for having snapped at her when he bedroom window. Confusion clouded his brain, a searing series of questions of what
was upset. Or for making her wait nearly three hours as he sat with his mother, and why and who and where as his thoughts spun, pulled from unconsciousness too
wondering if he stayed just one more minute, perhaps Lucius might wake up and see quickly.
him there, the devoted son he was always meant to be. Hermione’s ice-cold toes, the only part of her that ran cold as she slept, dug into
But Lucius didn’t wake up, nor was he discharged the next day. his lower back, pushing him towards the edge of the bed, forcing him up, awake, to
Slight complications with the Skele-gro on his ribs. address the rapping at their window. He might have laughed at how adorably sleep-
Nothing Draco should worry about, according to Narcissa. It just meant that they addled she looked, shoving him out of the bed while mostly asleep herself, but his
kept him unconscious longer than planned, in the hospital longer than expected. stomach dropped when the situation coalesced in his sleep-fogged brain.
Narcissa only returned to the manor for a meal with Draco when the healers insisted A Malfoy eagle owl waited at their window, bringing with it an immediate sense of
that Lucius would not awake until the next morning, after a new round of Skele-gro, foreboding.
and that she should leave and take care of herself. Draco knew this because he’d Draco jumped to his feet, sheets catching between his legs, causing him to stumble
been there, lingering in a hospital corridor instead of whisking Hermione away to as he tried to throw them off. Hermione sat up, alertness finding her at his sudden
Italy with intentions to propose. movement. He opened the window, and goosebumps erupted across his bare chest
from the slight autumnal chill in the air. He barely registered Hermione’s arrival at his
 332 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 333

side, closing the window behind the owl that perched on one of their bed posts, Draco let Hermione speak to the nurse, asking after his father’s room. Guilt had
clearly awaiting payment or a response. taken his tongue hostage, battered his heart, become an inexplicable, unidentified
“What is it?” Hermione asked, holding her wand over the parchment, offering him intruder in his home. Why did he feel so guilty for a thing he’d had no part in? The
a lumos. He’d been so caught in the cold worry cascading down his spine that he’d fear, he understood. The concern, the worry, the chilly, prickling anticipation. But the
intended to struggle against the darkness to read. She followed her lumos with a guilt consumed all the rest, crowding out his ability to feel anything else.
tempus, alerting him to the exact time he’d been sent whatever this letter was: half two They stopped in front of his father’s door. A new rush of tingling anxiety washed
in the morning. over his skin; Draco looked to Hermione.
Tiny, vicious spines prodded the underside of his skin, pricks of fear that registered She offered him a tight, weary smile.
as pain. “I’ll be out here.” She nodded towards a waiting area crammed with uncomfortable
“My father,” Draco said. He forced a swallow through the rising lump in the back looking chairs with fraying, stained upholstery.
of his throat. He tried to elaborate, say more, but his throat closed, words wrung out, “I don’t know how long I’ll be—”
liquid and slipping to his stomach where they curdled. “I’ll be here as long as it takes.”
Hermione took the letter from his hands, scanning it quickly. She released a heavy She’d been holding his hand. He hadn’t even realized. She squeezed once and
breath, sending a curl floating in between them for a moment. He watched as it rose, turned to the waiting area.
propelled by her breath and then fell again, across her face. He met her gaze. Draco found his mother at his father’s side, perched unnaturally straight in a chair
“Let’s get dressed,” she said. beside his bed, hand clasped in his. She had several wisps of hair breaking free of her
And they did. bun, shadows just beginning to form beneath her eyes, and a spot of something that
Last month, he’d visited St. Mungo’s for a wonderful reason: a birth, life, genesis. looked an awful lot like dried blood just above her neckline, creeping up her neck.
Now, he visited not knowing if his father had already met his end. The guilt inside Draco’s chest doubled when she looked up, eyes widening, rushing
him and offering the most open, genuine sort of hug they’d shared in years. He knew
how to play this part though, he’d learned it so recently. Comforting his mother
instead of being comforted.
Draco watched his father over the top of Narcissa’s head. He slept, so pale his skin
The lift to the spell damage ward nearly broke Draco of his barely cobbled nearly matched his hair—Draco’s hair—with a thin, scratchy looking blanket
composure. His nerves racheted higher and higher as the lift stopped at nearly every covering him to his chest.
fucking floor on the way up. “They’re keeping him unconscious,” his mother said against his torso before finally
“Why did mother wait so long to owl?” Draco asked to the brass grate drawn stepping away, returning to her vigil. Draco stood at the foot of the bed, feeling too
across the lift doors. “If it happened after dinner…” he trailed off, pulling out his out of place to find a seat.
pocket watch: nearly three in the morning now. “It was a nasty curse,” she said, stroking a line down Lucius’s wrist, the length of
Hermione didn’t answer; she couldn’t. But her hand found the space between his his thumb, before wrapping her hand in his. “Did terrible things to his”—she
shoulder blades, brushing slow, calming strokes up and down. He knew it should paused, stared at Lucius’s torso, tried again—”to his insides. But he’s mostly squared
have relaxed him, provided comfort, but he only found himself growing irritated. away now. Just resting, preventing complications.”
She must have felt the tension: on him, around him, become him. Her thoughts disconnected at the end, fragments of meaning Draco assumed made
“Maybe there was a lot going on—or they couldn’t reach you, or—” sense in her head, but that were lost somewhere between creation and delivery.
“Stop,” he snapped. “If I’d been at the manor—” Guilt reared its head again.
“—that’s not productive thinking—” Lying there, Lucius looked so frustratingly human. Infallible persona nullified by a
“—what the fuck does productivity matter if it’s true?” He stepped closer to the lift threadbare blanket.
grate, out of her touch. Narcissa must have seen something in Draco’s assessment.
“If it happened while they were out at dinner, you living at the manor wouldn’t “I’ve already tried to secure a room in a private ward—as if they’ve forgotten that
have made a difference. I don’t know why that’s the first thing you’d think—” we’ve made sizable donations to these facilities in the past—”
“You’re not helping.” “Mother, it’s—do you know why someone cursed him?”
He breathed in. He held his breath. He let it out. She stopped listing the several specific donations the Malfoy estate had made to the
He heard Hermione behind him. Her voice wavered, sounding confused. “I—I hospital over what seemed like that last twenty years.
know.” “We were at dinner. Walking to an apparation point, darling.” A distant, dark look
“I’m sorry.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. stole her prettiness, warping her features in the space of a blink. “I doubt there was
“I know.” any reason other than hatred for us. The Aurors have opened an investigation. I
The lift opened, released them.
 392 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 353

When he’d received the owl from his mother in the middle of the night, Hermione Draco looked at the table between them: a tray of chicken, a bowl of greens,
cast a tempus that told them it was half two in the morning. He’d decided to give roasted vegetables, a bottle of wine. To the side, two crème brûlée under a stasis
himself a ten minute window beforehand, genuinely uncertain how much time he’d charm. Their full meal, every course, already on the table with them.
spent coming out of sleep, gathering his wits about him, and finally making it to the “As you have made abundantly clear, Draco. Things can change.” And yet, Lucius’s
window. words still cut with the same precision, the same devastating accuracy as they always
He glanced at his pocket watch: almost time. He set it on his nightstand, unable to had.
justify why he might be sleeping with a watch in his pajama bottoms. He didn’t dare Draco had no response, so he said nothing. Instead, he watched as Topsy set a
risk even a single complication, nothing to confuse continuity. He barely had a grasp plate in front of him, delivered silver, a wine glass that she filled from the decanter on
on it to begin with. the table. Draco thanked her, and then flinched as she disappeared in a crack.
Draco sat on the edge of the bed, shucked off his shirt, and laid down. He had waited so long. He’d searched for the right openings, the right
He’d grown accustomed to the stress, to the pounding in his chest and the ticking opportunities to avoid rankling an already rankled situation. But to no avail. He
pulse in this throat. No longer quite as intrusive, he almost felt numb: sensations so ignored the place setting in front of him and did the thing Hermione had been asking
regular in their irregularity that they had become a sort of norm. He preferred the of him all along; he decided to be bold.
hollow sort of buzz behind his ribs to the infernal thumping. At least it provided him “I want to spend Christmas with you. With Hermione.” He inhaled, too heavy a
with a facsimile of calm. breath. “I want for us, all of us, to have dinner together. On Christmas.”
He lifted the turner, ensured it was set to the current date, and unlocked it. Then, He certainly could have said it more eloquently, but he relished that he’d said it at
careful enough to pass Theo’s methodical standards, spun it exactly one half turn. all.
The dizzying sensation, the cotton, the blur: it felt different laying down. In some Draco never knew silence to taste so sour, so sickening, so completely wrought
ways, more disorienting, a new angle to understand. Alternatively, the pillow beneath with clashing expectations and realities.
his head, the blankets covering his frame, the mattress beneath him: they offered a “You want me to dine with the Ministry Representative gutting my ancestral
sense of stability. home?”
When the traveling stopped, he noticed the darkness first. Without a lamp lit, the Draco forced himself to meet Lucius’s eyes. To speak with a level tone. To ask for
only light in his bedroom came from the moon's faint glow trickling in through the understanding, not damn the lack of it.
window. The same window where an owl would soon land. “I want you to dine with the woman I have been in a relationship with for nearly
He noticed the scent next. Just like last time, the stale sort of stagnation he’d grown two years, who has yet to formally meet my parents as my girlfriend.” He shifted his
accustomed to had transformed into something sweet, vaguely vanilla. He breathed gaze to his mother, more pleading. “She is willing, and gods know she shouldn’t be
deeply, preparing himself to find her next to him, and rolled to face her. considering the lack of effort made to welcome her here. But she is willing, and she is
Gods, he’d forgotten how far her hair could travel. Especially with it kept longer. He wanting. She is willing to do this for me, and for you.”
nearly rolled onto an errant curl invading his side of the bed. She usually put it up His mother’s face bore a look of shock, of unease, of tension drawing the muscles
when she slept, but if he remembered correctly, they’d stayed up late that night—this in her jaw tight, lips thinning. Lucius did not speak.
night—after they’d spent most of their evening with her reading and him brewing. “Please. Mother, Father.” He turned again to Lucius. “If what happened to you
They’d shared a bottle of wine, argued about something silly and academic, and fell earlier this year has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t want to lose you. Did you
into bed a little too tired and a little too tipsy to properly fuck, but tangled up know she waited at the hospital for hours? The whole time I visited you, she visited,
together nevertheless. too. But she stayed in the corridor. She respected that you would not care to see
When she only had the energy to brush her teeth before bed, her hair got free reign her—even though you weren’t even conscious—but she stayed. We’re balancing so
of their pillows. much. I think we could all enjoy so much more of our lives, of each other, if we tried
As if pulled in by a summoning charm, he crossed the boundary from his half of to be amicable.”
the bed to hers. She lay on her side, back to him, a perfect position for him to steal a Draco expended all his words, a well running dry, as much as he could think to say
selfish moment of comfort, face buried in her hair, arm wrapped around her to convince them. His heart thudded high in this throat, each thump threatening to
midsection. She settled against him in her sleep, adjusting to his presence in the sort cut off his airway. He forced a calming breath through his nose, refusing to let his
of subconscious way one did when sharing a bed. parents see the nerves that set his skin on fire right there at the dinner table.
Draco closed his eyes. Breathed against her curls. Felt the numb fear inside his “Christmas dinner,” his mother said carefully, cautiously.
chest throb: an announcement and a reminder. “Christmas dinner,” Draco confirmed.
Too soon, there came a tapping, a gentle rapping, at his darkened window frame. Narcissa watched him, very still. Her eyes volleyed from one side of his face to the
He didn’t move at first, uncertain how quickly he should react. The first time he other, from his hair to his robes and back to his face, as if memorizing him,
felt like he’d startled awake the moment he heard the noise. cataloguing a sight she couldn’t guarantee seeing again.
 354 Mightbewriting

Then, slowly, her gaze shifted to Lucius, meeting his eyes, a silent conversation
Draco couldn’t hope to understand, a language he did not know, could not learn:
+.083, 000, -.083
party of two. At best, Draco could imagine a cord drawn between them, vibrating
with the tension he could practically feel lashing the table, his nerves. He watched as MARCH
concession met resistance, a battle balanced on the tight line.
Slowly, concession pushed further, past the middling point between them,
encroaching on Lucius’s seat at the table. He swallowed it with dignity.

T
Finally, Narcissa spoke, voice surprisingly soft. “We can—manage that.” ICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK
With a tense nod, Lucius allowed an unwilling sort of assent. “At the manor, of Exactly six months after Lucius’s attack, Draco prepared to return to
course.” He sounded as if he wanted nothing less. that night and relive it with entirely different results. Not even Draco’s
Draco could make that work. He’d accept whatever agreement they were willing to most spiteful, furious impulses could relish the fact that his father would be in harm’s
offer. His diaphragm eased, releasing a pressure in his lungs he hadn’t even noticed. way again. He couldn’t seem to escape his eternal existence as a boy who wanted his
It unfurled, unclenched, relief unwinding in a whole series of softening muscles: of father to live, to live in peace, and to live a life separate from him.
tendons and ligaments and fascia all loosening with a single, disbelieving exhale. The same night Lucius was attacked, Draco had a portkey scheduled in the
“Thank you,” he said, meaning it. He wondered when had been the last time he morning to whisk him and Hermione to Italy, a belated birthday celebration after
genuinely meant to give his parents thanks for something. “Thank you,” he said missing their chance the month before because of James Potter’s poorly-timed birth.
again, still questioning his grasp on reality. Draco had planned to wine and dine her through the Italian countryside, to fuck her
He hadn’t realized how tightly he’d wound his fear of them denying this inside his in the biggest, softest beds available in the most obscenely luxurious suites she would
chest. Having it unwind, he finally felt like there existed a future, somewhere out hate that he’d paid for, and propose marriage sometime between dinner and dessert.
there, where Draco could have both. It filled him with a flammable hope; he could They’d celebrate with champagne and more sex.
have both the woman he loved and the parents he missed. It had been a good plan until fear for his father and concern for his mother had
He allowed himself to forget, in a moment of elation, how much tinder hid in his stolen it from him.
family home. He knew Lucius would survive this time. And he knew what too much concern
would look like months later. A creeping, tiny reintroduction of sympathy that grew
from a seedling in his stomach to a newfound guilt he did not know how to uproot.
Draco found he didn’t so much care for that end result.
He didn’t let Theo stay this time.
Theo apparated into Draco’s flat two weeks to the day after his failed attempt at
using the time turner to change the course of Christmas dinner. Or, he supposed, it
couldn’t really be termed a failed attempt; he achieved his primary goal by not letting
Lucius walk all over him. He’d requested a disinheritance, which he’d since learned
was already well underway, legally speaking. But he hadn’t managed to simultaneously
salvage his relationship with Hermione. His life was still—unravelled. Ragged, fraying
threads pulled loose and left to unwind, undone.
Theo delivered the time turner with slightly less apprehension than he had the first
time. But marginally settled nerves didn’t stop his constant reminders about
fractional turns—reverse spin .500 to get to September 2004—which included
writing it on a piece of parchment and using a sticking charm to affix it to Draco’s
bedpost as a final reminder.
At least half a spin seemed easier to accomplish than the .166 of one he’d had to do
the first time, even with indicators engraved on the golden frame.
Now, Draco stood staring at the parchment stuck to his bedpost, mere minutes
from laying down on his half of the bed, using the time turner, and finding
Hermione’s side no longer so distractingly empty. She would be there, in the bed
with him. He couldn’t decide if it made him pathetic or romantic, recognizing how
hard his heart beat in anticipation of that eventuality.
 390 Mightbewriting

Theo cleared his throat. Draco closed his eyes. The weight of realizing how much
had changed and yet, how nothing had really changed, pressed against his chest,
-.166, -.250, -.333
crushing him against the cushions.
“What now?” Theo asked. DECEMBER
A painful laugh choked Draco, caught between his chest and his throat.
“Proposing wasn’t a bad idea, honestly. I’ve had—so many opportunities, plans to
do it over the past year and I”—a flash of an idea—”I know when.”

T
Draco opened his eyes, leaning forward in his chair as adrenaline surged, dulling ICK TOCK TICK TOCK
some of the pounding in his skull and the exhaustion weighing down his bones. “I Draco orbited, lost in Hermione’s gravitational pull all evening. He
need you to modify it again. I need more time. Thirty minutes should still be plenty. I enjoyed the party, enjoyed celebrating his accomplishment, enjoyed having
had a whole plan. Before my father was attacked last year. I—I let all those plans slip a business that belonged to him. But whenever he looked up, his eyes cut through the
away while I was busy at the hospital, choosing him, again.” crowd of his distinguished guests, finding her in a matter of seconds. His grand
“He was seriously injured.” opening soirée had been a glittering success, even by Blaise’s impossibly high
“He survived. And now we’re here.” standards—if the clap on Draco’s shoulder and the slightly intoxicated, “Great
Theo tilted his head, an unreadable look aimed at the time turner sitting in his lap. work,” were any indication.
“How long did it take me to extend it to thirty minutes?” The crowd thinned and Draco’s skin buzzed pleasantly with champagne and
“A little less than a month. Why?” success. It felt good. He felt good, like he’d achieved, accomplished, proven himself,
“How often do I get the opportunity to try and beat my own time inventing even if it was only a silly little potions shop at the edge of Knockturn Alley. If the
something? I’ll have it done in two weeks.” elegant cocktail tables, floating champagne service, sparkling artificial snow, and din
of laughter, conversation, and congratulations counted for anything, this could be
enough. The party had been magical, and he could feel that magic swimming in his
veins as the guests began to disperse, conversation waning.
His eyes found Hermione again, standing at a cocktail table, fingers wrapped
around the stem of a champagne flute as she smiled—tight and disingenuously—at
the person across from her. Draco tilted his head and stepped around an ice
sculpture, curious to know who dared bore Hermione Granger. Draco didn’t
recognize the witch, but he did recognize the tension crinkling at the corners of
Hermione’s eyes, tightness she could never quite relax when impatience crept its way
up her spine.
Her eyes flickered to him, catching him watching. Her companion gestured;
Hermione nodded, then looked at Draco again. He watched as a brightness sparked
to life in her eyes as she lifted her champagne glass barely an inch off the table and
brought it back down: did it again, and once more. Three taps. A signal.
A smirk pulled at his lips, entirely independent of conscious effort. He wasted no
time, navigating through the lingering crowd and finding himself at her side, making
excuses for them, and bidding farewell to the last of their guests.
“Did I see Pansy Parkinson here earlier?” Hermione asked as Draco cast a locking
charm on the door once the shop had finally emptied of friends and future patrons.
The hour had long past the time when clocks ticked over to begin counting a new
day.
Draco’s grip on his wand tightened as he lowered it. “I don’t know. I didn’t see her.
I—haven’t talked to Pansy in years.”
“I thought I saw her pop in and talk to Theo for a minute. But it could have been
someone else.” Hermione shrugged it off, spelling the various empty champagne
flutes and hors d’oeuvres plates to begin collecting themselves.
“If she was here, she didn’t say anything to me.”
 356 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 389

Hermione stole a maraschino cherry from a large crystal bowl. “You know, I don’t “You didn’t have enough time,” Theo said. “We haven’t gotten much further than
think Pansy Parkinson has ever said a single thing to me that wasn’t outright nasty.” that. This literally just happened.”
Draco sighed. “To be fair, until not so long ago the same could probably have been “Thirty minutes wasn’t enough time to convince her to marry me?”
said for me.” He cast a spell, magic swelling with a gust, pulling tablecloths from the Theo didn’t say anything, features pinching as he blinked.
tables and folding them. “Theo wanted her to furnish this place, tried to convince me “Thirty minutes,” Theo repeated. Not exactly a question, more a confirmation.
to hire her.” Draco opened his mouth to say yes, of course, thirty minutes, but closed it again. His
“Pansy?” pulse throbbed behind his eyes again.
He nodded. He could feel the tension around his eyes, noticed the way his lips “I had you extend the time I could stay in the past. I needed more time to fix the
sealed shut as his mouth pulled into a forced smile. dinner.”
Hermione brought her hand to his wrist, lowering his wand, halting his spells. Theo leaned over and set his glass on the hearth.
“We’ll worry about cleaning up tomorrow. You—seem like you might have more “Fuck—Draco. I know I’m good, but. I’ve already modified it to operate in years.
to say about that?” Her voice lifted at the end of her sentence, matching her brows as I’ve modified it to operate outside a clean loop of time, to start new timelines. I’ve
she looked up at him. modified it to bring the user back to their starting point after five minutes. And now
“She was—a big part of my life for a long time.” His jaw tightened, trying to hold you’re saying I extended that, too?”
back a verbal rockslide. He could say so much about his long, complicated history Many times in Draco life, he’d felt like an event repeated, a conversation echoed,
with Pansy Parkinson. In holding it all in, what eventually slipped out sounded bitter. hovering along the thin line between coincidence and divination. He’d just
“She fucked off to France with Daphne Greengrass after the war. Something about experienced it in a literal sense, having travelled back in time. But this moment, this
cutting out bad influences.” was different. This was a near perfect repetition of a conversation he’d already had
“That’s not fair to you.” with Theo, only out of order.
Of all the things she could have said, Hermione picked the thing that bore straight “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
through the emotional debris trying to make a mess of his new shop. She watched Theo said nothing, just started shaking his head. He pulled the time turner from his
him as he swallowed, then spoke before he could gather his thoughts. pocket and started examining it. “Still just five,” he muttered, head swivelling from
“You did an excellent job furnishing this place without her,” she said, smiling, side to side.
sliding her arms around his waist. “It’s very orderly. Very you. And once you finish “So, I tried to propose. And I feel like I have to assume that something about
filling it with stock, hire a clerk, perhaps, it’ll be a real shop.” that…not going well, inspired me to fight with Lucius and ultimately still blow up the
It sounded remarkably simple coming from her lips like that. glass that I remember blowing up just now because you remember it, too.” He
“It will be. And it’s mine.” dropped his head against the back of his chair. The throb behind his eyes spread,
“I’m proud of you.” filling out his sinuses. “Theo. If I was just in the dining room, before I left and I—
Pride. A slippery, finicky thing. A question skittered through his thoughts, chasing disappeared. The other version of me that would have been left at that table, did he
the rush of contentment. What mattered more: the pride or the person he’d earned it not know I’d already used the turner? I don’t—”
from? He’d once contorted himself to earn his father’s pride, only his father’s. Later, “Paradox avoidance, mate. Time would have continued normally for the version of
he would have been grateful to earn it from anyone, validation for work he’d done to you left behind. At least, I think. I assume. You would have remembered the events
better himself, behave differently. But now, he couldn’t imagine wanting to earn as if they happened normally, but not your—I don’t know—invasive mindset
anyone’s pride more than he wanted Hermione’s. He couldn’t decide if that was a manipulating the motivations? You wouldn’t have remembered another version of
dangerous thing or not. you orchestrating things. The mind is powerful; has its own magic. I imagine
He didn’t mind a little danger. He’d lived with—survived—much worse. This something like déjà vu happens. You might have felt a bit off, or perhaps like time
danger felt like excitement, like a thrill that reminded him of his own mortality. Gods, moved strangely, or conversations repeated. Those sorts of sensations, I suspect.”
he loved her. “My brain hurts.”
He needed to make another trip to the Malfoy vaults. Perhaps trying to wait for “Best not think too hard about it. Time is a bit like magic, I think. There are parts
Italy or the perfect moment was a fantasy. Maybe he’d been waiting for the right we can understand and parts we can’t. And the way I’m combining time and magic in
moment to propose in the same way he’d been waiting for the right moment with his this thing?” He lifted the time turner from his lap. “Honestly, we’re asking for
parents. He could make his own moments, engineer their rightness for himself. trouble. It’s a good thing we’re two responsible adults.”
He disentangled her arms from his waist, pulling her towards the shop’s back “What? As opposed to children?”
room. “Can you imagine?”
“What will you keep back here?” Hermione asked as she let her fingers trail down “I’d rather not.”
his arm, stepping away, examining the space.
 388 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 357

“You—you know I’ve already used it?” “I’ll put up some shelves. I’ll keep books, periodicals, ingredients. Cover the walls.”
Theo landed in the black leather wingback beside the fireplace. He shook his head, He turned on his heel, finding her watching as he appraised the room. “I won’t have
drew a breath, and looked up at Draco with question. “Yes?” he said, voice lilting, to turn our spare room into a brewer’s dungeon any longer.”
turning what might have been a statement into a question. “Fifteen minutes ago—” Hermione made a show of examining the bare walls, taking several careful steps in
“No, just now.” an arc, orbiting him this time. She pivoted, slow.
“Wait—what?” “But I like watching you brew.”
“I just used it. Five minutes to six.” “Do you?”
“You mean fifteen minutes to six.” Hermione pursed her lips before a light laugh escaped, the first indication that
“No, five. Theo, I just got back. I—” Draco dragged a hand through his hair. A she’d had a couple of drinks throughout the evening. He’d had some, too. The room
strange burning sensation travelled beneath his skin from his temples to the nape of felt warm, full despite its complete barrenness. His love, her pride, his heart, her
his neck. “I went to dinner; I didn’t let him win. I—I asked to be disinherited and head; they ate up all the free space.
then I blew up—fuck, it was an accident; I haven’t lost control of my magic since I She didn’t answer immediately. She continued her arc: careful steps, slowly moving
was a child—” closer. A spiral, a degrading orbit, a destination.
“All the glassware. You blew up all the glass in the dining room.” “Why do you like watching me brew, love?” He had to ask, he couldn’t stop
“Yes.” Draco didn’t have the wherewithal to be surprised by that confirmation, himself.
struggling to align an out-of-order series of events. Across from Theo, he sank into “You’re so focused.” Another step closer, spiraling. “When you brew, it’s your
the second, matching wingback. whole world. And you pour everything you have into it.” She stepped again, glancing
Theo dragged a hand down his face, returning to his brow line to rub his thumb him, a sideswipe. “All your brain power, your dexterity, your creativity, your time.”
and forefinger along it, pausing with fingers on both temples. Another step, a turn, objects colliding.
“You’ve just returned from having, I presume, changed the course of events from “That doesn’t sound all that compelling,” he teased, hands skating up her sides as
that Christmas dinner? Fuck, time is complicated.” Theo blew out a breath, dropping she came to a halt, chest to chest with him.
his hand from his face. “This—timeline, the one I’ve always known. That’s how the “Sometimes you look at me like that, too.”
dinner always happened; you blew up all that glass after fighting with Lucius. I just “I’d wager more than sometimes.” He fisted her curls, hand disappearing in the
watched you go back and try to propose to her before the dinner instead of planning softest bramble imaginable. A noise spilled from her throat, high pitched, almost
to do it after. Which didn’t work, by the way.” whimpered. She dragged her fingertips up his left thigh, over his hip, coming to rest
The burning at the nape of Draco’s neck travelled down his spine, blooming in a on his belt.
manner consistent with true, earth-shattering panic. The kind of hot fear he felt when “How am I looking at you right now, Hermione?”
he learned his father had been sent to Azkaban in fifth year, or when he first watched
The Dark Lord set his snake on a body in his home.
“But why didn’t telling my father to keep his money fix it? She still—she left?” He
put his glass to his lips and tilted his head back, downing his whisky and experiencing
a different kind of burn. Draco tried not to fidget as he watched Hermione decide between dresses in
Theo’s brows drew together. “She was overwhelmed, I think. Didn’t want you to fuschia and ivory. She adamantly refused to consider any fabrics even remotely
blow up your life for her—something about having to be absolutely sure for resembling Hogwarts house colors, determined to present herself as neutral as
something that huge. I—Draco I’m not exactly privy to the private conversations possible.
surrounding your breakup. I just know my best friend has been oscillating between This was Draco’s third Christmas with her—if he counted the one in 2002 when
furious and depressed. You kept going on about how if ever there was a reason the they didn’t technically spend Christmas together but so much had happened that it
two of you should break up it was because you put her in harm's way.” felt worth counting. He tried to hold onto that thought, the pleasantness of another
“I did.” holiday with her. He armed himself with it, battling his nerves.
Theo rolled his eyes as an annoyed scoff slipped from his throat. “Right. Sure. Draco, nervous in a bad, unproductive way.
You’ve been doing a lot of that self-flagellating, too. Shit about how you’re a bad Hermione, nervous in a buzzing, frantic way.
influence in her life, just like with Pansy. Which is bullshit, by the way. Finally talked Neither fully prepared for a meal with his parents, if Draco had to guess.
you out of it a bit and now this whole I have to propose to her so she knows how sure I am He swallowed, watching her debate her options as she stood casually, debilitatingly
thing. And—well. Here we are.” beautiful, in her bra and knickers.
Draco’s pulse throbbed behind his eyes. On any other day it would have been a criminally distracting offense, but Draco
“Why didn’t proposing work?” He felt a bit sick, regretting the alcohol he’d just forced himself to focus.
dumped into his stomach. “She said no?”
 358 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 387

This dinner with his parents was his chance, and he would only have one “You will have nothing,” Lucius spat. “No money, no connections, no nice secret
opportunity to get it right. He’d already come too close to losing them, constantly flat paid for by this Estate. I’ll have you disinherited. What prospects do you imagine
teetering on the edge. His father had nearly died. there are for a disinherited Malfoy with The Dark Lord’s mark on his arm?”
The relief Draco felt when they’d agreed to dine with him and Hermione had “Lucius!” Narcissa’s voice rang sharp and tight, practically shredding the tablecloth
settled his resolve. Resolve wrapped in nervousness, in trepidation, but in between them.
determination, too. Draco shot from his chair, pulse pounding behind his ears. He’d never been
He would do anything to make this work. He’d already failed his father once, a consciously aware of baring his teeth before, but he could feel it in the painful
family account he’d let flounder and fail and then had ripped from him when he’d grimace twisting and stretching his lips.
said too much, at the wrong time, offending. Enough time had passed—a year, in “It’s your fucking fault I have it in the first place.” He could nearly feel his mark
fact—for Draco to show his parents that he could still be a proper, if modern, heir to burning, on display. He didn’t know who’d weaponized it now. “Keep your money,
the Malfoy Estate. keep every fucking knut.”
Draco stood as Hermione slipped the fuschia dress over her head. He began He thought about smashing his plate or throwing his silver, something to exercise
buttoning his shirt, pleased he’d opted for charcoal trousers and that her final choice the wildfire thundering through his veins.
didn’t necessitate he change. He stepped up behind her, fastening his cufflinks as she Instead, all the glass in the dining room shattered.
examined herself in the dresser mirror. Goblets, chandeliers, windows: all of it.
With tremendous effort, he did not look at the valet box resting atop the dresser. The next instant, Hermione had her wand out, immobilizing the explosion. Had
He’d intentionally pulled his cufflinks from it while Hermione had been in the closet she sensed it? His impending loss of control?
selecting dresses. If he looked, she would look. And if she looked, she’d find the ring Thousands—perhaps millions—of shards hung in the air between them, glittering
he pulled from his family vault—again. And hopefully, for the last time. almost like snow.
Keeping it in the flat already posed a risk, what with how nosy and prone to Hermione muttered a spell and the glass disintegrated, dust falling to the tabletop,
reorganization Hermione could be. A part of him wanted to reach for it, right there. contaminating their meal. When he looked at her, she had a tiny trickle of blood
It was Christmas day, after all. It could be her gift. Maybe this could be his moment seeping through her right eyebrow.
in the making. His heart sank.
She turned before he did something impulsive, her back to the dresser, her chest to Whatever he might have done next got swallowed up by a blur, a spin, cotton in his
his. She placed a hand on his, stopping his action as he pushed metal through cotton. ears and film over his eyes. A sensation not unlike a portkey, pulling him into
“You don’t have to.” alignment with his own body in the new version of a timeline he’d just made.
She looked down at his cuffs, brows drawn together. When she finally looked back
up at him, she wore a face of concern, but determination. She’d spent the whole day
in a sort of nervous flutter; seeing this level of resolve felt important, monumental, in
a way.
“Wear cufflinks?” Draco blinked, blurred vision sharpening.
If he’d know what she intended, he might have stopped her. But she caught him Back in his flat, standing in front of his fireplace again. He grabbed at his pockets;
off guard, nimble fingers rolling his sleeve, dropping his cufflink on the dresser. the time turner had vanished.
Before he had the wherewithal to react, she’d exposed his left forearm, a dark It wasn’t the only thing.
shadow staring at them from beneath his concealment charms. He turned to find an empty space where a green tufted sofa once sat. Which meant
He stared at her, staring at it. Even obscured and nothing but a shadow, knowing it Hermione had gotten to Eliot in this new version of events, too. His eyes caught on
was there was the worst part. It took him one slow blink to come to his senses. He all the other empty spaces around him that once held her things: books missing from
tried to pull away. the bookcases, a throw blanket missing from the back of an armchair, her traveling
“You don’t have to hide it. I know it’s there.” cloak missing from the coat rack.
Against his better judgment, his arm went limp in her hands. Perhaps this was a He released a breath, shoulders sinking, spine collapsing. He spun, nearly jumping
fight he’d been waiting to lose. out of skin at a sound from the kitchen.
“You could remove it, too, if you don’t like looking at it. Instead of just glamouring Theo emerged, a tumbler of whisky in each of his hands. Draco whipped his head
it everyday.” back around, confirming the time on the grandfather clock: just under five minutes
Tendons flexed in his arm but he did not pull back.”You know I can’t.” until six.
Hermione sighed. She lifted her hand. Carefully, as if approaching a wounded “I thought I told you to sit down. I’m not letting you use it again right now. Sit.
animal, she pressed two fingers to the inside of his elbow, a light touch with her Drink.” Theo forced a tumbler in Draco’s hands.
fingertips. Lighter still, slowly, she let her fingers trail down his arm, over the He blinked, rubbed his temple, and tried to make sense of Theo’s words.
 386 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 359

forged by the two months of misery he’d endured because of this pathetic fucking glamour and the brand beneath it, to his wrist, and back to his hand, where she
dinner conversation. anchored him in place.
“The war? You treated me like cannon fodder, nearly got me killed—” “You punish yourself over it every day.” She sounded so sad.
“Some things couldn’t be helped—he would have killed us all.” “I do not.”
The first time they’d had this fight, Draco remembered Lucius sounding vicious “Then remove it. Your potion could do it.” Hermione didn’t often raise her voice,
here, terrifying. Now, he seemed closer to unhinged, to desperate. Draco couldn’t didn’t often snap. But her tone sharpened, cut with precision. “Either remove it or
decide if he wanted to laugh or scream. wear it like it doesn’t own you. But this? Long sleeves, a blurred brand? I’m not—
The second time, it happened like this: ashamed of you. You know that right?”
He didn’t believe his father. Even if it had been a sense of preservation, of wanting He couldn’t place why he made the connection, couldn’t quite rationalize why, of
to keep all of them alive, that drove him to make the many and varied terrible and all the things that could come to mind standing there with her, a memory of Azkaban
unforgivable decisions he’d made during the war, that didn’t excuse his actions now. swallowed him up. No longer standing with her in their bedroom, but sitting in a cell:
Not the way he treated Hermione. Not the way he treated Draco. He didn’t believe one hundred and five days in isolation. He shivered, damp stone walls and stinging
that the potential loss of his only son mattered as much to him as his demeanor salt air clinging to him, even now, years later.
suggested. “I know you’re not ashamed of me,” he said, seeking his anchor in her hand. “Are
For too long, sidestepping conflict with his father had included with it the you going to Gryffindor me right now?” He tried to smile, or smirk, or otherwise
comorbidity of maintaining a relationship with him, tenuous and conditional as it twist his lips to form a shape that wasn’t a frown or a grimace or the echo of a
was. Even Narcissa, who nearly broke Draco’s heart every time he saw her trying, scream.
and failing, to force a middle ground where there was none, had limits he did not The smile she returned barely qualified as such, an equally failed attempt at
think she would overcome. Limits that would prevent her from accepting Hermione avoiding frowns.
as a permanent part of his life. Draco could no longer avoid conflict with forced “I think so,” she said, lifting her wand. “May I?”
civility in the way Narcissa would have it. Poise and grace and conversation held He inhaled, determined not to feel the sting of salt. He had no choice, not really.
exclusively through subtext only masked the beliefs she held to as tightly as Lucius He’d never been capable of denying her. Never wanted to. He dipped his chin, a
did, excusing nothing. verisimilitude of a nod.
Hermione would be a permanent part of his life. Before he could blink, she’d cast a finite incantatem on his concealment charms.
He wouldn’t let his father win this time, not again, not now. Barely pausing, she shifted to his other arm, unhooking the cufflink, depositing it on
“That’s a weak excuse and you know it,” Draco said, chest shaking as he exhaled. the dresser, and rolling his sleeve to the elbow. She stepped back in the scant space
Adrenaline nearly burned him up. He’d hidden from the flames before, sinking into between her back and the dresser, pressing against it, examining her work.
the cold reprieve his Occlumency offered. Now, he embraced the heat. His forearms felt foreign, exposed, a part of him he’d hidden away for years. She
Draco had never seen his father’s face flush so red, features so twisted in anger. placed a palm flat against his chest, drawing his attention away from the prickling
“Excuse me?” unease of exposure.
“Hermione is my family. If you care so much about preserving and protecting this “I’m optimistic,” she said. “I am. I think this dinner has the potential to be really,
family, then you will find a way to accept her.” really good for us. But as much as I believe this dinner can go well”—she looked
Lucius stood from his seat, palms pressed flat against the table as he leaned over down at his Dark Mark and his eyes followed hers, really looking at it for the first
his plate. Even now, with all his resolve, the steel in Lucius’s gaze nearly forced time in a very long time—”I also think they should have to face the consequences of
Draco to balk, shrinking away from the source of that anger. their actions. You don’t have to make the terrible thing they put you through easy on
“This is not a negotiation,” Lucius seethed, venom spit like a serpent. them.”
Between Draco and his father, Narcissa and Hermione watched as if this dinner He opened his mouth.
had become their worst nightmares, though perhaps for very different reasons. “And I swear to Merlin, Draco Malfoy, if you try and tell me one more time how
“If you do not end your dalliance with this girl I will revoke access to your you wanted to be branded I will hex you, dinner be damned.”
accounts. All of them. You’ll live as a pauper—” He closed his mouth.
“Do it.” Then opened it again. “Are—are you weaponizing me?”
Lucius blinked. The dining room was big enough that if Draco had shouted, he She clearly hadn’t expected that, breath whooshing out of her.
imagined his words would have echoed, knocking on walls and windows as they “Maybe. Or perhaps I’m liberating you.” She cast a glance around the room, focus
mocked their recipient. But he hadn’t shouted. He’d spoken evenly, in a normal catching in several places before she finally found his face again, contrition seeping
speaking voice, the request he’d waited the whole meal to make. in, overtaking that confident determination she’d worn mere moments before. “Your
Lucius blinked again, evidently clearing his head of the fog Draco’s demand had relationship with your parents and with your past and—all that. It’s complicated, I
cast on him. know. And I’ve realized that I pushed, probably more than I should have. It feels so
 360 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 385

much like an impossible situation. I’m just—I’m trying to figure out what’s possible. “Am I to take from this petulant outburst that the basic social etiquette we have
I want to help and I don’t think I know how.” employed in allowing this woman to join us at our dinner table on a holiday is not
What could he say to that? Her effort might be misplaced, but then again, it might sufficient for your childish wants?”
not. How could either of them know, really? So very near to the first time. Some reactions were bound to the magic in one's
She cracked a tiny smile that shined light through the shadows cast between them. veins, it seemed.
“Besides—you look quite attractive like that.” Her smile cooled, twisting to a Narcissa cut in, just as she did before.
smirk, something sly. “I like your arms.” “It’s not—personal, Miss Granger. Not as it has been in the past. But the matters
That, of all things, such a light and ridiculous thing to say on the heels of what of an Estate require certain considerations.” She glanced at Draco, then at Lucius,
they’d just been wading through together, snapped him out of the weighted before returning her focus to Hermione, who sat with a sort of grim determination
melancholy trying to smother him. He lifted his arms, braced them on the dresser, on on her face. “Draco carries two pureblood lineages in his veins, are you aware of
either side of her frame. He leaned closer. that?”
“Is that so?” Hermione squared her shoulders: a beautiful specimen in resistance. Draco had
She tried to laugh, but it caught in her throat. “Don’t look so smug. You know forgotten how powerful she could look. Even sitting at a too large dinner table
you’re distractingly attractive. This isn’t news. Especially not after two years.” occupied by four.
He failed. His eyes flicked towards the valet box. The ring was right there and “Yes, Mrs. Malfoy. I am aware of Draco’s past, and of the considerations of an
Hermione was right here. Estate.”
“Two years is a long time,” he said, voice low, almost croaking. Words flew, zipping across the table; he’d forgotten how quickly things had
Urgency seized him. They were about to throw themselves off a cliff, descend into devolved, trapped in his own horror.
a valley and prostrate themselves at his parents’ feet. It could go terribly. “You are not ignorant, then?” Lucius demanded. “You realize what you will cost
Monumentally terribly. He could make this moment before all that theirs. In their him: social status, a fortune, his family name? Generations, centuries of history and
bedroom, living their lives, overcoming the little things that took up so much space. tradition? You know and you simply don’t care? You wish to take my son from me?
Hermione swallowed. “It is a long time.” From his mother, his family?”
“Twice what I had with Astoria.” “That’s why we’re here, Mr. Malfoy. This doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.”
“One less than what I had with Ron.” Draco heard her deliberation in every carefully articulated syllable.
“Hermione—” “And what, pray tell, does that mean?” Lucius snapped.
“I found it earlier.” Her eyes darted to the left and it was an unmistakable motion, Hermione flushed, faltered as the words with which she took such care missed
even though the valet box sat out of her line of sight. “I didn’t open—I didn’t their mark entirely. This time, Draco knew what she’d meant.
look—but I saw—” “It’s a theory about gains and losses,” he said. “It means that Hermione believes I
“Hermione—” can still have a relationship with the two of you regardless of my relationship with
“Ask me after.” her.”
Draco blinked. “She believes? And what of you, my son?”
“After?” “I believe you’ll revoke access to my accounts should I continue my relationship
“After we’ve done this. After we’ve had a civil meal with your parents.” Her chest with her. That you will use this family’s money as leverage to get what you want, as
expanded, a resolved breath. “Ask me after.” you always have.”
“Draco,” Narcissa said, silver clattering against her plate. She looked at him as if
she couldn’t quite believe the accusations he’d just hurled.
Hermione looked at him, too. Her expression differed from Narcissa’s disbelief.
Hermione’s look said she couldn’t understand him, not in that moment. She had no
Topsy greeted them at the Floo when they arrived at Malfoy Manor, a friendly idea that it had all been hopeless from the start.
welcome. Hermione seemed unfazed, or perhaps unaware. “Draco,” Hermione started, before Lucius cut her off with his fist slamming down
“You seem tense—well, more tense,” she said as they followed Topsy to the dining on the table.
room. “Do you have any idea, girl, the price I’ve paid to preserve this family? I won’t have
“We weren’t greeted by the master of the estate. We’re being escorted by an elf—” you tearing it to pieces. In the war alone—”
“Don’t demean Topsy—” Draco remembered this part, perhaps more keenly than the rest. Branded into his
“—That’s not what I mean, Hermione. It’s a social custom. He’s—they’re— brain the same way a mark had been branded onto his skin. He savored getting to
flouting it.” shout at his father over it one more time. He let himself feel the anger, feel the rage
Hermione frowned, pace faltering for a half step.
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Hermione’s fingertips dug into his arm for a beat before she released him, as if “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” she said, optimism soaking every word.
determined to stand on her own. He would call her naive if he didn’t know her so well. He knew when she forced
“Hello,” she said, a tiny waver in her words. “You may call me Hermione. The something, when she intended to manifest it into existence by her sheer, outstanding
formality is hardly necessary.” She pivoted her gaze from Lucius to Narcissa. “Your willpower.
dining room looks lovely.” He reached for her hand, cooling the heat in his chest with a fresh gulp of air.
Narcissa smiled, not quite as forced. “Thank you. Please, sit.” “You know what’s strange?” he asked. “You spend more time here than I do, these
Already, Draco had difficulty keeping track of the things that happened exactly as days.”
they had before, and the things that had been altered. What had felt like a perfect Her hand pulsed in his: a silent acknowledgement.
memory of their evening sagged under the weight of thousands and thousands of There was no ceremony when they reached the dining room doors. Topsy simply
little things that transpired in every second of every minute. cracked them open with her elf magic and led them inside. Draco might have
When Draco took his seat, he checked his grandfather’s pocket watch; he’d already preferred another moment to collect himself, to prepare himself to cross the
spent ten of his thirty minutes. boundary between before this meal and during it, leading soon to after. He clung to the
He wouldn’t have time to sit through several courses of awkward, painful idea of after.
conversation, waiting for the moment when everything fell apart. He’d have to break Lucius and Narcissa sat at the formal dining table, sipping wine from crystal
it first, in order to fix it the way it needed to be fixed. goblets. Draco’s gaze caught on the hors d’oeuvres service already presented on the
When Draco was seven, he and Theo had snuck out on their toy brooms in the table.
Nott gardens. They’d flown way too far, way too fast, in pursuit of a real snitch The dining room itself looked lovely; a fifteen foot fir sat where the buffet table
they’d nicked from a set at Malfoy Manor. Draco had lost control of his broom normally lived. Garland stretched between archways. Charmed snow floated and
trying to loop too quickly around a grand, three tiered fountain; he’d rolled, fallen, swirled at the ceiling. Candles flickered everywhere, on every possible surface. The
and landed on hard stone with his outstretched arm, losing the snitch and breaking fireplace roared with a warm, orange glow. The whole scene felt bright, warm and
his wrist in the process. The snitch had been from his father’s set, one he’d been sparkling. It was quite ruined by the dread that trickled down Draco’s back.
expressly forbidden from touching in the past. He hadn’t wanted to disappoint his Narcissa stood, smiling her perfect society smile in greeting.
father, so he hid his wrist inside his robes when Narcissa picked him up later in the Draco saw the exact moment her gaze landed on his attire, on his rolled sleeves:
day. first his right, then an immediate switch to his left. He couldn’t recall a time when
He couldn’t hide it indefinitely, though. he’d ever let his mother see his mark, not since the war. He tried not to flinch, not to
When his parents found out, naturally they’d called for a healer. Draco’s wrist had squirm, not the reach over and shove his sleeve down.
to be rebroken before it could be set correctly. It had started healing improperly: a She blinked away the tension that formed between her brows, one hand resting
malunion, they’d called it. The healer gave him a dose of Skele-Gro, a sleeping potion, carefully on the back of her chair. He watched her grip loosen, a conscious uncoiling
and by the next morning, his wrist was in perfect working order again. of whatever emotion had just seized her.
This dinner didn’t feel so different from that: rebreaking a bone that set incorrectly Lucius remained seated, but his eyes tracked from Draco, to Hermione, and back
the first time around. A malunion. That’s what this was, after all, wasn’t it? A bad again. Slowly, and with a stiff sort of motion, he nodded a greeting.
coming together. “Son,” he said, jaw barely moving. “Ministry Representative Granger.”
He would need to cut straight to the point of this dinner. Hermione’s hand clenched in his before it dropped as she inhaled.
He allowed for five minutes of pained pleasantries. “Hello,” she said, only the tiniest waver poking through her armor. “You may call
He sliced through a piece or Cornish Hen, speared a vegetable, took a bite, chewed me Hermione. The formality is hardly necessary.” She pivoted her gaze from Lucius
and swallowed. to Narcissa. “Your dining room looks lovely.”
Then, he spoke. Narcissa’s smile shifted, closer to genuine than forced. “Thank you. Please, sit.”
“Mother, Father. Shall we skip ahead to the part where you explain why you’ve Draco pulled a seat out for Hermione across from his mother, where he usually sat.
decided to insult us by forgoing the most basic social etiquette for receiving guests in He then took his place at the head of the table, opposite Lucius at the other end. He
your home?” resisted the temptation to comment on the fact that his parents had not waited for
His voice came out so sharp, so level, so startlingly loud that it surprised even him their arrival to take their own seats. That could be a slight Hermione need not know
as it rang through the room. Hermione’s head snapped towards him: eyes wide, a about if she didn’t recognize it.
deep vertical line between her brows. Hermione said something about decorative charms. Narcissa responded in kind.
“Did you expect Hermione not to notice and me not to say anything?” He directed Their voices seemed to roll around the hollow spaces between crystal and china. The
the question straight at Lucius, barreling down the long table between them. distance between Draco’s seat at one end of the table and Lucius’s seat at the other
felt comically large, divided by an obstacle course composed of serving platters and
silver.
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Outside of his unintended half-meal spent with them in November when he asked She stopped, a misstep, head tilted as she smiled, one curl still knotted around her
for this dinner, it occurred to Draco that he had not dined with his parents for nearly knuckle.
two months. “Thank you. You look—are you alright? You look a bit peaky, actually.”
Tilly cracked into the room beside him, delivering his soup service. He almost laughed. He probably looked like he’d lost some weight and hadn’t seen
“Thank you, Tilly,” he said. “Milly sends her wishes for the holiday season.” the sun in several weeks. He rallied, forced the hammering inside his chest to calm;
Draco ignored the scrape of a fork against a salad plate, looking instead at he had thirty minutes.
Hermione, who offered him a small, warm smile. He watched as her forefinger But he could be allowed one small moment, couldn’t he?
bobbed up and down, not quite tapping the table, but a close, considering thing. He stepped forward, heart stuttering again as she lifted her hands to skate up his
Then she spoke. chest: so easy, so natural. That ease pulled him the rest of the way in, head dipping, a
“Is there anything we can convey to Milly for you the next time we’re at the Nott near kiss. Her fingers continued their ascent, wrapping around the back of his neck,
Estate?” Hermione asked. dragging through his hair.
Draco’s chest flooded with pride. Even in a pit of snakes, she refused to be anyone He wanted to kiss her, desperately so, but something in the pit of his stomach held
but herself. Gods, did he love her for it. He used that sensation, swirling in his chest, him a breath away, simply savoring this opportunity at nearness. He’d known how
to buoy him through several uninspired courses. much loving could hurt; he’d learned that early on. But he’d forgotten some of the
His parents served them a fine meal, lovely on a normal day, but hardly something fear. It surged now, such a close reminder of what he had to lose.
he would have expected for a special occasion. Particularly not after having been “It’s going to go well,” Hermione said. Her beautiful fingers sent sparks shooting
subjected to so many extravagant meals with them in the last year—blatant attempts down his spine.
to curry his favor. He’d not warned Hermione to expect opulence, uncertain how the He lifted his hand, placed it atop hers against the back of his neck. “Just because
evening would fare, and he felt grateful for that decision. you’re displeased with your hair, doesn’t mean you should ruin mine.”
He hoped above all else that she did not know or notice the unspoken insult What an easy thing to say, things he missed saying.
presented with Cornish Hen and haricot verts. His bloom of pride settled as attempts She smiled and it solidified his resolve, crystalizing his amorphous wants and needs to
at broken conversation stalled. He felt the shift in Hermione’s tone as her irritation fix into the strategy he’d spent the last few weeks ruminating over, torturing himself
grew. with.
It was a subtle thing; she kept it well hidden. If his parents could see past their He offered her his arm and they stepped through the Floo: a dizzying blur of green,
dislike of her they would see nothing but a gracious, grateful, smiling guest at their the feel of her hand gripping his forearm.
table, trying so very hard to impress, to carry on a conversation longer than the series If he had an eternity and not just thirty minutes, he might never let her go.
of syllables required to dismiss her attempts. But Draco saw her cracks, her Instead, he clenched his jaw as they followed Topsy to the dining room, dread
frustration, her desperate need to succeed. swelling like a growing wave in his stomach, carrying him towards a crash against the
“Do you and Mr. Malfoy have any plans for the New Year, Mrs. Malfoy?” shore.
Hermione asked, voice so painfully formal that it stirred a physical sensation inside “You seem tense—well, more tense,” Hermione said, offering a pulse of pressure
Draco, desperate to offer her his hand, or his arm, some kind of support. But the against his arm as they walked. He barely faltered, but he felt certain she noticed. He
table stretched too long and she sat too far. hadn’t expected the repetition to hit him quite so hard. He’d known it would happen,
“We’ll be in France,” Narcissa said. after all, but hearing her voice the same concern for his tension that she had the first
“I love France. Paris?” time he’d been here stung in his sinuses.
“Yes, of course.” “I love you,” he said as they walked, having no other excuse or explanation.
Hermione smiled, held it in place several beats too long, and then looked down at When the doors to the dining room swung open, he faced his parents for the first
her plate. She pushed a slice of chicken with her fork. time since Christmas day, the first Christmas day, the other Christmas day.
“Hermione’s family has vacationed in France several times—a favorite of theirs,” Just like before, his parents had already taken their seats, hors d'oeuvres already
Draco tried. presented on the tabletop. And just as before, Narcissa rose, eyes catching on
Lucius’s brows lifted, meeting Draco’s eyes, before he pointedly did not respond. Draco’s exposed Dark Mark. He’d somehow managed to forget, even though he’d
Narcissa only made the quietest of acknowledging noises. She glanced at Lucius, then rolled his sleeves himself not so long ago, that it had been left on display, another
back at Hermione. She offered a small smile and said, “How lovely.” weapon in his arsenal.
They weren’t even trying. He hadn’t expected a royal welcome, but something— He’d almost felt guilty about that, the first time he’d been here. Now, he enjoyed it,
anything—would have been more promising than condescending stares and implied a vindictive part of him wanted her to see it, to feel some measure of guilt or shame
eye rolls at Hermione’s attempts to converse and his attempts to prolong or disgust.
conversation as long as possible. Just like before, Lucius did not stand.
It struck him suddenly. “Son,” he said. “Ministry Representative Granger.”
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“This is very illegal.” Draco wanted to scream. He wanted to crack the fucking dining room table
“So are your portkeys.” straight down the center and leave them to clean up the mess. He looked at
“This is Azkaban illegal. Not fines. Not community service. Not probation. You Hermione again, who still hadn’t torn her gaze from her plate, staring very intently at
know that right? You will never see anything beyond a prison cell again if this goes it as if a Cornish Hen might provide her with more successful conversation topics.
badly.” The many and varied things Draco wanted to say, needed to say, knocked and
“It won’t go badly, Theo. You’re brilliant. This is going to work.” pounded and battered at his skull, demanding attention, demanding he pick one of
Theo did not seem convinced, alternating between wringing his hands and crossing them. Once upon a time, he would have pushed them back, silenced those wishful
his arms. They both stared at the grandfather clock in the corner of the living room. words, and suffered in silence.
“One minute,” Theo said, announcing what Draco already knew. He hadn’t torn This time would be different.
his eyes from the ticking second hand since quarter-til. “Reverse spin, .166 of a full “Do you think—Mother, Father—that you might try to employ the outstanding
turn.” Theo’s voice came out barely a whisper, a final repetition of the instructions social etiquette I know you are capable of? We are trying.”
he’d been yammering since he arrived. Neither of them answered. But when Lucius’s silver met the tablecloth, both knife
“I’ll be careful,” Draco offered, knowing it wouldn’t help. and fork returned to their resting positions—Draco realized only then that his
He saw Theo nodding from the corner of his eye, still fixated on the clock. “Just father’s meal remained as uneaten as Hermione’s, as his own—he knew he’d said the
don’t let Lucius win, yeah?” wrong thing.
“Never again.” It had burst out of him: years and years of indignation, of offense he could no
Five minutes until six. longer stomach. He’d regurgitated it, sour with bile and stinging his throat, all over
Draco would have preferred that his hands had been completely steady. Rather, their dinner table, effectively ruining their meal.
they shook, nerves prickling beneath his skin and hijacking his fine motor skills. Lucius set his cloth serviette aside, pushed his china away, and placed his elbows on
He lifted the turner to eye level and, with a deep breath, unlocked the hourglass the table, fingers steepled just beneath his chin.
from its resting position. He turned it, barely a move at all, until the two notches on “Am I to take from this petulant outburst that the outstanding social etiquette we have
the frame were just aligned—representative of two months of a full year. employed in allowing this woman to join us at our dinner table on a holiday is not
The world spun. He’d forgotten how it felt: like cotton in his ears and film over his sufficient for your childish wants?”
eyes. Blurred and stretched and disorienting until suddenly—normal. Draco had a ring in a valet box back at their flat.
He turned his head to the left; Theo had vanished. A future waiting for him. After. After a civil meal. He had to survive this, suffer
The flat smelled different: less stale, more living. this, for her. His throat had closed up, from shame or guilt or fury. He couldn’t tell
He turned further, finding the green tufted sofa sitting in the room with him. the feelings apart.
Crookshanks sat perched atop it, head cocked to one side as if his little feline senses Narcissa filled the silence just as Draco broke his gaze from his father's grey glare
knew. to find Hermione, jaw clenched and looking just as shocked as Draco felt. Perhaps
“Alright, it’s as smooth as I’m going to get it—” moreso: she’d been optimistic, after all.
Draco’s heart nearly stopped, a painful lurch behind his ribs that felt like a bad “It’s not—personal, Miss Granger. Not as it has been in the past. But the matters
portkey, or a muggle movie. of an Estate”—Narcissa cleared her throat, a delicate sound—”Draco is our only
Hermione emerged from the corridor, looking far more nervous than he child, and he carries two pureblood lineages in his veins, are you aware of that?”
remembered, hands twisting at the ends of her long curls clipped in a half-up style. Hermione’s shoulders shifted, squaring, as she faced down Narcissa Malfoy in her
It took his breath away, seeing her, not having her look at him with those eyes that own home.
did nothing to mask her disappointment and her grief. He thought he’d prepared “Yes, Mrs. Malfoy. I am aware of Draco’s past, and of your implications.”
himself for the inevitability of seeing her, seeing her in a version—a time—of his life “You are not ignorant, then?” Lucius asked, dropping his forearms to the tabletop,
where she hadn’t vanished entirely. fists forming. “You realize what you will cost him? Social status, a fortune, his family
Gods, he’d missed her. name. Generations, centuriesof history and tradition? You know and you simply don’t
Gods, he loved her. care? You wish to take my son from me? From his mother, his family?”
He wouldn’t let his father reduce him to the kind of man she didn’t want in her life, Draco suspected his father chose those words intentionally; he had to have known
the kind of man he didn’t want to be. Not again, not anymore. how deep they would cut. But even knowing they were likely said with intent, it still
“You look beautiful,” he breathed, words rushing out of him before he could even left Draco aching. He didn’t want to lose the only familial support system he’d ever
consider if they were the ones he intended to speak. Already, a difference from the known. He didn’t want to have to support himself financially, petulant as the thought
original timeline. He’d not told her that, then. What were the consequences to telling might be. He didn’t want to lose the opportunity to see his father’s smile again, hear
her she was beautiful, to loving her as he did? his mother’s genuine laugh, realities that existed once, and surely, could exist again.
 364 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 381

But he felt all those things, all those wishes, slipping through his fingers like the sand through his short hair, grabbing at the roots—”if it’s being used to travel in years or
in an hourglass. fractions of years, it would need to be used at the exact time and day of the month
And even as he thought those fatalistic thoughts, Hermione spoke: level, calm, with someone would want to travel to. I can’t seem to get it more precise than that. So, if
only the faintest trace of a quake around the edges. someone needed to attend a six o’clock dinner on the twenty-fifth of December,
“That’s why we’re here, Mr. Malfoy. This doesn’t have to be a zero sum game.” someone would need to use it at six o’clock on the twenty-fifth of whatever month
“And what, pray tell, does that mean?” Lucius snapped. they’re travelling from, you see.”
Draco watched Hermione’s confidence falter, a flush rising up her chest. If he’d “Someone?”
known the answer to Lucius’s question he would have jumped in. But Draco did not “I’m being intentionally vague.”
know what a zero sum game was, either. “Why?”
“It’s—a theory, mathematical, I think—about gains and losses relative to—what I “Because I still haven’t decided if I should let you use it.”
mean to say is that you can still have a relationship with Draco, regardless of his “Theo—”
relationship with me.” “I know, I know. Of course I’m going to let you use it; I’ve been working on it for
“How munificent of you, allowing us a relationship with our own son.” almost a month. I just—” he broke off and thrust the turner closer to Draco, as he
“Lucius,” Narcissa began, perhaps an attempt to cut off the sharp turn towards a looked pointedly in a different direction. Perhaps not bearing witness made it easier
snarl his tone had taken. Her eyes were wide, volleying from one side of the table to for Theo.
the other: from her son to her husband. Draco reached out, closed his fist around the chain, and waited with an arched
Lucius continued, voice booming through the dining room. “He is my son. He is brow for Theo to let go. After a series of what looked like calming breaths, Theo did.
my legacy.” Lucius shifted his focus away from Hermione, landing on Draco. “I am The top of the chain dangled limply onto Draco’s closed fist.
fully prepared to revoke access to your accounts should this dalliance continue any “So. The twenty-fifth, then?” Theo asked.
longer. It has gone on long enough.” It took Draco a moment to catch up with the question, stare fixed on the glinting
Draco felt like he might be sick, white hot flames licking at the inside of his skin, golden object dangling from his hand: the power to change.
boiling the contents of his stomach. Hermione sat back against her chair. The twenty-fifth of December, Christmas day. The dinner with his parents.
“Lucius,” Narcissa said again, her own voice sharp this time. “Hermione and I stepped through the Floo five minutes before six.”
Lucius switched targets again, back to Hermione. “Do you have any idea, girl, what Theo nodded. “I want to be here. In case—just to be safe.”
I’ve done to protect my son, to preserve this family? In the war alone—” “Sure,” Draco said, suddenly feeling rather numb, rather surreal, like none of this
The flames pushed words from Draco’s throat, a dragon breathing syllables and was really happening. Three days separated them from the twenty-fifth of February.
sounds. In three days, at five minutes to six, he would stand in front of his fireplace using the
“The war? I was barely more than cannon fodder. You had me branded—” object in his hands to do—something. Anything. Everything.
“Some things couldn’t be helped—he would have killed us all.” The snarl that tore
from Lucius’s throat felt more animal than human, the most visceral, the most
vicious Draco had ever seen his father, war included.
Draco sucked in air, more fuel for the flames. He’d overheated: limbs charred, skin
seared, bones burnt to a hollow crisp. If he didn’t control it, he’d simply burn to ash. After three days of nearly no sleep, constantly thinking about what he would do,
The first time, it happened like this: and a persistent headache that told him he needed to take better care of his body
Draco wanted to believe his father. He wanted to believe that perhaps a sense of before it collapsed beneath him, Draco stood in front of his fireplace in the exact
preservation, of wanting to keep all of them alive, drove him to make the many and same outfit he’d worn two months prior. He watched the clock as Theo hovered
varied terrible and unforgivable decisions he’d made during the war. Draco wanted to nervously in his periphery.
believe that the potential loss of his only son mattered as much to him as the “It’s set to today’s date?” Theo asked for the fourth time in the last five minutes.
uncharacteristically extreme emotion pouring from his face suggested. “Yes, Theo—”
Draco wanted the burning to stop. “It’s important—so it knows how long the months are.”
After. If they could just reach after. “You’ve mentioned.”
He had a ring in his valet box. “And you must be extremely precise. One month is only .083 repeating of a full
Occlumency came almost embarrassingly easy, as if waiting for its opportunity to turn, it’s a very small movement. And you’re only going two months—pay very close
freeze the flames. It took him by surprise, how easily he called upon it, encasing him attention to the notches I’ve made on the frame around the hourglass—”
in ice. He sank quickly, senses dulling, fires dying. Fog clouded his brain, blurring the “Theo, I know.”
bright lights of his anger, driving out impulses to shout, transforming it into an all “Why aren’t you more nervous?”
encompassing will to survive. “I am. Why are you so nervous?”
 Beginning and end 365

000, -.083, -.166 He sank too far, too fast, completely dulled, errant emotion chipped away and
discarded. He felt his posture settling, straight but relaxed. His fists unclenched, his
chest, too. He inhaled. Exhaled. Met his father’s eyes.
F E B RU A RY He wanted this to stop. Needed it to stop. His voice emerged from his throat as
dull as his senses.
“I don’t wish to argue, Father.”
Lucius lifted his chin, muscles around his eyes tightening, evident even from a

T
ICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK distance. Then, slowly, carefully, Lucius lifted his serviette from the table and draped
Draco hired several clerks to work in the shop despite Blaise’s not-so- it over his lap again.
subtle suggestions that they shouldn’t expand their staff, at least not until That felt like peace. Or a ceasefire. Or a stalemate.
they had a few months of business under their belts. Draco countered with a Draco looked to Hermione, confused in a dim corner of his mind over why her
reminder that the plan had never been for either of them to work with customers: eyes looked misty, why she looked so devastatingly disappointed.
Blaise would manage the books, Draco would brew the stock. No customer should He only realized as she stood, inexplicably leaving the table, that he hadn’t
ever have to deal with either of their faces, Draco’s especially. addressed the point Lucius made about his accounts: the ultimatum about their
That logic fit nicely with Draco’s inconveniently-timed inability to focus on the relationship.
thing he’d spent years trying to bring to life. Apart from the catharsis he found He stumbled through the fog in his mind, seeking clear skies, heat flooding his
brewing stock and not thinking about anything else, he struggled to even walk into the system again, trying to melt his Occlumency.
shop, knowing that most of the reason he’d opened it to begin with had been his This wasn’t how he’d wanted this meal to go. Not even close.
own financial independence. It had been for him, but it had also been for her. He stood from his own seat, following after Hermione. But she had already gone.
The air shifted around Draco—an odd angle, a different texture, a bit of a swirl— And he’d burned up.
before it stabilized. He turned to find Theo standing just inside the doorway to his
home potions lab, antique key clutched in one hand, eyes screwed shut. Slowly, Theo
opened one eye, then the other.
“Oh, excellent. I’ve survived.”
It was a phrase Draco might have found alarming several years earlier, before
Theo’s descent into experimenting with portkey modifications and testing them on
himself—and others—as if that were a perfectly safe thing to do.
“Portkey inside a building?”
“Both coming and going, and I didn’t come here first to plot the destination in
person. I used some roundabout location techniques—”
“Theo—I’m normally quite interested in your mad magical experimenting, but I’m
hoping you’re here for a reason.” Draco cast several stasis charms on his cauldrons,
trying to suppress the surge of anxiety that welled in his chest, crowding out the
space behind his ribs with terrible anticipation. He’d seen very little of Theo since
their early morning discussion of time travel mechanics and the promise that Theo
would see what he could do.
Theo’s running list of magical modifications halted. He cleared his throat.
“Right.” He reached into his cloak’s interior pocket, procuring the time turner
Draco had only seen in person once before, but that had taken up so much space
inside his head.
It swung on a gold chain: a tiny hourglass in a metal cage.
“I did what you asked,” Theo said, letting the implications hang between them with
the swaying time turner.
“Thirty minutes?”
“Should be. Since it only travels in time, not space, it has to be used in the exact
place you want to be when you travel. And”—Theo dragged his opposite hand
 Beginning and end 379

hours. I’ve modified it to operate outside a clean loop of time, to start new timelines.
I’ve modified it to bring the user back to their starting point after five minutes have
elapsed. And now you want me to extend that?”
“Give me thirty. I can use it right at my fireplace, right before we leave. Hermione
came out of the bedroom after me—she kept fussing with her hair. Paradox
avoidance will—it will take care of the issue of the other me. It did so the first time
we used it. Remember? I was meant to be in the parlor already, but when my father
opened the door for us that version of me just—well, I wasn’t there anymore.”
Theo lifted a brow. But he hadn’t officially, entirely, or exactly said no. Not yet.
“You know exactly what time that was?”
Draco laughed, surprising himself with its force.
“Of course. She writes down all her engagements. She has a planner. She made me
check it several times before we left.”
Theo sighed again and it sounded so remarkably like victory that Draco couldn’t
P ART F OUR : resist the bout of fresh hope that swelled. He tossed the apple from one hand to the
other several times, burning off anxious energy.
“This is what I get for inventing a new type of time turner,” Theo finally said.
“Please. I’m willing to beg. I have to fix this.”
“Would she want you to?”
2005 Draco fumbled catching the apple, surprised by Theo’s question; it landed on the
tiles with a thud, rolling away.
“I—it’s not just for her.” He could feel the defensive creep pitching in his tone. “I
mean, it is for her. But it’s for me too, you know. I let my father win again. I always
let him win. And look what it’s cost me.”
“What might have been and what has been
Draco wasn’t sure that he breathed as he waited for Theo to respond.
Point to one end, which is always present.
“Give me some time. I’ll see what I can do.”
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened.”

— T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Burnt Norton

 378 Mightbewriting

“Do you see why I asked if you were drunk? I can see your pectorals and you’re not
making any sense.”
Draco wrapped his robe more tightly around his torso, not having realized the belt
-.083, -.166, -.250
had come undone. Theo started walking down the corridor without so much as a
backward glance to confirm that Draco followed. JANUARY
“If you’re not drunk, what are you exactly?” Theo asked, lifting his voice and
projecting it over his shoulder to where Draco hurried to catch up. “Can’t say I
expected to end my day like this.”

T
“End your day? Theo, no”—he fell into stride beside him—”I’m desperate. That’s ICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK
what I am. I fucked up and I kept—I keep—trying to maintain the peace and didn’t Entering their flat felt like stepping into a nightmare. Draco found
do anything. I need the time turner.” Hermione sitting on their sofa: very still, very quiet, very calm.
Theo didn’t immediately respond, a slight twitch to his step as he kept walking— Eerily calm.
towards the East Wing kitchens, Draco assumed—until he finally stopped just shy of Suspiciously calm.
their destination. Theo turned, brows furrowed. He took a breath and opened his She didn’t look at him, eyes trained instead on her copy of The Count of Monte Cristo
mouth to speak. sitting on the coffee table, more decoration than reading material these days. She
Draco cut him off. picked idly at a loose thread from a tufting button, winding and rolling it between her
“I just don’t know how to make it work. It gives us five minutes, yeah? And then fingers.
paradox avoidance? Theo how can I fix five minutes of a dinner that lasted nearly an Heat surged, a column of fire climbing Draco’s spine as he emerged from his
hour without…breaking the laws of the universe?” Occlumency. He found his discarded pieces: shame, guilt, fear, avoidance. He fused
Theo closed his mouth and tilted his head. Just when Draco thought he might them together, forcing out the cold, forcing away the fog.
provide an answer, he gave his head a small shake and stepped into the kitchens, “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, taking one cautious step towards her. “You
summoning Milly for a meal. He turned, leaning against the island with his arms know I didn’t.” He felt a swell of pride that his last statement hadn’t sounded like a
crossed. question. It could have. Once upon a time, it might have. But it didn’t. Not now. Not
“You can’t.” when it counted.
“That’s—not what—Theo, I need to.” “I know,” she said. She picked her book up off the table, fingers grazing the cover
“It’s not that precise, Draco. I modified it so that it can travel in either years or in a reverent, longing sort of way.
hours, and I suppose we could use fractional turns to pinpoint as best we can but—” “Then why?”
“So it can be done?” Why did she look so heartbroken?
Theo dropped his arms, accepting the tea Milly delivered to him. Why did she leave?
“Draco, you can’t just drop into the middle of a meal where you—already are. Why wouldn’t she look at him?
Paradox avoidance can only go so far.” Crookshanks hopped onto the sofa, settling into her lap as she held the book in
Milly offered Draco an apple he didn’t have the heart to decline. He held it loosely one hand.
in one hand, fighting off a sudden urge to launch it across the room just to watch it “I don’t—I can’t talk about it right now.”
explode against the wall. “Hermione—”
“And what if I just marched into that dining room anyway? What if I just went in “I’m going to bed.” She croaked the words. Painful, strangled sounding.
and told her I’ve used a time turner to fix an error and—” She set the book aside, scooped Crookshanks into her arms, and left for the
“You think I’m going to let you use it if that’s your plan? Draco. We used it once bedroom. She didn’t look at him once. Draco watched her back as she disappeared
and I still can’t”—he set his tea down, rubbed the back of his neck—”I still wonder.” down the hall, frustration boiling from the resurging heat in his blood.
“And look where that one use got us,” Draco urged, trying to force Theo into He spent the next hour sitting on the sofa, welding back together every last shard
understanding. he’d let shatter during dinner, every inconvenient emotion he’d hidden from. He let
Theo sighed. “Did you—was there a time that you left the table at all?” the heat consume him. And by the time he ambled into the bedroom, he felt worn
“I need more than five minutes.” and damp, slicked with a sheen of sweat from the physical effort of reassembling all
Theo pursed his lips, drew a breath through flared nostrils, looked very near the pieces he’d scattered in his attempt to survive Lucius’s wrath.
shaking Draco by the shoulders, and then finally unscrewed his features. He crawled into bed, careful not to disturb her, unable to decide if he hoped she
“Draco,” he began. In a world where Theodore Nott used a patient, almost was still awake or already sleeping. She didn’t move or react when he finally settled
exasperated tone with Draco, he knew he’d probably pushed too far. “I’m not—I
know I’m good, but—I’ve already modified it to operate in years instead of just
 368 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 377

against his pillow. His limbs felt stiff and foreign, his side of the bed a claustrophobic A year ago, they were having a party, celebrating a coming together, welcoming
coffin keeping him contained. Hermione into his home, which became their home. It had been a loud, vibrant,
He barely breathed, didn’t move, willing himself to find sleep as he listened to her exciting endeavor. Now, with enough focus, he could hear the subtle hum of his
breathing, finding the answer to his earlier curiosity. She hadn’t fallen asleep yet, wards—her wards—and the flat’s warming charms, things he’d never been able to
either. hear before.
He forced himself out of bed and trudged a well-worn path to the kettle, still
thinking about the party that had officially welcomed Hermione into his day-to-day.
He glanced at the balcony as he passed it, thoughts catching on another memory
from that night: a conversation with Theo—slightly unhinged, definitely drunk—
They spent the next several days in a cautious, quiet détente—Draco felt reasonably about a time turner, and change, and how Draco might feel if something ever
confident he used the term correctly. They orbited each other politely, never happened that he wanted to change.
engaging in the conversation Hermione seemed as of yet incapable of having. Draco had something he wanted to change.
They spent New Year’s with Theo and Blaise like they’d planned: an uncomfortable Needed to change.
affair made awkward by the strained silence that seemed to hover around Draco and Had no idea if he could change.
Hermione like a storm cloud, thunder poised to clap. What would it be? The dinner?
He still had a ring in his valet box. He realized he’d stopped moving, standing beneath the archway that divided the
The day after New Year’s, the coldest start to a January Draco could remember, it kitchen from the living room, eyes locked on a closed balcony door.
finally came to a head over breakfast. The dinner.
He passed a mug of tea across the table to Hermione, pulse in his throat the same If he just had five minutes—no, he would need longer than that to get in, unseen,
way it had been for the last week of his quiet, subdued existence. to do something different. He barely paused to consider his actions, marching straight
“I know you didn’t mean anything by it,” she said, taking the mug. to the Floo, grabbing a handful of powder, and spinning away to the Nott Estate. He
He swallowed, then remembered to breathe. realized upon landing that he wore only pajama bottoms and a robe. Theo would
“Then why won’t you talk to me? I shouldn’t have used Occlumency; I realized never let him live it down.
almost as soon as I did it.”
“It’s not—that’s not it. I don’t love that you turned to it, but that’s not—do you
know what I saw? When you and your father were having it out?”
A muscle in Draco’s back twinged, alerting him to the fact that he’d been standing
partly bent over the kitchen table, not having moved a muscle since the moment she Draco spent almost ten minutes trying to conjure a Patronus to get Theo’s
started speaking, still frozen part-way between handing off her tea and taking his seat. attention inside his workshop. Eventually, he gave up and started banging on the
He pulled out his chair, sensing a strange hollowness opening up in his stomach, door, shouting at the top of his lungs. He considered blowing the corridor windows
anticipation of what she might say next. He didn’t know what she saw, and from her out just for effect, wondering if that might finally pull Theo from his family vault-
tone, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He wrapped two fingers through the handle of his turned-workshop where he was undoubtedly toiling away making portkeys to any
own mug, using it to ground him in the kitchen with her, in whatever came next. He number of places.
swallowed. “Are you drunk?” Theo asked in greeting, finally emerging from the same
“What did you see?” passageway that had once tried to suffocate Draco.
“Your heart breaking. I could see it happening. I could see you imagining yourself “It’s”—Draco cast a tempus—” 7:45 in the morning.”
losing them and then you chose to hide from it and it’s—” She broke off, tapping the “Oh—it’s the morning, then? But still, not an unreasonable question—it’s been a
side of her mug, cheeks puffed out as she exhaled a big breath. She looked up at him. rough month.”
“It’s okay that you sometimes use Occlumency to manage more difficult situations; I “I’m not drunk, Theo.”
don’t begrudge you for that. I know it’s part of who you are and how you—cope. It “Did you need to get drunk?”
was everything that came before that. I can’t be responsible for that look.” Her voice “Merlin, Theo. It’s 7:45 in the morning—”
wavered, sticky and thick. “I didn’t realize it was still this bad. I suppose I’d “Just trying to gauge where your head is.” Theo lifted his hands in defense, holding
hoped…with time, that—things had softened.” very still as if to convey he meant no harm. With a casual flick of his wand, he spelled
“That’s—not what I was thinking at all. And regardless, just because losing them the door and hinged painting leading to his workshop shut.
will hurt doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to do that for you.” “My head is—Theo—you asked me once. If I ever thought about using it. Theo, I
“I don’t want you to do that for me.” She looked down at her mug. need it.”
 376 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 369

“I didn’t want to get to it,” she said, looking mournfully at the thing in her hands. If he’d forgone the strainer, perhaps her tea leaves would give her a clue to
“And now that I have…” whatever she sought inside her cup. Perhaps if she believed in divination, she would
“Looks like you finally won, Granger.” have taken its advice. But he had not left the tea leaves, and she wouldn’t have read
Behind her, the tufted green velvet sofa popped out of existence. Hermione turned at them if he did.
the sound. She looked back up, a tear escaping from the corner of her eye, a quick stream
“Where—” down her face, where it curled beneath her chin.
“Gone to your place of residence, I assume. We made a magically binding wager, “What if I did anyway?” he asked.
after all.” He had a ring in his valet box.
“I’ll give it back.” Her jaw tensed. She shook her head, features collapsing into something more than
“Don’t—you won.” He didn’t have anything left in him to fight with her about a sadness, more than agony. “It wouldn’t make a difference. I think I’d be more upset
bloody sofa, too. He didn’t care, couldn’t bring himself to. if you disregarded my wishes.”
“I can’t keep it.” “So then where does that leave us, Hermione? I don’t—I don’t really understand
“Well, you can’t bring it back here. Not unless you’re coming with it and don’t what’s happening.” The back of his throat felt tight, raw; he didn’t know if he needed
intend to leave again.” to swallow or scream.
Predictably, painfully, she had no response to that. She wiped the tear. Cleared her throat. Dragged a nail down her ceramic mug and
When she left, Draco sank into his armchair under the weight of an overwhelming, tapped it on the table: three times.
terrible suspicion that he might never see her or that sofa again. Draco held his mug, lowered it to the tabletop, three slow taps.
They needed help, both of them, needed an escape from this conversation. Her
eyes stuck on his mug; another tear rolled down her cheek. She tapped the table three
more times and then immediately wiped her tears away.
She rolled her lips between her teeth, a slight tremble, before she met his eyes
Draco didn’t sleep for over two days. He alternated between a semi-catatonic again.
impression of a statue, sitting at his kitchen table and staring into a persistently “I—I’m going to find myself a flat, I think.”
lukewarm cup of tea, and manically brewing as many potions as he could to stock the Draco heart jolted so suddenly, so violently, that he wondered if the world had
shop. stopped turning, if inertia had catapulted his insides against his skin and bones,
He spent far too many hours dwelling exclusively on his last conversation with obliteration on impact.
Hermione—playing it over and over and over again in his head. And far more hours Rational, complex thought slipped from his ears, leaving only the stupidest of
still, focused on diverting his thoughts from coming to the same horrible conclusion; questions behind to voice: “Why?”
she wasn’t coming home. Redness crawled up the sides of her neck as several new tears made a waterfall of
He couldn’t understand how they’d ended up here. He knew she didn’t want this. her face, a burst of grief spilling from her eyes.
He certainly didn’t want it. And somehow, it had happened anyway. She spoke so “Please don’t make me say it.”
confidently about seeing it in his eyes. Well, he’d seen it in hers, too. She hurt just as He’d never heard her voice pitch like that, so close to a plea, a whine: words forced
badly. She thought she was protecting him from something, and in turn, protecting through vocal cords that refused to open, as if they, too, resisted the words being
herself from him. He hadn’t yet decided which component of that terrible quagmire breathed into existence.
devastated him the most. “Well I’m not going to say it.”
When he ran out of ingredients for his potions, ran out of willpower to remain “We can’t— I can’t.” Her voice caught.
awake and avoid the nightmares he knew would plague him, Draco downed a “I give you permission. Destroy whatever of mine you want, Hermione. My family,
Dreamless Sleep and fell into bed. He didn’t rejoin the land of the living for so long my bank accounts, my legacy. Just not this. Hermione, not this.”
that when he finally woke, his bones ached, stiff from such prolonged time spent He was halfway to standing before he even realized he’d moved. She stood just as
unmoving, dead to the world. abruptly.
Draco stared at the ceiling. Blue light trickled in through the drawn curtains, a “Hermione—”
suggestion of early morning. He’d always thought the room sounded so quiet in the She shook her head, face twisted in misery as she bent over, scooping Crookshanks
mornings, nothing but soft breathing, a rustle of sheets, and if he was very lucky, tiny into her arms. She looked at him again.
whimpers pressed against his lips. He’d studied her expressions for years, memorized the look of them, the feel of
Those fleeting memories had been so loud by comparison, a cacophony. This new them, the meaning of every last configuration. But anguish distorted her. He could
quiet threatened to swallow him whole. see her pain almost as clearly as he felt his own, but he couldn’t see through it, to
whatever lay underneath. She turned away.
 370 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 375

Draco couldn’t move as she walked out of the kitchen. It took several seconds of Draco forced himself to take a small step back, so that he could really look at her,
standing dumbly at the table for the events of the past minute to catch up to him. He force her to look at him. His scowl pulled his brows together so tightly that the
leapt into action after her, following her path to the living room, finding her at the muscles bunching above the bridge of his nose ached from the sustained tension.
fireplace. “I deserve a real fucking answer, Hermione. I want to marry you. I want to have a
His heart, which might have stopped for several minutes there, thundered back to family with you. I want to spend every fucking day of my life with you and you won’t
life, inundating his bloodstream with adrenaline, with anger. even talk to me.”
“What the fuck, Hermione? You can’t honestly—what are you doing? You can’t “Because it’s selfish.” She lifted her gaze from his shirt to his eyes. Her impending
really believe that this is for the best. Hermione—” tears looked more angry than sad.
He blinked against the flash of green light, barely registering as she spoke the “Can’t be more selfish than not telling me at all.”
Potters’ address and vanished with her cat—which had become something of his cat, “I can’t come in second to Lucius Malfoy.”
too—in a swirl of Floo magic. She looked away again when she said it.
Draco took a single, deep breath through his nose. Realized he still held his mug of “What?” His throat felt thick again. All the things he might say, choking him.
tea. Threw it. Smashed into thousands of tiny pieces against the brick fireplace. He “I saw it. In your eyes. Whether you know it or not. You crave his approval and I’m
took another breath, gathered himself, and grabbed a handful of powder to follow. afraid you always will.”
The Floo spat him back out. She’d locked the connection from theirs to the “You can’t know that—I told you, I don’t even want them in my life if they can’t
Potters’. accept—”
No matter. “I can’t come in second to Lucius Malfoy,” she said again. More resolved this time.
Draco Floo’d to Theo’s, didn’t even bother announcing his arrival, and immediately He almost expected her to stomp her foot as proof of just how serious she intended
turned around to Floo after her from this different point of origin. to be. “You are the most important person in my life, Draco. But I’m not the most
The Floo spat him back out again. important person in yours.”
Stupid fucking brilliant woman. That should have hurt more than it did. Instead, it flooded Draco with fury. How
He Floo’d back to his. Then tried Weasley’s in what he had to admit was a very, dare she. How could she?
very low moment in his life. “You cannot possibly mean that.”
The Floo spat him back out again. She must have locked it entirely, no options for “Your actions are what count, Draco. I’ve watched you drag your feet for years on
entry. anything resembling conflict with him, and I—I understand; he’s your father. I don’t
“Are you kidding me?” he shouted, launching the Floo pot across the living room. want you to lose him. But I think you don’t want to lose him more. And I—it’s
Green sparkling powder rained down in the prettiest sort of dust storm he could selfish, but I wanted to be the most important person in your life, even if I had to
imagine. He hated it. share you with them. And the fact that I’m not, that I haven’t been—” she broke off,
Draco stood in his living room, shimmering powder settling around him, trying to a sob tearing from her throat.
control the cadence of his breathing, oscillating wildly between far too fast and His anger tasted like scotch. Like lingering Floo cinders in the air. Like bile.
dangerously slow. He had to take another step back. Not for her this time, but for him. She was an
He slammed his eyes shut, drawing upon every last happy memory he had, shoving idiot. Possibly the smartest idiot he’d ever met if she honestly believed all that.
away a cruel voice that told him his reserves now had a limit and that the memories “How can I convince you that everything you just said is complete shit?”
he called upon wouldn’t be replenished. “It’s selfish, I told you. But it’s not shit. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to
Magic unfurled from his chest, tendrils of happiness, of hope, seeking his watch you pine for a man who hates me? Who once very literally wanted me dead?
extremities. Where do you draw the line between what hatred you’re willing to tolerate and what
“Expecto Patronum.” you aren’t? I worry, Draco, that you never will. It’s been years.”
Light fluttered, stuttered, and died. She barely gave her tears a breath to fall before she wiped them away with furious
He tried again; he could do this now—had been able to do it for a whole year— swipes beneath her lids, as if she wouldn’t dare allow herself to cry over this.
one fight wouldn’t take it from him. She spoke again before he’d even had the chance to fully register what she’d said.
He let the magic uncoil itself for longer, pouring memory after memory into the “I went to the bookstore today.” A pause. “I got to Eliot.”
curling wisps beneath his skin until they pushed against his fingertips, demanding Draco’s heart sank, fully sank. Through the floorboards. Through the dirt. Straight
release. to the center of the earth where molten rock might melt him down and make him
He cast the spell again, momentarily shocked to see his Patronus bursting from his something new, something with no recollection of this moment.
wand. He’d forgotten to order more stock. He’d been so wrapped up in waiting for her to
In his rush to conjure the thing, he hadn’t thought of what he’d say. What could come back that he’d forgotten about everything else outside of brewing for his shop.
he? Hermione didn’t seem interested in talking, had said everything she wanted to She pulled a book from her bag: the one.
 374 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 371

But not just anyone: Hermione. say. Now, staring eye to eye with his chimaera, a cobbled together creature for his
Of course she would decide to show up on an evening he was already several cobbled together life, all he could think to say to the woman ripping him to shreds
drinks deep into his attempt to forget her face and her curls and the way she flushed was: “Please. Come home.”
bright pink from her chest to her cheeks when she came.
His posture straightened in the black leather wingback next to the fireplace. For a
moment, his presence went unseen, seated just outside her periphery. He felt
peculiar, uneasy, seeing her and not being seen by her. Something about it made his
skin crawl. Hermione did not come home.
He cleared his throat, almost guilty over the way she jumped and spun, finding him Draco stopped trying to follow. His owls went unanswered. His Patronuses grew
behind her. weaker by the day. The Floo mocked him.
“Hi,” he said, still sitting. Still holding his drink. Still desperate to reach for her and She wouldn’t even answer to Theo, who’d tried to step in and redeem some of his
resisting every impulse to do so. goodwill as her friend, trying to make sense of the madness between them.
“Hi.” She took a small step away, maintaining a minimum amount of space It took several days for Draco to accept that sitting in his living room and staring at
between them, it would seem. “How are you?” the Floo wouldn’t yield him any results. As much as every twitch and flex of his
The liquor made him laugh, and it came out far crueler than he intended. But he muscles demanded that he bolt out his door and traverse muggle London straight to
couldn’t take it back, not even as he saw her recoiling from the way it struck her skin. Harry Potter’s house on foot, he employed the last bit of his withering self-control to
“Okay,” she said. “I know. Not a good question.” Her voice wobbled, strained. respect that if she wanted space, she would not appreciate his presence.
Draco didn’t know if he was meant to say something. Didn’t know what to say, if Respecting it didn’t preclude him from being driven slightly mad by it.
he was. He started brewing to occupy his mind, lest he allow the madness to fester by
He said nothing. wondering what it would take to bring her back, how much time she might need,
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked. what he could do to set things right. His shop needed stock and he needed
“Are you going to come back home?” something to do.
She took another step away, a small stagger. The back of her calf hit the coffee He nearly upended an entire cauldron when he heard a rush of flames from the
table, she jolted slightly from the impact. Too skittish, easily startled. She had nerves fireplace. He might have been embarrassed by the speed with which he rushed into
of her own. the living room if not for the fact that he’d moved so quickly he couldn’t spare even
“Draco—I can’t. No.” a second to consider such things.
“I’ve cut them out. I haven’t even spoken to them since Christmas, and the thing Nor could he bring himself to feel embarrassment for the way his face must have
I’m upset about is you, not them.” He stood, gauging her reaction, watching as her fallen, so enormously, so tragically, upon finding the Weaslette standing in his living
legs pressed against the table behind her, a silent plea for more space. She didn’t want room.
him anywhere near her. His stomach twisted. “I’m not happy to be here, either,” she said as a greeting.
He stayed by his chair. “Then why are you here?”
“They’re never going to accept me,” she said, and he could hear the way the words He still had a vial of newt’s liver in his hands. He’d left his wand on the brewer’s
cracked inside her throat. That strange, uncomfortable, instantly sympathetic sound bench.
of something trying to speak through an impending urge to cry. “I have a list.” She tucked several strands of her ginger hair behind her ear before
“They don’t have to.” holding up a piece of parchment. “Her things I’m supposed to collect.”
“I don’t want you to lose them—” “Not brave enough to come do it herself?” he snapped, fury fluttering in his chest,
“Fuck—Hermione—that’s a shit excuse and you know it.” He couldn’t help drowning out the disappointment, the debilitating pain.
himself, powered by a rush of bravery bound to the liquor in his blood, Draco “Couldn’t stop crying long enough.”
stepped right up into her personal space. So close, he could practically taste her Draco’s stomach sank, a terrible chill blooming behind his ribs. He stared at Ginny,
intake of breath. “I’ve had nearly a month to try and make sense of that pathetic unspeaking, unmoving, trying to process what she’d just said.
logic. I understand you don’t want me to lose my family, but that’s not enough. It’s A muscle in his jaw twitched and he realized he’d been clenching it, yet he made no
just not enough to walk away from me. To move out of our flat. To barely even speak move to release the pressure. Instead he turned, teeth ground together, chest
to me.” absolutely aching, and excused himself to the bedroom. He slammed the door behind
She didn’t look at him, staring instead at his shirt, clenched jaw warring with the him with enough force that it jostled Hermione’s tray of jewelry atop the dresser, just
watery look in her eyes. She didn’t speak. next to his valet box.
 372 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 373

He held his breath, listening, and when he heard the Weaslette start charming A Malfoy eagle owl rapped on the window. Draco flinched but didn’t move. The
things down to a more manageable size for moving, he took several heavy steps to Weaslette paused, looking towards the source of the sound. The bird rapped again
the bed and sat on the side of it: her side, the right side. and Draco did nothing.
Draco tried to hold himself together, but something inside his chest had started “Are you going to get that?”
ascending, winding its way around his esophagus, his trachea, choking him. Higher “It’s from my parents.”
still, into his sinuses, stinging, into his temples, throbbing. He folded, dropping his She crossed her arms, lifting a brow as if to show him exactly how unsatisfying she
head into his hands, hovering between his knees as he sat on the side of the bed. found his response. “The question remains.”
What would imminently be the side of the bed formerly belonging to Hermione, it “I have nothing to say to them.”
would seem. Ginny looked at him for several more raps at the window before she finally turned
Despite the sensation of being battered by waves, crushing him against a rocky to leave. Draco heard the sound of the Floo, let out a rushing breath at almost the
shore, a strange sort of laugh forced its way through his tight throat. same volume, and dropped his head into his hands again, unwilling to look too
Because of course Hermione would itemize her breakup with a list of her closely at the gaps in his flat left by Hermione’s departure.
possessions. Of course.
He’d been stuck forcing that strangled laugh back down his throat when he heard
the knock at his door, and then it opened anyway.
“I have a list for in here, too,” Weaslette said, looking grim and determined and like
her limbs might lock in place if she stood any straighter. The rush of anger that overtook Draco while talking to Ginny festered. It spread. It
Draco lifted a hand, gave a short wave that said do what you must and let it fall again, grew legs and ran away with his rational thinking, leaving only a blind sort of rage in
unfolding himself so that he sat straight. He might as well preserve whatever its wake wherein Draco literally could not believe that Hermione had done this to
modicum of dignity he had left after being found with his head in his hands. him.
Ginny worked efficiently, which he appreciated, making liberal use of accio to He grew impatient as he grew angry. He deserved something more than the flimsy
summon the things from Hermione’s list. He watched, helplessly, throat threatening excuse of a conversation they’d had at their breakfast table before she vanished. Two
to close up, as the little bits of life she’d left in their room, from books to clothes to more weeks had passed and nothing.
jewelry, all found their way into the series of shrunken boxes. He tried sending another Patronus, focusing on the good memories, not letting the
In what could have been no time, or perhaps all the time in the world, holes bad ones, the imperfect ones, the fear that he was quickly gobbling up the last of his
appeared where Hermione’s belongings used to live as Ginny sent the remaining happiness get in the way. His happiness felt weak, shredded and dry and unwilling—
boxes floating into the corridor. or perhaps incapable—of unfurling from the center of his chest. It stuck stubbornly
He had to force his words, dry and croaking. to his bones, clinging.
“Will you just—ask her to speak with me?” The unpleasant sensation behind his He failed to produce a Patronus. He did not try again. As much as she might have
ribs, the lacking, the hole not unlike the ones left by Hermione’s belongings, flushed hated it, so much of his happiness had been tied to her. He hadn’t gone this long
as he spoke, buoyed by finally saying something after sitting in silence and watching without speaking to her in years. Even before they were together, during that
his home be stripped of every last reminder of her life there. tentative, strange year they spent working side by side while he’d been betrothed to
He flushed hot, angry, furious that Hermione sent Ginny fucking Potter to scrub Astoria, she’d still been a regular part of his life.
his life of her presence. “She won’t speak to me,” he ground out when he realized In her absence, the emptiness—the quietness—genuinely astonished him.
that Ginny hadn’t moved. “We’re adults, we can—we just need to talk.” He almost started reorganizing his books on several occasions, but stopped just as
All of the Weaslette’s stiff tension seemed to disintegrate, limbs falling limp beside he started. He found himself unwilling to fill up the spaces left behind by her missing
her. Her eyes softened: pity. That was worse. contributions to what had so recently been their collection.
“I’ll tell her you’d like to talk.” He thought about fully moving his potions set-up to the shop, but couldn’t shake
He swallowed his impulse to shout. He needed her to leave; he’d reached his limit the memory of Hermione telling him how much she liked watching him brew.
on how long he could stomach a conversation about Hermione with someone who He found every last one of their tea strainers left in a kitchen drawer; she hadn’t
was not her. taken a single one, even though he’d purchased at least two specifically for her.
“Perhaps leave out the part where you found me wallowing in the bedroom.” He couldn’t escape the ghost of her, haunting the spaces she took up in a former
“I’m definitely leaving that part out.” life.
Draco couldn’t decide if she intended to say something else, just standing in the Mostly, he spent his time between tasks living in a sort of angry limbo wherein he
threshold to his bedroom, watching him. Perhaps she didn’t know if he intended to kept expecting her to come to her senses and return home. He’d been marinating on
say anything else, either, both stuck waiting. that particular thought as he tried to blur the finer edges of his pain with a bottle of
Finally, she gave him a brief nod and stepped towards the door. scotch, when someone yet again stepped through his Floo unannounced.
 432 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 393

“I like how she dresses,” Draco said, setting his cards down. The bird tapped on the glass again. This time, Hermione rolled in his arms, first to
Pansy’s smile, sickly sweet and coated in condescension, irritated him before she her back, then fully facing him. She opened bleary, sleep-addled eyes.
even said a word. “Of course you do, darling. You’re hopelessly in love with her.” He thought she might say something, mouth dropping open, but her eyes closed
Draco narrowed his eyes, frowning. A feeling of being painfully on display made again, not fully awake, as it were. The tapping came again and, this time, a tiny line
him want to shrink, to vanish. formed between her brows.
“Don’t look so put out,” Pansy said. “If it counts for anything, she’s hopelessly in Cold toes found his shins, pushing him towards the sound. She frowned with her
love with you, too.” eyes still closed. Draco smiled. Seized by muscle memory, he leaned forward and
“And you know this from taking one lunch with her?” dropped a kiss against her forehead, wrangling curls over her shoulder and away
Pansy’s head wobbled side to side as if she couldn’t decide if her jaw needed to from her face.
hang open in disbelief or if she needed to shake everyone else’s stupidity from her “I’ll get it, love.”
perfect hair. That seemed to rouse her more, coming to as he rose from the bed and opened the
“It’s no wonder everything fell apart without me here. Men.” window, prepared to receive the bad news he already knew would come.
Blaise made a sound that might generously be labeled as another small laugh. “What is it?” Hermione sounded curious, though not concerned, not as she had the
Pansy lifted her brows, gaze tracking between the three of them, as if expecting a last time when he’d leapt out of bed, heart beating wildly in his chest. She rolled out
rebuttal, or an answer, or something resembling an explanation. She sighed; she’d of bed slowly, a small stretch, that right elbow of hers cracking in the funny way it
refined the efficacy of such a long-suffering sound during her time in France. She did if she leaned on the bed just right. She walked up behind him, hands wrapping
sounded truly beleaguered, war-worn with a single sigh. around his torso. The striking intimacy of it all nearly buckled him at his knees, a
“Seems to me, as a completely nonpartisan, third party observer, that it’s a little feast to sate a starving man.
more complicated than that.” She scooped the pile of gold from the center of the He let her cast a lumos for him again, reading the letter he’d memorized in his
table and dragged it towards her. Had she won? Draco hadn’t been paying attention. stress-ridden haze following this event the first time.
“Seems more like the two of you got cold feet when you both realized how huge and “My father,” Draco said. He forced a calmness in his voice, unconcerned. “He’s in
how difficult it is to be Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger in a long-term the hospital.”
relationship.” He felt her tense against his back, grip tightening before it loosened, lumos dropping
She shrugged as if that were obvious and dealt another hand. away as she lowered her wand, stepping around him to get a better look at the letter.
“It’s not free, being you two. It’s going to cost you”—she frowned when she made “Is he—what does it say?”
eye contact with Draco, voice slipping into something disdainful—”well, it’s cost you “My mother is with him.”
everything, hasn’t it? Too much, if you ask me. But apparently, too much if you ask “Let’s get dressed,” she said.
her, too.” She didn’t start playing, but set her cards down on the table with a little too Last time, they did. Now:
much force. The disdain in her tone swelled, pitch increasing. “I mean, what woman “Wait.”
in her right mind wants someone she loves to lose his family and his name and his Hermione had already spun away, halfway through casting a tempus, her other hand
money and his home because of her? And so yes, from the one lunch I had with her I on the dresser drawer.
certainly got the sense that the great Hermione Granger is still the self-sacrificing “Wait? Why?”
sort.” “He’ll be fine. He doesn’t need me there.”
Draco opened his mouth to say—something? Anything? He didn’t know if he Her hand slipped from the drawer. Her wand eventually fell, too. Without her
needed to defend himself or Hermione. lumos, only the pale moon illuminated the room as it had when he’d first arrived. He
“And you,” she continued before Draco could make a sound. “Well, you let her be couldn’t see much, but he saw her disappointment. He could recognize it anywhere,
right, didn’t you? She said the cost wasn’t worth it and you agreed. The sooner you seared into his memory from the conversation they’d had nearly two months ago
two idiots realize that your relationship is going to have costs and decide whether or before, the last time he’d seen her at the end of January.
not you’re willing to pay them, the better.” “Draco, he’s your father.”
She finished on a heavy breath, almost angry, agitated in the way she picked up her He took a step towards her.
cards again, darted her gaze between the three of them, and then snapped, “Whose “I know. But my mother is with him and there’s nothing I can do.”
turn is it?” “You can go there. Be there for support.”
Theo, brave soul that he was, attempted to answer. She reached out, taking the letter and casting more light so that she could read.
“I think—” “I could, but I would just sit there and do nothing. We’re not—we’re hardly on
“And don’t even get me started on the two of you,” she said, pointing a finger excellent terms and—” he broke off. All his plans for how he wanted to say this had
between Theo and Blaise. twisted around each other in his head, fragments and iterations and branching paths
“At us? What have we done?” Theo asked. all fighting for attention as several different versions of how this conversation might
 394 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 431

have gone seemed to pop in and out of existence every second. “Hermione, he’s not “Here’s how this is going to work,” Pansy started, flicking her head such that her
the most important person in my life anymore. I have a surprise for you, in the fringe swayed as a curtain before returning to its perfect, neutral position. “I’m going
morning. I don’t want to miss that.” to tell you that yes, I did move to France for a few years and yes, it was good for me
Her disappointment twitched in the space between her brows, fighting off what he to disconnect from this place for a while. But also yes, I did miss it here and yes, I
hoped was affection, or warmth, or a rush of love. But when she met his gaze, her missed all of you. And yes, I’m being obscenely sincere when I say that so we won’t
stare crushed his hopes of ever seeing Italy. She would think badly of him for be bringing it up again. And yes, I’m sticking around for good now so yes, you’re all
abandoning his family in a time of crisis. He should have known, might have known stuck with me again. Any questions?”
if he’d stopped to think about it instead of barrelling forward, trapped in his own “You’re going to tell us that, are you?” Draco lifted a brow.
momentum, propelled by an overwhelming need to fix, fix, fix. “I just did, didn’t I?”
“It sounds serious,” she said, holding the letter between them. “Your mother will “If you say so,” he shrugged, smirk stealing his expression.
need you.” She threw a tiny olive at his face.
“She’ll be okay without me.” A gulp of air, more panicked than he would have “Missed you too, Pans.”
liked. “I won’t be okay without you.” “Yes we already covered the part where you missed me during your”—she
“What? Draco, I’ll come with you. I’ll just wait outside.” grimaced—”illness.”
She turned back to the dresser, already pulling the drawer open and retrieving a Theo snorted. “This isn’t so bad. Kind of reminds me of my birthday we spent
shirt for him. When she held it out between them, Draco saw two options coalescing drinking with Granger.”
from the thousands of variants that might-have-could-have-should-have existed, Two legs of Blaise’s chair made contact with the floor again as his feet dropped
neither of them what he wanted. from the table, laughing with a surprising volume and force. Blaise, of all people, did
He could push: refuse to go to the hospital and in doing so, prove himself as not often laugh loudly and unexpectedly.
someone too cold, too callous for Hermione to understand. If she agreed to go to “What’s so funny, then?” Theo asked, eyes narrowed.
Italy with him, he suspected there would be no successful proposal. Blaise made a gesture towards Draco.
Or he could let her pull: go to the hospital and likely live the scene and the Draco’s shoulders tensed. He could feel himself bristling. “Care to elaborate or are
following events just as they transpired the first time around. we playing charades?”
The reality that he’d just failed settled in the dark spaces in their bedroom. He Blaise’s laughter stilled, features neutralizing as he graced them with his insight. “I
couldn’t bear to disappoint her again, in a different way. had to remind you that you were betrothed.”
He reached for her, took the shirt, and tossed it onto the bed. Instead, he pulled “Thanks for that, by the way,” Draco grumbled.
her into a hug: a selfish last stand in the face of defeat. “Granger needed the reminder, too.”
“Just—give me a minute,” he said to her curls. All his hopes for an Italian “Again, many thanks.”
adventure with her, expensive sheets, even more expensive wines, disintegrating. “And you both needed to have it pointed out that you hadn’t invited Astoria.
Little sparks of light, hope he’d clung to in this endeavor: he watched the darkness Probably for a reason.”
swallow them up, meals for failure. Draco’s words spilled with more sincerity when he said it this time: “Thanks, for
He breathed, in and out. Tiny pinpricks erupted in waves beneath his skin: in that, then. I think.”
anticipation, in relief, or in fear, he couldn’t tell. When the world blurred again, he Pansy cleared her throat across from them, tilting her head towards a pile of coins
held her tighter, preemptively mourning the future ahead for the version of himself at the center of the table.
he’d leave behind, standing with a woman in his arms and precious little time left to “So, to be clear, we’re in support of this Granger situation?” she asked.
do so. Theo and Blaise responded simultaneously: “Yes.”
Draco breathed deeply, disoriented to find himself horizontal once again, back in The rapidity with which they offered their agreement genuinely stunned Draco,
his bed as one typically was in the middle of the night. Vanilla haunted him, memory rooting him to his seat for a moment as he rotated, watching them. Theo ignored
of her scent still lingering. He might have imagined it, and if he had, he couldn’t him, barreling onward.
bring himself to care. “And assuming Draco fixes this fucking mess when he sees her tomorrow, you’ll
He let his head sink deeper against his pillow, crushed by exhaustion above all else. get to experience the joy that is drunk Granger, too.”
She wouldn’t be there; he knew she wouldn’t. He tortured himself anyway, “Can’t wait,” Pansy said.
stretching his arm across the surface of the bed, crossing the boundary between his “No, really. She knows all kinds of strange and fascinating things. I’m getting a
side to hers. Fingers flexed, palm skating across the sheets, finding coldness, proper muggle education.”
emptiness. “She’s going to have to dress better if I’m expected to socialize with her.” Pansy
Even knowing she wouldn’t be there didn’t stop the sharp sting behind his sinuses, threw another galleon to the middle of the table. “I suppose I could always take her
the swelling high in the back of his throat. He swallowed, trying to force it down, shopping, if I must.”
 Beginning and end 395

+.166, +.166, +.166 force it away. Crying felt like confirmation; it felt like defeat, acceptance of a version
of his life he had no intention of accepting.
He closed his hand into a fist, forcing himself to sleep.
J U LY What difference did it make to the nightmare if he greeted it waking or sleeping?

“F
EET OFF THE FUCKING FURNITURE.” THEO KICKED Blaise’s
ankles, knocking them from where they’d been perched on the coffee Waking with the sting of failure still lingering in his skull, Draco didn’t move at
table. Draco rolled his eyes, accepting the drink Theo delivered, and first, oppressed once again by the overwhelming silence surrounding him. He allowed
indulging in a genuine smile for what felt like the first time in months. himself a moment more to wallow, but he’d already done months of it; a man could
Blaise, eternally unaffected by Theo’s ire as he was, simply pulled out his cigarette only survive so much of his own misery.
case and lit up in an alternative show of annoyance. Theo glared, let out a low, When he rose, he dressed quickly and—despite insisting to himself he wouldn’t do
frustrated growl, and set Blaise’s drink down just out of his reach. it—immediately sought out the empty space where a tufted sofa once sat in his living
Scotch, cigarettes, and banter between Blaise and Theo. Not the worst way to room. Still missing from his life. He hovered between the kitchen and the living
spend a Friday evening, and truth be told, he doubted anything could dampen his room. Hunger pulled him towards the kitchen, but the need to know what version of
mood after receiving an owl from Hermione that afternoon. his life he’d woken in overrode the hollowed out sensation deep in his gut. He felt a
She’d returned from Australia. bit dizzy looking at the Floo, and opted to apparate to Nott Manor instead.
They planned to meet in Diagon Alley the next day: Saturday. He found Theo having a lounge, or perhaps a nap, or perhaps a whole night’s
A simple, predictable evening with drinks and friends seemed like a fine way to cap worth of sleep, in the gardens. Draco sat on the edge of a fountain—the same
such a hopeful day. fountain he’d failed to maneuver his broom around when he broke his wrist as a
Then Pansy Parkinson stepped through the Floo, gave them all one severely child—and kicked the heel of Theo’s shoe.
derisive sneer, and announced that they were boring old men. Theo bolted awake, taking in his surroundings with wide, rapidly blinking eyes,
“I’m making an effort to reestablish this friend group and you three would rather before his panic dissipated upon spotting Draco.
laze about on a Friday night,” she said, dragging them from the parlor and into one “Explain,” Draco said.
of the manor’s many entertaining spaces. This particular room included a large, well- “I realize I’m normally quite in tune with your moods, but I do think I’ll need more
stocked bar and spacious round table. to go on than that.”
“Insults are a part of reestablishing a friend group?” Draco asked, incapable of “I’ve just used the time turner—for the second time. What reality am I in?”
suppressing a smile. Theo tilted his head to the side. Massaged his temple. Flopped back into a lying
“And inviting yourself over?” Theo added. position.
She shrugged and pointed them to the table with a silent demand that they all sit. “So—this is the sort of friendship we have now, is it? I’m your designated debriefer
Theo and Draco obeyed; Blaise raided the bar and dropped more drinks and snacks when you fuck with the fabric of the universe?”
on the table before taking his seat as well. “Who else would it be?” Draco snapped, stomach gurgling as he suppressed
Pansy produced a pack of cards from a comically small pocket in her tight dress annoyance. Draco knew that his exhaustion and hunger and general sense of failure
that had to have had an extension charm on it. had nothing to do with Theo.
“She’s planning on robbing us, too,” Blaise said, entirely unfazed as he leaned back Theo stared at the sky above. Draco hadn’t even bothered to check the time after
in his seat and propped his feet up on the table. He took a long drag from his he woke, but if he had to guess, it looked somewhere around early afternoon, with
cigarette, blowing the smoke towards the vaulted ceiling. the sun heavy and ascending in its path from one horizon to another.
Draco nearly laughed at the way Theo’s hand twitched, too far away to knock “What an interesting series of events,” Theo mused. “I wonder if Blaise Saw any of
either Blaise’s feet or the cigarette away. Pansy began dealing cards, having yet to this. He’d probably be livid we’ve fucked with time.”
fully explain what game they’d be playing or how extensively she planned to liberate “Yes, I suspect so.”
them of their money. It wouldn’t have been much of a concern for Draco before Theo released a beleaguered sort of sigh.
recently, but now, he hardly had the discretionary income to waste on Pansy’s “What do you need to know?”
ruthless ability to out bet and outplay each of them while barely blinking. He could Draco hadn’t thought that far. Driven purely by the instinct to orient himself, he
only assume she’d refined her skills in the years since he’d last gambled with her. hadn’t considered many—or any—of the specifics required to achieve that.
“When Lucius was attacked last year—I went to the hospital, not Italy, right?”
 396 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 429

Theo lifted himself up on his elbows, head cocked once again as he watched Her cheeks twitched, almost a smile, as if she almost gave herself permission to be
Draco. pleased about that. But she kept her expression neutral. “I’ll owl you when I get
“Hospital,” he said. “What did you—” back.”
“Christmas dinner, last year. With my parents. Did I blow up the glassware?” With his chest tight, he sank back into his pillows once she’d gone. Eventually, he
Theo’s brows lifted, deep horizontal lines carved into his forehead. He sounded called Mopsy to bring him something to eat.
less certain, or perhaps less confident in his understanding of what Draco needed,
when he answered.
“Yes.”
“And Hermione still left?”
A grimace.
“Yes.”
“And I came to you for the time turner?”
“In January.” Theo nodded as he spoke, fully sitting back up. “And then there was
some weirdness last month. You went back to try and propose but came back after
the dinner. We’re—we were, no, still are, I think—misaligned.”
Draco exhaled. Tension released some of its death grip on his spine. He
remembered that, too.
“I modified the turner—gave it to you a few days ago.” An arched brow. “And
now you’ve used it?”
On the tail end of his relief that nothing had changed from the version of events
Draco knew, the implications of that fact sunk in. Nothing had changed, not the big
things at least, despite the fact that he’d very intentionally tried to do just that. Even
though he’d failed, shouldn’t something have shifted by virtue of his meddling? Wasn’t
that the perennial cautionary tale tied up with time travel? Every breath, every step,
every blink: they all bore far-reaching consequences one couldn’t possibly predict?
Draco dropped his head to his hands, gripping at his hair, scratching at his scalp.
“I don’t—” he started, staring at the pebbled ground beneath his feet. “What did
any of it do? My head hurts.”
“Best not think too hard about it. Time is a bit like magic, I think. There are parts
we can understand and parts we can’t. And the way I’m combining time and magic
with the turner? Honestly, we’re asking for trouble. It’s a good thing we’re two
responsible adults.”
Draco wanted to vomit. But he had nothing in his stomach but bile and regret.
“Stop,” he croaked, finding himself incapable of lifting his head. “You’ve—said
that before.” Which meant things hadn’t happened exactly as Draco remembered, but
certainly close enough that the major events that brought him here all still converged
on this very moment.
“Oh. You’re really in the thick of it, then, aren’t you?”
“You brought me the modified time turner a few days ago.” Not a question, just a
repetition. There was a lot of that going around.
“Right.”
He looked up. “I was going to use it? To propose earlier?”
“I don’t think you’d decided exactly when. Kept going back and forth about the
best time to do it; September or December.”
“December?”
“The shop opening.” Theo dragged a hand down his face, skewering Draco with a
look that said he didn’t know everything about his life.
 428 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 397

He coughed. Forced himself to speak through it, broken and awful as it was. “It’s “It was a good night,” Draco said.
been months. It’s not—we’re not—we should talk.” He rolled away from her, Theo made a retching noise. Perhaps the look had been meant to convey that
groaning as he coughed into his pillow, each heave ratcheting the tension behind his perhaps he knew too much. They tended to tread back and forth over that particular
eyes tighter until he felt like they might simply erupt from his sockets. He cleared his line at random.
throat, struggled to breathe, felt a hand at the back of his neck. Draco rose, shaking out his limbs, shaking off his lingering hunger and frustration
“Please,” she said, holding the potion to him. and the disquiet that perched so heavily on his shoulders.
He took it, incapable, as he always had been, of denying her. He downed the bright “December,” he said again, trying to formulate another plan, another route he
orange, electrifying solution in a single gulp. might take in search of the destination he sought. “December could work. September
She took the empty vial and set it back on his bedside table. He expected her to wasn’t right but—December maybe.” His skin buzzed, nerve endings zapping and
leave then, duties complete. Theo had forced him to take his potions by sending in humming with a kind of frantic energy that bordered too close to unhinged for
the one and only person he couldn’t possibly say no to. comfort, but that he knew of no way to corral or control.
She surprised him by taking his hand. This time there was no doubt; fingers “Draco?” Theo asked.
entwined. Draco turned. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been staring into the fountain.
“I just want you to know that I don’t hold it against you. The glass. And I don’t— Agitation shot to the surface of his skin, a kind of unreasonable annoyance he
you don’t have to protect me from your family.” couldn’t place. He bit back a bark. “What?”
The orange potion sizzled down Draco’s throat, burning away mucus and healing “Would she”—Theo shifted on his lounge chair—”would she want this?”
sore muscles and tissue all at once. When he spoke, his voice came out stronger than Agitation became guilt in the way it crashed, once ascending, now soundly battered
it had been before, less rasped and broken. into the ground. He fell back onto the fountain ledge again, stone serving as a rigid,
“It’s still true that you’re my only family that matters. I haven’t regretted a moment uncomfortable seat. He sucked in a breath, distantly aware of his inability to tear his
of the disinheritance. It’s still happening.” gaze from Theo’s look of ever-increasing concern. He burned: his face, the back of
“I know.” his neck, the center of his chest. Gods, it ached.
“So don’t go.” He dropped his head in his hands again: lashed by guilt and shame and want and
Saying it left him breathless, despite the potion fortifying his lungs. need and all the inextricable ways those things wound themselves together.
“I have to.” Impossible to sort, even with all the time in the world, it seemed.
He didn’t know if he wanted to hold her fingers tighter or rip his hand away. “I miss her so much.” He spoke to the pebbles beneath his feet.
“You really don’t—” He heard Theo clear his throat.
“I’m taking a bit of an extended holiday—with my parents. We’re going to “I know. But that’s not what I asked.”
Australia. They—they’ve finally sold their home there and they have some friends Draco closed his eyes, too tired and drawn to muster the indignation required to
they wanted to visit and I—well, I’m joining them.” fight Theo’s inability to let him get away with a non-answer.
“Will you be alright? Going there with them?” Holding Hermione for those few minutes, having her in his arms again, he almost
She bent her forefinger, dragging it along the side of his: a small touch she watched wished he hadn’t. It had resuscitated his hope, brought it back from the dead.
with absolute fixation. Theo spoke, granting Draco more time to think. “In the version of events you’ve
“I think so. It will be good—closure, I think. I’ll be gone almost three weeks.” lived, did I already ask you that? I’ve already asked it in mine.”
“And when you’re back?” Draco shifted the toe of his shoe, feeling the pebbles give way beneath it. He kept
Draco didn’t know if it was the sudden introduction of healing potions in his his eyes closed, head in his hands, one deep breath—or perhaps one scream—away
system that buoyed his sinking hope, but it rose to the surface, bobbing from losing it.
uncomfortably in his throat, just there—wishing. “You’ve asked a variant of it, yes,” he replied in the calmest tone he could manage.
She squeezed his hand and pulled away. She stood, and distance had never felt so “I said I was doing it for me, too. So that Lucius didn’t win again.”
damning. “That has nothing to do with Hermione.”
“I think we should talk, then,” she said. “But it does.”
He nodded, nearly choked by the hope. “And what does letting Lucius win even mean, Draco?”
She didn’t quite leave, but didn’t quite stay. Hovering in the space by the doorway, Pebbles crunched, and Draco imagined Theo must have risen. Several steps later, a
not fully committed to her exit. He watched her soft sigh more than he heard it. But shadow cooled the back of Draco’s head.
he’d heard it enough times to know exactly how it sounded. “You wanted to propose to Hermione before Christmas dinner so he wouldn’t
“I never wanted you to have to give them up for me.” win—”
Propped up on his elbows, still feeling a little unsteady, he said, “I’m giving them “Before that I had to change the dinner so he didn’t—”
up with or without you. I’d much rather do it with you.” “Too complicated,” Theo said, cutting him off. “I’m—trying to help.”
 398 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 427

The shadow disappeared. When Draco looked up, he found Theo taking a seat He probably should have accepted some of the potions. But he really, truly, just
next to him on the fountain. “Ignoring the fact that time travel is a fucking nightmare wanted to be left alone. What did it really matter if he was sick for one day or four?
to wrap my head around, I don’t—understand what you’re trying to achieve. Because Or however long it took to get over an illness without potions?
you’ve said it’s so Lucius doesn’t win but—what does that mean?” From behind closed lids, he heard his door click open, metal dragged along the
“I don’t know.” It rushed from Draco, part declaration, part confession. “It’s—I strike plate, a hinge creaking, a single step on the tile floor before footsteps met a
don’t know. More of a feeling than anything else. Maybe it’s not even about winning. persian rug. Draco almost sighed. It was near time for Theo to try and force some
But—more that I always feel like I lose.” sense into him anyway, what with a new day dawning and all.
Theo’s knee knocked the side of Draco’s leg, a silent show of solidarity. With the throb of his pulse shooting behind his eyes and a grotesque clamminess
Draco tried to make sense of the bog inside his brain that trapped all his thoughts encasing his skin, Draco considered that perhaps this would be the day he gave in
and feelings about his father. Difficult terrain, and he often opted not to traverse for and finally let Theo help him.
fear of getting lost, of sinking, of becoming trapped. The mattress dipped beside him.
“You remember when we were little and you used to tell me how badly you wanted The vanilla gave her away.
to go home, even when we were here, at your Estate?” Draco asked. Draco couldn’t open his eyes.
Theo’s bouncing stilled. He hummed a noise of acknowledgement. Then a hand brushed his hair from his forehead. Quick, practiced fingers that had
“I think it’s like that. You wanted that feeling of a home, not the actual one.” done such a thing many, many times before. Her hand flipped, the back of her
“Are you searching for a feeling of home or of winning?” fingers now, gauging his temperature.
Draco fought back the inexplicable urge to sob. Her hand lingered. Trailed down the side of his face. Connected with his shoulder.
“Both.” Travelled down his arm. Found his hand.
“And is Hermione the answer to both?” She left fire in her wake. If he didn’t have a fever before, he certainly did now. Her
“Yes.” hand rested atop his: fingers not quite entwined, but slotted together in a way that
“Should she be?” suggested an inescapable entanglement.
Silence ate the seconds between Theo’s question and Draco’s complete inability to “You are quite pathetic, aren’t you?”
answer. He opened his eyes, bleary and tired and filmed over from too much sleep, to find
“I can’t—not try,” Draco finally said. “If I have a choice? I can’t just—” he heaved her sitting with one leg drawn up on the bed, watching him. She wore one of her
a breath, worryingly close to crying in a lovely garden in the middle of the day, with trusty jumpers—purple, one of her softer ones, by his recollection—and her muggle
his best friend present to bear witness. “If I know there’s even the smallest chance I denims. Her hair spiraled away from her head just as wild, just as magnificent as he
can fix it—any of it, all of it, even just some of it—I don’t think I have the willpower remembered. And she had bags beneath her eyes. She’d glamoured them, but he
not to.” could tell. Her hand slipped from his, reaching to his bedside table.
His lungs hurt. His chest hurt. The ever growing lump in the back of his throat hurt. “Theo said you’re being stubborn and won’t take any potions.” She held up a vial,
“Theo,” he said, sneaking broken words through a throat rapidly losing the ability offered him a close-lipped sort of smile.
to carry speech. “I’ve only done it twice but—I can see myself going mad. Trying to It sounded rather petulant when she said it like that.
fix things, trying to control all the uncontrollable things that have—will have, “Have you eaten anything recently?” she asked.
haven’t—happened to me. Or the things I’ve done.” He hissed, wincing in pain as he He could feel a cough strangling him deep in his throat. He kept his mouth closed,
realized he’d been dragging his nails against the stone fountain: catching one, ripping breathing through the single, unblocked side of his nose. He shook his head slowly
it, drawing blood. He watched red bead on the edge of his finger. “We never should from one side to the other in a single drawn out motion, so as not to send the room
have used it in the first place,” he concluded, smearing his blood onto the stone. spinning.
“No. I don’t think we should have.” “Will you take it?” she asked, holding up the vial. “And then eat something?”
“Then why did we?” Slowly, he shook his head again.
“Fun? We were stupid. What was I saying earlier about us being responsible adults She dropped her hand, resting the potion against her denims. She swallowed,
now?” tapping a finger against the vial. She’d bitten her nails quite short.
“It wasn’t that long ago.” “Why not, Draco? You can’t just torture yourself. You clearly have a fever—”
This conversation felt more like banter, more familiar, more manageable. Some of “You’ll leave,” he said, forcing words through a sharp cough. His face pinched,
the tension seizing Draco’s core softened. forcing the cough back. “If I take it, you’ll leave.”
“Long enough that you blew up Lucius Malfoy’s dining table over Christmas He hadn’t noticed how tightly she’d held her shoulders until they sank.
dinner. You’d have never done that then.” “I have to.”
“And you?” “You don’t.”
“I—”
 426 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 399

She paused and Draco realized he was meant to agree with her. So he did. And “Me? Well, I’m preaching temperance, aren’t I? It’s a sign of the end times,
despite the general sense of dizziness, the weight in his bones, and the constant honestly.”
searing sensation in his chest, Draco smiled. A grotesque laugh bubbled up Draco’s throat, a thin, worn out sound.
“I have missed you, Pans.” “Is it possible to obliviate one specific detail from over three years of someone’s
She scowled. life?” Draco asked, grappling for the absurd since everything else had failed him.
“We’ll have a hug about it when you’re not all”—a vague gesture towards him— “I don’t deal in mind magic, only trinkets.” A telltale pause, the kind in which
”grotesque and infectious.” She tossed him his blankets. He covered himself again, Draco could hear his heart beating. “Although.”
laid back, sank into his pillows. Prepared himself for whatever attack Pansy had in “Although what?”
store for him. Theo jumped to his feet, spinning on the pebbles as he animated as quickly as his
“I don’t know much about Hermione Granger. But I’ll tell you this, Draco: she thoughts likely ran.
doesn’t look great. You look worse, obviously.” He felt a light tug at the blankets. “You have the time turner?”
“What are you two doing to each other?” Draco hesitated. He did. He’d pocketed it before he came over. His pause,
Draco took a slow, deep breath, pulling air in carefully so as to not irritate his raw, evidently, had been answer enough.
aching throat. “I don’t know.” “Give it to me.”
Pansy made a growling noise, as if preemptively displeased with what she planned Draco almost didn’t. For a moment, he didn’t move.
to say. “You love her?” “Draco, give it to me.”
“I had a ring. Before I had to return it.” A pause, a sigh. “Disinheritance, and all.” “Right, yes. But—you’ll give it back? If I need it again?”
“Fuck.” Theo’s frantic, excited energy faltered, a look of pity overtaking everything else.
Draco pressed his palms to his eyes, pressure against his sockets as he tried to Draco resisted the intense urge to hit him.
ignore the headache stampeding through his skull. “I’m going to make it so that neither of us needs or wants it again.”
He felt another small tug at the blankets, then came Pansy’s voice from a new
angle.
“When I fix this for you, I expect an important role in the wedding.”
Draco didn’t mean to laugh. It shouldn’t have been funny. But Pansy’s completely
unwarranted confidence struck him sideways. Ridiculous, impossible. And if he
wasn’t careful, several laughs away from a sob.
But as it stood, he coughed instead. He refused water this time, declined her
assistance, terse as it was. He couldn’t encourage her any more. He coughed and
coughed and coughed until his stomach hurt as much as his chest and he couldn’t
even hear his door opening and closing as Pansy left.

Two days later, and he still hadn’t left his bed. His stomach ached and grumbled,
simultaneously starving and repulsed by the idea of food. He’d only cough so much
he’d throw it all up. Theo had tried to force a cough suppressant potion down his
throat twice the day before.
Draco had since warded his doors and refused to let Theo or the elves in. Not that
it would do any good if Theo really wanted to enter. Nor would it stop elf magic. But
it felt symbolic enough, representative of his wishes they would need to knowingly
break if they intended to try and force care upon him.
He didn’t want to feel better.
Something about suffering felt appropriate, twisted as he knew the logic was.
He realized he had a fever sometime in the early morning, judging from the bluish
tint to the light peeking through his mostly-drawn curtains and the slanted angle of
shadows cast by the window panes.
 Beginning and end 425

+.166, +.083, 000 “Like what?” he asked, blindly throwing his arm out to the side in search of his
wand on the bedside table. He needed to summon his blankets back and he knew he
couldn’t count on Pansy, hallucination or not, to return them.
A P RI L “Like you missed me”—he hissed as another stinging jinx hit him, his shin this
time—”you didn’t owl me a single time.”
“You didn’t want me to.”
“That’s not the point. You didn’t even try.”

T
ICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK “If I say I’m sorry and I really mean it, can I have my covers back?”
Theo never gave a timeline on what making it so neither of them needed or “Draco Malfoy, you are sick and you won’t let anyone help take care of you. So, no,
wanted the time turner again entailed, which left Draco in a strange sort of you may not have your covers back, you dramatic fuck.”
stasis, lingering in the in-between. He’d been left without a plan for the first time He’d tried to stifle the coughing, but it reached a tipping point in the back of his
since January, stuck waiting for a nebulous something. throat, seizing whole muscle groups, sending him sputtering and heaving.
He finally dragged himself into the shop, brewing from the back room instead of “That’s disgusting,” she said from the foot of his bed. But when he looked up at
constantly holing himself up in his flat. He brewed entire days away, producing her, coughing controlled, the hard lines on her face had neutralized, as close to
enough stock to last months, experimenting, too. Anything to occupy his mind: sympathy as he could probably expect.
pulling him out of his fixation on the past, living in his unfortunate present, accepting Draco closed his eyes, body aching and exhausted.
an uncertain future. “Why are you here, Pansy?”
“Mr. Malfoy?” “I had lunch with Hermione Granger this afternoon.”
He looked up, finding one of the shop clerks poking her head through the door. Draco shot straight up, gag reflex choking him, cough propelled from his chest. He
He’d barely exchanged a full sentence with the girl since hiring her at the beginning folded in half, head over his knees, as he coughed into the mattress. It occurred to
of the year. him that perhaps he ought to feel self conscious over the fact that he wore his
“Yes?” pajama bottoms and nothing more. But it wasn’t as if Pansy hadn’t seen it all before,
She tapped on the door, a nervous noise he could identify through the wood. She even if it had been nearly a decade now.
let out a ridiculous giggle before she spoke. He closed his eyes, resting his head against his left knee as the coughing subsided.
“Harry Potter— the Harry Potter. He’s here. To speak to you.” He looked up again at the sound of footsteps—determined clicking heels to be
“Fuck.” precise—next to him.
She choked on her giggle. Pansy held out a glass of water.
“I mean— fuck. Just”—he waved a stasis charm over his cauldrons—”send him “Drink it.” The you utter fuck at the end was implied, but he heard it nevertheless.
back here if you don’t mind. I’d rather not be murdered where customers can see.” She stepped away again, taking a seat on the settee at the foot of the bed. “As I was
She giggled again, probably thinking it a joke. But Draco had difficulty imagining a saying,” she continued. “I, Pansy Parkinson, had lunch today with the ineffable
scenario where Harry Potter came to speak to him and didn’t have murderous Hermione Granger, war heroine, recipient of an Order of Merlin, first class, and
intentions in mind, at least not after the last few months. apparently, ex-lover to one Draco Malfoy.”
Seconds after the clerk disappeared, Harry Potter walked through the door in all his He felt a little sick. A different kind of sick. A stomach-churning sick, a heart-
infuriatingly bespectacled glory. aching sick.
“Malfoy.” “I know what you’re thinking. However did I manage that? Well, I’ll tell you. Theo
“Potter.” chaperoned, even though the two of them don’t seem to be on great terms right now,
“Shop doing well?” either. I’m still not entirely certain what he’s up to. There’s a lot of meddling going
“Oh, fuck off, Potter. Why are you here?” on, that much is obvious.”
Potter dragged a hand through his already-wild hair, mussing it further. “I don’t Pansy pointed her wand at his glass and refilled it with a casual aguamenti, leveling
know, honestly. I’m supposed to be following a lead in Knockturn right now but—I him with a pointed stare that told him to continue drinking.
saw the shop and…” “But here’s what I do know,” she said, leaning against the footboard. “I’ve been
“Felt like dropping in on an old pal?” Draco arched a brow, crossing his arms. back from France for more than half a year and you haven’t reached out once. I’m
Whatever this was, he had no interest in a moral lambasting from the likes of Harry pretty upset about that because I know Theo told you I was back. But I didn’t owl
Potter. you, either, so that’s my own fucking fault. I’m willing to call it even on us both being
Potter puffed out a breath, shaking his head. “I suppose that’s not far off. Maybe a awful to each other because we have something more important to discuss.”
bit of curiosity.”
 424 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 401

towards the window. He only opened his eyes every so often, after a particular “Curiosity? Come to witness what’s left of my life?”
violent cough or when an ache from lying so still for so long demanded that he shift. “No—Merlin.” He lifted his hands. “Defensive much? Gods. She—she won’t
He opened his eyes once: day. Again: night. really tell us anything. She’s been—”
He presumed at some point in the darkness that it must have stopped being his “Stop, Potter. I swear if you tell me she’s been unhappy, I’ll curse you. I don’t care
birthday. He only realized after the fact that he’d been holding out hope, tiny and how many megalomaniacs you’ve saved us all from.”
smothered by illness as it might have been, that a Malfoy owl might deliver him his “She has been.”
birthday toffees. “What did I just say, Potter?” Draco relieved himself of his wand, letting it roll
He'd demanded a clean break, and this is how it looked. No more malunions. across his workbench. His fingers twitched, begging him to hex or jinx or curse the
He spent the next day in bed, too. He felt dizzy and weak and only accepted water boy-who-wouldn’t-shut-his-fucking-mouth. “So what, are you here to make sure
from Milly when Theo threatened to portkey him to a healer if he didn’t cooperate. we’re even? That I’m as least as miserable as she is?”
Mostly, Draco slept. Asleep, he had a chance for dreams wrapped in memories of a Potter made an incredulous sort of sound, shoulders rising and falling in an
life when he had Hermione in it. Sure, he might find nightmares there, too. But exasperated motion.
waking only offered the one option: the nightmare his reality had become. So he took “You know I’d just gotten used to the idea of you,” Potter said, sounding a bit like
his chances and slept. an accusation. “I’d finally accepted I was probably going to be stuck with you. Hell, I
The coughing persisted, migrating from something damp and throaty to almost even liked you well enough.”
somewhere deeper in his chest, heaving against his ribs. “And now?” Because that set up certainly felt like it had a caveat lying in wait.
“Please see a healer,” Theo asked, sometime towards the end of Draco’s second “I don’t know if I’m supposed to be mad at you for breaking her heart. You and I
day in bed. “Or at least take the potion. It will manage your symptoms. You know did have that talk once.”
that. You brewed it.” “We almost had that talk. Furthermore—” he broke off. A righteous indignation
Draco ignored him. flooded him, far too Gryffindor-ish for his liking. Nevertheless, the audacity of
Later: “Theo told me to tell you that you have to see a healer. He’s set an Potter’s suggestion that he’d been the one to break her heart astonished him. But as
appointment.” Blaise didn’t bother sounding hopeful. quickly as it flashed, hot magma bubbling inside his chest, it cooled and hardened.
“Cancel it,” Draco told him. He assumed Blaise did just that. Draco blamed Hermione. He blamed himself, too. After all this time, with tiredness
The next day, the hallucinations started. weighing him down, neither option seemed exactly right.
When he opened his eyes, disappointed to find light in his room and a painful ache “We broke each other’s hearts, Potter. It’s no one’s fault.”
in his chest, he saw an impossible sight.
Pansy Parkinson stood at the foot of his bed, arms crossed, fringe perfectly
straight, and a look of utter disdain drawn in the shape of her mouth and angle of her
brows.
“You’re unforgivably dramatic, even after all this time. Has anyone told you, In the end, Draco didn’t hex Potter and Potter didn’t hex him. Draco barely
lately?” Hallucination Pansy sounded just like real Pansy: perfectly mean and exactly resisted the insistent throb behind his ribs begging that he ask more about Hermione.
as expected. It seemed like Potter barely resisted asking several questions of his own, mouth
“Not recently, no.” opening and closing soundlessly as he presumably tried to form a thought. Potter
She made a disgusted noise, eyes rolling, arms falling, breath gusting. ultimately left with very little else being said, nothing of consequence at least.
“Fucking Theo and Blaise. I should have known I couldn’t leave you three alone— Waiting for Theo to reappear had started driving Draco a bit mad. Every time he
otherwise I get owls about how you’ve gone all despondent and they’re worried and Floo’d or apparated to Nott Estate, Draco was met with a frantic series of not yets and
evidently you’re heartbroken. Merlin’s fucking—” She yanked his blankets down, soons and fuck offs and be patient, Dracos. Lacking anything else to do, Draco spent most
sending a stinging jinx at his ankles. of his idle time reconsidering his choices over the last few months. Brewing had lost
Draco didn’t recall hallucinations having that particular ability. its efficacy in distracting him; he had no choice but to face the things he’d done.
“Pans?” he asked, swallowing back a cough, choking him as he lifted himself onto He came upon his first conclusion in the days following Potter’s surprise visit.
his elbows. Draco didn’t want the point of his life—and the thing he regretted the most—to be
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, wand leveled at him from where she still that he should have cut his parents out sooner. The more he thought about the last
stood at the foot of his bed. several months, and the several years before that, that inevitability seemed more and
Exhaustion pulled his head back to his pillow, elbows and arms giving out beneath more like the only logical conclusion one could draw.
him. And that—well, that was just sad. And it felt like failure. But perhaps this was a
situation that could be neither won nor lost, only weathered.
 402 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 423

Where was one meant to draw the line, amputate the limb, staunch the bleeding? “You’ve been here all day. Theo said you were working with customers all
He couldn’t separate his want to fix things with Hermione from his want to figure afternoon while also brewing. Are you ever planning on going home or must I make
out a solution to his complicated relationship with his parents. He was never use of levicorpus?”
supposed to hang all his happiness on her. That was what she wanted, what she’d “You mean Theo’s home?”
told him. But what if that was incidental? What if the thing he needed for himself, to “It’s your home right now, too. Don’t be difficult.”
excise the toxic pieces of his family, had the unintended but very welcome side effect Draco might have fought more, pushed back harder, if his head hadn’t hurt quite
of returning Hermione to his life? so much: sinuses throbbing, bones aching. He coughed again, lungs tacky and
Days later, after combing through that thinking with a methodical precision even clogged and awful.
Hermione Granger would have found impressive, he came to the conclusion that he “Are you sick?” Blaise asked.
was a horrible fucking person. He certainly didn’t want to be. Sickness meant bedrest. Bedrest meant time. Time to
He sank into a kitchen chair, quest to brew a pot of tea abandoned. He closed his think, time to wallow. Draco was self-aware enough to know that’s what he’d be
eyes, chest collapsing, shoulders sinking. doing if forced not to work. It was what he did in the scant spare time he had,
Regardless of his motives, or his wants, or his needs, or how he logicked his way anyway.
around guilt and responsibility and shame for his choices, it all boiled down to one “No. I’m fine.”
simple fact, one Theo had been trying to help him see for months: Blaise didn’t seem to believe him.
Draco was an egotistical bastard. And rightfully so.
Who the fuck did he think he was? Acting as if he had the right, the fucking right to By the next morning, after brewing late into the night despite Blaise’s best efforts
change anything? He made his choices once. He should have had to live with them. to coax him away from the shop, Draco could barely roll out of his bed. His body
He’d debated how he would tell Blaise that he couldn’t stomach coming into work, ached. Coughing felt like it tore his lungs from his chest, and his head felt fit to burst
disgusted with himself and the choices he’d tried to take away from Hermione by from the pressure behind his eyes.
fucking with time. He felt vile, embarrassed that it took him so long to see it, revolted He’d buried himself beneath his covers, wishing for a swift and early death, when
by the decisions he’d already made. Decisions that set into motion an entire series of Theo burst into his room.
events that may or may not have ever even happened without his interference. He “Happy Birth— Oh.”
wanted to do little else than sit at his kitchen table while considering when and if and “Please go away.”
how it would ever be possible to repent. He came to one single conclusion each and “Blaise did say you didn’t look great yesterday but...”
every time. “Theo, just”—a cough tore from his chest, hacking phlegm from his lungs and
Then Theo walked through the Floo. ripping his throat to shreds—”go.”
“I made a modification,” he announced, pulling the time turner from his pocket For a moment, the world spun at the wrong angle, a slide in his vision.
almost as soon as he spotted Draco. He didn’t have the energy to be kind. To care. A year ago, he’d woken to the most
Draco’s laugh came out hollow, tired. “Did you now? Does more, does it? The beautiful birthday gift; a scantily clad witch in his bed. Now, he had mucus and
several modifications you already made weren’t enough?” irritation and no hope of the birthday toffees he loved so much.
“You’re in a mood, I see.” “I’ll—have Mopsy bring you some tea, something to eat. Is it your stomach or—”
“Existential crisis, I’m allowed.” “Theo—I don’t want any help.” Irritation burned the agony and hopelessness from
Theo rolled his eyes. his veins, it helped in a strange, spiteful way. “Just leave me alone.”
“I need you to be impressed.” He swung the turner with an almost careless ease Theo’s face twisted, his own flash of annoyance, then a frown. “I’ll tell Blaise you
between them. “If not for the fact that this thing is several sentences in Azkaban sort won’t be into work, then.”
of illegal, I’d say I deserve an Order of Merlin in magical innovation. But, all things “Great.”
considered.” Theo shrugged. A hollow laugh. “You mean thanks.”
“What did you do?” When he left, Draco searched himself for regret, for something resembling
“I added a memory charm.” contrition for how he’d just treated his friend. Instead, he found aches and pains and
Draco sat forward in his chair, staggered for a moment by an echo of this very a severe disinterest in doing anything other than closing his eyes and keeping them
scene. Had Theo found him in his kitchen like this once before? Or did it only feel shut for as long as possible.
familiar? Mopsy tried bringing him food; he told her to take it away.
“You added a memory charm—to a time turner?” Theo brought a bright orange potion; Draco refused to take it.
Theo nodded, a perfectly vertical motion at first, then skewing towards the diagonal Milly brought tea; he made her vanish it.
as if fighting off the urge to shake to the negative. Draco knew time had passed from the angle and shape of the shadows beside his
bed. First they lengthened, stretching wide, before tilting, shrinking, and pulling back
 422 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 403

“I heard you blew up some glassware.” “To be honest, it’s a hack job. I only worked on it for a month. I pulled it together
“Story got around, did it?” as best I can but if we use it—and I’d have to use it, too—we won’t remember using
“I’m not trying to be unkind. Or to prod at fresh wounds.” it at all. But we’ll still get the new timeline, and the new version of ourselves will be
Draco bit his tongue. It felt like she intended to do exactly that. blissfully unaware. Solves your problem, right? Use it, try to fix things, and if it
“What are you trying to do, then?” doesn’t work, well, at least you're freed from wondering, yeah?”
She sighed, and even though he didn’t want to make the comparison: it sounded Draco’s brain cut straight to the end result of such an absurd, absolutely ridiculous
exactly like his mother. thing. “And when we land back here, time turner in hand? You don’t think we’d use
“I merely wanted to remind you that you still have family. Family who it again anyway? Should we write ourselves a suspicious note that says, ‘please don’t
understands.” Her eyes darted to Teddy as he flew a circle around the fountain in the use this time turner you don’t remember having?’” Draco swallowed against a deluge
center of the gardens, the same one Draco broke his wrist maneuvering around so of what ifs drowning him.
many years ago. “Family who cares about you,” she concluded. “Can I have a little bit of credit? I’m capable of thinking through more than one
“That’s very kind and I appreciate the sentiment.” He knew he sounded stiff, stale, problem at a time. I charmed it. A sort of self delivering portkey—they are my
unfeeling even as he said it. specialty, after all. It’ll go straight back to the drawer in my father’s study where I
She lifted a brow. “But?” found it years ago. I won’t even know it’s there, beauty of a memory charm.”
“I don’t know.” And he didn’t. Truly. The entire conversation with Andromeda felt “And if you find it again?”
misplaced, poorly timed. The ache inside his chest still felt too raw to consider what Theo laughed, smile stretching across his face as if he’d been waiting to put all
healing might look like, what a future family might entail in the absence of the one Draco’s potential challenges to rest with his superior problem solving skills.
he’d planned on having with Hermione. “I never intended on doing anything with it the first time I found it. I didn’t start
“Well, when you do”—she smiled, watching Teddy as he flew, then shifting her messing with it until your father asked me if it was possible. In a different version of
gaze to Draco once again—”we’re here. And we understand.” events—when Lucius asks me if I know anything about time turners in 2001 I
Draco tried not to grimace, tried not to cringe, tried to think of anything other than imagine I’ll just say no—because I won’t have it yet…or anymore, I suppose.”
his desire to return to his rooms and count the tiles in his ceiling or brew enough “And us? You don’t think we’ll notice something—strange?”
stock to last the shop a few solid years of business. “Kind of counting on paradox avoidance for that one.”
“Thank you, Aunt Andromeda,” he said. He tried to mean it. “Are they even paradoxes if we’re starting entirely new timelines?”
“Oh, for the love of— complication avoidance, then. Sure. We might be confused. Or
maybe we won’t because complication avoidance magic will do it’s thing. My point is, this
all hinges on whether or not we use it for something very specific.”
Draco sighed. Not for the first time in his life, he couldn’t decide if he felt
“Theo says you’re working yourself to death.” impressed or concerned that he and Theo had somehow found their way to the exact
Draco coughed: poor evidence to the contrary. “Theo is dramatic.” same conclusion in very different ways.
Blaise stood at the doorway between the front of their shop and the back room “I know,” Draco said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the last few years. About—
where Draco brewed. He wasn’t entirely certain of the time, but judging from the how I got here. About my choices.” He cleared his throat, forcing himself to
dim light illuminating Blaise from behind, the streetlights had turned on. That, of continue, to confess to his crimes, out loud, at least once. “I regret being so arrogant
course, meant the sun had set. And that, of course, meant that Draco had been as to think I had the right to change time in order to fix the things I regret—to take
brewing for at least twelve hours. away Hermione’s choices in the present, more so.”
“Have you eaten today?” Theo’s wild excitement cooled. He nodded, taking the seat across from Draco.
Draco pointed to the bin by the door. Blaise leaned, peering inside. “But I also regret so much with Lucius. And I’ve been thinking about big things
“Am I to surmise from this that you’ve had”—a pause—”six chocolate frogs?” this whole time and how—well, I’m not sure they’re the important bits. Maybe it’s
Draco didn’t answer. He added eight drops of salamander blood to his cauldron, the little things. Tiny bits of momentum, you know? Small moments with him
stirred anti-clockwise six times, let the solution rest, and began his clockwise stirs. He that”—he struggled for the right word—”ingratiated me, just enough, just a bit more
jolted when his potion vanished. He looked up, finding Blaise directly across from than I might have been otherwise. When I came home from Sarajevo I was hopeful
him, vanishing the other potions Draco had been working on that day, too. we could have a normal relationship, did I ever tell you that? I thought a little time
“What the fuck, Blaise—” apart might have made things easier.”
“—We have enough backstock to last us several months. I’ll pay for the lost Theo shook his head, time turner resting in his lap, hands limp.
ingredients out of my own salary. You, however, need to sit and we need to talk.” “He dropped a betrothal in my lap. I think that was when I first realized I would
Fury fought with exhaustion, battling beneath Draco’s skin. Before one could have to cut him out. I would have done it then, I wanted to, I just didn’t have the—
behead the other and claim its victory, Blaise preempted him by speaking again. ability, not yet. And once I’d worked up the courage, I’d lost some of my resolve. I’ve
 404 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 421

been using the time turner to try and fix my mistakes with my parents and with Draco almost snorted at the understatement, could almost see the humor in how
Hermione which is so—Theo, I think I’m a terrible person.” He had to suck in a poorly the phrase falling out described what had happened. But as it stood, he felt a
breath, control his lungs, swallow down the rising pressure in the back of his throat. sharp sting shoot through his chest at the naked reality such a statement ultimately
“The only thing I should have ever used it for—and even then, I can’t keep straight exposed.
which decisions I should have to live with—” he cut himself off, another gulp of air. “I also learned from Harry that you are in the process of being disinherited.”
He could feel himself spiralling, sinking into a paradoxical pit that hid its escape Draco cleared his throat as cold pinpricks erupted beneath his skin in a wave rolling
routes in impossible questions and unknowable answers. He steadied himself. “I from his head to his toes. What could one say to something like that? To the truth,
think I know what you want to use it for, and I agree. We should go back and make it terrible and real? “It’s a longer process than I anticipated,” he said, finding his focus
so we never used it at all.” had slipped from her face, seeking Teddy on his broom in the background.
Theo didn’t speak for several seconds, eyes fixed on the time turner in his lap. “Between the legal and the magical components, yes. It is a lot.” Andromeda’s
“That’s far back, much farther than a few months,” he said. Perhaps he needed voice took on a strained quality, not quite as carefully composed as Draco had grown
convincing, too. accustomed to. “I was surprised I hadn’t heard from you. You and I discussed this
“It is. And that terrifies me. What if I never end up working with Hermione? What once, at Harry’s wedding.”
if I—what if we never—she never? What if I lose ever having had a relationship with Draco didn’t know if he ought to feel embarrassed. He couldn’t quite tell if she
her at all?” sounded offended, or sad, or some strange combination of the two. “We barely
“Or what if,” Theo started, slipping into an antagonistic tone, the one he used to broached theoreticals.”
argue a point to death, which usually meant his victory. “Maybe the future or the past “And yet here we are.”
or the way things happen isn’t all enormous changes with huge branching paths “It—honestly didn’t occur to me to reach out to you, I apologize. I’ve had”—he
based on whether or not we got bit by a mosquito on the elbow in one timeline or on struggled for the right word, if one existed—”quite a bit on my mind.”
the knee in another. Maybe we’re sturdier than that, built on foundations that take “You’ve been removed from your family vaults?”
longer than five or thirty minutes worth of time to unsettle. I don’t know if I want to Draco nodded. “Property, too. Hence—” He gestured vaguely around them,
believe that one single moment can entirely change who I am.” Theo offered him a acknowledgement that they met at Nott Manor and nowhere he could call his own.
generous look, thinned lips forced into a hopeful smile. “Or who you end up with.” “Wards and blood magic?”
“But things—they cascade, Theo. That’s how time works.” Draco shook his head. “None of the family magic, yet. We’re still arbitrating over
Theo narrowed his eyes, leaning forward in his chair, lifting his hands onto the some lingering financials. I’m”—he clenched his jaw, forced the words through
tabletop. His fingers drummed against the wood before he launched into another anyway—”I’m insisting on paying it back. What I spent from my inheritance. I don’t
rebuttal. want any of it. And now they’ve refused to take back the furniture I was using.”
“Okay, things cascade, but from where? How do we know the starting point? From “Is that so bad?”
the top of a mountain or the bottom of a hill? Different levels of scale, I’d say. “They’re being petty.”
Wouldn’t you say your relationship with Lucius had already gone significantly “You’re not?” She lifted a brow.
downhill?” “They cost me everything.”
Theo waggled a brow and despite the brain-melting severity of their conversation, Andromeda sat back in her chair, back flush with the intricate wrought iron vines
Draco couldn’t help but groan over the—frankly, inappropriately timed—play on spiraling in a pattern. She drummed her fingers against the tabletop and Draco could
words. feel the vibrations in his wrist.
“Think about it,” Theo said, voice tipping towards excitement again as he scooted He moved his hand to his lap.
to the edge of his seat, practically slipping out of it altogether. “I know I’m not smart Nearly twenty-five years old and he felt strangely childish.
enough to think through all the possibilities, but, I feel like it's safe to say that if “They cost you Hermione?” Andromeda asked after what felt like several eons had
Lucius never invited you to be in that room when he received Hermione after we passed between them.
used the turner the first time, something about your relationship would look different Draco hadn’t asked for this. He made no requests for a relative he barely knew, not
than it does now.” apart from the several social gatherings they attended together, to offer unsolicited
“Something good or something bad? We can’t know.” Despite that terrifying advice and understanding of his circumstances. He didn’t care that she’d been
conclusion, Draco laughed silently, a kind of shaking in his chest and stomach that disinherited herself, that she knew more and better than anyone what it entailed.
ached in his muscles. He could hope that maybe he’d pull away from Lucius sooner, He didn’t want sympathy.
even blow up all that glassware on his own, too—an organic explosion. But he could And he certainly didn’t want to talk about Hermione.
never know, not with certainty. There would be risk involved, significant risk he He forced his head to move: left to right and back again. A shake towards dissent.
would have to accept. “They’re only at fault for Hermione having left insofar as they made me, and I made
many mistakes.”
 420 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 405

“That’s a convenient trick,” Draco said. “My hair takes much more work than that “Would you risk it, Theo? Everything that’s ever really mattered to you? To fix a
to manage.” mistake? To give yourself the opportunity to do things the way they should have
Andromeda stepped forward, offering him a hug of her own. Draco tensed, happened years ago?”
unfamiliar with such an easy, casual embrace. Theo answered immediately, and honestly, and in the only way Draco really
“Mine as well,” she said. She tucked an errant lock of hair behind his ear, a expected.
strikingly maternal action. Draco felt his smile slip, strained at the edges as he forced “I don’t know.”
it to remain in place. Oddly, that was enough.
He turned his attention to Teddy, announcing the presence of toy brooms and
lunch awaiting them in the gardens. Draco got the distinct impression that if Teddy
had any clue how to get to the gardens from the Floo parlor, he would have taken off
at high speed and left his boring grandmother and cool—but not cooler than
broomsticks—cousin in the dust. Draco and Theo stepped through the Floo and into Malfoy Manor shortly after
Draco led his guests to the gardens, laughing each time Teddy’s little feet caught on breakfast on the day they would use the time turner to go back in time and— not use
Draco’s heels, following too closely in his excitement. the time turner. Draco had no intentions of announcing their arrival to anyone in the
“Patience isn’t your virtue, is it?” household. He had requested a disinheritance, after all. He presumed that removed
He missed a step, realizing he should elaborate, but Teddy blew past him as the unannounced visits from the list of acceptable liberties he could take.
garden doors came into view. Draco paused on the threshold with Andromeda. His intentions flew out the nearest window upon finding Topsy working in the
“There’s no chance for lunch before we fly, is there?” parlor.
Andromeda laughed, light but forceful, and nothing like the socialite tittering The elf blinked up at them, a single moment of confusion in her enormous eyes,
Narcissa used so often. Draco drew a deep breath, gaze caught on the laugh lines at before joy overtook her.
the corners of Andromeda’s eyes, and resolved to stop comparing them. “Master Draco,” she squeaked, sinking into a curtsey. “How is Topsy of service to
He’d requested a disinheritance. He’d cut his parents from his life. He’d only the young master today?”
torture himself by comparing Andromeda with the mother he hadn’t seen in several Theo interjected before Draco had the chance to implore that she not alert his
months. parents of his arrival. Theo bowed: theatrically, ridiculously, and as he always did.
She shook her head. “You’ll be lucky if you eat within the hour.” “Topsy, a pleasure to see you as always. Mopsy has wished you a pleasant Vernal
It ultimately took much more than that to wear Teddy out, reminding Draco far Equinox. My apologies for the late delivery.”
too keenly that he’d done little physical activity over the last several months and that Topsy’s ears flushed a deep maroon as she grabbed at them, twisting the droopy
over an hour spent on a broom required more stamina than he presently had. By the ends in her embarrassment.
time he sat down at the lovely garden tables filled with food by Mopsy and Milly, “Shall I send Mopsy your regards the next time I see her?” he asked. Draco didn't
he’d worked up an embarrassing sweat. know if he wanted to laugh or not. They’d allotted fifteen minutes to prepare, lest
Teddy inhaled two sandwiches at an impressive and slightly alarming pace before they miss their opportunity and have to wait another month for the correct day and
throwing himself on his broom again. Exhausted and starving, Draco opted out. time to come around again, and Theo had chosen to spend some of that precious
He would have forced himself back on a broom had he known what Andromeda time conducting a terribly serious conversation about house elf well-wish
intended for him. correspondence.
She set her teacup down, eyes following Teddy’s path on his toy broom. “I lied to Topsy nodded in a vibrating sort of way, either assent or an inability to control the
you,” she said. overwhelming buzz from Theo’s attention.
Draco looked at her. She wore no contrition, didn’t even break her gaze from “Excellent,” Theo said with a deep breath, shifting to a grin. “And what is it you’re
where it tracked Teddy. up to today, Topsy? This is quite a lot of measuring tape.”
“About?” Quite a lot barely scratched the surface. Measuring tapes floated in various stages
“I wanted to see you, not Teddy.” She finally glanced at Draco. “Although he was of activity all about the room.
delighted we received an invitation to see his cousin.” “Remodeling, Master Theo.” She glanced at Draco. “Replacing furniture.”
Draco didn’t know what to do with his expression, suddenly too aware of every Several of the measuring tapes hovered where the green tufted sofa used to sit.
muscle around his mouth, his eyes, his cheeks. Every position, every shift, felt forced Even at the manor, Draco couldn’t escape its absence.
and disingenuous. Andromeda took pity on him, saving him from having to “Well, Topsy. It’s lovely work you’re doing but Draco and I have some business to
formulate some kind of question or response. attend to and we’d prefer if that Master and Mistress of the house are not informed
“I heard from Harry that you and Hermione Granger had a falling out.” of our arrival. Could you be so kind as to take a thirty minute respite? Perhaps take a
 406 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 419

stroll through the gardens at your leisure.” When that particular suggestion seemed to to come knocking at his door, suggesting a drink or a game or an outing with a most
spark panic in Topsy’s eyes, Theo pivoted. “Or perhaps iron some linens.” painfully forced positivity.
Topsy smiled. “Of course Master Theo.” She disappeared with a crack, taking the All things considered, idly counting to occupy the time Draco didn’t spend working
assortment of measuring tapes with her. felt like progress.
Theo turned, an enormous grin splitting his face. He’d barely left his bed for most of February, tending only to his disinheritance,
“I realize we have several other priorities to consider and—well, fuck we won’t motivated by spite and sadness.
remember this, will we?—but you know what just happened, don’t you?” He’d barely left his flat for most of March, tending only to the shop, motivated by
Draco massaged his temple, long past trying to follow Theo’s logic. guilt that he’d abandoned Blaise and their new venture.
“And what just happened, Theo?” He’d barely figured out how to pretend in April, tending to his image, motivated by
“A Malfoy elf just took orders from me. I’ve finally done it—charmed my way his friends’ deep concern. He’d been desperate to never have to answer the question
around elf magic”—he made a grand sweeping wave with his hand as if to announce How are you doing? ever again.
the requisite flourish such a statement required—”and soon we won’t remember it.” He’d blinked and three months had passed. He’d last seen Hermione at the end of
Draco shrugged. “Maybe we will. I’m not convinced you have any idea how January. And suddenly: May and moneyless. And by the end of the month: homeless,
paradox—sorry, complication— avoidance even works.” too.
“Oh, I most certainly don’t,” Theo agreed, pulling open the parlor door. Now June, still unmoored but better at pretending.
Draco followed, stopping just beyond the threshold, silent as Theo closed the He heard a knock at his door. He ignored it.
doors again. He began counting corners again.
The surface of his skin hummed, prickling and crawling and buzzing with an
uncomfortable energy that somehow managed to run hot and cold at the same time.
An unusual feeling: off-kilter, perhaps foreboding, if he allowed himself to think in
such terms. He’d tried not to think too hard about the finality, the irreversibility, of
volunteering his mind to be altered, of going back so far that he would shift whole As it turned out, only Teddy Lupin could pull Draco from his routine constantly
years’ worth of his life. working, counting, avoiding, and sleeping.
If he thought too long or too hard about it, he nearly talked himself out of it every Draco received an owl from his Aunt Andromeda on the first of the month. Teddy
time. His brain would stick on images of Hermione smiling up at him with pride or wanted to see his cool cousin, apparently. What other option did Draco have but to
lust or love, preemptively mourning a possible version of his life where he would reply immediately with Yes, of course, please come for lunch at Nott Manor at your earliest
never know—or know to miss—the way those things altered the gravity governing convenience. He’d responded on impulse, stunned at first that someone other than
his bones. In those moments, he felt like he could float, soar, fly without the aid of a Blaise or Theo wanted anything to do with him. Even more so, stunned that little
broomstick. He couldn’t imagine, and certainly did not want to imagine, what his life Teddy Lupin remembered him, wanted to see him, cared enough to ask.
without those feelings would look like. Draco couldn’t deny his jittery anticipation as he waited beside the Floo for their
Instead, he focused on the path that using the time turner had put him on: an arrival. He liked Teddy, always had. Faced with an opportunity to see him again,
invitation into a room where once there had been a dismissal. A persistent spark Draco was reminded of James Potter, a child who would have now more than
somewhere inside his chest that perhaps, maybe, he could earn his father’s pride doubled in age since Draco last saw him.
again. Somehow. Some way. And later, a spiral wherein he knew, and couldn’t ignore, The idea that James Potter, whom Draco had met on the day of his birth, had now
the ability to change the things he regretted. Having the option haunted him. It lived more than half his life without Draco in it, felt strange, struck oddly. Draco had
nagged at Theo, too. no rights, no claim to Harry and Ginny Potter’s child. Hermione was his godmother;
Beyond those things, he chose not to speculate. Trying to control the consequences Draco only knew him by circumstance. And yet, a certain something ached inside his
of his actions had been a spectacular failure the first two times he tried. He’d finally chest, realizing he’d forgotten to miss James in all the time he’d spent missing
learned to accept his limits when he saw them. Hermione and his old life.
He only hoped that at some point he had-has-will have a ring in his valet box. The Floo flared, green flames roaring and twisting. Seconds later, his aunt and
Draco jumped when Theo clapped a hand on his shoulder. cousin stepped out.
“You ready?” Theo asked, question communicated more by eye contact than by Draco’s plans of a proper greeting to the Nott Estate fizzled away with his
words. confusion at finding himself in a sudden and moderately aggressive hug.
Draco pulled out his pocket watch, checked it, and nodded. Theo blew out a breath Teddy Lupin had grown at least half a head since Draco saw him last. Bright blue,
and held the time turner between them, looping the gold chain over Draco’s head shoulder-length hair shortened and lightened into a perfect mirror image of Draco’s
and then his own. white blonde coif.
“Reverse spin, 3.166.” Almost a question.
 418 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 407

“Maybe later. I’m tired.” “Yes, Theo. We’ve both quadruple-checked it, at least.”
“I’ll let you beat me in wizard’s chess.” Theo nodded, exhaling another shaky breath, and unlocked the turner from its
“Theo,” Draco said, realizing too late that his voice came out sharper than he’d resting position.
wanted it to, cutting through the first syllable in Theo’s name. “I don’t mean to be “And you have the date set, right?” Draco asked in a surge of last minute panic. It
ungrateful but—I’ve been faking it all day. I’d like to stop.” took a significant amount of willpower not to reach for it, to let Theo have control.
Draco doubted he’d ever be willing to express that much honesty with anyone else Theo nodded.
in his life. Hermione, of course, at one time. But now—only Theo. As he placed his thumb and forefinger on the hourglass, the Floo rushed to life on
Theo’s smile fell. He gave a single, curt nod. “I’ll send Mopsy when it’s time to the other side of the doors behind them. Muffled footsteps sounded, then the doors
eat.” Not quite phrased as a question, not quite phrased as a statement. swung open, putting Draco face to face with Hermione—the Hermione who existed
“Of course.” Draco pivoted, shoes clacking on ancient Nott granite, echoing in a in the present with him—for the first time in months.
slightly different tone than Malfoy marble. Halfway down the corridor, Draco She staggered back, eyes wide and brows drawn in an instant collision of confusion
paused. He pinched the bridge of his nose, ran a hand down his face, dragging at and surprise. Her mouth dropped open as her gaze darted to three distinct points in
features that wanted nothing more than to pinch and distort and find relief in rapid succession, over and over. From Draco to Theo to the time turner between
acknowledging the sting in the back of his throat, the pit in his stomach. them.
He turned, finding Theo still standing in exactly the same place, watching. How could they have forgotten? For all his worry and his planning, it somehow
Draco might have said something else, but his thoughts ran dry, a well without slipped his notice that if they intended to travel to a time shortly after Hermione
water, intentions without words. How did one tell his best friend how much he arrived at work in the past, she would also be present in the present.
appreciated him? For giving Draco a place to live? Space when he needed it? A push “What is that?” she asked, entirely unnecessarily. She already knew. Draco knew
when he needed that more? And at the same time, how did one tell that same best that she knew from the tone in her voice and his knowledge of her past. She’d spent
friend that none of it was enough? That it felt like no amount of kindness could fill a year with a time turner around her neck; she knew exactly what she looked at.
the hole in his chest, remnants of a crater from an impact he thought he’d already A dormant beast roared to life in Draco’s chest, clawing at his ribs, tearing flesh
survived. and organ and muscle to shreds, demanding to be released, to reach for her.
Most days he was just so tired. He went to work; he went to sleep. He tried not to It hurt.
think about Hermione, about having no money, no home, nothing of his own It ached.
besides a bunch of furniture in a ballroom. It burned.
He only had his friends. And that wasn’t enough. Draco battered it back, accepting her presence for the gift that it was: one last
Which made him feel that much worse, an ungrateful friend on top of all the rest. chance to see her.
Draco still hadn’t said anything, eyes on Theo where he stood halfway down the “We fucked up,” he said simply. “I’m sorry.”
corridor. Draco forced his fingers to relax, loose and calm. He glanced at Theo, who nodded his understanding.
He nodded to Theo, swallowing over the lump in the back of his throat. He flipped the hourglass: once, twice, three times, carefully aligning the last
Theo nodded back. fractional turns to account for the two individual months they needed to travel
For whatever it was worth; that was that. beyond the three years.
Theo could have repeated the destination to himself a million times and it wouldn’t
have mattered, not when Hermione stepped forward, protest prepared on those
lovely, impulsive, beautifully brave Gryffindor lips of hers. Her movement startled
Draco, who inched away out of instinct, jostling Theo and ruining the precision
The embellished, coffered ceiling in Draco’s bedroom at Nott Estate had three required to select the correct month.
hundred and sixty four corners. Each tile contained five circular designs. If he From beyond the blur and the cotton and the film, Draco heard Theo curse as the
counted, which he did, he would find four hundred and fifty five circles above him. rest of the world fell away, leaving everything else behind.
The largest circle in each panel contained a flower design, so ninety of those plus the
two half tiles that comprised the inset for the door.
The wainscoting on the walls had one hundred and twenty two corners that Draco
could count from where he liked to lay on the chaise beneath the east window. If he
lay on the bed he could count two hundred and seventy two corners. When the time turner magic released them, a sensation Draco had grown
If he counted all the corners on the ceilings and the walls, all the circles, and all the disturbingly familiar with over the last few months, he and Theo stood exactly where
flowers, he could disappear inside his own head for just long enough to forget how they had been moments before. But when they stood seemed less certain.
fucking miserable he was. That escape usually lasted about how long it took for Theo Draco blinked, whirling to face Theo.
 408 Mightbewriting

“When?”
Theo’s face had gone pale, mouth opening and closing as he fought to articulate an
answer. He pulled the gold chain over his head, leaving the time turner hanging solely
+.083, +.083, +.083
around Draco’s neck.
“An extra month, I think,” he finally said, hands coming to rest at the back of his JUNE
head, elbows wide as he sucked in a deep breath.
“Forward or backward?” Draco’s stomach churned as he asked.
Theo had taken a half step away, breath heavy. “What?”

“I
“Forward or backward, Theo. Is this January or March of 2002?” PUT MY FURNITURE IN YOUR BALLROOM.”
Theos hands dropped to his sides. Draco watched Theo process that statement: a blink of confusion, a crest
“Backwards. I rotated too far. January. I think.” of comprehension, and finally, a shrug of acceptance.
“You think? Fuck— Topsy.” “Bit petty of them, don’t you think? Kick you out of the flat but make you keep all
Crack. the furniture?”
“Master Draco, you is returning from your meeting so soon. How is Topsy of “I’ve sullied it, evidently.”
service?” “Real estate, though…” Theo trailed off, shrugging again.
Draco tried to force every ounce of his rapidly draining composure into his words. “I won’t intrude for long,” Draco said. “I’ll find a new flat as soon as I’ve figured
“Just popped back for a moment. Topsy, could you remind me of something. It is out”—a pause—”what I can afford.”
January, yes?” “Was it difficult not to grimace there? I know I struggled.”
Topsy’s head, already too big for her body, swiveled at a hugely comical angle as “You’re the most unsupportive best friend imaginable, you realize that right?”
confusion registered in her posture. “It’s part of my charm.”
“Yes, Master Draco.” Draco fought back a sigh, tried to hold the anxiety and the grief at bay. He owed
“And you said I’m meant to be at a meeting right now?” Theo a tremendous debt for taking him in, not that Draco would have expected
“With your future Mistress, yes.” anything else. But in demanding a disinheritance, in losing Hermione, in having his
“Thank you, Topsy. You are dismissed.” accounts closed and his flat reclaimed, Draco felt a certain lack of agency in his own
With another quirk of her head, Topsy vanished. life. He had a ballroom’s worth of furniture and a fledgling potions shop to his name,
“I’m with Astoria right now. I must be meeting her for the first—okay. I will have nothing more.
just gotten back from Sarajevo yesterday, I’m visiting you tomorrow. Where are you Theo’s smile wavered, and Draco realized he’d let the facade slip, the one that
on this day?” pretended he might be handling things alright, that his life didn’t feel like the
Theo’s foot and fingers seemed to be in competition over which could tap faster as shambles it was.
he stared at the parlor door. His head rocked slowly from side to side, a precursor to “You’re staying as long as you want,” Theo said, tone on the cusp of an order. He
shaking it. They didn’t have time to panic or to freeze or to wonder what to do. They seemed to reconsider his words. “Actually, you’ll stay as long as I think you should.
had to figure something out if they only had one shot at this before Theo’s complicated You’re untrustworthy right now”—he wagged a finger in Draco’s general direction—
time and memory magic erased any future plans from their forebrains. Despite ”with all this moping and enormous, life-changing stuff. I’m taking custody of you
Draco’s own pulse pounding in the back of his throat and the cavernous pit of for an indeterminable amount of time.”
anxiety gnawing at his stomach, if Draco had learned anything in the years he’d spent “Am I a hostage?”
with Hermione Granger, it was how to remain relatively calm in stressful situations: “More like my adopted son, I think.”
be they blood curses, insidious guest rooms, or doomed holiday dinners. “I might prefer to be a hostage.”
“Theo—we only have thirty minutes. I need you with me. Where were you the day Theo grinned, slapping a hand on Draco’s shoulder and giving him a rough shake
before I visited?” as he tried steering them in a different direction.
Theo broke eye contact with the wood panels he’d been boring holes into with his “I was heading to my room,” Draco said, sidestepping Theo.
stare. “To do what?”
“At my estate, probably tinkering with the—” he broke off, eyes widening. “The Lay on a chaise and stare at the ceiling.
time turner, at Nott Manor. It was my downtime project when I got tired of trying to “Unwind. Moving is tiring.”
break into the vault.” “So, let’s have a drink, play some cards. Gobstones maybe.”
Draco’s head throbbed as he tried to wrap his mind around their options, if they Theo arched a brow, a challenge in his posture from the way he’d crossed his arms.
even had any. “If we can’t actually stop ourselves from using it in—next month— Draco took a step backwards.
 416 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 409

wanted that life to be one where she’d be free of his family’s influence, of their hate, what can we—” He ran a hand through his hair, trying to channel what might
of their infectious qualities. otherwise devolve into a debilitating sort of panic.
“You can’t spend all day in your bed,” his friends had said. “We didn’t account for Granger. How could we not account for Granger? It’s not
A potions shop that became his refuge, brewing and brewing and brewing to try like she’s stopped working—”
and forget. It got him out of his bed, out of his flat, out of constant owls back and “I personally try very hard not to think about her these days,” Draco snapped.
forth about accounts he no longer had access to, money he could no longer spend. “What do we do?”
Part of him wondered: at what point would she believe him, believe that he meant it? “We’re in the wrong time, Draco. I don’t know. I’m going to ask you to use the
The accounts? His flat? The wards? The family magic? turner next month. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do today.”
An eviction at the end of the month. His flat finally taken away. A last minute Draco paced. He had to do something. His shoes clacked on the tile. He counted
move into his friend’s Estate, drifting between homes, states of beings. He thought his footsteps, halfway down the corridor and back again. When he returned to his
he might miss her less, the more time that passed. But instead, he missed her more: place in front of Theo, a stroke of an idea, a reckless, stupid idea, hit him.
an ache in realizing that perhaps those years had been his best, difficult as they had “Let’s break it.”
been at times. He wouldn’t have changed them for anything. And he didn’t. He’d “The time turner?” His eyes landed on where it rested against Draco’s chest.
never even had the choice. “The one the other you is working on. If it was broken enough, would you stop
In the end, they were made of tougher stuff than five or thirty minutes might trying to tinker with it?”
unravel. There were moments that changed. But most persisted, stubbornly bound to Theo made several disbelieving noises in the back of his throat, only partial
something called fate, or destiny, or prophecy. Or perhaps: hope. vocalizations.
“I don’t know. I don’t—I don’t think so. I worked on the vault for five years. I’m
good at fixating.”
“Can’t say it’s my favorite quality of yours at the moment.” A pause, a breath, a
swell of annoyance cresting with a new idea. “We break it and we hide it”—yes, that
could work—”you know more ward theory now, well— you you, the 2005 you— than
you did in 2002. Hide it in the same place our version will portkey off to when we go
back, ward it so you can’t get into it and—”
“—Hope I don’t fixate on trying to break into that instead of my family vault?”
“You already have a couple years sunk into the vault, don’t you think you’d want to
finish that first?”
A pause. “Yes, probably. And I suppose paradox avoidance will converge on us in
2005.”
“Then what?”
Theo shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Draco pulled his watch from his pocket. They
were running out of time to make a decision, to do something.
Theo shook his head again, an unhinged sort of bobble, before he reached out and
hooked Draco’s arm. He turned sharply, and without preamble, apparated them
away.
When the wringing pressure of apparation abated, lungs decompressing, Draco had
half a mind to shout at Theo for the lack of warning. But all things considered, he
could hardly fault the expediency.
“I’ll be working in the east wing. I had a workspace set up there before I turned the
vault into one,” Theo said, already marching out into the corridor. He threw the rest
of his words over his shoulders, clearly expecting Draco to follow. “I’m counting on
paradox avoidance to—take care of the other me, I suppose.”
“It did when Lucius invited me into the Floo parlor the first time. I should have
been in there waiting.” Draco jogged to catch up with Theo’s deep strides.
Theo’s partially debilitating brand of panic seemed to have fully relinquished its
grip on him, leaving it its place a determination that propelled him through the halls
 410 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 415

of his Estate. He didn’t so much as pause when he reached the door to a random Disgrace by virtue of her existence, a sentiment he could not tolerate. He left them
room in the east hall. Theo simply pushed it open and released a shaking breath. at the table, spending his birthday elsewhere.
“Ok,” he said. “I’m not in here. I mean, I probably was. And I am now. But A ring, pulled from an ancestral vault and given to no one. Not the right time, not
paradox—” yet, not now. Her fear of ruining his already crumbling relationship with his parents
“—it’s all very confusing, I know. Where’s the turner?” Draco cut in, unwilling to paralyzed their forward momentum. If she needed time, he could give it to her.
waste any more time or words on twists and turns and possibilities they couldn’t A birth that changed everything. A shift in perspective, seeing her with a child. Not
possibly understand. theirs, not yet. But suddenly he could see a one day, wanted for such a thing. How
Theo approached a large workbench, rifling through the box sitting atop, the could two become three? How could it be that simple?
drawers beneath, the cabinets adjacent. An attack. Unexpected, unwanted fear wound around his spine; a desperate need
“I was just working on it. I know I was. I wanted to show you. I worked on it all for his father to survive, to be alright. But that need existed separately from any
week before you got back,” he said, voice increasing in pitch as he turned out drawer wants—or lack thereof—to see more of him. He sat in a hospital room, head in his
after drawer, visiting every cabinet and shelf in the room. hands, experiencing an unusual guilt over his worry.
Draco ran his fingers down the chain still dangling around his own neck, finding A dinner, their first since the attack, since wishing for his father’s survival and
the hourglass sitting against his chest. Their version of the turner, still intact. struggling to reconcile that sympathy with his distaste for everything else about him.
Draco looked at his watch again. They had less than five minutes remaining. And Disinheritance not directly spoken into existence, but implied. But he’d been
instead of experiencing panic, something strangely serene settled in Draco’s chest, a preparing for such an eventuality, should it find him.
hint to the idea he hadn’t even fully thought yet. An infuriating optimism. A request he was willing to entertain, for her, despite his
“Theo,” he said. misgivings. Despite the sinking sensation inside his chest screaming what a terrible
Theo kept rifling, tossing papers and trinkets to the ground, fully turning out the idea trying to force civility with his parents would be. And yet, an agreement.
room. “We can manage that,” his mother had said. And he almost believed it.
“Theo,” he said again. “It’s not here.” A Christmas. A disinheritance. A disaster. A defiance, but too late. He should have
“It has to be.” known. He had known. But he’d hoped, too. And he’d harmed her, shed her blood
“It’s not here just like you’re not here, the other you, that is.” with shards of glass. She had nightmares the next few nights, broken screams about
Theo’s head snapped up from where he’d half bent himself over a crate of keys. shattering chandeliers. It gutted him with guilt. Glassware might have literally
“Paradox avoidance?” exploded at that dinner table, but his relationship did, too. It just took longer, and
“Probably.” Draco lifted their version of the time turner up. “If it was in here with hurt much more.
you, we probably triggered it for the time turner as well. It’s—I don’t know, equally Another year; they went so fast. And then:
as entangled in all this, right?” A breakup. She couldn’t bear being responsible for his family falling apart,
“What do we do, then?” His head tilted. “ Is there anything to do?” infuriatingly obstinate even when he insisted she was his only family that mattered.
“We were going to break it and hide it. I can’t think of any better place to hide it She insisted he had to be sure, but didn’t believe him when he said he was. He could
than inside a paradox, jumbled up in time. If we have the only version now then it have put up more of a fight, but for as much as it hurt, he had things he couldn’t
won’t exist until it brings us back to 2005, and at that point we won’t remember bear, too. He couldn’t bear that she might never be safe from the stigma of his family
using it.” name, that she would be forced to carry his burdens, that he might be the cause of
Theo barked out a single laugh, collected himself, then released the deluge, laughter her nightmares. He didn’t want that for her.
spilling over. Ultimately, he picked her and she picked him, but somehow, they couldn’t pick
“Poor future-past-indeterminable-time me. Probably constantly curious what each other.
happened to that time turner I was fiddling with.” It broke his heart.
“Let’s hope it never turns up,” Draco said, looking at the gold device resting so She won the sofa, too.
innocently in his palm. A disinheritance he insisted on, even without her. A legal and magical distraction:
“All this effort and we didn’t even do anything.” Theo’s laughter had taken on a meetings and owls and so many signatures his head spun. But he began the long
sharp, violent sort of quality. Less enjoyment, more condemnation. process because he’d meant it. For himself as much as for her. If he distracted
Draco sank onto an upturned crate in the corner of the room. himself long enough, spent enough time reading every bit of information on magical
“That’s probably fitting. Since it’s what should have happened all along.” disinheritances he could find, he hoped he could forget how much he missed her.
“Does it count as having learned a lesson if we won’t remember learning it?” Theo A regression. Time kept passing and he kept missing her, failing to understand how
asked. they’d given up on something so wonderful, so easily. He’d had a ring in his valet
box. He’d wanted to marry her, have a family with her, live a life with her. But he
 414 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 411

A sentiment. Sentimental, she’d called him. A birthday back where it accidentally Draco felt a sudden urge to close his eyes and sleep. To seek rest and refuge from
began more than a year before. An intentional date this time. An ever-growing years and months and moments he’d lived and regretted and tried and failed to
resolve to put her fears to bed. Another confrontation with his father, over change. It wore one down, in the end.
betrothals, yet again. “I don’t know,” he said, leaning his head against the wall, letting his eyes close. “I
A Hallowe’en party at Harry Potter’s house. Something that should have been his just hope that whatever timeline comes from this, I gave Lucius a little less. Took a
worst nightmare. And yet, he’d enjoyed himself far too much. Watching as she little more. That a different version of me makes better choices.” A sting rose in the
socialized, daring to do some of his own. He ended the evening with her in his lap, back of his throat. “And I still hope to have what I had with Hermione. Even if it has
lips lingering too close together as they whispered promises that this could be real; it an end.”
could be more; they could be. “I suppose if we’re confessing.” Theo paused, frowning. “My family vault wasn’t
A Patronus, finally. empty, not exactly—”
“What did you think about?” she’d asked. Her. And his friends. And the pieces of The blurring grip of time magic, when it came this time, sent panic shooting
his life that needn’t be perfect to be happy. They could be cobbled together into through Draco’s chest. He heaved several breaths, facing an unknown future—and
something resembling a happiness, just like his Patronus. an unknown version of himself who would not remember any of these moments that
An introduction on a doorstep, with his tongue in her mouth and a hot desire came before—with fear and regret humming in his veins. But still, he faced it,
coursing through his veins. She’d said she loved him, and it nearly undid him. refusing to let the fear consume him.
Undoing, indeed. A Christmas lovely enough that he could almost forget the fight
with his parents and the uncertain consequences of announcing her as an inextricable
part of his life.
Another year gone in the blink of an eye. And then:
A breakfast. A feast. An intentional avoidance of anything involving her. But she’d
moved in with him, and in more ways than one: his home, his heart, his head. And
no amount of denial from his parents could erase that fact from the fabric of his
reality. His father talked about business in lieu of anything else. He might have cared
if he’d ever been allowed any part of it.
A new life, announced in the presence of friends he still felt out of place with. But
he saw the joy on her face, the love in the room, the first inklings of what longevity
could look like with her. He drank tepid tea and watched, wondering if one day that
might be them.
A lesson in learning to fight. Learning how to find middle ground. Learning that
some things were more important, more precious, than one’s anger or
disappointment.
“We’re kind of stuck together,” she’d suggested. She’d never been more
astonishingly accurate in her remarkable life.
A son comforting his mother, recognizing a role reversal with stinging, painful
clarity. This was how it felt to become his own person. Not just a son, but a man
with a life and priorities of his own that did not always align with those his parents
had for him. He loved his mother. But if he had to choose, and he feared he would,
he loved her more. Admitting such a thing to himself felt like the worst sort of
betrayal.
A proposal, in a sense. An accidental sort. On the heels of insecurity and growing
pains and learning how to live together, in learning who contributed what and how
much. He needed her to know how much he cared, how much he loved her, even if
he fumbled his execution.
A final straw with his parents, relationship already so strained. Their attempt at
dining for his birthday ended in insults and anger.
“Disgraceful,” his father had called it, called her.
 Beginning and end 413

: 000, 000, 000 And he’d never felt more seen.

A friend, she’d called him. An invitation, she’d given him. Crumbling self control
wound up with Occlumency under the streetlamps in Diagon Alley. Later, a fight
with his father over his attempt at independence. Another taste of defiance.

T
A hand on his chest, painting a line between then and now, before and after. He’d
HIS TIME, THE LAST TIME, IT HAPPENED LIKE THIS: nearly broken, given in. Instead, a delayed moment of defiance finally came to
A return from abroad. Hope for eased tensions between father and fruition. A broken betrothal and a future cracked wide open. The gap between his
son. A chance to discover what life looked like on the other side of a wants and his father’s wishes widening.
war, of a mastery, of prison sentences and house arrests. Instead: a marriage contract. A realization of his shift in circumstances. No longer betrothed. No longer
A future laid out in ink on parchment, in signatures. promised. A realization, too, of a shared before and after.
“Do I have a choice?” he’d asked. “Hermione,” she’d said. And permission to use her name felt like a new beginning.
He did not. Not the first, but one of many.
A taste of defiance, but not nearly enough. Not yet. A gift. Given on a sofa, received with tears. More than a gift: a choice, and the
An argument observed from the other side of closed parlor doors. The first time he thing he’d spent the better part of a year obsessing over. It earned him a kiss. It
heard her go toe to toe with his father, posturing with words and wands. A scolding earned him a date. But more than that, it earned him her trust.
for his eavesdropping, withstanding the sneers of disappointment. Later, an owl. A A year, already gone. And then:
new responsibility supervising her. Something of a last resort, a compromise. Soon, A kiss at a wedding. Not their wedding, not yet, but still perfect. In a garden, under
gravity collapsing around his heart every time he saw the scar she wore with too the moonlight, as romantic as one could imagine, and so earned after so long. An
much pride. undoing, he’d called it: a prophecy from an unintentional prophet.
A descent into Occlumency. An attempt to know his betrothed. An avoidance of A dark room, menacing magic engulfing the quiet as they held each other. Growing
the scar that reminded him of the history he preferred to forget, buried beneath familiarity, growing intimacy. Growing. Fullstop. A shared goal, too.
shards of impossible emotion. And also, caramel apple ice cream. An attempt at “I could teach you, if you wanted to learn.”
understanding. Perhaps, a beginning. And she did, eventually.
A moment. Witness to bravery he did not know could exist, not in that form, in A date. A kiss. More. Closer. A haze, feet from an apparation point. An appetizer
that place. He watched her stand exactly where it happened. Owning it. Controlling against a sofa, an entree in his bed. He tasted her, held her, fucked her. Memorized as
it. Overcoming it. much of her skin as time allowed. And when he kissed her goodbye, so late it could
“What was that?” he’d asked, needing to know. reasonably be called early, he felt something warm and luscious yawn wide inside his
A victory. Hers. chest.
Followed by an idea. His. A bet over a book. A different beginning. A countdown, now, to TS Eliot. To a
A touch. His hands on her skin, healing her of the harm his home caused. The first time when the sofa would change hands, homes. A bargain sealed with a kiss. The
touch of many, and only the first time he planned to heal her. A different touch, too. magic would come later.
Of meeting minds, of understanding. Families that did not always understand or An anniversary of the worst kind: of war, of loss, of things survived, but not by all.
appreciate: a middle ground. He’d misunderstood what they were, assuming instead of speaking. And she’d
A statement. Just one. misunderstood what they weren’t, sheltering out of fear. They fell apart before they
“I rode a dragon.” came back together.
And floodgates spilling open, only to be forced closed by a brutal dose of A birthday, not his, held the answer. Over a month of abysmal communication to
Occlumency. But such magic could only freeze the flood where it had already flowed. finally say some of what needed to be said. And when he’d said his piece, and she’d
Reminders of something else, something more, held in stasis beneath the surface, said hers, realizing he loved her soothed so much of his hurt. It solidified his resolve,
waiting for the right warmth to melt. too.
A failed experiment, proof in painful lines streaking his chest. Worn beneath his A confession.
shirt as he tried and failed to connect with his mother, to connect with his betrothed, “A muggle,” he’d said. The moment he knew he’d really changed, that pretending
to ignore a connection with her. A Cold War, but warming. Inexplicably, warming. had become reality, a nightmare into a dream. It didn’t help him cast a Patronus, but
An accident. Not a date, not exactly. But a watershed nonetheless, frozen places it helped her understand him a bit more. Inching closer, ever closer, back into
thawing. Constellations hidden in freckles, flickering candlelight illuminating more equilibrium as they learned each other again, or perhaps, for the first time.
than the table. A mishap during a heat wave. Delicious, sweat-slicked sex. The aftermath,
“You’re left handed,” she’d said. accidentally interrupted by an unsuspecting friend. Hilarious, humiliating, and
everything in between.
 472 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 433

“Where do you two think you’re going? The night’s just getting started.” Pansy Blaise answered instead. “I think we’ve had enough brutal psychoanalysis for one
sounded genuinely affronted, demanding an answer. “I haven’t even had a chance to night, Pans. Lovely to have you back.”
make any new headway with Granger on floral arrangements.” She rolled her eyes and held his eye contact for long enough that Draco got the
Hermione took his hand, standing, flush against him. He heard Theo groaning sense they were attempting a silent conversation. He sipped his scotch rather than
from behind them. involve himself. He’d had enough of Pansy’s relationship advice dumped on him for
“Sorry, Pans. I’m stealing my fiancée away”—for a moment, his breath escaped one evening. His chest ached.
him, lost on the unreality of the word fiancée —”and we’re probably going to go find She had an uncanny, divination-adjacent sort of ability to see straight through him,
ourselves somewhere private to snog for a bit.” through most people, and cut straight to the quick in order to bleed him dry of his
“Oh no,” came Theo. “Please don’t.” A retching sound, followed by Pansy’s high- excuses. Her accuracy annoyed him.
pitched, surprised laugh, almost a shriek. Draco had spent the better part of the last year fumbling his way towards a
“Gods, are they always like this?” she asked. different, more distant relationship with his father, struggling to find the right path.
Draco caught the motion from Blaise’s shrug out of the corner of his eye. In trying to protect Hermione from the debilitating disappointment that was his
“Usually,” he said. parents’ ever-apparent unwillingness to change, he’d let her nurture an unrealistic
“The more dramatic you are, Theo, the less likely I am to teach you any more about hope. And then at Christmas he’d lost his cool, let years of resentment build up and
submarines,” Hermione said. explode, quite literally, in a way that put Hermione in danger, but also highlighted just
Oddly, the faux retching ceased. how toxic and unrepentant his parents truly were.
They’d barely stepped into the corridor before Hermione had her hands all over Hermione knew she’d be forever at odds with Lucius Malfoy, and didn’t want the
him, wrapped around his torso, nails dragging down his back, lips latching onto his same for Draco. And even though it felt like she’d abandoned him, given up and cast
neck. He laughed, surrendering to the absurd, youthful sort of joy in snogging his him aside, he’d given up, too, and with less fight than both of them deserved. He’d
girlfriend —his fiancée— just out of sight, of needing an excuse to go do so. wallowed for months rather than reach out to her. He’d told himself it was because
“Blaise has been keeping your drinks well stocked, too, I see. Always so handsy she didn’t want him to. But just like with Pansy, his lack of action probably had more
with a little alcohol in your system.” to do with his own fears of being rejected, doubly so, than it did with his
“Mmhmm,” she hummed against his neck before pulling back. She laced her understanding of her wishes.
fingers with his, guiding him into the next room. It contained a few bookcases, a They’d needed some space, some time, but somehow ended up with far too much of
desk, and a chaise. With the confidence of a witch with a few drinks in her, she both.
pulled Draco to the chaise and pushed him down onto it. A little forceful, not too Pansy released a breath, breaking her silent stalemate with Blaise.
much, but enough that his interest immediately piqued, pooling below his belt. “Yes, it’s certainly lovely to be back.” She turned her attention back to Draco and it
“And I’ve had the perfect amount,” she said, swinging her legs over him such that took an embarrassing amount of self control not to recoil under her inspection once
she straddled his lap, skirt riding up. Based on present evidence, he had to agree. again. “So, do we think Granger is a spring or summer wedding sort of girl?”
“Is that so? What exactly is the perfect amount?”
She kissed him, warm, sweet lips pressed against his. She sighed against his mouth,
a beautiful, whimpering noise spilling from the back of her throat. She pulled just far
enough away that she could speak.
“Enough that I’m considering sucking you off in one of the many, rarely-used On the one hand, Draco’s trips to Gringotts took significantly less time when he
rooms in this prestigious Manor.” She glanced around, mischievousness glinting didn’t have to travel so deep underground to visit the generational vaults. On the
behind her eyes as she took in the space around them. “This room could do nicely, other hand, not having access to those vaults inspired a new kind of anxiety deep in
for example. But I haven’t had so much that my fine motor skills are suffering.” Draco’s stomach that he’d never known before: financial insecurity.
With enough alcohol in his own system, Draco groaned, rocking against her in a Did most people feel this way? Was this how it felt to navigate the world and not
purely physical response to those words. have the ability to buy whatever he wanted? He didn’t much care for it, as evidenced
“It’s an excellent combination for you,” she said, lifting herself from his lap. by the ache in his jaw when he realized he’d been grinding his teeth together.
Gods yes. He didn’t know if he said it out loud or entirely in his head. He’d He slid the jewelry box across the desk: the last of the Malfoy heirlooms to be
temporarily lost control of his ability to speak; perhaps his fine motor skills had been returned to vaults he no longer had access to.
affected by drink. He’d returned the ring a month before, but he’d forgotten about the ruby necklace,
She hardly needed the encouragement, though, shooting him a most wicked grin, the one he’d never successfully given her anyway. It carried mostly unpleasant
lips stained a lovely ruby from wine and kissing. memories, and yet, watching as the Goblin reached across the desk and took the flat
What a Friday night, the best kind of Friday night. Hermione’s hands and mouth velvet box, Draco felt like he’d lost something precious.
on him. Friends and fun and conversation, something so simple and so perfect.
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“Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy have formally forfeited claim on any remaining furniture or Theo shrugged. “It’s possible.” He knocked back another shot. Where it came
belongings from the confiscated flat,” the Goblin said, sliding a parchment towards from, Draco couldn’t reliably say. But when he looked down, Draco found a shot
Draco. glass of his own waiting beside his scotch.
He ground his teeth tighter. He’d known that, but having it spelled out in writing “Oh, you know what?” Theo leaned in, dropping his voice, low and conspiratorial.
irritated his already raw nerves. They’d wanted the expensive bits of jewelry back and “I was rooting around dear old dead dad’s offices again. I found something really
nothing more. They’d washed their hands of him. Soon, he’d be removed from the interesting in his study.”
wards too, the family magic, the blood magic. All of it. “Did you?”
“Is there anything else Gringotts can do for you today, Mr. Malfoy?” Draco didn’t know what to expect. Theo’s definition of interesting could range
“Yes,” he said. from facts about muggle technology to Class A prohibited materials.
The Goblin waited for him to elaborate. Draco wondered, briefly, why he’d not Theo dropped his voice even lower, a bit of waggle in his brows.
been offered champagne. Perhaps that was another thing no longer afforded to him “You want to know what it is?”
now that he could afford very little. “I suspect you’re going to tell me.” Draco dutifully downed his mysterious shot.
“I need to open a new account. My own, that is.” “Would you like me to beg?”
“There is a twenty galleon deposit minimum for account openings.” “Save that for Granger.” A grimace. “Fine, I’ll tell you. A time turner.”
Draco's molars made an unsettling grinding noise as he forced his jaw shut, bit “A— you found a what?”
back the nasty thing he wanted to say. He did run a business after all; he had a stable Theo hushed him, dramatically and immediately. He cast some very suspicious
income. The shop performed well and Blaise certainly knew how to manage its glances to either side, as if anyone was listening in. “And it’s not—well, it’s not a
finances. That this Goblin didn’t think he had even twenty galleons left to his name normal one from what I can tell. I’ve been fiddling a bit.”
after his disinheritance— “Fiddling with time turner magic.” He lowered his voice as Theo hushed him again.
He took a deep breath. “That could be—that’s—wow.”
“Of course. I’m aware of the deposit minimum”—because he’d checked, Part of Draco demanded to ask more, to know more. Merlin, part of him wanted
mortifying as such a thought had been—”and I have it prepared.” Theo to lead the way to the study right that very instant and show him. The curiosity
He placed his galleons on the desk. The Goblin barely blinked, gathering the gold, burned hot and sudden in the pit of his stomach. The power in time. The potential.
counting it, and recording the totals in his ledger. Hermione laughed from beside him, drawing his attention. She hauled a pile of
“You will be the primary account holder?” coins from the center of the table to the space directly in front of her. Pansy
“Yes.” frowned; Blaise looked tentatively amused. When Hermione glanced at Draco, she
“Any secondary or authorized parties you wish to have access to the account?” laughed again and winked, fucking winked like the cheeky little winner she was.
It sprung from him on impulse. A stupid, wildly optimistic impulse. Time turners were fickle, fussy things. And that fucking wink was worth far more
“Yes.” than he was willing to risk, curiosity or not.
“Name?” He turned back to Theo. “Be careful?” Phrased as a question. “Time turners are
“Hermione Jean Granger.” regulated for a reason.”
The Goblin looked up from his ledger, frowned, and restated Hermione’s name. Theo released a forlorn sort of sigh. “I know, I know. But it is fun to experiment.
“Yes,” Draco confirmed. “Hermione Jean Granger.” Just a little fucking with the fabric of space and time.”
“Your secondary account holder will need to submit her wand for inspection and “Theoretically,” Draco insisted.
access verification to complete the process.” “Theoretically, of course.”
Draco nodded. “Of course,” he said. He forced himself to believe it. He would be Draco leaned back in his chair, half-tempted to lift two legs off the floor and
meeting her in less than an hour. And it was going to go well. He could feel it, he attempt a balance. But he didn’t have the preternatural coordination that Blaise did,
could manifest it, if he tried hard enough. It was going to go so fucking well. especially not after several drinks. Instead, he sipped his scotch and watched
Hermione play another round as she grinned with the worst sort of poker face he’d
ever seen, clearly extremely pleased with her prior successes.
Pansy won that round, taking a new pile of coins from the center of the table and
stacking them neatly with the rest of her winnings. When Hermione glanced at him
Meeting for ice cream had been her idea. He liked to think the choice involved a again, he lifted his drink. He tapped the base on the table. Once, twice, three times.
touch of sentimentality, meant as a reminder of where much of it began: him She smiled and set her cards down.
bringing her ice cream when he had no business doing so. He stood, offering her his hand.
He stood near the door to Florean Fortescue’s. A glance at his pocket watch told
him he’d arrived early after such an expedient meeting at Gringotts. Waiting wasn’t
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Hermione sipped her drink, smiling through her confusion as Pansy automatically good for him; it agitated his nerves. Left him bouncing his leg. Tapping his fingers
began dealing cards. Blaise delivered a selection of wines to the table as he took his against his trousers. Counting the seconds he swore he could hear ticking away on
own seat, picking up his cards and throwing a few galleon chips to the center of the the watch inside his pocket.
table. He reached for it again, cool metal against his fingertips. She’d fixed it for him
Hermione leaned into Draco, voice low against his shoulder. “What are we playing, once, so long ago. Before he could pull it from his pocket and confirm for the
exactly?” umpteenth time that, indeed, it still wasn’t quite time, he caught sight of her riotous
“Unclear. Pansy hasn’t really explained it. She wins every time, anyway.” He waved curls approaching.
his cards at her. “I mostly pretend to play for a hand or two and then distract myself He saw the exact moment her eyes found him, a tiny worried furrow smoothing
with drinking or conversation.” from between her brows.
The purse at Hermione’s mouth didn’t go unnoticed. He could see it, the thought, He didn’t let himself think too hard about his actions. He simply did what came
begging to be spoken into existence. “You just—you let her win? What if—” naturally, what had always come so naturally with her. He greeted her with a light
Draco laughed. Of course Hermione wanted to win. hug, chin against her curls, savoring the sensation of her arms encircling his torso, if
“If you can’t stomach letting Pansy rob us blind, which is probably a good decision just for that moment.
for our finances, truth be told, you can ask her how to play. But be warned, she’s She stepped back, a cautious smile pulling at her lips.
vicious.” “Hi,” she said.
That warning evidently landed as a challenge. Hermione leaned away from him “Hi.” He tilted his head towards the door. “They have apple caramel again.”
again, switching her focus to Pansy who, to her credit, looked overjoyed to have Her smile quirked brighter. “Do they? They’d taken it off the menu for a while.”
another party actually invested in her game. She followed him inside, and what might have been an awkward reintroduction,
Draco only realized he’d accepted and subsequently consumed the two shots Theo standing in line at an ice cream shop, felt casual, enjoyable. The silence didn’t feel
handed him after the fact, throat burning. He supposed they’d be doing that kind of damning. It felt like it usually did with her: easy, a natural respite from the din of life
drinking this evening, then. bustling around them. He liked sharing silences with her.
“I’m telling you,” Theo said, pouring a very generous serving of scotch into They ordered. He didn’t even bother offering to pay. She forced her money onto
Draco’s tumbler. “Aconite can be grown in sunlight with the right soil drainage.” the countertop before he’d even finished requesting his flavor.
Theo nodded as if to confirm the veracity of his own statement. “I’m certain of it. When they sat in a corner booth by the window, with a lovely view of the street,
Would make for stronger wolfsbane.” she smiled at him. Something cautious, something hopeful.
Draco took a hefty gulp of his drink, trying to banish that statement’s idiocy from “Hi.”
his brain by way of liquor. “That’s—the stupidest thing you’ve said in a long time, “Hi,” he said again, smiling back.
Theo. Aconite is painfully temperamental. It can barely be grown in greenhouses; it “Sorry,” she said, exhaling. “I’m nervous.” She let out a disbelieving, breathy laugh.
does best in the wild. And the whole point of its use in wolfsbane is that there’s very “That’s ridiculous. It’s just me—just us.”
little sunlight in the growing process—” She nodded, chest and shoulders lifting as she inhaled. He watched her hold it for a
“The contradictory properties would—” beat and then, slowly, she let it out, shoulders sinking, tension unwinding.
“You’re making this up. When was the last time you brewed?” “How was Australia?” he asked. Diligently, he forced himself not to watch her
“Not—that long ago?” Theo tilted his head, a touch off-balance as he considered mouth as she ate a bite of her ice cream. The lecherous thought was there though,
that answer. planted in his forebrain with echoes that remembered what that mouth could do,
“With aconite? Have you ever even brewed wolfsbane? It’s an exceedingly how it tasted, how it felt.
complicated potion.” If Draco really considered it, his world felt a bit wobbly. He “Oh, it was—it was alright. Good, for the most part.” She tilted her head once,
kept sipping his drink, arguing pointless potions debates with Theo, while Pansy, features scrunching as she determined how to word what she might say next. He’d
Hermione, and Blaise engaged in some kind of card game. “You don’t even like missed watching this process. “It was a bit uncomfortable, sometimes. But I think we
potions, or herbology,” Draco concluded. needed it. We all had a good cry over a bottle of wine one night.”
“Ah, but I like arguing.” “I’m sorry. I wish I could have helped.”
“You’re insane.” She looked at her ice cream, then back up at him. She smiled, small but bright. “Me
“Probably a little.” too.” She swirled her spoon in her bowl. “You’re feeling better?”
Draco glared. “Much.” He allowed himself a grin. “Recovery from a nasty cold is actually quite
Theo lifted his hands in defense. “Fine, fine. I’ll stop. You look about ten seconds quick when you take your potions and let people help you.”
from challenging me to a duel.” “Imagine that.”
“Maybe a duel would do you some good.” “Remarkable, in fact.”
“You were fairly pathetic looking.”
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He nodded. “I got sick on my birthday and—well, my mother didn’t send any “We don’t have to figure any of this out now,” he said, still holding her hand. His
toffees this year, understandably. I suppose I was feeling a bit sorry for myself.” thumb brushed over her ring, still unused to having it there when he traced her
He didn’t say it, but he knew they were on the same page, meeting somewhere in fingers with his. “We can take however much time we’d like.”
the middle. Hermione smiled, offering no further comment. Instead, she leaned in, taking a kiss
He didn’t have her, either. from him. And it was so lovely, he forgot about all the rest.
He’d been focusing on his expression, trying not to look too serious, too dour, too
accusatory, when her hand found his on the tabletop, chilly fingers wrapping around
his palm.
“It’s been a hard few months,” she said. “ I’m sorry I wasn’t—there. With your
parents—I just—” “Granger, I’m impressed. A silk blouse? A skirt that wouldn’t pass the Ministry’s
He shook his head, stopped her. dress regulations? Not bad.”
“I know.” Pansy said she was impressed, but only sounded tepidly committed to such a
She took a deep breath, wincing as she gnawed on the inside of her cheek. sentiment, arms crossing as she offered her assessment of Hermione’s outfit.
“I regret it,” she said, eyes on their hands. She looked a little unsteady, but her “You picked it out yourself?” she asked. “You didn’t let Draco help, did you?”
voice came out clear, level. “I was trying to protect myself and, well, I made the The annoyed scoff that erupted from Hermione’s throat amused Draco nearly as
decision for you, for us—that it wasn’t worth losing them. I’ll never do that again— much as it surprised him.
no matter what we are to each other.” “I’m not completely hapless, you know. I do have taste. I just don’t often care to
“Don’t. Hermione, I let you. I decided I was bad for you. And I should have told put this much effort into what I’m wearing.”
you how bad it was—with them. I should have picked you.” He faltered, in search of “And yet,” Pansy began, ushering them to follow her through Nott manor with a
his own version of Pansy’s insight. “It’ll never be easy, being us. But, it was worth it. dramatic wave. “You’re wearing that.”
It is worth it.” “I do like to feel a little dressed up every so often. And this is surprisingly
She nodded, fingers pulsating pressure against his. comfortable.” Hermione gripped Draco’s hand, a familiar squeeze she often used as
“I’m sorry.” This time, when she said it, it had a full stop. an outlet for her annoyance.
“Me too.” His did as well. Pansy’s smirk puckered, far too pleased. “You’re welcome.”
He followed her gaze, watching their interlocked hands. “I wasn’t thanking you.”
“Can we”—she swallowed mid-sentence, her grip on his hand tightening— “Certainly sounded like it.”
”pretend it was a bad dream? The beginning of this year?” Draco couldn’t feel his fingers, but he found himself enjoying the exchange far too
He wished. much to liberate his hand. Hermione gave as good as she got, sniping at Pansy with
“I don’t think so. It was awful. But it was—good? Because now I know, and with equal force and, despite the pressure cracking his joints, she almost looked like she
absolute certainty.” He paused. Braced himself. Asked it. “Don’t you?” might be enjoying herself.
She blinked, question settling against her skin, inside her brain. It took her a Draco was certainly enjoying himself. Pansy and Hermione were—well, they were
moment, perhaps to comprehend the scope of what he meant. But when she sort of fun to watch banter.
understood, her smile took his breath away, thieving his oxygen with every second it It was a relief, too, that Hermione didn’t outright hate Pansy. Draco’s friends came
spread. in a variety of different tastes, and Pansy probably took the longest to acquire. He’d
Years passed in moments, whole abandoned futures sliding back into place, never had any doubt that Hermione would get along with Theo. Theo was something
possible once again. Coming together had always been easy when they let it, when of a Pinot Grigio, ridiculously easy to drink. Barely even wine: gulpable, honestly.
they stopped fighting themselves, when they gave into the current that drew them in. Light and enjoyable. Blaise was more of a Pinot Noir. Easy to enjoy if one liked reds,
They could have fought. They could have gone back and forth, scouring their mutual though not necessarily as easy to swallow. But Pansy, she was a rich, full bodied
guilts and crimes and grievances. But instead, in a simple moment that eased six Cabernet Sauvignon. She was tannic. She had grit. Best had with a meal and small
months of pain in a blink, they decided to move on. sips, heavy aeration required. Evidently, Hermione seemed to enjoy a robust red.
“Come to my flat,” she said. Perhaps the challenge called to her.
He puffed a disbelieving breath, the last air he had left. He chuckled, feeling so As they entered what had become their de facto entertaining room every Friday
light, so genuinely hopeful. night, a cavernous space with a bar and an enormous round table in the center of the
“What for?” room, it became clear that Pansy wasn’t the only one forcing fun on them that
“Forever.” evening. Theo bounced with just as much energy, welcoming them, ferrying drinks
from Blaise’s position mixing at the bar to their seats at the table.
 468 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 437

“We might have done alright together,” she said. “But I’m so glad we got to
choose.”
Draco smiled again, an unexpected tension unwinding from the center of his chest.
“Me too.” They’d barely taken one step out of the Floo and into Hermione’s cramped flat
“And honestly, I’m thrilled I don’t have to name my children after constellations. when she burst into tears. Then she groaned, wiping at her face. Draco let himself
Something simple, I think.” She held her hand to her stomach a moment longer, laugh, stepping up to her, into her space, and cradled her head in his hands, thumbs
presumably lost in a future that blessedly did not involve him. swiping at warm tears.
“Overwhelmed?” he asked.
She laughed, too, but sounded rather annoyed about it. She nodded. “I missed you
so much.” Her voice nearly gave out at the end, wiping her tears from her face with a
determination that said she would not cry anymore. Her hands found his shirt
Hermione found them a few minutes later. She made several apologies for instead, fingers walking from his lower ribs to the center of his chest. Her hands
interrupting, which Astoria brushed off with charm and grace and unexpected flatted, palms pressed against him. Then they curled, crumpling his shirt in her grip.
warmth before she returned to her wedding festivities. Draco offered Hermione his “Please?” she asked.
arm, walking her through the autumnal blooms, feeling her considerable stress melt And he knew all the ways she meant it.
with each step. Her grip on his arm, little pinpricks of pointed fingertips, eased as Please stay.
they walked. Please hold me.
“Interested in a repeat of the last time we were in a garden at a wedding?” he asked, Please forgive me.
memories of Harry Potter’s wedding and the Burrow’s herb garden surfacing inside Please kiss me.
his head. For a moment, he swore he smelled rosemary, a hint of sage. He knew, because he meant them for himself, too.
Hermione smiled beside him. “I hadn’t considered it, but I can’t say I’d be His hands moved opposite each other. His right travelled from her cheek to the
opposed. It was a spectacular kiss, after all.” back of her skull, winding in her curls and pulling, ever so gently, to tilt her head
“It was perfect.” upward. His left descended, from her jaw to her neck, fingers trailing lightly down
Her tension eased more. He led her to a stone bench where they could sit, relax, her throat, between her breasts, to her waist where he wrapped his arm around her.
chat with each other in privacy. Only the faint sound of strings playing beyond the He’d pay any price for this.
gardens accompanied them. When he kissed her—just outside the Floo grate, in a tiny flat he’d never seen
“Are you alright?” Draco asked as she twisted her fingers together, popping a before, after months left unmoored, alone, and quite literally homeless—it felt like
knuckle. finally finding his place. He didn’t need a manor or his expensive flat. He didn’t need
“Pansy might have overloaded me.” generational vaults at Gringotts or a name that opened doors.
Draco’s throaty laugh might not have been entirely appropriate—or helpful—but it He needed her, and the fire that shot through him when he tasted her lips, inhaled
burst from him regardless. her sighs, shared her air.
“She does that,” he said. He trapped her bottom lip between his teeth, applied enough pressure such that
“Questions about flowers and color palettes and fabric preferences and music and she whimpered, hands gripping and pulling at his shirt. He smirked as he released her
location and size and menu—” lip, trailing a line of kisses along her jaw, towards her ear.
“Breathe, love.” He pulled her hands into his, lifting them to his lips. “Pansy is “Do I get a tour?” he asked, knowing she’d be able to hear the smile in his voice.
used to a certain— type of wedding. And she’s inexplicably invested in, and excited The breath whooshed out of her, a sort of half-laugh, half-groan. Her hands
about, ours.” dropped from his chest, looping around his belt, guiding him by the waist as she
“Ours,” Hermione repeated. She let out a long breath, letting her shoulders and pulled him away from the Floo.
chest and lungs collapse, ridding herself of the bad air that seemed to plague her. “Yes,” she said. “This is my very small living room. As you can see, I don’t own
“Weddings like what Pansy is used to—well, they are quite a lot. And they take a much furniture. A coffee table, here, and a sofa I won in a rather ill-advised bet.” She
long time to plan. I’m sure she has a litany of observations about how thrown pulled him towards it, twisted them, and pushed him down onto the green velvet
together this one is.” cushions. A blink later, she positioned herself in his lap, knees bracketing his hips as
“Thrown together? Draco, this is the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever been to.” her hands flew to his jaw, demanding another kiss.
“I’m sure Astoria would be very pleased to hear that. But I’m certain it’s not passed A groan slipped from his throat as his hands roamed the tops of her thighs, sliding
muster in Pansy’s eyes.” around to her arse. He pulled her hips against his, unrepentant in the way he ground
She shook her head, as if dislodging the absurdity of such a thing from her loose up into her, indecently aroused after having gone without her for so long.
curls, worn half-up, half-down, entirely beautiful.
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“I have plenty of furniture,” he said, latching onto the skin at the base of her throat redirected the conversation, had Astoria not tapped him on the shoulder at that same
as her head tilted back. He slipped his hands beneath her jumper, pushing it up and moment, asking if he could walk with her.
over her head. “Just sitting in a ballroom getting no use.” He rose from his seat, offering an apologetic look to Hermione. Though, he didn’t
She wore a green lace bra, the same she’d procured for his birthday the year before. feel too bad about leaving her in Pansy’s clutches. After all, Hermione delivered him
He hadn’t intended on losing control of his voice, but the sound that escaped his to Potter and Weasley and then abandoned him there not so long ago. If anything,
lungs sounded mostly inhuman, feral in its overwhelming want. this was a fair bit of retribution. He hid his smirk with a kiss to her cheek before he
“Did you wear this for me?” he asked as he traced his tongue along the laced edges. departed, offering an arm to the woman he’d once been contracted to marry.
He surmised her nod by the way her curls moved in his periphery. If she’d intended
to answer with her voice, the sound got caught in her throat, washed out by the
panted breath she released as his tongue circled her nipple over the lace of her pretty
little bra.
She heaved a shaky breath, hands on his shoulders, then at his collar, fumbling with Astoria recommended the gardens, a slow walk as he escorted her through the
his buttons. blooming irises, lilies, and delphiniums. Strangely, he’d never been more comfortable
“Yes,” she finally said. “I hoped. I missed—I just, hoped.” in her presence.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered to her skin as she unbuttoned more of his shirt. “I wanted to thank you,” she said, bringing them to a stop amidst the
When it finally fell open, her hands roamed his chest. She giggled. chrysanthemums. Draco assumed he was meant to say something, anything in
“What?” response, but found his words lacking. “I was going to go through with it,” she
“Pansy Parkinson, of all people, sent me an owl and threatened me bodily harm if I continued. “I was hoping you’d love me one day. Maybe you could have, too. But—
didn’t wear my nicest lingerie today.” this is better. Much better.”
“She’s bossier than you are.” “I should be thanking you,” Draco said, finding his words in the form of true,
“She was right; I needed it.” And with that, she ground her hips down against him bone-deep gratitude. “Whatever you said to your father—he was the one who
again, forcing a moan from his throat. cancelled the contract. Lucius would have forced us to marry whether we wanted to
“Granger,” he nearly growled. “I love this sofa. I have missed this sofa. But I am or not.”
not fucking you on it right now. I am having you in a bed.” He shifted forward, “I know. I upset my parents quite a lot by refusing to invite them—your parents,
hands beneath her arse, and lifted her off his lap. that is.” She reached to the back of her head, smoothing her perfect, dark hair. Such
She sighed, dramatic and overdone, a glorious smile giving her away. She stood and an action had once felt so cold, so forced to him. It didn’t bring the same bother it
reached for his arm, pulling him up as well. “This way.” once had, not now. “I’ve obviously heard about the disinheritance and, well, I
He needed to catch his breath. He needed to slow this down. Just a little, just thought I owed you a thanks and an invitation much more than I did them.”
enough. He wanted to savor this, savor her, savor this tiny fucking flat and all the “I’m sorry you’ve upset your parents for me.” And for the first time, Draco
places he might love her in it. experienced the tiniest blip of understanding, an infinitesimal fraction of what
“What about my tour?” he asked as he rose, smirk firmly in residence on his face. Hermione must have felt, watching his relationship with his parents disintegrate, in
She rolled her eyes, gesturing rather haphazardly at the space around them. large part, over her.
“Well, you can see the entire kitchen from right here because this is a very small Astoria laughed. It wasn’t a titter, but something truly, genuinely amused: teeth
flat. I don’t even have a kitchen table yet, but if I did, it would go right about here”— gleaming, eyes sparkling. She should always laugh like that. She should lock up that
more vague gesturing—”for now I’ve just been using the sofa—” society laugh of hers and never let it see the light of day again. This laugh was so, so
“Good countertops,” he said, cutting her off. much better.
Her head tilted, a bolt of confusion mixed with frustration as she repeated him. “It’s alright,” she said. She placed a hand at the seam of her dress beneath the bust,
“Good countertops?” running it down the front and smoothing the fabric to reveal a small, but noticeable
He closed the distance between them again, fingers catching easily around her bump. “In the grand scheme of things, it was one of the smaller issues they had to
waist, dancing along ribs, traveling towards her spine. He bent. come to terms with.”
“Perfect height,” he said, and hoisted her up, taking two deep strides to plant her Draco smiled. “I had assumed. Congratulations.”
on the countertop in question. He muffled her surprised laugh with his mouth, “I’m sure most have. And thank you.”
drawing her in for another kiss. “You’re happy?” He couldn’t explain why, but it felt so undeniably important to
His fingers worked the button to her denims, his lips still desperate to devour every him that she was.
inch of her skin as he did so. She spoke as she wriggled, broken words as she twisted “I am. And you?”
and leaned so he could peel her clothes off. “I am.”
 466 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 439

He leaned closer, just brushing against her ear. “I plan to. Perhaps you have, too. Is “I thought”—a lean to the left, hand braced on his shoulder—”you wanted the
it in that blasted planner of yours? Show Draco the scandalous lingerie Pansy made me wear?” bedroom?” She leaned to the right; he yanked her denims down the rest of the way.
This time, he saw her smirk break over the rim of her wine glass as she held his Her knickers, too.
gaze: a challenge, confirmation, or perhaps a suggestion that he might soon find out “Yes, and we’ll get there,” he said, dropping to his knees as he placed a kiss on the
for himself. inside of her thigh. He tugged her forward, to the very edge of the counter. “But
From Hermione’s other side, Pansy interrupted. first—”
“Quit flirting, you two, we have things to discuss. We’re in agreement, yes? An She whined, hand slapping down on the countertop when he tasted her. He lifted
autumn wedding: entirely unfavorable.” her knees over his shoulders, gripping her hips to hold her in place as he
Hermione put her glass down, angling her body into a neutral position facing the reacquainted himself with all the ways he might use his mouth to make her moan and
table. Draco hadn’t even noticed she’d turned to him, giving him her undivided sigh and keen so prettily.
attention. Pansy continued, unrepentant in her interruption. A nearly inaudible oh transformed into a whimper as one of her hands found his
“You’d prefer something spring or summer, yes Granger?” hair, dragging her nails through it. He sucked directly on her clit, swirling his tongue
The blush bloomed almost instantaneously, springtime in her skin to match Pansy’s such that her sharp inhale seemed to surprise even her.
suggestion. Something fell into the sink beside them with a clatter: a jar or a bowl or something
They hadn’t talked much about their plans. It had only been a couple of weeks, else of entirely no consequence.
after all. And that scant time had felt like something of a dream: happy conversations He loosened his grip on her hips just as her fingers scraped across his scalp again.
with their friends, with her family, informing those most important to them that they He slipped a finger inside her—then another—twisting and dragging and pulling.
were officially engaged. But they hadn’t gotten anywhere close to picking dates. He could hardly believe how little time it took her, how close and how ready she’d
Hadn’t considered any concrete plans. been, already reduced to a writhing mess on her countertops.
“I don’t know yet, Pansy. Draco and I haven’t—” The oh came loudly, this time.
“Oh no, who cares what Draco thinks. Your wedding is about you. And you agree, Her hands didn’t leave his hair, not until she’d caught her breath, descending from
don’t you? That an autumn wedding is just—not ideal unless you’re on a timeline.” her orgasm. She sat straighter as he stood, hands fisting his open shirt, using it to pull
She arched a brow, gaze drifting from Hermione, to Draco, and back again. “For him towards her before she forced it off his shoulders. She clung to him, in her bra
example, if you’re expecting. You’re not expecting, are you, Granger?” and nothing else.
Draco watched that fine blush creep further up the side of Hermione’s neck. She kissed the center of his chest and it sent warmth radiating out from her point
“What? No—Pansy. I’m literally drinking wine right in front of you.” of impact.
Pansy just shrugged. She kissed the base of his throat, and it stalled his breathing, hand curled around
“So that’s a no?” This time, Pansy’s gaze darted to Hermione’s stomach. “The her waist.
dress is fitting rather tight.” She trailed her fingers down his arm, holding his left hand in her right.
“Yes, because you keep ignoring my actual measurements.” Hermione’s voice She whispered in his ear as he unhooked her bra.
creeped higher, pitching enough that Theo and Blaise looked up from their “Drop your glamours?” she asked, words barely audible. Her eyes darted to his left
conversation across the table. Hermione took a deep breath. “No Pansy, I am not arm, held between them. “You don’t need them. Especially not with me. I’ll drop
pregnant.” The straightforward clarity of such a statement seemed necessary, Draco mine, too.”
agreed. Pansy could twist even the slightest misunderstanding or omissions into He expected the pang in his chest to feel like panic, like fear, exposure rubbing him
much, much larger things. “Furthermore,” Hermione went on. “I think you’re all raw. He felt some fear, but mostly—inexplicably—he felt something like peace:
being rather presumptuous about Astoria.” resignation without the sense of failure. He trusted her not to judge him for the vile
Pansy snorted, undignified, and exactly one of the reasons why Draco liked her so brand on his arm, not to look at him any differently. Not after all this time.
much. “Granger, have you looked at Astoria’s dress? That empire waistline? She is He pulled his wand from his trouser pocket and cast a silent finite on himself.
definitely pregnant.” Hermione didn’t even spare a glance for his Dark Mark. Instead, she reached for his
Hermione shook her head, exhaling as she reached for her wine again. Pansy did wand, pulling it tentatively from his grip with an unspoken May I? etched in the set of
tend to instill a want for libations. her jaw. With his wand, she cast a finite on herself.
“Let’s start with flowers,” Pansy said. “If we want them fresh—which, of course, He knew she’d been hiding dark circles under the eyes; he didn’t know about the
we do—it’ll help pin down our preferred seasonality for the wedding. What are your scar above her right brow. Tiny, almost invisible, probably completely unnoticeable
favorites?” to everyone she came across on a day-to-day basis. But Draco had made a study of
Despite the wine glass, heavily tilted as Hermione sipped—gulped?—Draco still her features, of the face that bore them.
saw her increasing stress under Pansy’s interrogation. He might have helped, cut in or He’d blown up all the glassware and she’d had a tiny stream of blood dripping
down the side of her face.
 440 Mightbewriting

“I can vanish it for you.”

“Don’t, Draco. Not now. Later”—she pleaded with her eyes—”we’ll talk about it
+.416, +.416, +.416
later. But right now. Will you please— please take me to bed.”
His yes disappeared into the fabric of her skin, answering as he kissed her shoulder, O CT O B E R
pulling her from the counter. She wobbled, unsteady for a moment, before she led
him to the tiny corridor, entirely naked, mind-bogglingly beautiful.
Hand in his, she pulled him to follow. He didn’t need the direction; he would

I
follow her anywhere. F ASTORIA’S WEDDING HAD ANYTHING GOING FOR IT, THE
She tilted her head to the right. “That’s the guest room. As you can see, I have no seating arrangement at the reception was probably Draco’s favorite part. Too
furniture for it.” often, society weddings liked to place entire families together, making for a
He pinned her to the open door jamb, dropping a kiss to her clavicle. His belt fell boring, isolated experience for any young person wanting to escape their parents’
to the floor, liberated from his trousers. clutches and indulge in a little too much expensive, complimentary wine. Not that
“A great space for brewing,” he said. She nodded, sighed, canted against him as he Draco would have had a problem if that sort of seating arrangement had been
kissed her neck. enforced; his parents were not in attendance.
She tilted her head to the left, to the door opposite them. As it stood, Astoria had curated tables of acquaintances, placing Draco and
“That’s the bathroom, very small.” Hermione with Theo, Blaise, Pansy, and Pansy’s date: a rather tall, dark, dour looking
“Room in the shower for two?” fellow whose name Draco remembered long enough to repeat back to him in
“We’d have to stand very close.” greeting and immediately purge from his memory.
“I don’t mind.” Draco relaxed against his chair, pleasantly full from a delicious meal. He let his arm
He kissed her lips again, tongue lazy and satisfied as he explored her. Warmth drape across the back of Hermione’s chair, fingers grazing her back, shoulders, and
hummed in his bones, not enough to scorch, but plenty to sate, to fuel him. It all felt arms ever-so-casually, every-so-often. He felt her tense and shiver each time. It was
a bit dreamlike: having her, touching her, pulling delicious little moans and whimpers her own fault, though, wearing a beautiful silver gown that nearly robbed him of the
from her with his touch. He never wanted to wake. ability to process complex thought.
She unbuttoned his trousers, shoved them down, and made an impatient noise She twisted in her seat beside him, hand pressing against her ribs.
when she realized he still wore his shoes and had to separate from her long enough “Uncomfortable?” he asked, dipping his head to deliver the words quietly, to her
to kick them off and step out of his clothes. When her hand slipped inside the alone.
waistband to his underwear, she must have heard his breath catch as he kissed the “It’s very snug.”
skin beneath her jaw. “I know I’ve said it—”
With her hand wrapped around his cock, she pumped slowly, several deadly strokes “—several—”
until his control broke. He dipped, hands beneath her arse to lift her up, into his “—yes, several times. But you look gorgeous.”
arms. His teeth grazed her neck before coming to rest at her ear. “That’s all fine and well. But, it’s definitely too tight at my waist. I told Pansy I
“Bedroom.” Partly a question, mostly a command. He rocked against her, heat wasn’t interested in spending a fortune on a new wardrobe so she keeps having her
exploding into flames that licked the underside of his skin. Her shoulder bore the own pieces tailored for me.”
brunt of his groan as he held her flush against him, a single layer of fabric separating “Come to think of it, that does look like something Pans would wear.”
them. “I’ve informed her of my measurements on more than one occasion and yet, they
A vague gesture, a limp arm, pointing generally down the corridor. keep coming to me just a touch more snug than I would prefer.”
“Only one door left,” she breathed and he nodded against her skin, moving before A smile stole his expression, followed by a small laugh. “How very Slytherin of her.
he’d even fully realized his legs had gone into motion. I do imagine the difference is by design.”
Left unlatched, the door to her bedroom swung open with the tiniest push. Hermione shot him a severely unamused frown. “Well. It’s unpleasantly tight.”
“You got a new bed,” he said, a quiet observation as he lowered her onto it and “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he said, truly meaning it.
finally rid himself of his underwear. “But? It sounded like there was meant to be a but there.” She settled the angle of
“I got used to having more room, even sharing.” her head and jaw into a demanding sort of tilt.
She pulled him into the bed with her, facing each other, side by side. He couldn’t Honesty gushed out of him on low, appreciative breath. “You look extraordinary.”
help but grin: a stupidly wide, idiotic one. She rolled her eyes. “Do you know she told me what undergarments to wear as
To be in a bed with her again. well? You should see what I have on under this.” She sipped her wine such that
“Your sheets are white.” Draco almost missed the devious little smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth.
“I left the burgundy with you.”
 464 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 441

Her tight lips and look of pity grated on long-present nerves that wanted no such She wrapped her arms around his neck as he shifted onto his elbows, closer, partly
thing, not from anyone, not even her. He let it go, let it pass. above her.
“Mine adore you. I didn’t tell them much, about why we…weren’t. When we “I love those sheets,” he said. A kiss at her temple. “Those hideous, Gryffindor
weren’t. I think they knew it hurt too much. But they’re quite pleased you’re back in sheets— gods, I’ve missed you.”
my life.” Her grip around his neck and shoulders tightened: no more room left to pull him
A bolt of worry shot through him. in, but perhaps to hold him there.
“They won’t be offended, will they? That I didn’t ask their permission for your “Speaking of sheets, I’m cold.” She breathed a quiet laugh, eyes darting towards the
hand?” foot of the bed where they’d thrown the covers. He laughed as he leaned down and
Draco didn’t often get the chance to hear Hermione snicker, but she did, just then. grabbed them, pulling white sheets and an atrocious quilt up to cover them.
As if the worry he’d expressed had been both hilarious and ridiculous. She made a happy, contented sound against his skin. Vibrations hummed against
“You’re just flouting traditions left and right, aren’t you?” him.
“This one was for you. You’re your own woman, Granger. I know you don’t “Cozy,” she whispered.
need—or want—permission from anyone to do anything.” “Perfect.”
“Granger, is it? Granger-Malfoy soon, I suppose.” Her grin shone like the Italian He shifted, adjusted again, a slow drag of his body against hers, arousal not
sun. forgotten, but shifting towards something slower, sweeter. He bracketed his arms
He buried his face in her neck, peppering tiny kisses on every inch of skin he around her shoulders, hovering face to face. Her chest moved his when she inhaled,
traversed. She knew him too well, saw his diversionary tactic for what it was. noses brushing.
“Don’t tell me you’re surprised I don’t want to drop my name entirely.” He took advantage of their proximity, of how much easier it was to have hard
He laughed into her skin. “I’m not.” He pulled back, looking at her. “Perhaps a conversations with her when they were close, sharing thoughts as much as oxygen or
touch disappointed.” body heat.
“Hyphenation is a nice compromise, I think. I’ve already built a career as Granger, “You aren’t allowed to leave me again.”
you know. Hyphenation will make it easier for people to re-learn my name.” She shook her head. “You aren’t allowed to let me.”
He accepted her logic. He didn’t mind, not really, not enough. “No one is He shook his.
forgetting your name, Granger. No matter what it is.” He kissed her shoulder, her chest, her heart, and upwards again: her neck, her jaw,
her lips.
When they came apart, lungs desperate for air, he forced words to form from
heaving breath. “And when I ask you to marry me, you’re going to say yes.”
She canted against him, a sharp intake followed by a bitten back sound deep in her
throat.
“I am,” she said, mouth on his, assent barrelling straight through him.
“And we’re going to get married.”
She nodded with her face pressed to his, hands clutching at his shoulders as he
sank into her.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“And I’m going to spend every day of my life loving you.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to let me.”
“Yes,” again.
“Fuck—Hermione.”
“Yes,” seemed to be all she could say, and it was all he wanted to hear.
 Beginning and end 463

+.250, +.250, +.250 And they did. Candlelight danced across her face again, one of his favorite sights.
Whether over a meal in an Italian restaurant or in Italy itself, she looked beautiful.
She looked like she’d promised to be his.
AUGUST

A
FTER THAT DAY IN EARLY JULY WHEN THEY CAME together Returning to their flat after a week dining, and lazing, and fucking their way across
again—relief soaked in sweat, pressed against skin, apologies traded with Italy, the cramped space felt too cold, too dreary for the warm sunlight brimming
forgiveness in the quiet spaces between affirmations of love and adoration— between them. Draco genuinely thought he’d gotten an idea of what domestic bliss
Draco simply never left. She’d invited him into her home under the pretense of entailed; he’d had no idea. Now, though, after a week with nothing but Hermione
forever, and they’d both taken it rather literally. and delicious foods and wines and sights, he had no doubt he’d finally discovered the
They didn’t start trying to cram his furniture in the flat until a month of relearning meaning of that phrase.
each other had passed. July had somehow managed to become simultaneously the He was disgustingly happy, truth be told. Theo would retch if he knew. Blaise
most intense (sex, apologies, forgiveness, understanding, sex) and most cautious (fear, would probably roll his eyes. Pansy might smack him, while looking reluctantly happy
hope, fragility, healing) month of his life. But being able to work through those for him in an angry-Pansy sort of way.
things, sequestered in a tiny little flat with just her (and Crookshanks), could not have Their flat felt very much the same, but also, so very different.
been more perfect. He couldn’t have imagined a better outcome to the months he’d Hermione sank onto their green sofa, and he with her, wedging himself beside her
spent without her. as they lay together, inexplicably exhausted after such a relaxing week.
I’m sorry I never explained how bad it really was with my parents, from him. “Real life,” she said on a sigh.
I’m sorry I tried to decide what was best for both of us, from her. He hummed an agreement, or perhaps just an acknowledgement, into a patch of
I don’t think I’m ready to vanish my Dark Mark, from him. skin on her neck, nuzzled close and dangerously tempted to taste it.
I don’t think I’m ready to vanish my scar, from her. “We’re getting married?” she asked, voice quiet and wispy and barely there.
I love you, from both. “Not a question. You’ve already agreed. I’m not letting you out of it.” As if in
I want kids. proof, he tightened his arms around her midsection, hostage to a hug. She rolled her
At least two. eyes, smiling.
Being an only child was lonely. “We’re getting married.” Not a question, that time. She touched his cheek lightly,
It was. two fingers, pressed and released. “You’re a bit sunburned.”
We’re doing this. “Not all of us can tan as beautifully as you do. Some of us have very fragile, very
We’re doing this. fair skin.”
Towards the end of the month he asked: “What are we doing for Potter’s birthday “Poor fair baby.”
this year?” “Your ongoing inability to sympathize with my circumstances is astounding.”
She stared at him with open astonishment, quickly supplanted by affection. “He’s Her smile only grew. He watched it reach the apples of her cheeks, teeth bright and
out of the country with Ginny and James on holiday. Perhaps we can spend that white and gleaming at him. Her fingers twisted in the hair at the nape of his neck,
week moving your furniture in.” sending a shiver shooting straight down his spine.
In a reversal of how it had once begun, he moved his belongings into her flat. And A cloud overtook her expression, nervousness peeking through. He thought he’d
by moved, he meant crammed. And by crammed, he more accurately meant barely fit. He banished that look from her face back at the winery.
had to leave several pieces in Theo’s ballroom for Pansy to sell. Moving, too, took “What’s wrong?”
more time, more effort, and a lot more energy, it seemed, when one had a regular job She searched his face before she answered. Dread grew in the pit of his stomach.
to attend. Finally, quietly, “I’m excited to tell my parents”—then faster, a rush—”but I don’t
By the end of the first week of August, Draco vowed to himself that he’d never want that to—hurt you.”
move again. At least, not unless absolutely necessary; he did not care how tiny That was all? He sighed, resigned. It did hurt, quite a lot, actually. Quite a lot more
Hermione’s flat was. than he wanted it to. But he’d chosen it, so he shoved the hurt away. She deserved
In the corner of their newly cramped living room, Hermione sank into a black excitement, happiness with the family she’d put so much work into protecting, into
leather wingback. pulling back together.
“Mine would never have been happy for us.”
 462 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 443

I’d always picked you and you never really picked me. But that—gods, Hermione, “I’ve missed this one.” She said it with a sigh and a smile and something so simple
that was so unfair of me, because by the end of last year it was just the opposite, and content it stole Draco’s breath. She pulled her favorite crocheted blanket from
wasn’t it? You’d picked me entirely. And you were just waiting on me to pick you. where it lay draped over the back of her armchair, and cozied herself up. “One of my
And I’m sorry it took me so long that I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I thought favorite places to read.”
I’d already decided.” Draco tapped at one of their coffee tables with the toe of his shoe. “Two coffee
She nodded, finally wiping away some of her tears. “I know. We don’t need to tables seems a bit much,” he said.
rehash this, not again, not right now.” She reached out to brush his hair from where She smiled, breathed a small laugh. “Well, as it's presently covered in several stacks
it had slipped from its charms, falling over his forehead. “I love you. I picked you, of books, we clearly need it. We’ll figure out what to do with it once we have the
too. I want to marry you.” Her voice failed, choked. “Can I see the ring?” book situation sorted.”
It seemed appropriate, in retrospect, that he’d fumbled something. Too perfect and “We have more books now than the last time we lived together.” He stepped
it wouldn’t have felt real. He’d never even opened the box. around the tables, avoided a small book tower, and leaned against the arm of her
His laughter came out as a groan, bordering on embarrassment. “Yes, of course.” chair.
He cracked it open. “It’s not a Malfoy heirloom, I promise.” “Speaking of, perhaps we can move some potions texts into the spare room.” She
She smiled, a touch wry and disbelieving, as she examined the ring he’d picked for leaned and looked up at him as she spoke. “You could put together a brewing set up
her. “It certainly looks like an heirloom. It’s beautiful.” in there.” She poked her fingers through the crocheted holes in her blanket, grazing
“Oh, it is an heirloom.” the side of his thigh.
She blinked, gaze shifting from the jewelry box in his hands to the mischievousness “You don’t want to use it as an actual guest room?”
he knew hid in his growing smirk. She shrugged. “A guest room would be lovely, but you like to brew outside of work
“It’s from the Nott estate,” he said. and I”—she dragged her teeth across her bottom lip—”I do enjoy watching you
“Theo?” work.” He smirked as she rushed an explanation out, barely allowing him a blink to
“He’s given it to us.” savor her compliment. “It’s relaxing, seeing you work. And I’ve been doing some
He watched it happen, this time. Emotions winding their way across her face, experimenting of my own. I—well, I had a sudden abundance of spare time this year
finding a place behind her eyes, welling with new tears, equally overwhelmed. so I started fiddling with charms.”
“What did we ever do to deserve Theo?” Draco’s cheeks strained from his smirking. She’d be furious at how self-satisfied he
“Honestly, I don’t know. I tortured him with peacocks as a kid. And yet, here we looked, but he couldn’t help himself. He lifted the blanket from her lap, draped it
are.” across the back of her chair, and pulled her hand into his. With a fond sigh, she stood
She laughed and the dam broke. Her tears spilled again, but she smiled, so happy, when he tugged at her, walking around the arm of the chair and lining herself up
so beautiful. The tension around them melted. against him.
Draco pulled the ring from the box, setting its velvet cage on the table. He reached This sort of casual embrace ranked high on his list of ways he loved to hold her.
for her hands, watching her smile grow, her fingers a bit shaky. He ran his thumb Conversations had against curls, hands holding waists, fingers trailing spines: easy
down the back of her hand, over her knuckles, down the length of her ring finger. touches he now counted himself lucky to have.
“May I?” “You didn’t blow through the rest of the biographies at your little book shop, did
She nodded, eyes fixed on the ring in his other hand. Between the flickering you?”
candlelight, the dreamlike setting in a winery reserved just for them, and the beautiful Her fingers flexed at his stomach, twisting his shirt. When she peeked up at him
woman allowing him to slip a ring onto her finger, Draco barely believed his own through a cluster of curls, the tiniest flush of pink spotted her cheeks. She cleared her
circumstances. Unreal, impossible. As if this life couldn’t be his, couldn’t belong to throat before she spoke, steadying herself.
him. “I’m up to the J’s now, actually.” She leaned harder against him, chest pressed to
“Oh my gods,” she breathed, surging forward to kiss him. his. Draco had to push back in order to prevent himself from tipping over the arm of
He could feel it. In a single kiss, the promise of a lifetime. And it was all worth it. the chair. “I had a lot of time, and fewer meddlesome prats trying to interfere with my
Every last drop of pain and torture and uncertainty that brought him to that point. progress.”
He’d do it all again, he’d spend those months miserable if it meant he ended up right That could have hurt, could have been intended to hurt, but he didn’t take it that
back here, with her lips pressed to his, powered by the promise of forever. way and she didn’t mean it that way. They were past the hurting, determined not to
When they broke apart, her hands on either side of his face, holding him there with have any more of it.
her, she smiled, a bubble of laughter breaking through. “Who? Me?”
“I think I can enjoy our dinner now.” She rolled her eyes and breathed a laugh, eyes fluttering as he dropped a kiss at her
He kissed her again, not quite ready to relinquish the moment. But when he finally temple.
did, lungs burning, he smiled, too. “Good. We have authentic zuca di flora to enjoy.”
 444 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 461

“I’ve finished unpacking the kitchen, by the way,” he said, fully invested in earning of his cotton oxford. Lined up, bodies held close together, he almost felt like he
as much goodwill from her as he could. “I’ve organized all our tea strainers right next might be dancing with her: a silent, motionless dance, just the two of them.
to the kettle.” “I want you to enjoy our dinner,” he said.
She hummed a noise that bordered between acknowledgement and distraction. Her “I do too.”
fingers played with his shirt fabric, knuckles brushing his stomach. It almost felt like “I don’t want you to be nervous, Granger.”
she might start unbuttoning his shirt. Additionally, like she had zero interest in tea That rattled her breathing. He’d done it on purpose, slipped into using her last
strainers. name. Her front teeth sank into her bottom lip, a flush of pink and white as she held
Crookshanks hopped onto the chair, perching himself on the arm and forcing his it there, held her breath.
head into Hermione’s hands. He’d been planning on doing it during dessert, after a beautiful meal. But he didn’t
“Crooks seems happy to have you back,” she said with a smile, and with almost no want her to suffer these nerves if she didn’t have to, especially if she already knew. At
evidence to support that statement. Draco assumed she simply believed what she a certain point, it only felt like prolonging the inevitable. Something about the
wanted to believe about the cat’s affections; she did have a bit of blind spot where simplicity of this moment, standing so close, not quite dancing, it felt right.
the orange menace was concerned. His dipped his head forward, just enough to skim past her cheek, to find her ear.
“If anything,” Draco said, twisting to offer a few scratches along the cat’s neck, “Say you’ll marry me.” He unlocked her hands from their grip around his waist,
“Crooks is pleased because my presence means more Theo. And more Theo means reached into his pocket, and pulled out a velvet ring box. He put a cautious amount
more treats, since he’s apparently physically incapable of visiting without giving of space between them, enough to look at her directly, to make his intentions crystal,
Crookshanks at least four or five.” undeniably clear. “I said I’d give you more jewelry one day, eventually. Of all the
“We may need to hide the treat jar.” jewelry I’ve ever tried to give, or thought about giving you, this is the one I hope
Draco smiled. “How old is Crookshanks now? Maybe we just let the old man enjoy you’ll accept the most.”
himself.” With his own nerves wound tight around his spine, Draco dropped to his knee. He
Hermione dropped her head against his chest as if he’d showered her in a storm of took a fortifying breath, and restated it as an actual question.
his most romantic words. She sighed against his placket, one arm around his waist “Will you marry me, Hermione?”
tightening. He’d expected her to cry; she usually did when her emotions overwhelmed her.
Draco entered a haze. Was this what they called domestic bliss? Was this why Tears normally yielded annoyance, frustration over a thing she had little control over,
someone, somewhere, idiotically happy, had coined such a term? The serenity of it furiously swiping at the offensive little things pouring down her face. But this time,
sparkled in his veins, settling like a shimmering Floo powder in his soul that she made no move to wipe them.
transported him instantly, easily, to his calmest, to his most at ease. Judging from the quaffle-sized ball in the center of Draco’s chest, he had to concur
He almost didn’t hear the owl tapping on the window. Almost. that there was something extremely, wildly overwhelming about their present
He held Hermione tighter, just for a moment, before allowing her to break away circumstances. She reached for his wrist, pulling him to his feet. He’d barely
with a grin, greeting their interloper. straightened when she buried her face in his chest, arms wrapped around his torso.
The owl landed on a stack of books next to him. At first glance, Draco thought his Draco couldn’t shake the buzzing in his ears, the pounding of his own pulse
parents had written him, heart plummeting. But the eagle owl presently skewering thrumming beneath his skin. The room around him seemed to roar with a wild, white
him with an unamused stare didn’t belong to the Malfoy Estate, at least, not as far as noise that ignited his nerves, still ricocheting around his nervous system.
he knew. The roar dulled, tension finally subsiding, when he realized she was saying
“Is that?” Hermione began, vocalizing the same concern that had just seized him. something against his chest, a little chant of yes yes yes he’d nearly missed.
He shook his head. “No, not theirs.” They were quiet agreements at first, then louder, propelled by a wave of
She nodded and walked to the kitchen, presumably to acquire a treat for the rather overwhelmed tears, then quieter again. She gathered herself, pulled her head back to
imperious winged creature now presenting its leg to Draco. He removed the look up at him, then immediately dropped her forehead against his sternum again.
parchment, which unrolled and flattened into a crisp envelope in his hands. “I didn’t mean to make us wait so long.”
Hermione returned, treat prepared as payment, which the owl took with a snap and “That’s—not your fault. Hermione. You were right. We weren’t ready.” He lifted
flew off. his hand, placed his forefinger beneath her chin, guiding her to look up at him. “For
Flipping the envelope over, Draco found a sigil for the Greengrass estate stamped as ready as I thought we—I—was, I was still straddling two worlds.”
in the wax seal. He sank into the armchair, baffled in the next moment to find He kissed her forehead, feeling something warm and soothing collapse inside his
Hermione crawling into the chair with him, curling up with a smirk. chest. It had fought for so long; now, it took its rest.
“Welcome to my lap,” he said, cracking open the seal. He led her to their seats, pulling his around the table so that he could sit directly
Her words coasted against his neck. “Happy to be here.” across from her, face to face, without so much as a dinner table to obscure his
meaning. “When I was my maddest at you, my most upset, I would think about how
 460 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 445

the wineries we’re visiting—this one included—and Pansy stocked your tiny beaded A puff of shimmering silver confetti burst from the envelope, followed by a
monstrosity with a week’s worth of outfits.” glittering invitation.
“Crookshanks?” Draco didn’t intend to vocalize his “huh” out loud, but evidently did nevertheless.
Draco couldn’t decide if he ought to laugh or be offended that she felt compelled “Astoria is getting married.”
to ask. He chose to laugh; he chose lightness. With her, he would always choose “In October,” Hermione added as she leaned forward to read the invitation. One
lightness. of her wild curls brushed the side of his face. He rounded his lips and blew, sending
“Theo is overjoyed by the idea of cat-sitting,” he said. “Hermione. I’m not a the curl out of his line of sight. Hermione squirmed. “Two months? That’s quite
beggar. I run a business. I still have some connections. Let me spoil you. For this, short notice.”
please let me spoil you.” Draco rested his chin on her shoulder as she continued reading the details on the
She turned to him more fully, winding her arms around the back of his neck, floating invitation. First he smirked, then he smiled, then he laughed.
fingers anchoring her at his nape. She rolled her lips between her teeth, a pause as She twisted, wearing her own smile. “Why are you laughing in my ear like that?”
she thought. “She’s pregnant.”
“And what is this, exactly?” A small jolt of surprise, followed by recognition.
“Your birthday.” “Astoria?”
“That’s it?” “Two months’ notice for a pureblood wedding? She’s pregnant. I have no doubt.”
He leaned down, kissed her, poured every ounce of himself into it. “Not even His chuckling subsided, leaving only a grin.
close,” he whispered in the tiny spaces between their lips. He pulled back and “And you’re—pleased about that?”
reached for her arms, detaching her grip around his neck. He led her away from the “It certainly suggests she’s going to be marrying someone she actually likes.”
window, through the winery, and to a large, vaulted room with walls lined in “Someone who’s not you.”
enormous oak barrels from floor to ceiling. Truth be told, Draco’s thoughts about Astoria in that moment had centered
Candles floated throughout the room, a table set for two in the center. exclusively around his happiness that she’d found someone she wanted to be with.
Supremely pleased with himself, Draco savored the breathy noise she made, He’d mentally sidestepped their history of being betrothed. The edge of
knowing he’d quite literally stolen her breath. He led her towards the table; her possessiveness in Hermione’s tone told him that she hadn’t. Further, it ignited a
clammy grip in his hand tightened with each step. supreme sense of smugness deep inside his chest.
When he turned to her, he could see her nerves: a jittery sort of anticipation that That smugness spilled into a smirk.
would prevent her from truly enjoying their setting. Instead, her gaze darted around “Don’t start,” she said, cutting him off as he opened his mouth to speak. “I heard
the room, taking in every detail, but with a sort of critical analysis, void of enjoyment. it, too.” She scrunched up her face, looked at him, and said, “I’m not jealous.”
Hermione Granger, generally level-headed, especially in a crisis, looked utterly “Of course not.” He was glad she didn’t smack him for smirking again.
debilitated by a romantic dinner. She did roll her eyes, though, and he definitely deserved it. She plucked the
He pulled her to him by their still-entwined hands, disentangled their fingers, and invitation from the air, gave it another read, then set it aside on the table.
held her close, breathing against her hair. He smiled into her curls, trying to offer her “I suppose this means we’re going to your ex-betrothed’s wedding.”
comfort, confidence. “Relax, Hermione. This is going to be a perfect evening.”
He could feel her breathing, tight and forced, expanding and contracting her ribs
against his. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous.” She said it in barely a whisper, low
and slow, words melting from her mouth like candle wax.
“Of course you know.” August passed lazily. Sex on the sofa. Sex in their bed. Attempted, though
She tensed, a line from her fingers against his waist, up her arms, and across her unsuccessful, sex in their tiny shower. Sex on brewing benches, against doors, and
shoulders. She rolled them back, trying to force that tight posture away. pinned to walls. Many and varied ill-advised places, all things considered. But Draco
She knew what was coming. And if Draco admitted it to himself, his whole body found himself struggling to resist the voice in the back of his head that reminded him
felt coiled tight, tension barely containing nerves of his own. He kept thinking, of every surface, every place in their flat, that he hadn’t had her yet. He had a whole
treacherously, traitorously, of how he’d never successfully given her jewelry before. new world, small as it may be, to have her in. And once he’d pointed out the
What with the disastrous ruby necklace and the doomed ring in his valet box. potential achievement in it, in a literal fucking tour of their flat, well, that was the day he
This ring though, the one in his pocket, it came from Theo’s vaults. This ring had had her on the kitchen table.
none of the Malfoy tarnish on it. Thank the gods for scourgify.
He pulled away from her hair and leaned in, holding his face close to hers, begging But more than the sex and the persistent muggy heat and the new routines
for eye contact when she seemed much more interested in divining the thread count involving his own regular working schedule now, Draco truly lazed with her. He
spent tired evenings after a long day at the shop reading a book on the sofa while she
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and Crookshanks sat and cuddled nearby. Or he spent a weekend fiddling with new And even as the humidity in an unusually warm Italian September inflated her
potion variations while Hermione watched, or experimented with magic of her own. curls, he truly believed his own words. He loved it. Loved her.
Or they simply talked, whether it be nose to nose in their bed or across from each She looked around the room they’d landed in.
other at the kitchen table, negotiating over the scar she wasn’t ready to vanish. Not “Are we in a winery?” she asked.
until he was ready to forgive himself for the Dark Mark. They caught each other up “Yes.”
on six months lived apart and made cautious, hopeful, wild plans for their future. A pause.
On one such lazy evening, Draco sat with The Count of Monte Cristo open in his lap, “It’s—empty?”
squinting at the fine print, and cursing its reintroduction to his life. Hermione laid on “We have the place to ourselves.”
the sofa next to him, cold toes wedged beneath his legs as she worked her way He placed a hand at her lower back, fingers acting as tiny pressure points
through a journal on magical beasts sent to her by Luna Lovegood, all the way from bracketing her spine. He steered her towards a large window overlooking the rows of
South America. trellised vines on the hill below.
The Floo flared bright green, blinding Draco for a moment, before he recognized “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. Then, she turned. “Are we—where are we?”
Pansy Parkinson standing in their living room. His answer came out a touch more sly this time, unable to restrain how pleased he
Hermione jolted up in surprise; Draco merely closed his book. was with himself.
“Gods, you two are boring. Really?” “At a winery, as I’ve just said.”
“Excuse me?” Hermione asked with a meaner edge to her tone than he’d heard Hermione’s hands found her hips. She narrowed her eyes, mouth tight, expression
from her in years. Perhaps since school. holding for a beat. Then, a cautious amusement peeked through. He assumed she
Pansy swiped several green cinders from her sleeve. “You’re just”—a vague gesture meant to look serious; she only looked kissable.
around the living room—”reading together? Like your bodies have already given out “What country are we in?”
and the sofa cushions soothe the ache in your old rotting bones?” “Italy.” He grinned as he said it, placed his hands on her shoulders, and turned her
Draco nearly told her all the ways his body was still in perfect working order, towards the window again, encouraging her to take it in. He watched her eyes widen,
specifically in the form of a list of all the places he’d fucked Hermione within his smile growing, apples of her cheeks rounding as she exhaled.
current line of sight. Pansy’s exaggerated shock stalled his tongue. “I’ve always wanted to see Italy.”
“Granger. What in the ever living fuck are you wearing?” “I know. That’s why we’re here.”
Draco glanced sideways, forgetting what she had on, finding his interest piqued She turned back to him. “Draco, it’s a Monday. Don’t you think international
over Pansy’s horrified outburst. Hermione looked down at her pajamas. dinner plans are a bit much for a weekday? Even when it’s my birthday?”
She wore her red, plaid pajama bottoms. Drawstring style, perhaps a bit big on her, He laughed. The fact that he’d expected her to bring this up, and beautifully,
but Draco had no complaints. She had on one of her sleeping camisoles, a simple predictably, she had, fluttered fond amusement deep in his stomach.
white cotton. Sure, it wasn’t the finest nightgown or pureblood dressing he’d seen his “Not when you have the whole week off, it isn’t.”
mother don when he was a child. But that was part of Hermione’s charm: her She frowned, forehead creasing as her brows bunched together.
unassuming, humble, simplicity in some things. Fashion choices being one of them. “I voluntarily schemed with Potter to put in a time off request for you at the
“I’m dressed for bed, Pansy.” Draco watched with rapt fascination as Hermione’s Ministry. Which, by the way, you took three weeks off for your parents earlier this
face and tone alternated between something genuinely offended, tentatively amused, year and you still have far too much holiday accrued. We’re vacationing more, I’ve
and surprisingly exasperated. All of it coated in a strange cover of fondness. decided.”
What an absolutely bizarre thing to witness. Her jaw hinged open, closed, then open again. “That was…very presumptuous of
“It’s seven on a Friday evening.” Pansy uncrossed her arms, pinched the bridge of you.”
her nose and lifted her shoulders as she dragged a deep, dramatic inhale. “Alright. “Yes, I know. And I knew that might annoy you a bit. But, I’m also presuming this
This is a lot to unpack. First of all, you need new sleepwear. Ideally something silk, or evening is going to go well. And then tomorrow, I’m taking you on a tour of the
satin. The camisole isn’t a terrible idea but don’t you want his”—a gesture at country. Wineries, restaurants, museums: all the art and history and fine dining your
Draco—”hands to be able to glide over you and not get caught on cotton or flannel? heart can handle.”
And gods, give him a little skin to touch below the shoulders. Merlin, Granger.” As expected, her indignation, her tiny swell of annoyance, melted with each
Hermione’s reaction to Pansy’s general Pansy-ness seemed to favor genuine offense promised activity, aimed directly at a holiday wishlist she’d shared with him on more
as a bright red flush crawled up her neck and over her tightly clenched jaw. Pansy, than one occasion. She still looked a touch annoyed, but she looked excited, too.
undeterred, battled on. “Draco, this is—a lot. Probably too much.”
“And further, you should not be in your sleeping clothes this early in the evening.” “Not for you.” He found her hand, pulled it to his lips, kissed her knuckles. “Never
She shook her head, tutting. That grated on Draco’s nerves. His mother liked to tut. for you. It’s all planned out. Theo has prepared our portkeys, Blaise owns several of
“I’m appalled, honestly.”
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timber and paint. “I know you don’t care for surprises, big surprises at that. But we’re Hermione sat straighter, red flush slowly settling into pink before fading out. “I’ve
celebrating your birthday in style this year and you can’t stop me.” gathered your general distaste, yes.”
She stepped into the corridor with a snort. Pansy loosed a derisive snort and set off down the corridor, slinging words back at
“You’re a petulant prat, you know that? It’s my birthday. Shouldn’t I get what I them as she walked. “I’ve come to collect you two. We’re going to Theo’s.”
want?” Draco lifted his voice, hoping it carried to wherever Pansy intended on going in
“I haven’t been able to give you everything I’ve wanted to give you. Please let me their flat. Hermione just looked baffled again. “I believe we’re reading, actually, Pans.
spoil you, just a bit. Just for your birthday.” Hermione catches up on her reading on Fridays.”
“Is that wise?” She stepped forward, evidently finished with her preparations. That earned him a fond smile from Hermione that pierced through her confusion.
“Doing something—bigger? What with adjusting to our new financial situation, and Pansy reappeared from the corridor, head peeking around the corner. “Well isn’t
all?” that just disgustingly domestic.” She glanced back down the hall. “One of these is the
Draco’s jaw tensed. He forced away the irritation, the annoyance, the subtle pang bedroom, I assume? I’ll just pick your outfits, then.”
of embarrassment that flooded his veins. She’d prodded a fresh wound—gently, but Pansy dipped out of sight again as Hermione shot to her feet. She lifted her hands,
a prod nevertheless. a confused, searching sort of posture, as she turned to Draco.
He rallied, finding a smirk and planting it firmly on his face. “Is she just going to—rifle through our stuff?”
“I have wealthy friends.” Draco finally set his book aside, sighing, and resigning himself to the change of
“My birthday requires wealthy friends?” trajectory being forced upon his evening.
“This one does.” “Yes.” Then, with even more resignation. “But she’ll pick something nice.”
She made a tiny, whining groan in the back of her throat. “That’s—that’s not the point. She can’t just go through our stuff.”
“Am I dressed appropriately for something like that?” Hermione took a single step away from the sofa, clearly intent on putting a stop to
She was. A navy dress he’d never seen before, probably another new addition from Pansy’s plans, only to find Pansy barreling back into the living room, fringe jostled.
the ‘Pansy redoes Hermione’s wardrobe’ project. It skimmed her hips and fell just Wide, disgusted eyes scanned their living room. “You two must have a copy of
above her knees. Fantastic Beasts here somewhere, right? There’s an unidentified creature in your
She looked absolutely stunning. bedroom.” She drew a finger through her fringe, resetting it to its perfect, pre-jostled
“You look beautiful. Perfect. And I’m already wearing gray, so we’ll look well- position. “I do believe I’ve barely escaped with my life.”
matched together.” “That’ll be Crookshanks.”
“Well-matched? You sound so unforgivably posh when you say things like that.” Pansy arched a brow. “Is that the species name?”
“They can take away my money, but the habits remain.” “No Pans, it’s”—he stumbled, caught for a moment between words: her cat or
It felt easier when he prodded the wound himself. A familiar pain he might theirs?—”he’s a cat. I said the same thing at first, but he grows on you.”
desensitize himself to. Hermione simply glared at the both of them. At Pansy, he assumed, for insulting
She reached a hand to the back of her hair, isolating a curl that spiraled away from her best feline companion, and him, for admitting to ever having had disparaging
a low bun. Her lips pursed as she tackled it, trying to force it in with the rest of her thoughts about the beast.
hair. “Pansy,” Hermione began, leveling her tone into something calm. “You can’t
Draco could feel her nerves, radiating in tight actions and strained features, more just—I don’t know what to call this. Does it count as breaking and entering?”
than unease over a surprise. She had to know. Or have some kind of idea. They’d Before he could stop himself, Draco found his hand at the back of his neck,
agreed on it, after all. Admittedly, he’d been buried in her cunt and kissing praises massaging tense muscles.
across her collarbone at the time, but they both knew—she knew—that he would “I added her to the wards.”
propose. And soon. Hermione sighed. “Of course you did. Blaise and Theo, too, I assume? Should I
He held up an ornate silver key. A portkey, specifically. acclimatize myself to unannounced entry?”
She paused in the battle with her hair, rolling her eyes as she realized what he held. “Probably,” Pansy said. “If we’re looking for crime designations, we could call this
Her hands fell from her hair as a smile finally forced its way onto her face, attempted kidnapping.” She turned and pointed a perfectly lacquered nail at Draco.
acceptance, perhaps, that he planned to give her one night of extravagance. If ever “You, take the orange monster. Granger and I need some girl time.”
there were an occasion, this was it. Evidently, Hermione’s confusion prevented her from putting up more of a fight.
She reached for his hand as Draco activated the portkey, letting Theo’s gentle, Instead, she allowed Pansy to loop her beneath the elbow and pull her down the
improved version of the device spin them away. And when they landed, he held her corridor, a deep line carved between her brows as she looked at him with a sort of
closer, hands winding in her hair, releasing it from its binds. It spiraled outward the What is happening? expression. Much as he should have had sympathy for her, Draco
instant he freed it. chuckled, rolling his lips between his teeth in an attempt to hold the sound at bay.
“Stop fighting it,” he whispered. “It’s beautiful.”
 448 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 457

He heard what he assumed was the door to their bedroom slam shut with a touch Draco didn’t know what to think of that. “Ok?”
more aggression than he might have liked. A moment later, Crookshanks came “I can’t decide if I should go to the Ministry or not.”
slinking into the living room with a disgruntled meow. “Excuse me?”
Draco sank back onto the green sofa and invited his fellow outcast to join him. Ominous, indeed. Tension pulled his muscle fibers together, preparing Draco for
Apparently girl time meant no cats, either. bad news, or at the very least, something startling. Theo had a habit of dropping
Crookshanks settled, curled up beside Draco. unusual, unexpected information on him at inopportune moments.
“I suppose it’s a good thing I hadn’t changed yet, isn’t it Crooks?” He offered the “I should probably just apply for a bonding license by post. I feel like they’d be
cat a few scratches behind his ears, generally a safe bet to earn a bit of goodwill from more likely to approve—or at least not stall my processing—if they don’t have to see
him. Crookshanks’s tail unwound from his curled position, gave a swish, then my face. I’ll have to brush up on the magic involved. I’m sure I have a book on
returned to his bundle. marriage ceremonies in my library.”
A thump from beyond the darkened corridor drew Draco’s attention. The cat Draco’s head spun, repeating the phrase marriage ceremony over and over and over
seemed rather unperturbed. again inside his skull.
“You have better hearing than me, right? You’ll let me know if there’s an “Shame I look just like my father, isn’t it?” Theo continued, entirely unfazed by
emergency in there, won’t you?” His scratches migrated from ears to neck to tiny what he’d just said. “But you know all about that. Spitting image of Lucius, you are.
orange shoulders. “Of course you will, you’re a good boy. But you mustn’t tell Not enough to metaphorically bear their burdens, is it?”
Hermione I’ve admitted that.” Draco found his voice, pulled it from a tangled place at the base of his throat.
Several minutes later, wherein Draco absolutely did not carry on a conversation “Could we back up for a moment? Bonding license?”
with the cat attempting to sleep beside him, Hermione and Pansy emerged from the “Mmhmm.”
bedroom. “For our—are you planning on marrying us? Did Blaise say—”
Hermione wore a pair of tight fitting, dark denims and a rather silky looking “Of course Blaise didn’t say. He never says. Never says much of anything, does he?
blouse—neither of which he’d ever seen before. Great prat. But there were implications, subtext between the two of us, if you will.”
“Was that already in the closet?” he asked. Draco snorted, inappropriately amused.
Pansy ignored him. Theo lifted his pinky, ruby glinting in the warm light inside the vault.
“Granger owns an offensive amount of denim. I’m definitely taking her shopping. “So, I’ll make sure this is clean and then you’ll be in the clear to propose to that
Tomorrow, ideally. This can’t stand.” witch of yours.”
Behind Pansy, Hermione shook her head silently, eyes rolling, as she suppressed an Draco grinned this time, matching Theo’s ridiculous enthusiasm with his own.
exasperated smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’m going to hug you now,” Theo announced.
“I was surprised to find she had a few nice bras, though,” Pansy added. Draco barely managed a faux roll of his eyes. “Must you?”
Hermione’s good natured amusement fizzled, replaced by a faint blush. “Absolutely. My best friend is happy again and he’s going to get the girl. Seems
“Alight, let’s go.” Pansy marched to the Floo with barely a glance back. “I need to hug-worthy, don’t you think?”
make sure Theo and Blaise have followed my directions in party planning. If you two “You’re so sentimental,” Draco said as Theo pulled him into a genuine, heartfelt
don’t come through within five minutes I’m coming back and dragging you.” sort of hug that spoke to decades of friendship, of more history than they could
“What? No critique of my outfit?” Draco asked, not entirely sure if he meant to navigate individually.
goad Pansy or impress upon Hermione that he was, indeed, acceptably stylish. “No, mate. That’s you.”
Pansy made a disgusted, annoyed sort of sound as she crossed her arms. “Your Draco’s frown only lasted a second, wrangled back into a smile by Theo’s joy.
ensemble is perfectly adequate as always, though a touch boring. You could really do
with some variety.” Deliberately, her gaze tracked from his head to his toes. He
smirked when he saw her finally land on his feet and the snitch-printed socks
Hermione had given him. Pansy sighed as if mortally offended, then sneered. “Wear
a brogue—a wingtip, preferably. Cordovan, if you have a matching belt.” Hermione called to him from their bathroom. She’d spent the last half an hour
She turned without another word and disappeared through the Floo. When Draco doing far more primping and styling than her norm. “Are you really not going to tell
looked at Hermione, he felt as if he could see the words brogue and wingtip and cordovan me what we’re doing for my birthday?”
creeping across her face. Words she probably knew in other contexts, but stringing She’d already asked him twice. He declined each time. He twirled his wand between
them together under the lens of men’s fashion seemed to momentarily debilitate her. his fingers, waiting idly in his chair at the kitchen table.
He grinned as he walked by her, letting his fingers graze her silk blouse, finding her “No,” he said, barely having to lift his voice to travel between them in their tiny
waist as he bent to kiss the top of her head. She wore perfume, too, something more flat. “I’m not. It’s a surprise.” He heard her groan, muffled between drywall and
floral than she usually opted for.
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“I was sort of hoping you’d pick that one. A bit of Gryffindor for her, yeah?” “I’ll be right back,” he said. “I need to change my belt before we volunteer for our
Draco sighed. own kidnapping.”
“I’ve tried giving her rubies before. It did not go well.” That seemed to snap her out of it.
Theo’s head tilted. “Well, I suppose that’s fair. But aren’t you two living your lives to “I can’t decide if I like Pansy or not.” She shook herself, as if seeking to throw off
the fullest now, past be damned? I assume that’s what all the sex is about, judging by unwanted or unwarranted affection. “Perhaps I’ll teach Theo about Stockholm
how often your Floo is locked.” Theo gestured to the ring. “I think that one is Syndrome this evening.”
perfect for her. But if you want something more—classic? There are some
diamonds.”
Draco looked back down at the other rings. “The diamonds are all rather—
ostentatious. She’d never want something that big.”
“What about the sapphire, then? But that does feel like an ode to Ravenclaw, and Spending a Friday night at Theo’s, drinking and gambling and having an all around
while Granger is definitely the smartest person I know—no offense—she’s still a good time, despite lectures on Stockholm Syndrome and Pansy’s lack of boundaries,
Gryffindor.” was a vastly preferable way to spend time, in Draco’s opinion, than finally having to
“I got over her being smarter than me in the mid-90’s.” face Hermione’s friends again the following week.
“That’s good. Best not be holding grudges against your future wife.” Seeing James, that Draco was excited about. The rest of it? Weasleys, former
The word wife hit Draco square in the chest. His diaphragm seized, breath halted Weasleys, Potters of both the scarhead and married-in variety? That he could do
for the several seconds it took to reconcile that such a word had not been spoken in without. He didn’t much look forward to his awkward reintroduction to Hermione’s
jest. But rather, it represented a very real, very likely future state in his life. friends. No easy explanation existed to acknowledge that something terrible had
He looked down at the ruby ring again, still poised between his thumb and happened between them, they’d both realized it and moved forward, and now were
forefinger. He tried to picture it, imagine it. On her hand, nails dragging down his just as deeply involved, even more so, than they had been before.
forearms, cradling a child’s head, holding his hand, answering owls from Hogwarts. “Are you nervous?” Hermione asked, stepping to the living room in a sundress
He liked what he imagined. It drew him in, a happy dream, a potential reality. Pansy made her buy the week before. Draco walked a fine line between effusively
And strangely, it almost felt like a new opportunity. A chance to do jewelry right, a complimenting her—because truly, she looked divine and Pansy had excellent
chance to succeed this time, where before he’d very much failed. More than that, the taste—and downplaying his interest in her new wardrobe pieces so as not to offend
ring spoke to her tastes, too. The others were all too big and too gaudy and too the way she normally dressed.
offensively garish. She would hate them. But this ruby: it was smaller, understated, But this particular outfit, a tight bodice with little straps and a flaring skirt in a
beautiful. pretty cream color? She looked sun-kissed and good enough to eat. Which he might
Theo must have seen his decision crystalizing, because he clapped his hands have tried getting away with had she not just pointed out the nerves he’d been so
together, grinning that wide, foolish grin again. diligently ignoring.
He plucked the ring from Draco’s fingers. “No, I’m fine.”
“I’ll have any lingering wards or curses broken from it by the end of the day.” She didn’t exactly roll her eyes, but the knowing quirk at the edge of her smile felt
Draco’s eyes widened, then neutralized. It shouldn’t have been surprising like it conveyed much of the same idea. She wound a few curls around her fingers,
information that Nott jewelry might be just as cursed as the sort available in the twisting and pulling and repositioning them.
Malfoy vaults. “Is my hair alright?”
“When are you doing it?” Theo asked. She fought this war every year when humidity made its appearance in the summer,
“Her birthday, I think. I’m finally going to take her to Italy. We’ve—never when muggy afternoons puffed up her curls and left them looking even more wild
successfully made it there.” and untamed than usual. Draco was truly, devastatingly honest when he said, “It’s
Theo sucked in his cheeks, head tilting. “And the wedding?” perfect.”
“I don’t—I don’t know, Theo. Do you think we could get engaged first?” That time she did roll her eyes, but took his arm regardless.
“Just trying to figure out my timelines.” “You do seem a bit nervous,” she added as she reached for a pinch of Floo
“Your—what? Timelines for what?” powder.
Theo’s grin shifted, more of a smirk, definitely something knowing, almost teasing. “I haven’t seen any of them since—well, I did see Potter for a few minutes when
He lifted a brow, casually leaning against a suit of armor. It shifted slightly under his he stopped by the shop a couple of months ago.”
weight, but held. He popped the ring onto his pinky finger, teeth flashing as his smile Poised to toss the powder into the fireplace, Hermione stilled.
broke again. “Harry did what?”
“Oh nothing—just a little something Blaise said.” Theo waved his hand, dismissive. “He was worried about you.”
“All off-hand and ominous like he does sometimes.” “He never mentioned going to see you.”
 450 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 455

Draco gave her arm a light squeeze. “We didn’t exactly uncover any great truths Draco snorted.”Hardly. My inquiry about the open position was summarily
about the nature of sadness. We mostly just—threatened each other. Or perhaps I rejected. Apparently they’ve temporarily filled the position for the year.”
was the only one doing any threatening?” He tilted his head as Hermione finally Theo shrugged, accepted his wand, and followed the Goblin to the vault carts.
tossed the Floo powder down. “Honestly, I can’t remember.” “There’s always next year,” he said. He made a grand, sweeping sort of gesture,
On the other side of the Floo, stepping into Grimmauld Place, the pressure on inviting Draco into the cart first.
Draco’s arm drew his attention back to Hermione. Draco folded himself into it. “Seems doubtful. Though I was rather blandly
“Ron and Lavender are engaged. Did I tell you? I don’t think I did.” recommended to apply in full next March when they're accepting applications again.”
“You did not.” Theo sat next to him, another question, or comment, or something utterly
She wore a distant expression as she scanned the living room, perhaps waiting to be exhausting but likely entirely well-meaning about to spill from his mouth.
greeted. When she looked back up at him, Draco had difficulty discerning the “Let’s not talk about my employment failures.” He cringed, regretting the words as
meaning behind the way her brows drew together but lifted towards the middle, soon as he’d spoken them. He risked a glance at Theo: perpetually and eternally
muscles around her eyes tense, but visibly forced to remain neutral. unemployed, it seemed.
“Well—they are,” she said. “Oh, don’t feel bad. I’ve stopped trying. I’ve decided to call myself an inventor.
Draco blinked, taking a shot at what her expression might mean. Divining it, Gets people to stop asking and it isn’t exactly wrong.”
perhaps. The cart lurched into motion.
“Are you wanting me to be jealous? Or to expect you to be jealous?” “You’re definitely an inventor.”
“What? No. Of course not.” Theo shrugged.
He arched a brow. Several minutes later, their cart came to a screeching, unpleasant halt at the Nott
“Well, maybe a bit. Just in the way that makes you a little”—she made a couple of family vaults. A bit unsteady as he rose, Draco allowed himself a deep, nervous
unintelligible gestures—”handsy, I suppose.” breath as the Goblin accompanying them unlocked and opened the vault.
His other brow joined the arched one, both lifted in a sort of amused surprise. “Thank you,” he said to Theo’s back, standing a bit behind him. Theo turned. “For
“At your godson’s first birthday party?” this. Thank you, Theo.”
With all the faux scandal he could muster, and an overwhelmingly pleased Theo just grinned. A huge, full-face consuming kind of grin. “I literally cannot
sensation bloomed behind his ribs, Draco leaned to her ear. His hands wandered, think of a single better use for any of the junk I have laying around these vaults.”
clinging to her waist, sliding around to her back, finding her spine. Draco followed Theo inside. The Nott heirloom vault looked similar to the Malfoy
“You don’t want me to get handsy, do you, Hermione? Were you hoping I’d one. Of course, the Malfoy vault took several more minutes to reach, deeper in the
mention how there’s no way you’re wearing a bra with this tight little bodice and Gingotts’s cave system. But generally speaking, one vault crammed to bursting with
these very thin straps?” jewelry, priceless artifacts, and rare art looked very similar to the next.
She sucked in a breath, but swatted at his arm. Despite the gray stone walls and the darkness trying to creep in from the caves, the
“Not—right now.” A hint of pink rose high in her cheeks, just enough that he felt whole space had a warm, yellowing glow about it: from the sconces to the glints of
successful in having had some effect on her. “Social engagements do happen to be a gold to the gratitude shining behind Draco’s ribs. It all felt very warm.
lot more entertaining with you around, though. Even those that involve my adorable “This way,” Theo said, leading Draco towards the back of the vault. “We don’t
godson.” have a great deal of jewelry, but I swear I saw some—ah, yes. Here we are.”
“Speaking of”—he pulled her towards the corridor, as it became clear that a Draco joined Theo in front of a tray of rings in all variety of size, cut, color, and
welcome to the Potter's house was too much to expect—”where is he, do you think? obscenity of price and historical value. Theo waved his wand and a fine, golden
I’ve quite missed him.” handwriting scrawled to life above each piece, only adding to the gilded splendor
“You did?” around them.
“I have a gift with children, remember?” “So. They’re tagged by century of acquisition, last known owner, etcetera, etcetera,
Ginny found them in the corridor. She was panting and a touch out of breath, with etcetera. My great grandmother Cecilia apparently enjoyed organizing and cataloguing
the child in question perched on her hip. the family jewels.”
“Just barging in without waiting for a greeting? I thought your pureblood Draco lifted his brows, simultaneously impressed and amused.
sensibilities were above that, Malfoy,” Ginny greeted with a smirk, still a bit winded. “Not a euphemism, I swear,” Theo said, smiling all the same.
It was as if nothing had changed, no time had passed, and they hadn’t slipped oddly Draco stood, staring at the rings for several minutes, long enough that Theo began
out of touch after being thrown into each other's orbits for so long. shifting in place, weight transferring from foot to foot. Finally, tentatively, Draco
“Making guests wait an offensive amount of time before you’ll deign to grace them gave into his impulse towards the first one that caught his eye. A gold band with an
with your presence? How gauche, Weaslette.” oval shaped ruby surrounded by an orbit of tiny diamonds. He picked it up,
examining it.
 Beginning and end 451

+.333, +.333, +.333 Ginny snorted and handed James off to him without preamble. Hermione made a
disappointed sound from beside him.
“Enjoy your insults while you can, Malfoy. Harry and I are trying for number two.”
S E PT E M B E R Draco couldn’t bring himself to sneer, not while smiling at James and how absurdly
large he’d grown in the months since Draco last saw him. He looked so much more
person-shaped now.
“That is far, far more information than I ever wanted to know about Potter’s sex

D
RACO FOUND THEO LEANING AGAINST THE ENORMOUS life. Thank you for the nightmares, Weaslette.”
stone walls that made up Gringott’s gleaming white exterior. Draco “Speaking of Harry, I need to go figure out where he and Ron have run off to. You
appreciated timelines, generally abided by them to a fastidious, almost two are in charge of the birthday boy.” She gestured with a pointing finger between
obsessive degree. But he’d had trouble pulling himself away from Hermione at the them, as if assigning responsibility with a look, and took a single step away before
Floo that morning. Nor did he have a good reason for his struggle to disentangle faltering. She turned back and looked directly at Draco.
himself, quite literally, from her hair. “I already caved and let him have cake. I’m well aware of your cake sneaking
She had plans to meet her parents for lunch. He would have attended if he hadn’t reputation, Malfoy. Don’t give him any more sugar.”
made this appointment with Theo two weeks prior. Something about saying goodbye Draco didn’t. Though he very seriously wanted to the moment they stepped into
to Hermione on a weekend, the time they usually spent together, had him holding on the bustling kitchen filled with far more red hair than he generally liked to expose
a little tighter. Threading his fingers through her curls, coiling them around his himself to. James’s grabby little hands immediately started reaching out towards the
knuckles, tugging just enough to angle her mouth to his. long central table, laden in cakes and cookies and other general confectionaries that
Objectively speaking, if one were keeping track of time and timeliness, one might Draco wanted for himself and would have been very pleased to share with James.
say he kissed her for too long, crowding her against the fireplace and losing himself Hermione steered them to the far end of the table instead, eyeing him with a far
in the warm, lustful fog that descended like a summer squall whenever his mouth too amused smile that told him she knew exactly what he was thinking. Frankly, he
found her skin. He found it difficult not to lose himself in the wonderful, glorious didn’t appreciate it.
ease that living with her again, having her again, brought him. “It’s not like I can have some in front of him,” he said as a sort of defense. “I will
Before hadn’t been bad, not by any stretch of the imagination. But only with the resist.” James babbled in his lap, occasionally stumbling onto real words but mostly
benefit of hindsight could Draco see the things that had been hanging over them: his distracted by the transfigured spoons Hermione charmed into dancing on the table
parents’ prejudices, her concerns about professionalism, the topics they avoided in an for him.
attempt to protect each other. But now, after, certainty silenced all that doubt. They’d “You poor, suffering soul. How will you survive without your sweets?”
picked, the two of them. Decided. They agreed, decisions in his and hers, that they He narrowed his eyes. “Such little sympathy.”
were willing to pay what must be paid to have their happiness together. And She giggled, smiled wide at James, and chatted happily with the birthday boy until
sometimes that cost came in the form of extended kissing when one had other places Molly Weasley came to take him away.
to be. Other times, it came in the form of late night conversations about the things Draco didn’t miss the strained, almost twitchy expression on Molly’s face as James
they expected of each other, needed from each other, and asked of each other. The changed hands.
kissing was enjoyable, but the conversation necessary. “I might have expressly forbidden her from interrogating you today,” Hermione
He’d detached himself with just enough time for her to hop through the Floo to said.
her parents’ newly connected fireplace, perfectly on time, though not several minutes Draco spared very little thought for members of the Weasley clan, as a general rule,
early as she’d planned. so he hadn’t put much consideration into whether the matriarch might want to have
Draco, on the other hand, had to Floo to the Leaky and then walk at a sensible words with him. Belatedly, he now realized he owed Hermione a debt for preventing
pace down Diagon Alley in order to meet with Theo. such an unpleasant eventuality from unfolding. Perhaps he could eat his dessert off
He opened his mouth to offer some kind of excuse, only to have Theo cut him off. her later. She might enjoy that, and it would be fun for him, too. It felt like an
“I really don’t want to know why you’re late,” he said, before turning to the doors. appropriate thanks.
He paused, a half twist back to Draco. He tilted his head just enough to indicate he Neville found them in the corridor, on their way to escape some of the hustle and
intended to point with his posture. “She’s mussed your hair, mate.” bustle that a kitchen full of Weasleys easily dissolved into. He offered a harried
Theo almost looked amused as he pushed open golden doors and entered the bank. “hello,” something about not being able to stay long, and hoisted a large, poorly
“Not off to teach youngsters this year, I take it?” Theo asked as he handed over his wrapped gift beneath his arm.
wand and coordinated a trip to his vault. Draco carried a slice of cake on a small plate in his hands. He nearly dropped it
when Neville added before he left, in a completely casual tone, that Hogwarts had a
 452 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 453

temporary potions position needing filling for the upcoming year, and that Draco “Look, we’ve accepted it, alright? We’re pretty much stuck with you, yeah?”
should consider inquiring. Potter’s words were a strange echo, bridging memory and time and conversations
Draco didn’t know what to think of that, had never really thought about something long since concluded between completely different parties. He’d heard that before,
like that, before. Hermione simply smiled at him, didn’t disagree with Neville’s when Hermione had said it about his parents. He’d been hopeful, then, struck by the
assessment, and led them into the living room. implied permanence in her words. Now, that permanence didn’t have the same
Sinking onto a large sofa, Draco set his plate on his knee just as Hermione turned novelty. It had become a fact. But that it could be acknowledged so freely, and by the
to him. Potter and Weasley walked into the room, throwing a knowing sort of look likes of Harry Potter, debilitated Draco for a moment.
their way. “Yes,” he finally said. “Unfortunately, we are stuck together.”
“I might have forbidden Molly from interrogating you. But the boys insisted.” “Don’t look so put out about it, Malfoy. We’re fun,” Potter said, smiling again,
“Please tell me that was a very poorly executed attempt at a joke,” he said, glancing annoying again. Draco indulged in an eye roll. “You like my wife, at least.”
over at an approaching bespectacled menace and his ginger sidekick. Draco looked “And Lav says your tea leaves are always interesting.” Draco didn’t so much
down at his slice of cake. Well fuck. appreciate Weasley’s input.
Potter sank down onto the sofa next to Draco. Weasley followed suit on “I know you like Quidditch,” Potter continued. “We could try playing sometime.”
Hermione’s other side. A snug fit, the four of them. Hermione leaned in, whispering Draco found he’d much prefer lancing boils off the victims of gruesome potions
quiet words in his ear. accidents.
“Please remember that I love you, and I really couldn’t stop them, and I honestly Weasley clapped him on the shoulder again. “I’m not even going to try to convince
think this will be good for the three of you.” you to like me,” he said. “That should count for something.”
Draco turned his head, nose brushing up against her cheek. “You’re a beautiful, Oddly, it did.
terrible traitor.” He looked up to find Ginny and Hermione standing in the doorway, both failing to
She laughed, placing a hand on his chest for a moment as she looked torn, chewing suppress smiles. Something about his face must have tipped them over the edge,
at the inside of her lip. Slowly, she stood, took one large step away from the sofa, and because when Draco made eye contact with Hermione, she doubled over in laughter.
then several more in rapid succession until she slipped out into the corridor. At the same moment, one of the other gingers—George—snapped a photograph
Weasley rose enough to scoot into the space she’d formerly occupied, leaving from behind Hermione, forever cementing in history an image of Draco stuck on a
Draco rather distastefully sandwiched and abandoned. Weasley blew out a breath, sofa between Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley.
fingers drumming on his knee. He’d have that photo burned. Camera dissolved in an acid potion. And if
“Ginny was looking for Hermione.” obliviation wasn’t such a sore subject with Hermione, he’d probably have the lot of
“I’m sure she was,” Draco said. “This is it, then?” them forget this day ever happened.
“Seems necessary,” Potter said. As it stood, Draco could do none of those things. Not if he wanted to keep
“Is it, though?” watching Hermione laugh so freely, clutching Ginny for support, and wiping the
From Weasley, “She was depressed for months.” happiest sort of tears from the corners of her eyes.
“It was rather unfortunately mutual, if you must know.”
From his periphery, Draco saw Potter’s face screw up: mouth and nose and brows
all fighting to form some kind of unknowable expression. Potter continued to stare
straight ahead when he spoke again. “Well, we just wanted to make sure that it’s not
going to happen again.”
“It’s not.”
On Draco’s right, he felt—and saw, just a touch in his peripheral vision—Weasley
turn towards him. Potter did the same, a smile inexplicably planted on his face.
“You’ve got a rotten poker face, Potter. How do you perform your duties as an
Auror with a shit-eating grin like that?”
Weasley sighed and slapped Draco on the shoulder with far more familiarity than
he’d earned.
“She’s already made us promise not to be too hard on you,” he said.
Draco snorted before he could withhold the derision.
Potter pushed his stupid glasses up. If he’d just get a pair that fit properly, he
wouldn’t have to touch them all the fucking time. Draco resolved to convince
Hermione to get him new glasses for Christmas.
 Beginning and end 473

Something he could spend his whole life enjoying. With a jolt, as his belt buckle
clacked metal on metal, he realized he quite literally could spend his whole life
enjoying this. Because it actually was his life. And Hermione had promised to spend it
with him.

Near the end of the month, Draco stepped through the Floo to find Hermione
sitting on their green sofa, Crookshanks curled in her lap. Concern, swallowed by
confusion, regurgitated by dread, ascended in his throat.
He always arrived home from work before her. He left before her and returned
before her; it had become their routine, a simple consistency he could count on, a
predictability he could expect in the absence of the other sorts of routines he’d spend
a lifetime abiding by.
“Why—are you—is everything alright?”
“It’s fine,” Hermione said, scratching Crookshanks behind his ears. “I took part of
the day off. Could you sit with me for a moment?”
Despite her smile, despite her words, despite what felt like a painfully forced air of
nonchalance, the room chilled. Anxiety shot in disconcerting pulses from Draco’s
chest, tingling at his fingertips as he crossed the room and sat next to her.
Hermione picked up a piece of parchment from the coffee table—well, one of their
coffee tables, as they’d yet to decide what to do with the superfluous one—and
handed it to him.
Draco squinted, trying to read the fine, blurry writing.
“Have you considered that you might need reading glasses,” Hermione asked, tone
instantly shifted from what it had been a moment before. Curiosity had stolen her
focus.
“What?” His head tilted, looking at her with confusion.
“You always squint when you’re reading. And you get headaches sometimes. And
you often do this thing—” She mimed bringing an object closer to her face, then
further away again in rapid succession. “Plus, you have a lot of complaints about the
size of the text in The Count of Monte Cristo.”
“I—do not. I do not.”
“I really think you might.”
“I have perfect vision. I was a bloody seeker, if you’ll recall.”
“Well, for one, we’re not teenagers anymore.” Draco resisted the impulse to cringe,
to gasp, to be mortally offended. He was fairly certain this beautiful woman, the love
of his life, his very favorite human on the entire fucking planet, had just implied
something unbecoming about him aging. “And two, being a seeker is more about
being far-sighted. Which you are. You can see long distances just fine.”
Draco frowned. Sometimes her logic had a very inconvenient component he didn’t
enjoy being on the receiving end of. He looked back down at the parchment and
caught himself before he adjusted its distance from his face. Squinting, he leaned his
head away, just a touch.
She snatched the parchment from his hands.
“I’ll just summarize it, you silly, stubborn man.”
 474 Mightbewriting

He lifted his brows, uncertain if he ought to be amused, offended, or some strange

combination of the two.
“I disclosed to my employer that we are engaged,” she said with a bit of a heaving
breath,
“Oh.”
“I’m being removed from the manor—well, Malfoy Manor.” Draco’s heart sank.
He opened his mouth, searching for something he might say. “But that’s ok—I think
it’s time, anyway,” she said. “There’s not that much more than needs to be done.
And well, if I’m being honest, I think I’d like to get out of there. Nothing has changed
per se, since Christmas.” She glanced up at him with a sheepish sort of look. “I still
don’t see them, your parents. But it’s nerve-racking, more so than it used to be.”
“I—I don’t know what to say, Hermione. You’re sure this is alright? You’re alright?”
“I told them because I hoped they’d reassign me—conflicts of interest and all.”
Draco snorted. “Hardly.”
“I’ve been reassigned, starting in December.”
“Where to?”
Uncertainty melted from her features, a glint behind her eyes instead.
“Nott Estate.”
Draco matched her grin with his own, breath spilling in laughter that gushed from
overflowing lungs. “That’s perfect—fucking hell, brilliant. Theo will love it. You—
gods, you’re never going to finish, though.”
She laughed too, reaching out to prevent Crookshanks from escaping the sofa,
trapping the cat in her arms. He leveled his yellow eyes at Draco, perhaps to lay
blame for his current circumstances or to plea for help.
“Theo is going to spend literally his entire day, every day, pestering you.”
She scratched at the sweet spot at the base of Crookshank’s skull, temporarily
quelling his feline ire.
“So, it won’t be any different than working with you.” She smirked as she said it.
Indignation flared in two distinct waves. First, “I did not pester. I observed.” A
pause, the second wave. “And I should hope it ends up a little different. You can’t
fall in love with Theo; you’ve already agreed to marry me.”
Both waves, evidently, Hermione opted to ignore.
“It feels a bit like a bookend. I’m closing my chapter at Malfoy Manor.
Permanently, I hope. I put in my time.”
Crookshanks made a feeble noise, twisting his little body in an attempt to escape
Hermione’s insistent affections. Draco reached out and pried the cat from her grip,
surprised when Crookshanks leapt across the cushions and settled himself on
Draco’s lap in a tight ball, cautious gaze now fixed on Hermione.
She narrowed her eyes, made a prim, hilarious huffing sound, and crossed her arms.
Draco could see the question, the annoyance that her cat—arguably theirs, these
days—sought him out for refuge. Draco had no interest in revealing that he’d found
the secret to earning Crookshanks’s affections was in adopting the Theo method: an
abundance of treats.
Draco briefly considered rubbing it in, a little jab that the cat actually, genuinely
seemed to like him. But a more important thought rose to the surface, demanding
acknowledgement.
 Beginning and end 475

“Why did you go back? Why agree to go back there, after everything?” Draco
swallowed the shameful feeling floating with his curiosities, tangled and inextricable
and tasting terrible, rancid. “After everything that happened to you there, because of
my family. Why go back?”
All these years later, her fingers found her left arm, exposed, unmarred. “I didn’t
want to let her win, you know that. Or your family. Or the manor. I—wanted to beat
that place. Prove it didn’t have anything over me. And I can hardly be upset about it.
I got something rather lovely out of it, in the end.”
“Oh?”
Crookshanks scampered, clambering from Draco’s lap and zipping out of the room
at Hermione’s quick movement. Suddenly on her knees, leaning back on her heels,
perched just beside him, her hands found his face, fingers cradled beneath his jaw.
“I got you,” she said.
He leaned into her touch, a small sway as her hands held him.
“I suppose that’s not the worst trade off.”
“Is that understatement?” Her smile draped him in a contentment that he grew
more and more accustomed to each day, realizing he got to keep it. “From Draco
Malfoy?” She paused, an exaggerated thinking face pinching her features: lips, nose,
brows. “You’re getting better at it.”
Draco reached for her, finally powering the limbs that had gone limp in surprise at
her quick shift. His left hand found her waist, his right, her legs, maneuvering her to
sit, partly draped over him. He pulled her close.
“You promise everything is alright? With this change? You’re not worried about
having been pulled from the manor?” She was shaking her head before he’d even
finished his barrage of questions. He couldn’t escape the memory of her face, years
ago, when his parents had threatened to have her removed from the manor. “It
doesn’t reflect poorly on your career?”
Another shake of her head, sending her curls swaying and dancing and spiraling
with her momentum.
“My job is highly specialized. It requires training and experience. But I’m not the
only person trained to do it. Someone else will finish Malfoy Manor, and I’m not put
out about it at all.”
His fingers pressed deeper into the flesh at her hip. “If you insist.”
“And it’s honestly a rather happy accident that I get to do Theo’s estate. It’s been
fairly low priority—”
“—Nott Senior would have been terribly insulted—”
She snorted. “—but getting to see Theo every day is hardly the worst outcome for
a reassignment. It won’t be so bad at all.”
“I don’t know, Granger,” he whispered, dropping a light kiss to her shoulder
because he could, because it was right there, all tanned and exposed and dotted with a
square of freckles that reminded him of the pegasus constellation. “Theo has a lot of
illegal stuff. He joked about trying to acquire Chimaera eggs once.”
Hermione stiffened in his lap.
“Those are a Class A—he was kidding, right?”
“With Theo? It’s hard to tell.”
 +.500, +.500, +.500
NOVEMBER

D
RACO PREFERRED DOING MOST THINGS WITH Hermione.
This included unpleasant, unfortunate, uninteresting visits to Gringotts in
his nearly year-long quest towards official disinheritance. The whole
process, inherently isolating by way of divorcing oneself from one’s family, was eased
by the pressure of her hand in his, sitting next to him in a Goblin’s office.
Hermione’s presence meant they offered him champagne again, too. A perk, he
supposed, of being a war hero. Evidently such perks were similar to those of being
obscenely wealthy. He crammed his instinctual, petty, jealous reaction to such a fact
into the farthest corner of his mind, banished. He’d already decided, picked her over
money and influence. He wouldn’t allow himself a moment of regret.
“The Malfoys have noted a missing, priceless artifact from their collections that
they require be returned,” the Goblin said. Draco hadn’t bothered remembering his
name, but internally winced when he realized Hermione probably had. He found it
difficult to engage in niceties when voluntarily stripping himself of what accounted to
most of his power and authority in the world.
Her hand in his: it really, really helped.
“What is it?” Draco asked. He couldn’t fathom what else they wanted, or thought
he still had. “I didn’t take any other jewelry than those pieces I’ve already returned. I
have in writing—your writing—that they’ve rescinded their claim on the remaining
property from inside my flat.”
The Goblin cleared his throat. His small, clawed hand traced the parchment on his
desk. The scratching sound it generated pressed directly against Draco’s eardrums,
agitating. “It has come to their attention that the object in question was not in your
flat. It is something of great value to the Malfoy Estate.”
That only confused Draco more, temples aching from the force of pushing his
brows together. The Goblin tapped a finger to the parchment, reading from it. “A
first edition copy of Hogwarts, A History with editor annotations.”
Hermione’s hand tightened in his, then dropped away as she covered her mouth to
mask the tiny, surprised noise she’d made.
“That—that was a gift,” Draco forced out, stomach plummeting to the floor.
“Given years ago.”
“It is an artifact and heirloom of registered historical importance to the Malfoy
Estate and the wizarding world at large. Unless formally released from ownership by
the Estate, it cannot be given as a gift.”
Of all the things. Of all the fucking thing his parents might have chosen to plant
their pettiness on. Of all the crops they might slash and burn in their war of attrition,
in their pummeling of his pride, they’d picked something that meant very little to
them, but so, so much to Hermione.
 Beginning and end 477

Fury unfurled in his chest, latching onto lingering hurt, damaged pride, and the loss
of his sense of self. It swelled beneath his skin, slipping into all the spaces between
flesh and muscle and bone, filling up every last crevice available for diversion towards
rage. Towards hatred.
His parents didn’t care about that book. Not in the slightest. He’d neither
exaggerated nor engaged in willful ignorance all those years ago when he’d said that
he and Hermione were likely the only people who even knew the thing existed. They
couldn’t take it. He wouldn’t let them.
His nostrils flared, pulling in a huge breath as his lips pressed so tightly together
they’d started tingling from lack of blood flow. He’d done so well, for so long. He’d
been so mature. He’d tried so hard, after he exploded—quite literally—at Christmas
dinner, to handle this disinheritance with the grace Hermione deserved of him. But
this? This was too much.
Hermione’s hand found his again, tugged at it, pulling his attention to her. He
turned his head to find a perplexing emotion swimming in her eyes.
“It’s alright, Draco. We can return it.”
“It’s not alright. We shouldn’t have to return it. I gave it to you.”
The Goblin tried to say something, a quick interruption that sounded suspiciously
like it was never eligible for giving. Draco snapped.
“I heard you the first fucking time.” His free hand slammed down on the desk as
punctuation, sending a sharp sting through his palm. The pain braced him, a
reminder that this nightmare was real. Reality, not imagined.
“Draco, it’s alright,” Hermione said again, words rearranged, hitting him at a
slightly different angle. He looked to her, and despite the anger strangling him, he
saw truth in her intent. She meant it. She meant when she said they could give it
back.
And that made it worse. Much worse. His parents had taken enough, too much,
and still, they wanted more. How dare they.
Hermione angled herself, knees swinging towards his chair. She brought her other
arm over to him, both hands holding his.
“Calm down, Draco. I’m not—I’m not upset, it’s alright.”
“You should be upset.”
He yanked his hands from hers. He didn’t want her help. Not right now.
“Do you—do you need to occlude?”
“Do I—what?” His head snapped back around to watch her. He half expected to
see his own anger reflected back at him. But she looked calm, concerned.
It sounded like a trap. But didn’t look like one.
“To help you—it’s alright, if you do, need to, that is.” She reached for his hands
again. “This isn’t worth being angry about. It’s a bit—emotionally charged, I know.
So if you need to use Occlumency to help control that, you should.” She inhaled a
shaky breath, his first sighting of her own cracks. “Or don’t. You’re allowed to be
angry, if you want to be. I just don’t think this is worth it.”
The Goblin interrupted again, undeterred by Draco’s reaction or the revelatory sort
of moment he’d been experiencing, watching as Hermione gave him permission, gave
him understanding, to use Occlumency as a tool if he needed it.
 478 Mightbewriting

“The Malfoys have informed the bank of your scheduled meeting with the
Ministry’s Inheritance and Estate Magic team at the end of this month. They have
most graciously allowed you to return the book at that meeting.”
Draco’s parents had wormed their way beneath his skin and irritated him in a way
that twitched his fingers, desperate to rip at his flesh just to get them out. He might
have liked to be the kind of person who didn’t need a little bit of Occlumency just
then. But as it stood, he wasn’t that kind of person. He had limits on what he could
control without magic, without the tools he’d so carefully cobbled together.
His lips already felt a little numb, smashed together in emphasis of his clenched jaw
and the smothered vitriol he wanted to sling. He latched onto that numbness,
carefully, letting the tiniest bit of ice freeze his veins, cool his anger. He chilled, froze
the fury, flaked it away. He exhaled, finding logic in place of his anger. It felt a bit like
Hermione, her sensibilities brushing up against his.
He isolated the betrayal next, the feeling that his parents had done this
intentionally, with purpose to cause distress, to hurt. How had they even realized it
was missing, anyway? Had they conducted a full fucking— more anger, isolate, flake—
inventory of every last object in the estate? They probably did, not trusting him. He
supposed they were justified, since they’d found the book missing. But the mistrust
struck differently than the disinheritance did. He’d thought they might force a sort of
civility in this. Perhaps not. Perhaps even that was too much to expect.
Draco remained calm, though a bit numb, through the remainder of the meeting.
They scheduled a ten year payment plan to return every last drop of the inheritance
he’d already spent. He refused to live in their debt—any of their debt—ever again.
As the issue of the first edition copy of Hogwarts, A History reared its head again, it
hurt less this time. Hermione squeezed his hand, repeated herself for the umpteenth
time.
“It’s alright. I’ll give it back.” She smiled, and he started letting the warmth back in.
Different warmth, not anger this time. The Goblin left the meeting room, leaving
them alone. And it was done. There was nothing left to be angry about, nothing he
could control, at least. Hermione turned to him. “I never really wanted it anyway, if
you’ll recall.”
Draco smiled, Occlumency melting. “Oh, you wanted it. Very, very badly. You’re
just far too noble to take something so precious and rare for yourself. Honestly, it’s
probably for the best that I’m disinheriting. You’d have made a terrible manor lady.
No inclinations towards hoarding precious and rare things.”
Hermione stood from her chair, pulling his hand with her, forcing him to stand as
well. “Isn’t hoarding precious and rare things something dragons do?” She lifted her
brows, lips pursed in a terrible attempt at concealing a smile. “You’d have done
enough for the both of us, I think.”
Draco laughed, feeling closer to equalized than he had since their meeting began.
She let go of his hand, pressing her palm to the center of his chest instead.
Suddenly much more serious.
“But it is,” she said. “A good thing you’re disinheriting.”
And that was it, her statement, full stop.
“It is.”
They didn’t need to qualify with the why’s. They both knew. And they’d decided.
 Beginning and end 479

“I want my surprise now.”

Even from his place beside her as they walked, witness only to her profile, Draco
saw the exasperated—in a fond sort of way, he assumed—eye roll Hermione gave
him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder as they walked, shoving his other hand
in his pocket. He leaned into her hair.
“You think I’m kidding; I’m not. I think I’ve earned it, haven’t I? That horrid
meeting at Gringotts and now this?”
Hermione broke, laughing, not even bothering to stifle her giggles as she led them
to a bench in Diagon Alley. They sat, and Draco waited patiently, ever-so-patiently,
for her to surmount her laughter.
“You think you’ve earned your surprise?” she finally asked, lifting a brow at him in
an effective attempt at enacting his brand of snark. “You’ve done nothing but
complain and grumble since we left Gringotts.”
“Because you sprung a surprise appointment on me—on the weekend—after I
already had to deal with Goblins and my disinheritance.” He hadn’t yet decided if he
felt real annoyance or affected, faux annoyance. They bled together sometimes, those
feelings. “Honestly how dare you, you presumptuous witch. You made me get my
eyes examined.”
He crossed his arms, knowing instantly how petulant and ridiculous he must look.
He let himself smile at that. She smiled, too.
“And for good reason,” she said.
If she wanted to rub it in, he’d decide on real annoyance. Playful annoyance was
reserved for witches who didn’t revel in their victories.
“I only agreed to attend the unexpected eye exam you set for me because you
promised you had a surprise for me afterwards that you promised I would definitely
like.”
Draco leaned against the bench, spread his arm across the back. He’d been hoping
for something involving lingerie. Perhaps Pansy had forced her to buy more. He
didn’t have especially strong feelings about Pansy’s war on Hermione’s wardrobe; he
could take or leave her input there. But he did —very much— enjoy the sudden
abundance of laces and satins and tiny little things that made Hermione look very
imminently fuckable every time she put them on.
So he’d entertained Hermione’s insistence that they stop by a healer’s office in
Diagon Alley, where she’d reserved an appointment over concern for his eyesight.
He didn’t expect anything to come of it, except for a peek at whatever pretty lingerie
he hoped she’d worn that day.
Then the healer waved his wand once, adjusted several floating spells around
Draco’s head and hummed a little mmhmm sort of noise before saying, “Ah, yes.
Looks like you’re far-sighted. I’ll show you to our selection of reading glasses. They
should help quite a bit.”
Hermione, of course, found the whole less-than-five-minute ordeal endlessly
amusing, suppressing giggles as Draco perused a selection of glasses he had no
interest in perusing.
 480 Mightbewriting

She pulled something from her coat pocket, visible breath puffing in the cold air
between them.
“You may need your reading glasses for this,” she said with a wicked, evil,
absolutely gleaming smirk spreading across her face. “Why don’t you pop them on?”
“I didn’t take you for a sadist, Hermione Granger. I will not put them on. I didn’t
even want to purchase them.”
She frowned, part pout, part genuine disappointment.
“But you look so dashing in them.”
He hadn’t expected that. His head quirked, a brow lifting.
“I what?”
“They looked good on you.” Her cheeks were already stained pink from the cold,
but he didn’t think he imagined the way her flush deepened, rosy and lovely. “Very
academic. Studious.” Her voice dropped, quieter at the end, as if she’d said more
than she intended to say and suddenly found herself wildly self-conscious of that fact.
But she did say it, and now Draco had a whole slew of thoughts barreling through his
brain in response to that reaction.
“Is that so? Well I—we might need to save that particular revelation for later, I
think. Perhaps when we aren’t in public.”
It felt good to have a little control again, after losing so much of it in their meeting
at Gringotts, in being forced to face his (alleged) far-sightedness, in still not knowing
what tiny surprise waited in the box she held between them.
Hermione’s embarrassment faded, replaced by that fond sort of exasperation she so
often had with him. He loved loved loved riling this woman up.
“Fine. Here. You are so exhausting.”
Draco took the box from her, almost made a joke about jewelry but decided against
it, and opened it up.
He frowned, more out of confusion than anything else, as he pulled some kind of
muggle technology from within. He turned the device over in his hand, opened it at
the hinge. It lit up; Hermione’s name popped up on the screen. He stared. Marveled.
Confused. A bit concerned.
Hermione leaned closer, pointed to one of the buttons. “Push that one,” she said.
“When I send you a message, you push that button to read it.”
The screen changed, showing up what he assumed was her message. His head tilted
even further, ear nearly touching his shoulder. “What—does that mean?”
“It’s a heart, see? It’s how you send love with what’s available on the keyboard.”
“Huh. Looks like a distorted rune for patience and a three, to me.”
“It’s”—she huffed, breaking off—”you’re so exasperating.” She said it like it was a
bad thing, but she smiled at him all the same. “Maybe you’ll see it better if you squint.
Or rather, don’t wear your glasses and just hold it close to your face. Maybe you’ll see
the heart, then.” She crossed her arms. “Not that you’ve earned it.”
She was joking, mostly, but he could tell she wanted him to have it. Use it. So,
Draco tried. He cleared his throat and, on a bench in the middle of Diagon Alley, he
asked the great Hermione Granger how to work a muggle cell phone.
“What do I do with it?”
“Well, I’ll send you things on it, probably. You just need to push the button I
showed you to open my messages. And I’ll show you how to keep it charged back at
 Beginning and end 481

the flat.” Her face lit up. “I bought another magic to electricity converter so we don’t
have to steal from the toaster.”
“A pointless invention.”
“Hush. It’s convenient and you love it. I know you do.”
She leaned into him again, peering over the phone. Her hair tumbled over his arms
and for as ridiculous as he felt, fiddling with a bit of technology he had no real use or
inclination for, he liked how she smiled when she showed him what to do with it.
“If you push this button,” she said, “then this one, you can select someone to make
a voice call. I’ve added myself and my parents already. I can add Harry, too. He has
one. But I wasn’t sure if your silly, prattish, sensibilities would allow for such a
thing.”
“If I’m going to have three people and only three people in this little torture box,
let’s not have Harry fucking Potter be one of them.”
Hermione rolled her eyes, but slid closer to him anyway, likely in hopes of leaching
body heat in the chilly November air. He’d done nothing but needle at her for the
last hour or so and yet, even when she rolled her eyes and called him exasperating, it
was done with such fondness.
Was this what it was like? To be in love with someone and not have to fight so hard
for it anymore? To not be at odds with other people over it? Was this what it felt like
to be allowed something good, something happy? He slid his arm from the back of
the bench, wrapping it around her shoulder and tugging her close.
“Try a voice call,” she said. “Try calling me. Reception might be a little spotty in
the middle of a magical area, but I think it should connect.”
With an arched brow, he pushed the button for her name. The screen changed,
now displaying calling Hermione Granger. She motioned for him to hold the device to
his ear, which he did, feeling absurd.
He probably looked like an idiot, holding a little muggle device to the side of his
face.
Hermione’s phone lit up, and so did her face. A huge smile broke across her
features. She flipped her phone open, putting it to her ear.
“Hello,” she said.
He heard her more because she sat right next to him than through the device itself,
which mostly sounded crackly and broken and generally unpleasant in his ear. But he
played along.
“Hello,” he said, trying to match her in tone and volume. He didn’t want to look
like any more of an idiot than he had to.
Although, if he really thought about it, that spell had long since been cast. They
were sitting on a bench, staring at each other, both holding silly muggle magic boxes
to their ears.
“I love you,” she said and if it wasn’t the most perfect fucking moment, Draco
didn’t know what was. He supposed he was allowed to look a bit like an idiot. For
her, at least.
“I love you, too.”
“Are you ready to go home?”
He nodded, still smiling, so warm despite the weather.
She flipped her phone shut.
So did he.
 482 Mightbewriting

They arrived at the Ministry twenty minutes early. Anxiety wouldn’t allow for
anything later, battering Draco’s bones and crunching them to dust. He felt drawn
and quartered and bled utterly dry in anticipation of it, of this.
Neither he nor Hermione had seen his parents in nearly a year, not since the
terrible, explosive, Christmas dinner that nearly ruined everything. A year. In some
ways, it felt like no time had passed at all. Those first several months had a most
unreal, lurching sort of quality to them. Time seemed to surge forward and fall back
and twist and turn in such a way that it sometimes felt like Draco blinked in one
month and by the next blink, another month had passed him by. He supposed grief
did that, mourning the loss of a relationship and a life that had been so precious, so
dear to him.
But he had her now, again, hand held in his with a near-deadly force. As they
walked into the Ministry, he supposed he didn’t need circulation in his fingertips
anyway, not if it meant providing an outlet for Hermione’s stress.
“It will be fine,” he said. “The spellwork should be quick. They—this isn’t entirely
unheard of. More and more old families are having disagreements like this.”
“But we still have to see them. Face them,” Hermione said between what he
suspected were intended to be deep, calming breaths. He worried she might
accidentally pass out if she kept it up.
“I know. I don’t like it, either. But blood magic, wards, lines of inheritance and
responsibility in estate affairs—it’s all tied up in the family magic quite literally in my
blood.”
They stopped at the end of a long hallway, pushed open a heavy door and spoke to
the receptionist waiting inside. With no delay, she ushered them into an entirely
utilitarian conference room. Barren and sterile and devoid of distractions. Draco
pulled out a chair for Hermione as they settled, waiting.
“It feels so empty in here,” Hermione said, tapping her fingers at the arm of her
chair. “I—I think I always assumed that old family magic had a sort of archaic,
esoteric quality to it. Maybe I expected giant carved stone circles and sacred springs
and blessed earth or something of the sort.”
Draco snorted. “Once upon a time, maybe. By now, most of it’s in our blood. And
that can be anywhere.”
She made a thoughtful sound, new information catalogued in that brain of hers.
She reached into her bag and placed Hogwarts, A History on the table between them.
Draco’s heart seized, hating this. Hating that they had to give it back when the one
person in the world who would love it more than anyone sat right there, ready to
relinquish ownership.
“You had the chance to read it, right?” He felt ridiculous the moment he’d spoken
the question aloud. Hermione laughed. “The exaggerated eye roll doesn’t feel
necessary,” he said. “Dare I suggest, it’s a touch offensive.”
She only rolled her eyes again, lobbing him with a smile.
“I read it several times. I love it, of course. The annotations were—lovely.” Lovely
came out on a wistful breath, exhaled with wishes, he assumed, of not having to give
 Beginning and end 483

it up. “It was a perfect gift, a wonderful gift. Even if I only got to keep it for a short
time.”
The sincerity in her tone hurt more than if she hadn’t meant it, Draco decided.
“What’s this?” he asked, flipping a ribbon poking out from between the pages. He
didn’t recall it having a bookmark.
“Oh, thank you— I nearly forgot.” She cracked the book open and pulled out a
length of green satin.
It took Draco a moment, watching her wind the ribbon absently around her palm.
And then it clicked.
“Is that—is that the ribbon I conjured for you? The day you gave me my wand
back?”
She looked down at the ribbon wrapped around her hand, then back up to him,
nodding slowly. She smiled, eyes a touch downturned as she watched him with what
looked like a sudden bout of unexpected emotion.
“It is,” she confirmed. The nod had been enough, but she forged ahead regardless.
“I’ve been using it as a bookmark in here for years.”
His chest, still so tight from seeing the book, from knowing they had to give it
back, unclenched, warmth spiraling outward. To be overcome by such a sensation,
such love; what a gift. He lifted his wand and sent the ribbon twisting into her hair
again, tying it at the nape.
Her eyes fluttered shut, just briefly, long enough that he felt it, too. It almost felt
like occupying two moments in his life at once: years before, conjuring a ribbon
meant as commentary on the state of her hair, and in the present, doing it again as he
prepared to give up the last of what he had left, but knowing he would still have her.
Lucius and Narcissa walked into the conference room with a Ministry
Representative at exactly the time they were expected to arrive: not a minute earlier,
not a minute later.
Draco didn’t look at them as they entered, couldn’t tear his eyes from the wood
grain table which he suspected was actually nothing of the sort. It was probably
plastic, or particle board, or something else equally as cost-saving and mundane,
topped to make it look like a solid slab of wood.
His parents sat opposite them. The Ministry representative took her place at the
head of the table. Hermione hadn’t moved. Draco couldn’t recall breathing.
Finally, he looked up.
First, a glance at his father. Grey meeting grey, a clashing of steel. Draco refused to
balk, refused to give even just the tiniest bit. Much as he didn’t want to think any
such thought, the first observation Draco’s brain provided him was: Lucius looked
better, healthier. A smaller, even more furious part of him lamented that such an
observation comforted him, in a way, a way he hated. He couldn’t escape it, concern
for his father, not in proximity, at least.
Draco straightened his spine, pressing it flush against the back of his chair, muscles
pulling each vertebrae as tall as he could sit. He broke eye contact first, in control,
not in deference. Perhaps the pleasure he got out of feeling in control could be
labeled petty, but as it so happened, he felt a bit petty.
He shifted to look at his mother. Her posture, her gaze, everything about her
projected much less rigidity than Lucius. She looked sad. And that hurt; it hurt worse.
Her eyes were always softer, anyway. That pretty blue he sometimes wished he had
 484 Mightbewriting

for himself. Draco swallowed against a painful tightness squeezing at the back of his
throat.
Author’s Note
He turned his head further, finding Hermione at his side. She might have been
looking at his parents, or perhaps past them, through them. But she turned to meet
his gaze and released a small breath. She tapped her pinky, ring, middle, and index
finger on the tabletop in a slow succession, just once per finger. Finally, on another
deep breath, she pushed Hogwarts, A History towards the center of the table. I owe so many thanks to icepower55, Endless_musings, and persephone_stone for
He gave her the first word, and would let her have the last one, too, if she wanted their tireless support and friendship in writing this story. It takes a special kind of
it. She could say whatever she wanted to these people he’d once called family. someone to barely blink at 60k+ document drops and the time turner nonsense I put
Thinking of them in that context twisted guilt with regret in his stomach, but he them through. They are outstanding, brilliant souls with fantastic writing of their own
refused to acknowledge it. that you should be checking out!!
“Your book,” Hermione said, lifeless. I have to admit, I am both extremely overwhelmed and wildly intimidated by
Neither Lucius nor Narcissa moved. They did not acknowledge that she’d spoken writing this final author’s note. There’s simply no way I can properly express the
in any way. The book sat awkwardly between them, a dead weight at the center of the gratitude I feel to everyone who has been reading along with this story and
table. Finally, the Ministry Representative stood, leaned over the table, and pulled the interacting with me. I have appreciated every kudos, every comment, every tumblr
book towards her, letting it rest on her right: Lucius and Narcissa’s side of the table. ask, and every discord message more than I know how to say! Writing and posting
The Ministry Representative cleared her throat. “My name is Vivian Melling, and I this story has given me a purpose and a routine in what has been an otherwise
will be conducting the final dissolution of magical ties in today’s requested unmoored sort of year and it’s been utterly surreal to hear how it’s offered something
disinheritance. To confirm before we begin: I have present one Draco Lucius Malfoy, similar to readers as well. I hope you’ve enjoyed this story; thank you so much for
born the fifth of June, 1980, correct?” reading it! I don’t have any new projects planned for a little while, but I’ll definitely
“Yes.” If things hadn’t felt official, cold, and sterile before, they certainly did now. be around tumblr and discord in the meantime, so please feel free to come hang out
“And his affianced, Hermione Jean Granger, born the nineteenth of September, and chat!
1979, correct?” I thank you all again: for your generosity in supporting this story, your enthusiasm
“Yes.” Hermione’s hand found his beneath the table as his parents' names and in reading it, and your kindness when interacting with me. I adore each and every one
birthdates were confirmed. of you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
He hadn’t meant to look at her, but Draco found his mother’s eyes, watched as her
lips pulled tight. He saw it happen, when she glanced down at Hermione’s left hand,
resting atop the table, and the ring on her fourth finger. Perhaps Draco was an idiot;
he certainly did idiotic things sometimes. It hadn’t even occurred to him, not as he
waded through his murky bog of emotions in preparing for this meeting, that his
parents wouldn’t yet know that he’d officially proposed to Hermione.
They should have assumed, to be sure. But to know with certainty. To see the ring.
To know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Draco had wholly chosen her instead of
them. He hadn’t prepared himself for the wave of sympathy that crested overtop of
his mental barriers, stuck on the look in his mother’s eyes. On the wedding she
would never plan. Wouldn’t attend. The grandchildren she wouldn’t know. The life,
his life, that she no longer had any part of.
He flinched, physically flinched, from the ache behind his ribs. Hermione offered
his hand a squeeze beneath the table. She must have noticed; his reaction felt so
obvious, so apparent.
Wand weighing came next: only Lucius and Draco’s being required.
“A different wand is on file for you, Mr. Draco Lucius.” The way he’d been
addressed struck Draco as peculiar, a mental stutter before his brain caught up. With
multiple Malfoys in the room, given names would be the only option for clear
communication. A rustle of parchments, then: “Ah, this wand does appear to be
linked with your Gringotts accounts, however.”
 500 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 485

Hermione’s smile grew, leaning back from their kiss. “I think it’s more of a “That wand, with the unicorn hair, it’s my primary. The one with a dragon
beginning,” she said. heartstring core was a temporary wand”—the words scraped his throat—”post-war.”
A beginning. “I see. I’ll update your information.”
Draco had so much time ahead of him. Time with her. To live a life he could be Draco’s jaw ached. Every moment felt too formal, too forced. His parents sat three
proud of. He meant what he’d said. If he had a million lives, a million choices, a fucking feet away from him and he couldn’t shake how utterly bizarre it felt to be at a
million chances. He’d pick her every time. And they had so much of that. Years and table with them and not have a feast’s worth of food to sort through.
years and years. More rustling parchments. This time, held up for them to see.
Years. Broken into months into weeks into days—into hours, minutes, seconds— “I have here the Malfoy Estate lineages, deeds, and familial claims and
into moments. Simple at one end, complex at the other. In Draco’s experience, responsibilities. I am confirming, with both parties present, that Mr. Draco Lucius is
moments, even when simple, had a habit of becoming irretrievable. Moments grew, to be removed from these documents and shall henceforth have no further rights or
stretched, multiplied into ages and eras that defined whole stretches of measurable responsibilities to the Malfoy Estate. Is that correct?”
time. Draco regretted several moments in his life, some within his control, some For the longest, most terrible moment, no one spoke. Draco expected his father to
without: all of them irretrievable in nature. At a certain point, wedged between ‘what- spit his assent. But a heavy silence ate away at the spaces between them, instead.
ifs’ of his own devising, he’d stopped trying to keep track of those regrettable Finally, from Draco, teeth ground together: “It is correct.”
moments: now and then, pushing and pulling, coming and going, beginning and end. Then Lucius, equally as forced: “Correct.”
Moments were only moments for just as long. After that, he had no control. Draco couldn’t feel his fingers again, and he didn’t know if it was him or Hermione
Instead, he let himself live. who squeezed too hard.
“Excellent, then we shall proceed.”
It didn’t feel excellent. But it probably should have. He’d demanded this, after all.
Still, it felt awful. Shoulder collapsing, the very definition of heart aching. Draco
risked a glance at Narcissa again, unwilling—or perhaps incapable—of looking at his
father as Ms. Melling stood and prepared for whatever came next.
Draco regretted looking the moment his eyes found her. She didn’t look at him,
but instead looked straight ahead, fury cracking through every tight line in her
features: around her mouth, at the corners of her eyes, between her brows. Despite
that, her eyes shined, watery, welling. And when she blinked, a single renegade tear
broke free. She made no move to wipe the offender away.
Draco couldn’t watch, didn’t have the stomach for his mother’s disappointment.
Not when he had so much of his own.
The center of the table opened up, pulling Draco’s focus to the large, flat, quartz
bowl that rose from somewhere beneath.
“Now for the less pleasant bit,” Ms. Melling said. Draco knew vaguely what to
expect. Blood magic and blood wards were named as such for a reason, after all.
The bowl resembled a pensieve, but Draco knew it wouldn’t be filled with
memories.
Slowly, it levitated towards Draco, coming to rest directly in front of him.
“If you would hold your wand arm over the bowl, please.”
Draco disentangled his fingers from Hermione’s and did as instructed. With a quick
spell, his palm split open, blood dripping into the bowl. He hadn’t even felt it, so
numb from the force with which he’d clung to Hermione’s hand.
“Please keep your hand in place for a moment—ah, yes, that will do.”
Another quick spell and Draco’s skin stitched itself back together perfectly. Despite
what he could only assume was an unfathomable amount of practice doing that very
spell, Hermione apparently still had her doubts, immediately pulling his hand to her,
inspecting the status of his skin.
“I’m fine,” he assured her in a low voice as Lucius paid his price in blood as well.
 486 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 499

The bowl levitated back to its place at the center of the table, looking utterly heard almost nothing as Theo began his incantations. He could see nothing but the
innocuous apart from the deep ruby blood rippling inside. warm, rich brown in Hermione’s eyes, earth tones rooting him in reality.
Hermione brought his hand beneath the table again, holding it with a touch less Theo continued casting, and Draco realized that the entire bonding ceremony had
force than before. It quirked a small smile at the corner of his mouth as he glanced at started without him even realizing it, lost as he was in a disorienting sense of something
her, knowing she was likely trying to be gentle on his recently exsanguinated limb. indeterminable.
From the head of the table, Ms. Melling began an incantation, wand drawn and Draco inhaled, warmth flooding him, lungs oxygenating blood, pumped from his
pointed at the quartz bowl. heart to his fingertips, where he held Hermione’s hands.
The blood began to flow, swirling in a stream that crept up the edges of the shallow Theo instructed them to let their right hands drop, holding left hand to left hand, a
bowl, nearly spilling over. Magic flashed, shimmered in a storm, settled. Then, the sort of handshake grip. Of all the ways he’d touched Hermione, held her, ran his
blood separated: two distinct masses spiraling around each other, a red whirlpool, hands over her, this grip felt the most foreign, much less intimate than such an event
fractured, in orbit. Two distinct bloodlines. Blood no longer recognizing blood as seemed like it would require. But when Theo began the incantations again, their rings
familiar, of the same. began to glow. Golden filaments, glinting with magic, sprang from each of their
With another incantation, the bowl ignited, flames shooting up in two slightly rings, winding around joined hands.
differing shades. One, a more golden hue. The other, almost silvery. Draco couldn’t Draco stared at the golden magic until his eyes couldn’t bear the strain any longer,
say with certainty which color belonged to which bloodline, but he could guess. filaments glowing so brightly it stained the back of his eyelids orange with each blink.
When the fire extinguished, no blood remained. He looked up at Hermione instead, finding that she had several tears tracking silently
Empty, like the new sensation cracking open behind his ribs. down her face. Draco reached to wipe them, only to have his right hand smacked
“And that’s it. Thank you for coming in today. You will find no further contractual away by Theo, still mid-incantation.
obligations or privileges relating to blood or law between your two parties. The A bubble of laughter escaped Hermione’s throat. Even Draco smiled, not quite so
Ministry appreciates your choice to conduct this manner in an official, legal capacity.” overwhelmed anymore. The golden light from the bonding spell illuminated
Her head wobbled, a bit of a shake, a bit of a sigh. “Homegrown rituals do have a Hermione’s face, just like candlelight at a dinner table, like the first time he really
tendency to end in violence.” noticed just how lovely she was, how he saw constellations in her face, saw a future
Draco had difficulty deciding if the queasiness in the pit of his stomach came from with her in it.
that image or from the finality of what had just occurred. Lucius stood abruptly, but The glow faded, magic settling into skin as Theo cleared his throat. A beat passed,
didn’t leave the table. He leaned over it, palms flat, mouth twisted to a sneer. heavy and anticipatory, as Draco waited, not knowing what came next.
For a brief, horrifying moment, Draco expected him to say something awful, to “If you have any affirmations or declarations you’d like to exchange, please do.”
spew an atrocity to the effect of enjoy your mudblood cunt or something equally as vile. Hermione smiled, left hands still held together, and took a small step forward, right
He braced, prepared to defend himself, defend Hermione, defend their choices. hand finding Draco’s jaw. She still had tears on her face: quiet, happy things. He
But instead, Narcissa stood, too. She put her hand on Lucius’s upper arm, and wound his right arm around her waist. From this distance, he knew her words were
whispered something so quiet that the sound couldn’t travel the width of the table for him, and him alone.
between them. Lucius lifted his palms. Stood straight. Turned and left without a “I’m so proud of you, Draco Malfoy. Proud of this extraordinary man you’ve
word, cane clicking on linoleum as he walked. become. Proud I get to call you mine. That I get to spend the rest of my life growing
Ms. Melling, who’d been standing at the head of the table, looked relatively with you, loving you.” Her hand shifted from his jaw to the back of his neck, a
unfazed. familiar anchor for them both. “Thank you for choosing me.”
“All things considered,” she said, turning to Draco as she picked up the copy of He dropped his head to hers, eyes stinging, vision swimming, utterly lost. “Gods, I
Hogwarts, a History his parents had left behind. “This went well. Take whatever time love you. More than my name. More than my money. More than all of it. If I had
you need.” And she exited too, leaving Draco and Hermione still sitting at that millions of choices, millions of chances, I’d pick you every time. I count myself wildly
horribly utilitarian table. lucky that you’ve picked me even once.”
Take whatever time you need. To what? Process the fact that not a single word had He kissed her. It felt like neither the first time, nor the last time, but all the glorious
been exchanged between him and his parents? That, of all people, Hermione had in-betweens they would have with each other.
been the only person to try and say anything? They’d been given privacy. What did Theo cleared his throat. “Alright kids, let’s break it up. I’ve heard there’s cake.
they expect of him? That he’d break down? Cry? Need an indeterminable amount of You’re married now, let’s celebrate.”
time to search himself for his new identity? Hermione laughed against his lips, and Draco did the same, sharing that joy.
Draco swallowed, noticing that Hermione watched him, body and chair angled in Another beat passed before they finally came apart.
his direction. Perhaps she was waiting for the moment he cracked, crumbled, Theo clapped Draco on the back. “Congratulations. Looks like you’ve gotten a
disintegrated, now that he no longer had a familial identity to glue his cobbled parts happy ending, after all.”
together.
 498 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 487

For as much as Pansy complained, and for being thrown together at the last minute He felt sadness, yes. Deep in his bones. An ache like something inside him, in his
and with zero expectations, the garden almost looked like a real wedding. Lavender magical core, had vanished. It was an empty feeling, hollow.
actually knew a few things about floral spells, charming the garden to bloom But he felt lighter, too. Lighter felt better, felt like hope.
beautifully out of season. And the climate spell holding back the chill had formed a He turned to Hermione.
beautiful protective bubble, catching the cautious beginnings of a snow flurry “It’s really real,” he said.
overhead. The sky was grey, which he imagined most people might have found “I know. I’ve known for a long time.”
foreboding on their wedding day. But when Draco commented on it shortly after Draco inhaled deeply. He couldn’t shake the sight of his mother crying. He wanted
arriving at the Grangers’, Hermione just shrugged, looked him straight in the eye, and to believe her, believe in her, and he wondered if he would ever truly stop. “Do you
said, “I like grey.” think they were real?” he asked, voice quiet in their impersonal Ministry conference
And that was that. room. “Her tears—my mother’s.”
It was everything he needed in a wedding, really. Especially after having been Hermione’s hand shifted to his knee. Try as Draco might, he found himself
threatened with so many wine lists and seating charts and fabric swatches in the past. incapable of meeting her eyes, gaze fixed on her hand instead, on the small circle her
He felt comfortable. He smelled roses blooming nearby, gardenias, too. And forefinger traced against his trousers.
somewhere else in the garden, a hint of rosemary with the herbs. He had a good “She—” Hermione paused, swallowed, started again. “She bears as much guilt in
history in gardens with Hermione. this as your father, but I think her motivations were different. I think of everyone
Blaise took his seat, leaving Draco alone with Theo, standing in wait. who was just in this room, she wanted this the least. Less than you, even. She just—
His skin prickled: tight, tingling with anticipation. Not with nerves or fear, but with she didn’t know how to stop it. She made it worse in a lot of ways.”
genuine excitement thrumming across his skin, skittering through sinew, pumping “I’m going to miss her. Is that terrible to admit? After everything, I think I’ll still
through veins. miss her. It wasn’t always like this.”
Mr. Granger opened the garden door again, and Hermione stepped through. Hermione’s hand moved again, to his hair this time: raking it behind his ears,
They didn’t have music, this wasn’t meant to be a real ceremony after all, but Draco smoothing it at the base of his neck, offering him comfort through touch.
heard familiar notes ringing in his ears all the same, almost deafening. In a blink, she Her voice washed over him in a quiet, reassuring spell. “I know. And maybe it
reached him, her father finding his seat amongst the others. won’t be forever. But for now, you’ve done the right thing for you.”
She carried no bouquet, but she had flowers tucked into the braid that framed her “For you, too.”
face, that ended in a loose, wild bun at the nape of her neck. A few errant curls He exhaled, allowing himself another moment to mourn before he reached up,
spiraled out of the braid, out of the bun, and Draco wondered if Pansy or Ginny had catching her hand at the side of his neck. “Marry me.”
tried to tame them, if they’d realized how perfect she looked with them escaping. She laughed. “You’ve already asked me that question.” She held up her left hand,
His eyes caught on the flower tucked behind her ear, heart slamming to a near-stop wiggled her fingers, ruby ring glinting under the horrendous white Ministry lights.
behind his ribs. A knot formed in the back of his throat, tight, as he struggled to “I don’t mean in eight months to a year when Pansy has finally coerced you into
swallow over it. picking her favorite flowers for your wedding. Not when she’s forced you into a dress
A white daffodil. Latin name: the narcissus. you don’t even like because she’s had it tailored too small. Not with a big to-do.
His mother’s namesake flower. Just—marry me. Now. Soon—this weekend?”
His heart rate slowed again, recovering from the surprise; he swallowed past the He’d never felt more certain, more urgent, about anything in his life.
lump. An empty space inside his chest filled. He couldn’t decipher his own emotions, “I’m no one right now, Hermione. I want to be your husband.”
couldn’t discern if seeing the flower made him happy or sad. But he needn’t figure Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
that out, not now. She looked down at her ring.
Hermione reached for his hands, squeezing them in hers. “That’s—very short notice.”
“It felt appropriate,” she said in a whisper. Because of course she knew what he’d “That’s typically how eloping works, love. You don’t want a big wedding, anyway.
noticed, watched him react to it. Even after the hatred she’d endured, the things I’ve seen the panic in your eyes when Pansy corners you.”
Draco had given up, Hermione Granger still chose to wear his mother’s namesake “I want my parents to—”
flower on their wedding day. She gave him permission to miss and love and mourn “They’ll come. It’ll be small, but they’ll come. Of course they’ll come.”
not having her present, even if it was only the idea of her he missed. After all of it, “Draco I”—her breath gusted, as if preemptively shocked with herself—”I actually
his mother wouldn’t be entirely absent, after all. love this idea. I do. But I don’t know that we can find someone to perform bonding
He simply could not possibly love this beautiful, forgiving woman any more. magic with less than a week’s notice. Not unless we wanted to do it in a conference
Could their audience see it? How he’d unravelled already? It felt so obvious, so room like this with another Ministry Official.”
apparent. For how calm and collected he’d been just minutes before, chatting with Draco smirked.
Theo, now he’d started to unspool, unwind. He could barely think, hardly breathed, Everything made sense.
 488 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 497

So much sense. “Thank you, Pans. But as we’ve elected to marry in her parents’ back garden, I had
A stupendous, idiotic, absolutely outstanding amount of sense. zero hope of meeting your expectations in the first place. Afterwards, the food’s
“Theo can do it.” going to be takeaway, too.”
Her mouth opened and closed again as if on a hinge she couldn’t quite control. Pansy’s mouth dropped open; she made a strangled, disgusted noise. She blinked
Open once for shock, closed for awe, open again for outrage, and closed for several times as if waiting for something.
confusion. “He what?” “You’re serious?”
Draco had no control over his wild grin. “He’s going to marry us. And your parents Draco smiled. Perhaps this was part of why Pansy and Hermione had forged an
will be there, of course. And Blaise will mix us delicious drinks to celebrate. And inexplicable almost-friendship; they were similarly fun to rile up. Although, with
Pansy can come but she won’t be in charge.” Hermione laughed at that, and it felt Hermione he tended to prefer for that riling to end with her naked, writhing beneath
like he’d convinced her, almost giddy with giggles. “Those Potters can come if they him.
must. Weasley because I know you’ll ask, and Lavender because they’re a package “You might not have noticed, Pans. But I’m also wearing the same robes I wore to
deal these days. But that’s it. That’s all. You and me and those people and no one Astoria’s wedding.”
else.” She snapped her mouth shut, grimaced, and then: “No, you aren’t. Draco, you—
She brushed his hair from his forehead again, fingers pushing it behind his ear. are you really?”
“You should consider a haircut.” “Yes, I am. We’re keeping this very simple. And Hermione said she was going to
“Is that a yes?” pick her favorite dress and charm it white for the day. That’s all we need.”
“It’s a yes.” “It’s not even an actual wedding dress—albeit an offensive one? Good gods,
Draco.”
“No, it’s not. I think she picked one that’s normally purple.”
Pansy looked a little like she might be sick, if nothing else, from the force of
indignation she kept swallowing back. She gaped like she wanted to say something
else, but Draco imagined she now feared learning any new information about how
they’d decided to have a wedding straight out of her nightmares. Instead of
demanding more answers she likely didn’t want to know, she simply took one of the
many conjured chairs in the garden and sat with a glass of wine and a frown.
“You sure you don’t need this?” Theo asked, holding the shot glass out to him
again.
“No, Theo, I’m quite alright.”
“Right. That’s good. I might, though. Lots of pressure, you see, being responsible
for your bonding magic.”
Draco angled himself more towards Theo, trying to wrangle the lift of his brows so
as not to project too much of the concern that just took flight beneath his skin,
pushing against the surface.
“You can do it, can’t you? I didn’t think too much about it because you’re, you
know”—a vague gesture—”you. And you can do—anything. But you can perform
our marriage magic, right?”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course. I just”—he knocked back the shot and vanished the
glass—”that’s the only one I’m having, I swear. Just to help with the nerves a bit.”
“You don’t have to be nervous. I’m not nervous,” Draco said, trying to offer
support in what felt like a strange reversal of what ought to be happening in that
moment.
The back door to the house opened and Ginny stepped out. She made a beeline for
Mr. and Mrs. Granger, whispered something to Mr. Granger, then met Draco’s eye.
She winked, gave him a thumbs up, and suddenly, people were moving. Arranging
themselves into chairs set up on one side of the garden as Mr. Granger slipped away,
inside the house.
 496 Mightbewriting

He wound his other arm around her waist, bringing her to the edge of her stool,
hips pressed to his. “Am I being extorted for affections?”
“Absolutely,” she said, a perfect repetition of his earlier response.
+.583, +.583, +.583
He supposed she’d earned it.
He kissed her. Her lips. Her jaw. Her neck. DECEMBER
He kissed just behind her ear, suckling.
He kissed the column of her throat, laving.
He kissed her clavicle. Her shoulder.

O
He unbuttoned her blouse and kissed the swell of her breasts. N WEDNESDAY, THE THIRTIETH OF NOVEMBER, DRACO
And when he had her thoroughly breathless, he lifted her from her seat and kissed Malfoy officially completed all required processes for his disinheritance.
her more, lost in an oxygen-deprived haze as her fingers pulled his shirttails from his On Friday, the second of December, he and Hermione arrived at Nott
trousers. Manor for what had quickly become a standing gathering with their friends.
Unbuttoned. Unfastened. Unzipped. Draco brushed a sparkling green cinder from Hermione’s cloak, dipping in close to
Leading to the bedroom. kiss her cheek. It was a stolen moment of solidarity he had no shame indulging in.
Undone. “Ready?” he asked against her skin.
“Don’t ask me that as if I’m the one who’s nervous.” She smiled, leaning into him,
probably in part to push him away, and subsequently, forward. They had several
items on the agenda for their evening, and Nott Manor only represented the first
stop.
“Blaise already tried to give me a shot. I really don’t need one,” Draco said, pushing They found Theo, Pansy, and Blaise in what had become their usual spot on Friday
away the glass in Theo’s hand as they stood together in the Grangers’ garden. Theo evenings.
simply arched a brow. The waiting was rather anxiety-inducing, if he admitted it to “Hello,” Hermione said, announcing them. Her voice wobbled just a bit. She put
himself. For this not being a big to-do, Hermione had certainly been inside getting on a good show, but Draco saw her hovering nerves. Better concealed than his, but
ready, whatever that entailed, for a very, very long time. present all the same. He draped an arm over her shoulder; she was such a convenient
Draco’s gaze wandered to Mr. and Mrs. Granger as they chatted with Potter. Draco height for such things. He hoped the action looked casual and didn’t give away the
blinked. For a moment, he had genuinely forgotten that Potter grew up with small swarm of nerves fluttering between the two of them.
muggles, that he’d known the Grangers much longer than Draco had. Of all people, “We can’t stay long,” he said.
Potter probably had the most comfort to offer a pair of muggles who had kindly, Pansy’s head snapped up from her wine glass. “What? Why?” Sharp, stinging
graciously, opened their home to a small gathering of magical folk for the afternoon. questions. “Fridays are our thing.”
It wasn’t as if they could ignore the magic today. From the spells charming the “We just came by to ask Theo something, actually. Depending on how that goes,
outdoor garden a tolerable temperature to the conjured flowers, tables, and chairs, we have something to ask you and Blaise, too.”
magic surrounded them. At the large bar on the far side of the room, Draco watched as Blaise set a whisky
Draco fidgeted with his ring, not used to wearing one. Not on that hand, not on bottle on the counter. He picked up a shot glass, holding eye contact with Draco. He
that finger. They’d purchased him a simple gold band the day after they decided they smiled, winked, and drank. Blaise knew. Of course he knew.
would simply get married without a real wedding. Hermione already had a ring, Theo was right: Blaise could be a bit annoying with that maybe I Saw it air about
obviously. But Draco needed one, too, for the ceremony, for the bonding magic. him. Despite that, Draco smiled. He turned to Theo.
Choosing one with her right there, simple and easy and so full of hope, had been a “You did end up learning bonding magic, didn’t you? Got that certificate from the
most surreal experience. Ministry?”
Pansy walked up to where Draco stood waiting with Theo and Blaise, murder Theo shot up from his seat, chair dragging against antique carpets. At the same
lingering behind her eyes as she crossed her arms and huffed. time, Pansy let out a confused sort of shriek, not unlike a banshee. Draco presumed
“I’ve been kicked out.” Not exactly a greeting. she meant it to convey both excitement and a demand for more information.
“I’m impressed you made it this long, honestly,” Draco said. Before Draco could blink, Theo closed the space between them.
“I have too many opinions, apparently. Are you aware she’s not even wearing a Hermione pulled a cardstock invitation from her bag: handwritten instructions on
gown? Just a dress. I wanted to make it floor length. Add some lace, or appliqués, or her nicest stationary. She handed it to Theo.
anything. She wouldn’t let me. The ginger threatened me with a bat-bogey. Draco,
your wedding is an absolute failure, I hope you know.”
 490 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 495

“Sunday,” she said. “The information is all there. That Floo address is my parents’ He lifted a hand from the workbench, fingers winding through her hair instead.
house, so it’s in a muggle area. But they know about magic, of course. They have a “It’s taken enough work, that’s for certain.” He dipped, bent to kiss her, and paused,
really lovely garden.” eyes caught on an unfamiliar crate sitting on the bench behind her. “What’s that?”
Pansy ripped the cardstock from Theo’s grip, having abandoned her seat and her Hermione tilted her head, following his gaze. She huffed dramatically, a level of
wine. To Draco’s right, Blaise appeared, handing him a small glass of whisky. When exasperation that told Draco the answer before she’d even said it.
Draco looked again at Hermione, she held a champagne flute in her left hand. “I thought working at Theo’s would be easier than Malfoy Manor.”
Draco supposed Blaise had his uses and was worth keeping around despite his all- Draco nearly, almost, but most certainly did not, snort.
knowing annoyances. Hermione’s head shook from side to side, curls bouncing. “It’s as if he wants to get
Pansy made several unintelligible noises as she read the invitation. Hermione did an himself sent to Azkaban.”
excellent—truly stellar—job of ignoring her. “Is that right?” A deadpan voice. Draco knew very well what kinds of illegal things
“So, Theo. You will marry us, then? Won’t you?” Hermione asked, probably Theo liked to play with.
noticing that he hadn’t actually said anything yet. “That box”—she tilted her head towards it in reference—”has six of his illegal
Theo’s grin hadn’t dropped since the moment Draco said the word certificate. portkeys in it. I can’t just leave them at the Estate. If anyone else were to search the
Impossibly, it grew wider. He almost —almost— looked a touch teary-eyed. manor with our diagnostic runes they’d turn up immediately but—well, their magical
“We’re hugging now, Granger,” Theo said. Pansy had to step back, making an history is post-war. Theo would get into so much trouble—”
offended noise as he pulled Hermione into a hug. “Of course I will,” he said. “I’ve Draco kissed her, hand at the back of her head holding her steady as he poured
been waiting for you to ask.” every ounce of his exploding affection into stealing her words—her very breath—
“What are you wearing?” Pansy interrupted, launching into an interrogation just as with a kiss. She made a surprised noise, probably startled by the rough intensity that
Draco expected she would. “Are you pregnant? Why are you—what are you—” She took him unaware, too. But how could he not kiss her this way?
conjured a measuring tape, setting it to Hermione in an effort to catalogue her She relaxed against him, melting for him, nipping at his lips and dragging her nails
measurements. through his hair in that fucking divine way she did. She slowed. Pulled them apart.
“Pansy, I’m not pregnant. We’re just—I don’t want a big wedding.” Kissed his jaw.
Pansy made several shocked, scoff-adjacent noises, eyes darting between them all, “What was—wow, what was that for?”
as if seeking some kind of sanity in what she clearly deemed insane. “You. Bending the rules for Theo.”
Hermione yanked at the measuring tape presently measuring her bust, pulling it “Well—I don’t want him to get arrested. And I know his portkeys are harmless—
away and vanishing it. revolutionary, actually. But—the Ministry wouldn’t.”
“We only want the people we care about the most with us,” she said, crossing her “You offered to break those rules for me once; do you remember? Over a bottle of
arms and lifting her brows. wine.”
Pansy froze as if Hermione’s words had physically halted her, as if she couldn’t “Well, you looked terribly surprised that I needed to take it. It was a bit of an in-
fathom that she’d been included in that list of people. With a blink and a shake of her between time and I really, really wanted to be able to kiss you again, you see.”
head, Pansy came to her senses. “You’re breaking the rules for Theo now, too.”
“I’ll be over early to do your makeup.” “I don’t need you to rub my flexible morality in my face. I realize I have a tendency
Hermione tried not to smile. Draco could see the effort she put into pressing her to twist things to my preferences. I am not unaware of this character flaw. I just—
lips together, rolling them between her teeth, smothering her amusement. well, I don’t really care.”
Finally she said, “You’ll have to fight Ginny for the honor. I’m sure she’ll be “But you care enough to protect Theo.”
wanting to do it.” “Of course I do. He’s my friend. He’s marrying us tomorrow, for Merlin’s sake.”
Pansy straightened immediately, as if an actual challenge had been issued, and not Draco couldn’t help the grin that overtook him. So wide. So happy.
something mostly in the territory of a teasing joke. “And that’s what the kiss was for,” he said.
“That’s fine,” Pansy said without a shred of concern. She uncrossed her arms and Hermione pursed her lips, descending into a thoughtful, almost wicked expression.
stepped forward, expression broadcasting a preemptive distaste for whatever she It sent Draco’s blood pumping, simmering, anticipating.
planned to say. “I think we’re having a hug now, too, Granger.” “So, if I do nice things for your friends you’ll kiss me like that?”
Draco smirked, leaned closer, caging her in, desperate to keep her right where he
wanted her as she followed that deliciously sly train of thought.
“Absolutely,” he breathed, fingers in her curls again.
“You know, I was thinking of sending Pansy a gift basket for being such a good
Theo roped them into staying to finish the drinks Blaise had already delivered. And friend and trying to help me plan a wedding.”
even if Theo hadn’t insisted, all wide smiles and proud thumps on Draco’s back,
 494 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 491

And not as he came, face buried in her curls, brain ignited, soul settled. Pansy’s pouting about fabric swatches and periodic hugging would have convinced
them.
When Pansy began muttering her distaste over conjuring flowers instead of cutting
them fresh, Hermione’s graciousness tipped over the edge, a peculiar teetering
between exasperated amusement and genuine annoyance. They bid their friends
Friday passed. Saturday happened. What did one do the day before one’s last- farewell and Floo’d back to their flat, only to turn right back around and Floo to
minute wedding? Grimmauld Place.
Draco began by brewing, taking his tea in their guest room, hair still disheveled Hermione popped her head through first. She called to the Weaslette, who ushered
from the night before. Hermione joined him a few minutes later, anxiety crawling them through, confusion pulling her ginger brows together.
across her face as she settled onto a stool nearby, watching him work. “I thought you had plans tonight?” Ginny said, hand pressed to her barely
“There’s nothing to plan,” he said. “It’s an unplanned wedding for a reason. And rounding stomach. “I can set a couple more places at the table, I—”
whatever you think you might plan, Pansy’s going to have something infinitely more “Oh, no, no, Gin. Don’t worry about us. I’m sorry we’ve just dropped by. We
complex already figured out. I doubt she’s slept since we told her.” Draco watched as wanted to tell you something, actually. Are Harry, Ron, and Lavender here?”
Hermione frowned, rolled her eyes, then reached for her tea, sipping with what Draco trailed behind Hermione obediently, fingers hovering at the base of her
looked suspiciously like resignation. spine as they followed the Weaslette through the dark and narrow corridors that lead
“You’re very nonchalant for a man raised in an environment obsessed with grand, to the dining room. He braced himself, preparing, yet again, for a face-to-face
over-the-top weddings.” encounter with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. He longed for simpler times when
Draco’s smile came easily as he stirred his cauldron. hating them had been easy, as inextricable from the fabric of his person as his family
“Want to know a secret?” Her brows lifted. “They’re deadly boring. Astoria’s was name.
the most pleasant society wedding I’ve attended—probably ever. You’re the only As it turned out, not all inextricable things were truly inextricable. Most days, he
thing I need at my wedding; I could take or leave the rest. Therefore, we will not be didn’t mind Potter at all, not that he would admit to such a thing, even to Hermione.
spending our Saturday fretting. It is my day, after all.” A man had to have his pride. And if Weasley kept his mouth shut, Draco could easily
Hermione dipped her finger in her tea and flicked it at him, hitting him with a few pretend he didn’t even exist.
tepid drops. “Hi everyone,” Hermione said as they entered the dining room.
“Careful now. Let’s not contaminate my potions, please.” Potter stood from his chair. “Mione, I thought you couldn’t make it.” He pulled
She laughed. “Saturdays aren’t your day anymore, you know.” her into a hug as Draco resisted the urge to cringe at the gods-awful abbreviation of
“Do I?” her name that Potter and Weasley liked to slip into.
“Of course you do. They’re all yours now.” “We can’t,” Hermione said, a repeat of her conversation with Ginny. A strange
He stopped stirring. Too long. Potion ruined. loop. Perhaps Weasley would announce that he, too, had been under the impression
Worth it, though, to hear her say such an outstanding thing. that Hermione and Draco were otherwise occupied this evening. And they were;
“Is that so?” He set his stirring rod aside, leaned against the bench, folded his arms they’d declined their invitation to this dinner the week before, expecting to be at
across his chest. Theo’s. The sudden and thrilling decision to wed had shifted things a bit.
“If you goad me, I’ll stop saying nice things.” Hermione reached into her bag and procured another cardstock invitation.
He crossed to her, coming to a halt just in front of her stool. Perhaps instinctively, “Sunday,” she said, handing the card to Potter. “I know it’s short notice; I hope
her knees widened, letting him step between them. He planted his arms on the hard you can make it, of course.” Her words went quiet, almost bashful. Was she
countertop behind her, bracketing her. embarrassed to spring this on them so suddenly?
“Please never stop saying such nice things,” he said with every drop of sincerity in Draco refused to let the subsequent, self-doubting question in the back of his mind
his bones. of whether or not she was embarrassed of him, too, carry any weight.
She smiled as she set her tea aside, looping one of her hands on his forearm, “We’re getting married, Potter,” Draco clarified, as Hermione hadn’t actually said
leaning her head against it. the words and the invitation still sat in his hand, unread.
“Am I supposed to be nervous?” she asked, eyes closed. Potter’s eyes widened, snapping to Hermione, before dropping to the cardstock.
“I don’t know. Am I?” Ginny sprang into action, a half-shouted what? escaping her as she yanked
“I’m not.” Hermione into a forceful hug. Weasley stood from his chair, peering at the invitation
“Neither am I.” over Potter’s shoulder.
She opened her eyes, lifted her head, and grinned at him. “Maybe I’d feel nervous if Ginny started crying. Hermione did, too.
it didn’t feel like we’ve earned this but we’ve—gods, we’ve earned it, don’t you And for a moment, Draco was reminded so strongly of sitting at Grimmauld Place
think?” and feeling like a voyeur, watching these people’s joy over announcing a pregnancy.
 492 Mightbewriting Beginning and end 493

But now, he was a part of the announcement, a wedding this time. It was his joy, his
circumstances, that these infuriatingly close friends cried over.
Draco glanced at Lavender, still sitting at the table, but smiling at the scene. She’d
been an outsider then, too. Hermione hadn’t been lying when she told Ginny they had plans for their evening.
“Hey Brown,” Draco started. “Do you know anything about conjuring out of Draco had many plans involving her. They’d negotiated heavily over how they’d
season flowers? We might need some.” spend that Friday night: cutting their night with his friends short, adding in a visit to
Her smile brightened. Evidently, she did. hers.
“I can bake a cake,” Ginny offered, pulling back from her vice-like embrace on Negotiations had been intense, with tough bargaining on both sides. In the end,
Hermione. “I have all sorts of recipes from mum. But—wait, this Sunday? As in, two they came to the conclusion that they would take that Friday night for themselves.
days from now, Sunday?” For reading together on their sofa, sharing the warmth of a single, atrocious afghan
Hermione nodded, wiped a path of tears from her cheeks, and then smacked Ginny blanket. For enjoying their fireplace, used for a crackling fire and not the Floo. For
on the bicep the moment her eyes darted southward. their Christmas tree, decorated mostly with magic, but including a few small
“I’m not pregnant. Don’t you dare ask me.” Hermione retaliated with her own ornaments gifted to Hermione by her parents: twenty one of them, one given to her
pointed look at Ginny’s stomach. each Christmas, with a few notable years missing that she put on an excellent show
The Weaslette laughed while Potter made a kind of choking noise. Hermione of pretending not to mind so much.
stepped back, creating space out of the glob of hugs and tears and general For lazy kissing and wandering, meandering hands. A warm winter night spent
sentimentality Draco found decidedly distasteful in these quantities. inside, together. A few blinks from a wedding, from forever, from their future. Hazy
She stopped when her heel tapped the toe of his loafer. She leaned into him, her evenings like this, backdropped by fairy lights and the smell of spiced cider and
back to his front, slightly staggered in their stance. Draco let his left hand rest mulled wine, had an unreal quality to them. It was a delicious kind of sinking,
casually, not-so-inconspicuously, at her hip. slipping beneath the surface of something that posed no threat, but that enveloped
“We—I—we don’t really see the point in waiting, anymore. Draco’s disinheritance and held close instead.
has been finalized; it feels like the right time,” Hermione said, head leaning black, He kissed her in an unhurried way, tasting cinnamon and cloves on her tongue,
glancing up at him. feeling the languid, lazy way she let him hold her when she’d had a bit to drink.
He supposed there were worse places to be than standing in Harry Potter’s dining He memorized the lines of her body by touch, such that if he ever lost his sight,
room with some of his reluctant acquaintances. Having her with him, saying such he’d know her skin by feel alone.
things, soothed the irritation that red hair, freckles, and lightning-shaped scars He watched the shape of her mouth when she whimpered under his touch, such
generally caused him. that if he ever lost his hearing, he’d know the way those sounds looked when
Potter blinked, pushed up his glasses—Draco vowed then and there to never ever wrenched from her throat.
do such a thing with his own—and released a breath. “Oh, well. Okay,” Harry said. He catalogued every breathy sigh, every swallow, every whispered word of
Apparently all he needed was Hermione’s word. “We’ll be there.” affirmation. He tasted every inch of skin he could find, exposing more as his trailing
“Course we’ll be there, ‘Mione,” Weasley added. The kindness in his confidence hands pushed her blouse up and out of the way. He drowned in vanilla, in cinnamon,
suffered under his use of that blasted nickname. in allspice, in bourbon, in clove. In warm, winter scents, anchored in the things that
It had an effect on Hermione, though. The pressure leaning against him increased, made her so uniquely her.
as if she’d sagged under the weight of knowing they would attend. As if there had He’d had but two glasses of wine that evening and had never felt more intoxicated
ever been any doubt. in his entire life, nor so deliriously happy. He thought it might find a limit, putter out,
“Well we—we just wanted to come tell you—invite you—in person, but we should that contented delirium, but it didn’t.
go, let you get back to your meal.” Not as he led her to their bedroom. Not as he pulled back burgundy sheets and
“You can stay if you want,” Ginny offered. dropped the last of his clothes to the floor. Not as he kissed her again—for the
Hermione shook her head. “Thank you, but we have plans. Oh—before we go, millionth time, at least—still so unhurried. He had nowhere to be except with her.
though. Pansy wants to do my makeup. Might even try running the whole thing on Not as he pushed into her, swallowing her gusting breath with another kiss. Not as
Sunday. You should probably come early if you want to beat her to it.” she clung to him, fingertips digging into the flesh beneath his shoulder-blades. Not as
A serious, deadly competitive look crossed the Weaslette’s face. She frowned, eyes he tasted salt on her skin, nor as she chanted, breathless and whining, into his ear
narrowed. broken utterances of please, yes, gods, Draco over and over and over again: a bespoke
“I’ll be there.” incantation that set him on fire.
Potter groaned; Hermione laughed; and Weasley bit into a roll he’d nicked from the Not as her spine arched, neck exposed, head thrown back against the pillows, short
tabletop. nails scraping his back. Not as she gasped, panted, stopped thinking, just for that
moment, and trusted him to carry her through it.