Archive of Our Own ^beta

It would ease my care, if you would speak to me, or walk at whiles with me.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

***

Hermione looked around her dormitory. The few eighth years who had chosen to return had been assigned dorms that matched in format to the head boy and girls’ rooms; two people to a shared sitting room, each with individual bedrooms. She’d claimed the door to the left, assuming the bedrooms were the same. Once she had her things unpacked, she returned to the sitting room, which was warm from a fire that had been lit prior to her arrival. 

She’d gotten here ahead of the school year. She’d stayed with Harry for most of the summer, but for the last few weeks they’d been at the Burrow, which was overwhelming. After the war, she’d swiftly come to find that being in a relationship with Ron was not right for her, and he’d taken the breakup badly after years of pining for her, avoiding her when he could and making attempts to guilt-trip her into reconsidering her decision when he couldn’t. Ginny and Harry had rekindled their relationship, meaning they were both often too wrapped up with each other to give her time. George, typically her next closest Weasley, was mired in grief for Fred, as were the rest of the Weasleys. And her own sorrow over the loss of her parents, her self-erasure too thorough, too good , to be reversed, had made her just as poor a companion. The weight of it all was too much to bear, the sorrowful silence in the typically-lively Weasley house simply too hard to handle.

Hermione had finally owled McGonagall and asked to come early. The headmistress had been understanding. So here she was, two weeks early, moving into a dorm at Hogwarts. There was a letter on her pillow from the headmistress asking her to tea once she was settled in. She didn’t really want to do it, but she felt it would be impolite to turn it down.

She arrived at the familiar statue that guarded the headmaster’s quarters promptly and was surprised to find that it opened for her without a password. Minerva McGonagall waited for her at the top in rich, forest green robes, her hair pulled back in a bun and her glasses perched properly on her nose. She smiled warmly at Hermione, and immediately she felt just a little better. 

“I trust you find your quarters amenable?” McGonagall asked, and Hermione nodded.

“They’re lovely, thank you,” Hermione said. “May I ask who will have the other room?”

“I want to discuss that with you now,” McGonagall said. “Please, sit.”

Hermione frowned a little. She knew most students her age had continued on into professional apprenticeships or jobs. Harry and Ron had both started with the DMLE as junior aurors, having gotten past the N.E.W.T. requirements by dint of being war heroes with clear field experience. They had asked her repeatedly to do it with them, but she didn’t want to be an auror. She didn’t truly know what she wanted to do with her life. Another year at Hogwarts seemed like a respite, a way to put off the inevitable decision. A place to go that felt familiar and warm. 

“Who else is coming back for an eighth year?” she asked, and McGonagall ran down the list. It was only six, herself included: Neville Longbottom, Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Dean Thomas, and Draco Malfoy.

“I’ve put Dean and Neville in the same quarters,” she said. Hermione tensed. That likely meant she’d be placed with Pansy Parkinson. Minerva looked at her with a bit of trepidation and continued. “And Pansy Parkinson and Theodore Nott.”

“What?” Hermione nearly choked on her tea. That put Draco Malfoy in the room opposite hers. “Why?”

“ There were conditions on Mr. Malfoy’s return to Hogwarts,” she said, placing her cup down. “He is not to share quarters or be deliberately partnered for any reason, not for classes, not for school duties, with anyone else whose families had ties to Voldemort. I thought of the three of you who did not meet the criteria, you were the most likely to be civil.”

“But Nott and Parkinson can share quarters?”

“All three of their probationary terms were quite different,” McGonagall said. “Malfoy’s are stricter in some terms and more lenient in others. Because of those terms, your floo is also restricted to calls. It cannot be left open for pass-through, but you are free to come and use mine if you like, if Mr. Longbottom and Mr. Thomas aren’t willing to give you use of theirs.”

“What other restrictions am I suffering thanks to Malfoy?” Hermione asked, frowning. 

“I’ve prepared a limited copy of his terms for you. Anything that would require your cooperation is listed here,” McGonagall said, sliding a rolled parchment toward her. Hermione took it but did not unfurl it, opting to read it later. “You testified for his trials, did you not?”

“I did,” Hermione said, sipping her tea. Her mood was now verging on foul. Her school year would be spent in close proximity with Draco Malfoy, and she was being affected by his probationary terms. As if she hadn’t suffered enough. “Why not give us individual units, then?”

“All six of you are dealing with the effects of the war in one way or another, dear,” McGonagall said, sipping her tea. “A bit of companionship will do you well.”

“Fat lot of good rooming me with Draco Malfoy will do,” she muttered, despite knowing it was rude. Minerva simply peered at her over the rim of her glasses and put her mug down again.

***

Crookshanks very quickly claimed the window in the little sitting room. Hermione kept most of her things in her own room, assuming the sitting room would become a tense place as soon as Malfoy arrived, but she found that she was quite fond of it otherwise. There was a soft couch and an armchair in front of the fireplace, and a small table with two chairs by the window. 

She pushed up the glasses she’d had to wear ever since her torture at Malfoy Manor and curled up on the couch, pulling her sock-clad feet up and summoning a Gryffindor-striped blanket from her room to keep herself warm. Bellatrix Lestrange had used the cruciatus on her long enough to leave permanent effects. Her eyesight had changed, though she wasn’t so bothered by that, particularly since everyone she knew said that glasses suited her. But some of the other effects weren’t as easy to deal with. She had constant nightmares, which kept her from sleeping well. Her hands would shake sometimes, occasionally badly enough that she couldn’t write. She careened between emotions at the drop of a hat, and if provoked or stressed, she had a hard time controlling them. She was nearly always irritable and prone to deep depressive episodes. And she was always, always cold. It was only the start of term and she already felt like it was the dead of winter; she dreaded what would come with the snow.

Some of these things, she’d been told, would get better with time. The healers at St. Mungo’s had insisted the nightmares and the emotional volatility were a temporary result of trauma and stress and that they would diminish as she came to find a new normal. But some of them were new companions she would carry the rest of her life. 

For a little over a week, she had the rooms all to herself. 

When Malfoy arrived, she was sitting sideways on the couch, facing the door because she’d taken the end of the couch closer to the fireplace. She had knit herself fingerless gloves and wore those, a jumper Molly Weasley had knit her with the Hogwarts crest on it, and thick knit socks. She was once again curled up under her Gryffindor blanket with a book. He opened the door and levitated his trunk in. It was a sleek black trunk with silver fastenings and a lock shaped like a dragon, quite unlike Hermione’s own simple brown and brass trunk. He closed the door behind him and stepped in, his fine hair hanging into his eyes as he rifled through a few papers he held in his hand. Then he looked up at her and frowned. She stared at him. The welcome feast wasn’t for another week. She hadn’t expected him so soon.

“That one’s you,” she finally said, quietly, and pointed to his door. He glanced at it and then disappeared inside. He didn’t come back out.

***

She returned from dinner to find him in the armchair by the fire. He was sitting with his leg crossed over his knee, his elbow on the armrest, and his chin on his fist, staring at the flames. He barely seemed to register the fact that she’d come in. 

She was cold again. It was the worst in the evenings, and it seemed that today was a bad day for her problems anyway, as her hands had been so shaky at dinner that she’d wound up eating mostly bread to avoid using her silverware. Her blanket and her fingerless gloves were draped on the back of the couch where she’d left them. 

It would be so nice to sit there by the fire and let it warm her. It was her sitting room too, after all. 

She pulled her shoes off and left them near the door, noting their small size next to Draco’s as she put them down. Padding over to the seating area, she sat on the couch, drawing the blanket and gloves down and bundling up. Malfoy finally looked in her direction, scanning her quickly with his eyes, his expression flat. “It’s August.”

“I know.”

He turned back to the fire. For a moment they just sat in a strange, tense silence. Hermione lay down sideways on the couch and curled up in a ball, pulling the blanket to her chin. Crookshanks came to investigate and, traitor that he was, curled himself around Malfoy’s ankle. He looked down at him and then leaned down and scratched his ears. Hermione watched curiously as Crookshanks purred at him and then leapt up into his lap and settled. He pet him slowly, still leaning on his other hand and watching the fire crackle in the grate. 

Hermione couldn’t shake the cold. Under the blanket, she pulled her hands to her face and breathed into them, trying to make it better to no avail. Warming charms didn’t help. Nothing did. It didn’t stop her trying. If Draco wasn’t there she’d probably have sat right in front of the fire. She shivered. Draco hadn’t moved his head, but when she glanced at him a moment later, his grey eyes were on her again.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Ask your bloody aunt,” she grumbled, immediately defensive. His eyes flashed and he took a breath. He picked Crookshanks up and stood, dropping the cat on the couch beside her. A moment later, she heard his door close. She got up and bundled herself up next to the hearth.

***

She left the welcome feast as soon as she felt it wouldn’t be wildly impolite. The hall was full, every student and faculty member in attendance, and it was too much. Too many bodies, too much noise. If she closed her eyes, she could see curses being thrown back and forth in the space, and it made her shiver. Ginny, seated across from her, furrowed her brow and tried to stop her as she rose, but Hermione waved her off.

Her chest was tight and her head was drumming by the time she returned to the sitting room. Her blanket was folded neatly over the arm of the couch; she went to take hold of it and bumped the table. Malfoy had left a quill, inkwell, and a bottle of black ink there, and she hit the table hard enough to knock the bottle of ink over, causing it to roll. 

“Bugger,” she muttered, and attempted to catch it. Her hands were so shaky that she only managed to bat it further away, and it careened sideways and shattered all over the floor. Frustrated, she tipped her head back, chastising herself. “What else can I cock up today?”

“I’ve got another,” Malfoy said from behind her. She hadn’t heard him come in. He was kicking his shoes off, one hand on the wall to steady himself.

“I’ll replace it,” she said, wearily. “I’m sorry. I bumped it—“

“I don’t need an explanation,” he said, and then he disappeared into his room again. Hermione frowned after him and then shook her head. Pulling out her wand, she cleaned up the mess.

***

Neville ribbed her relentlessly for her rooming situation for the first week of school before it finally stopped being entertaining to him. She barely saw Malfoy in their quarters. He attended all his classes and kept to himself. Barred by his probation from pairing off with anyone he actually liked, he surprised Hermione by sitting silently beside her for the first potions class of the year to ensure Slughorn would partner them instead. She had sat alone, expecting that Dean would take the seat beside her, being another of the few eighth years taking potions. Malfoy had gotten there first and she’d just sighed and let him stay. Before long she found herself regretting that she hadn’t argued him off; if assigned pairs work, he kept rigidly to the assignment, and otherwise he sat quietly and did his work as if she wasn’t even there. She found it tense and unpleasant. 

Occasionally she’d arrive back in their quarters at the end of the day to find something in the sitting room different from the last time she’d seen it, so she knew he was around. But he kept to himself, and unlike her, he kept his door closed all the time. Hermione didn’t like to shut Crookshanks out of her room, so she usually left hers cracked for him during the day. She didn’t particularly care if Malfoy peeked in while she was away. It would come to no surprise to him to find that she had a lot of books and pictures of herself with her friends.

She saw Pansy and Theo regularly enough; they seemed to keep together. What made her somewhat curious is that she was sure she remembered them being friends with Malfoy, and yet she never saw them together at all. She wondered if the part of his probation that barred him from working and living with them during school also kept him from speaking to them entirely. She had skimmed the document McGonagall had given her, but it was a clearly limited copy of the terms, a brief list of things that would require Hermione’s cooperation or would affect her in some way. To her mind, the limited floo was the most annoying part. 

Hermione got into the habit of studying in front of the fire, her parchment and books spread around her on the floor, her trusty Gryffindor blanket draped over her shoulders. Her fingerless gloves were starting to look a little worn; she occasionally smudged ink with them, and she didn’t care enough to clean it up half the time. 

One Wednesday evening she got so wrapped up in her ancient runes essay that she forgot entirely to eat dinner. She sat on one leg, the other one drawn up with her arm around it, idly running her quill under her lip as she worked through a passage, her trusty copy of Spellman’s Syllabary open to her left and a supplementary tome she’d gotten out of the library to her right. She was so caught up in the runes that she didn’t notice Malfoy until he’d practically stepped on her parchment. She blinked up at him with a frown.

“We have chairs,” he said. “And a table.”

“Fire’s here,” she said.

“That’s the thing about chairs and tables,” he replied with a little smirk. “You can move them.”

Hermione sighed. She sat back on her heel so she could give him a weary look. “What do you want, Malfoy?”

“To sit by the fire,” he said, and then he dragged the armchair closer to it and dropped into the seat. “It’s warm.”

“Fires do tend to be,” she muttered, and then she went back to her essay. Malfoy had put the leg of the armchair so close to her book that she needed to move it to turn the pages, which irritated her. He was also fidgety this evening. He kept shifting. That irritated her as well. But the most irritating part of all was that he appeared to be reading her essay from his seat.

“You’ve translated memory as time,” he said, and then he leaned sideways and dropped his long arm down, tapping at her paper with a slim finger. 

“Leave it be, Malfoy.”

“I should, shouldn’t I? Then I can be top of class.”

She scowled and kept working. He, evidently, kept reading.

“You did it again here,” he said, tapping at another point in her parchment. “Interestingly enough, it doesn’t seem to be warping your argument that badly to have it wrong, but—”

“Don’t you have something better to do?” she snapped, and then she started gathering her things up. He blinked at her for a moment as she stood and started toward her room. Then he shrugged.

“Got what I wanted,” he said, smirking at her again as she glared at him one more time. “Fire’s all mine.”

***

The Hogwarts grounds were quiet at five in the morning, which made them the perfect place to go out and think. Walking made her feel better; she tried to take a long walk around the grounds most mornings, or at least a shorter one through the halls of the castle, if the weather was poor. Hermione pulled on jeans and trainers and a big chunky jumper. 

Most of the portraits were asleep and the cavernous halls of Hogwarts were still. She made her way out of the castle and then started her usual path: she went down the hill and around the black lake, made her way along the edge of the forbidden forest, crossed at Hagrid’s hut, and then came back in the castle from the other side, stopping at the great hall for breakfast before she returned and changed into her robes for the day. 

She was on the far side of the lake when the sun started to lighten the morning sky. It would be a while yet before it actually came over the horizon, but she liked this time of day. She glanced back at the castle and noticed a flash of movement around one of the towers. Squinting, she peered that way. At first she thought maybe she’d caught a glimpse of an owl or a bat, but after a moment of staring she realized it was a person on a broom. 

She kept walking. She didn’t have a monopoly on waking early. 

She came back around to the castle side of the lake and turned toward the forest. She watched her feet as she walked; this part of her path tended to be the least reliable in terms of sturdy ground, as this was the area the lake flooded if it broke its shores in a storm and was thus full of debris and neglected in terms of groundskeeping. 

There was a thump to her left and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned to see what it was and there was Malfoy, hopping off his broom. “Why’re you out here?”

“I’m walking,” she replied. She took a breath. 

“It’s early,” he replied.

“I don’t sleep well,” she said.

“Me either,” he said. 

“Hence the broom,” she gestured to it. He nodded. Hermione looked at him expectantly for a moment and then shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. “What are you doing?”

“Joining you,” he said. “If that’s all right.”

“I… I suppose so,” she said, confused. Unsure of what to say next, she just tipped her head toward Hagrid’s hut and started moving. He fell in beside her, his broom held in one hand. For a little while it was just silence between them, though something about it felt less tense, less fraught than previous times they’d spent alone together. Then Draco spoke up.

“I think there might be a potion that would help when you get cold,” he said. “Mum had a few she used over the summer, before she...  well, before.”

Hermione frowned. Narcissa Malfoy was in St. Mungo’s now, having suffered a mental break after Lucius Malfoy had been sentenced to life in Azkaban. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to talk to him without first being goaded, pushed into a defensive position she had to hold with sarcasm or snappishness. She just kept walking with her head down, watching her feet. After another long silence, she asked, “Do you see her often?”

“I go sometimes,” he said. He muttered sadly, “I don’t think it does anything.”

“She’s your mum,” Hermione said. “I’d visit, if it were mine.”

“You don’t leave Hogwarts,” he said, and she looked at him with a frown. He added, “We’ve been here a month and you haven’t even gone to Hogsmeade.”

“Why does it matter to you where I go?” she asked, trying not to immediately put up her guard. Thus far he’d been civil, pleasant even. It was surprising. 

“I just meant you don’t seem to go anywhere.”

“I don’t have anyone to visit,” she said, sadly, and then she ducked her gaze back to her feet. “Harry works and my parents… I removed myself from their memory and sent them to Australia before the war to keep them safe, and…” she stopped talking. A lump had formed in her throat, one she wasn’t sure would go away if she kept talking, so she just stopped. Despite it all her chin trembled. She bit her lip to make it stop. Malfoy furrowed his brow and looked at her.

“It’s not reversible?” he asked. She just shook her head. He let out a breath. “Merlin, Granger.”

Neither of them seemed to know what to say next, so Hermione’s parents hung in between them as they walked. Hermione’s heart sank slowly into the familiar depression that thinking about them always put her in, the lump in her throat making itself permanent. Tears welled up in her eyes. She pulled a hand from her pocket to wipe them away before Malfoy could see, and found that it was trembling. 

“Great,” she grumbled as she swiped at her face, and Malfoy glanced at her. To his credit, he didn’t mention the tears at all, though she knew he had to have noticed them.

“My aunt?” he asked, and she just nodded. He held his own hand up flat in front of her. To her surprise, it was shaking, just like hers. He gave her a strange little smile. “Me, too.”

“Her own family?” Hermione asked, and he nodded. 

“She wasn’t sane, Granger,” he said. “She didn’t care who she was hurting.”

“Is that why your mum…”

“Probably part of it,” he said, and Hermione thought she heard his voice waver. He sighed and then looked at the castle. He ran his shaking hand through his hair and then looked at her for a moment. “I’m going back. Enjoy the rest of your walk.”

“Oh,” she said, and then he hopped up on his broom and was gone.

***

“Hermione,” Ginny caught up to her in the hallway after her charms class, jogging up to meet her. She grinned. “Hi.”

“Hey, Gin,” she replied, a little wearily. She was nursing a headache. Classes were hard for her most days, the number of people in the room driving her anxiety to a churning hum. And charms class had been loud today. Flitwick had assigned them a bonding exercise, ringing bells together in sequence using wordless spells to make music. Hermione had a strong suspicion Flitwick simply wanted a break and knew the seventh and eighth years could be left alone with a simple task. Practicing wordless spellcasting wasn’t a terrible use of their time.

Ginny walked alongside her. “We’re having a gathering in Gryffindor tower tonight. You should come. Let loose a little.”

“I’ll think about it,” was all Hermione was willing to offer. Ginny frowned at her.

“So that’s a no.”

“I said I’ll think about it,” she repeated, and then she shifted her bag on her shoulder and glanced down the hall. Malfoy was walking with his head down not too far ahead. She took the opportunity for an excuse. “Sorry, I need to talk to Malfoy about our potions assignment.”

“Really actually think about it this time?” Ginny called after her as she rushed off. She caught up to Malfoy and fell into step beside him. He glanced down at her and furrowed his brow.

“What’re you doing?” 

“Just let me walk with you, I’ll leave you alone otherwise,” she huffed, and he shook his head. 

“Suit yourself,” he said, and he moved his bag from one shoulder to the other, moving it so that it didn’t hang between them. They walked in silence until they passed the stairwell that led down to the great hall. Malfoy peeled off with a muttered “hungry,” leaving Hermione to continue onward alone.

***

She found herself scanning the sky in the early mornings as she rounded the black lake. A few times she spotted him, flying around the castle. Once or twice, she thought she spotted him flying closer, making a pass over the lake before he returned to the castle. But he didn’t join her again, and she tried not to wonder too much about the strange twinge of disappointment she felt every time she found him in the sky only to remain alone on the ground.

Ginny kept trying to get her to come to Gryffindor tower and be social, eventually recruiting Neville and Dean to help in the effort. It only irritated her that people kept pushing, and her response was to make herself even more scarce, ducking into the back of the library to work or just staying in her quarters.

A week before Halloween, Ginny ambushed her in potions class. Knowing Hermione would be incredibly unlikely to show up late, she lingered in the back of the room and waited until Hermione was seated with all of her things out of her bag and then came to lean on the table, fully ignoring Malfoy as he arrived a moment later and started emptying his own bag. 

“You’re coming to the party after the Halloween feast,” she said, without greeting her first or even making any attempt at small talk. As Hermione slowly tipped her head up and blinked wearily at her, she frowned and added. “Harry might be there, if he isn’t completely knackered from work. Come out and have some fun.”

“Fun ,” Hermione repeated, as if the word was alien to her. The thought of being in a loud and raucous Gryffindor tower didn’t appeal to her at all. Just going to classes every day wore her down. Being in large crowds set her off more often than it didn’t. It all triggered something panicky within her. The frustration she’d felt after the welcome feast still lingered. She’d replaced Malfoy’s overpriced ink, but it still irritated her that she’d broken the bottle at all.

“It’ll be good for you,” Ginny said. Then she looked around the classroom, noting that most of the seats were full. She pushed off the table and then put her hand on Hermione’s shoulder for a moment. “You should floo Harry. He’s worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” Hermione said dismissively, and Ginny rolled her eyes and walked away. Hermione dropped her hands into her lap and fidgeted with her fingers, picking at a loose thread at the seam of her sleeve. 

“I’ll hex you if you like,” muttered Malfoy. “Can’t go to a party if you’re in the hospital wing.”

She glanced sideways at him and he gave her a tiny little smile. Completely astonished that he’d cracked a joke for her, she returned it. “I could just tell them you hexed me.”

He shook his head with an amused huff and then Slughorn cleared his throat and class began. They were assigned a paired project for the day, a potion complex enough that the room descended very quickly into a careful silence, pairs muttering softly to one another as they tackled the mixture. Hermione and Draco both read through the entire potion recipe before even speaking to one another.

“The timing is so precise, and some of the steps come very quickly after one another,” Hermione said, softly. She tapped her finger against her book. “Steps thirteen to seventeen in particular come in very quick succession.”

“So we prepare everything first and then make it,” Malfoy replied. He glanced at her, his grey eyes searching hers for a response. She nodded. 

“I’ll take the first half of the ingredients list,” she offered. He nodded, scanning the list. He sneered, his lip curling into that familiar frown of disdain.

“Do the pungous onions last, would you?” he asked. 

“Sure.”

Slughorn paced through the room watching the teams work, and when he got to their table he peered over their ingredient preparation and smiled approvingly. “Smart,” he said. Then he raised his voice a little bit so that it carried to tables around them. “Careful planning is what will set yours apart from the others. I suspect more than one of these pairs will find the middle portion of the brew difficult to manage without advanced planning. I expected no less from the two of you, mind.”

The pairs from the tables around them glanced their way. It was far enough into the term that their working together was no longer something that surprised anyone in the actual class, but their diligent and careful work had swiftly made them Slughorn’s favorites, earning them a different kind of attention from their classmates. More than a few of their fellow students rolled their eyes before they returned to their work.

Draco lit the cauldron and started to put the other ingredients in order as Hermione finally cut into the pungous onion. The room already stank of it from the other students' efforts, but as soon as her blade cut into the flesh of it, the proximity of it made her nose itch. She turned away quickly and sneezed into her shoulder, raising her arm to catch it in her sleeve. 

Malfoy gave her a quiet “gesundheit.”

“Thank you,” she said, just as quietly. She returned to the onion. Her eyes ran with tears as she continued to cut it, the fumes hard to bear. Once it was cut, she leaned down to her bag and produced a handkerchief, wiping her face. Turning to Malfoy, she could see he was also reacting to the onion, his eyes watering at the corners. She asked, “Am I timing or stirring?”

Malfoy held his hand up to show it was tremor-free. She did the same, revealing a bit of a shake. He sniffed and said, “You’re timing.”

They set to actually making the potion. Sure enough, the section of the potion that required swift additions had stumped most of the teams around them, while Draco and Hermione moved through the entire recipe with ease. After half an hour of careful counting and additions, their cauldron bubbled a cheerful red-orange color and gave off a pleasant scent, much like that of freshly-baked bread. Draco carefully filled a few vials with it, labeling it D. Malfoy & H. Granger, and then delivered them to Slughorn’s desk, staying for a moment as Slughorn bent his ear. Hermione started to clean the table, lifting her wand.

“Don’t vanish it,” Draco called to her, and she glanced up at him and nodded, focusing her efforts on the tabletop. He returned with more vials and bottled as much as they would hold. When Hermione looked at him curiously, he dropped his voice and said, “Slughorn wants it. Says he can sell it for a tidy profit and offered to buy us drinks in Hogsmeade for our good work sometime.”

“I suppose that means we did well,” she said, and then she raised her wand, gesturing at the cauldron, waiting to vanish whatever was left. He nodded and then carried the remainder of their potion to Slughorn’s desk. Once the cauldron and the tabletop were clear, she set to work on writing the summary of their work. For paired work they only had to turn one summary in. Beside her, Malfoy read ahead to the potion on the next pages, anticipating the next lesson’s work. She managed to write roughly six inches of parchment before she stopped and took a break, putting her quill down to flex her fingers. The tremor in her hand hadn’t gotten worse, but she was working hard to try and keep her handwriting neat despite it, and it was exhausting. 

Malfoy watched her rub at her palm. He pulled the parchment to his side of the table and took up her quill. She watched him weigh it in his hand; she preferred a smaller falcon’s feather quill to the eagle feather he tended toward, and it appeared she also preferred a finer nib. He read over what she’d already written and then continued where she’d left off. When he was finished he tapped the parchment with his wand, drying the ink and rolling it up before levitating it to Slughorn’s desk. He tipped his hand toward her and gave her quill back. “Nice quill, Granger.”

“Thanks,” she said.

They settled into silence. Hermione opted to pack her things away, pull her feet up into her chair, and just sit quietly watching the other pairs in the room. It was unlike her; in prior years she’d not have given up a moment to study something, even if for another class. But she was always exhausted now, always seeking quiet moments. She sank into her thoughts and lost track of time.

She missed it when Slughorn dismissed them. She might have sat there for hours if Malfoy hadn’t given her a nudge on his way out.

***

Hermione woke up the next day miserable and feverish. She slept almost the entire day, waking only to use the loo and visit the hospital wing to try and get a few potions, hoping for something that would help her breathe and manage her fever. Madam Pomfrey frowned at her.

“You should be in bed, Miss Granger,” she said, holding her hand to Hermione’s forehead. “It seems you and Mr. Thomas have both come down with the pungous pox.”

“Pungous pox?” Hermione asked, alarmed.

“Every year a few muggle-borns come across a pungous onion or two with a bit of a curious mold on the outside. It’s something that most magical children encounter early in their lives, as pungous onions are such a common potion ingredient,” Madam Pomfrey explained. “In children it presents as a runny nose and a bit of fatigue for a few days and then it’s done, and you can only catch the pungous pox once. But you muggle-borns…” she shook her head and clicked her tongue. “If you’d caught it in first year you might have been all right, but you’re an adult now. You’ll be ill for a week at least. I can manage the symptoms, but the pox has to run its course.”

“Great,” Hermione muttered. 

“You should go to bed,” Madam Pomfrey said. “And stay there. Had I known you’d also come down with it, I wouldn’t have given so many potions to Mr. Thomas right away. I’ll need to brew more.  Who’s your roommate? Send them to me in a day or so for the rest of them.”

“It’s Malfoy,” she sighed. “I’ll be lucky if he takes even a small amount of pity on me.” 

Madam Pomfrey sighed and shook her head. “Well, Mr. Longbottom is helping Mr. Thomas. I’ll send some along for you next time he comes by.”

“Probably the better option,” Hermione said wearily. She was so tired. 

“Well, take these,” she said, handing Hermione a small tray of potions. “These here,” she gestured to small purple vials, “Are for the fever. Take one today and if the fever persists take another tomorrow. If the fever persists after that, come back and see me.”

Hermione nodded blearily. Madam Pomfrey explained the other two potions; one was to help her breathe, and the other was to knock her out so that she could sleep uninterrupted. She trudged back to her quarters. She ran into Neville on the stairs to the dorms.

“Oof, you too?” he asked, shaking his head. “Dean’s been asleep for like a whole day already.”

“He’s lucky to have you,” Hermione said. Neville frowned.

“Too bad you’re stuck with that tosser, Malfoy.”

“Can you check in once in a while?” she asked.

“Course I can,” Neville said, and then he grinned apologetically and gestured over his shoulder. “Except not right this moment, I’m late to herbology.”

“Thanks, Neville,” she said, and then she made her way into her quarters. Draco wasn’t there. She pushed her door open with her shoulder and put her tray of potions down on her nightstand. She sat on the bed and kicked her shoes off. As she turned and pulled her blanket up, she reached sideways and took her first round of potions. She was out before her head hit the pillow.

***

She woke to voices carrying in from the sitting room. Malfoy was on the floo with someone. More accurately, Malfoy was arguing on the floo with someone. It occurred to her that the sound carried. She could hear him pretty clearly, though whoever was in the grate was hard to hear. Which meant that it probably worked the other way around on his side of the dorm. She’d have to keep that in mind if she wanted to keep any floo conversations private.

“—in a few days,” she caught. Malfoy sounded exasperated. She reached over for her wand. She summoned a handkerchief and blew her nose. Then she heard him say, “Actually, hold on.”

A few moments later, Malfoy appeared in her doorway. She looked blankly at him. He jerked his head toward the fireplace. “Potter’s in the floo for you.”

She furrowed her brow and frowned at him. “You’re talking to Harry?”

“Yes, it’s exactly how I wanted to spend my evening,” he drawled. “Second night in a row he’s mouthed off at me from the grate about you. He doesn’t believe a word I say,” he said, clearly irritated. “Tell him yourself, would you?”

Hermione slid her legs out from beneath her bedding and got up. Malfoy stayed in her doorway until she came closer. As she came within arm’s reach, he said, “You look terrible.”

“Thanks, Malfoy,” Hermione said flatly. Her ears felt completely stuffed up. She wondered if she sounded half as bad to him as she sounded to herself. She sniffed. “Just what I wanted to hear.”

“Longbottom said it was pungous pox,” he said, keeping his voice low, presumably to keep Harry from hearing him. She nodded. “I had it as a child, I won’t catch it from you. Do you want… if you need something, I can get it.”

She blinked up at him. She’d expected to have to lean on Neville. She wondered if he’d said something to Malfoy. “Thanks.”

“Soup?” he offered, and she nodded.

“That’d be nice,” she said. He left without another word, and she trudged to the fireplace, where Harry waited in the grate. Malfoy had probably wanted to vacate while she spoke to him. 

“Hi, Hermione,” Harry said. He frowned at her. “Huh. Malfoy wasn’t kidding.”

“What did he say?”

“That you were sick,” he said. “Sorry, I assumed he was blowing me off.”

“I’ve got the pungous pox,” she said, wearily. “You’d better hope you’ve already had it, Harry, Madam Pomfrey said I’ll be out a full week before it’s over.”

“I had it second year,” Harry said. “While you were petrified.”

“Oh,” she said. She sagged in front of the fire, completely exhausted. To keep from having to expend her own energy speaking, she asked Harry about his work. As he told her about his long days at the DMLE, Malfoy returned, and she was stunned to see it was a container from the Three Broomsticks, rather than from the Hogwarts kitchens. He placed it on the hearth beside her with a spoon crossed over the top of the lid. She blinked up at him, surprised. He gestured at it. “It’s chicken and leek.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“Theirs is better,” was all he said, and then he disappeared into his room. Hermione popped the lid off the container and peered in while Harry gave her a curious look from the grate. 

“What was that?”

“He went to the Three Broomsticks,” she said, still feeling astonished. 

“I’d test it before you eat it, if I were you,” Harry said, frowning. “He’s probably dropped a dungbomb into it.”

“I don’t know. Seems like a lot of work to go all the way there and buy me soup just to ruin it,” she said, and then she stuck the spoon in and stirred. “And it’s not as though I can really tell with my head all stuffed up the way it is. Why bother?”

“Maybe he thumped his head on something,” Harry offered with a cheeky grin. “Or maybe he’s like Arthur and just doesn’t know what to do with himself when someone he lives with is out of sorts. Maybe you’ve terrified him.”

“How are the Weasleys?” she asked, eating as she listened. 

“You were there this summer, you saw,” he said. “Work keeps most of them busy enough. George is barely holding it together, and his mum doesn’t help, crying every time she looks at him. I keep telling Ron he and George should get a flat together and move out of the Burrow but neither of them wants to leave her.”

“Is Ron still—”

“He’s still licking his wounds, Hermione,” he said, sighing. “He was in love with you for years, you know.”

“I know.”

“Bloody strange in the meantime, not having you two around.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I miss it, Harry. I don’t feel like I have anybody here.”

“You’ve got plenty of friends there,” he offered.

“Not like you,” she said. “It’s not the same.”

“Well, if you keep catching infectious diseases…”

“Shut up,” she said. He grinned at her. 

“Malfoy seemed civil, at least.”

“Yes, well, we live together. Isn’t civil the least he can do?”

“It’s been a few months already, he isn’t—“

“He’s okay,” Hermione said. Between her illness and a growing sense of loneliness, she just sagged a little further, and Harry frowned at her. She shrugged and added, “We’re potions partners. We’re Slughorn’s favorites.”

“Of course you are. Listen, I have to get going, but would you indulge Gin at least once when you’re feeling better? I think she’s starting to take it personally that you never go.”

“It’s not her, it’s the noise,” she said frankly, more willing to speak candidly with Harry than with anyone else in the world. She stirred the soup a bit before taking another mouthful. “Just going to class makes me anxious some days. The welcome feast put me in a right state, I made a proper mess in here because I couldn’t steady my hands. The Gryffindor common room…”

“You could tell her that, you know.”

“I don’t want her looking at me like an injured bird.”

“Doesn’t she already?” Harry asked, and Hermione sighed, conceding the point. He smiled sympathetically at her. “Give it a shot. If it’s too much, turn around and leave. She won’t tie you to a chair.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“I’ll extract a promise from her,” Harry said. Then he winked at her. “I have my ways.”

“Stop right there, Harry.”

“Okay, I have to go. Love you, Hermione.”

“Love you, too,” she said. She watched the fire turn from green to orange and then simply adjusted her position a bit, sitting by the hearth as she ate her soup. She could barely smell or taste it, but even then she could tell it was good. And she was hungry. She’d slept so long.

As she finished it, Malfoy’s door opened and he came to the fire, dropping languidly into the armchair. “Thanks,” she said, tipping the nearly-empty container to indicate she meant it.

“You’re welcome.”

“You didn’t have to go all the way to Hogsmeade,” she said. 

“I was there anyway,” he said. “I was out of jelly slugs.”

“You went to Honeydukes,” she said, nodding. It had just been convenient after all. There was a twinge of disappointment in her heart then, as if deep down she’d wanted it to be some sort of gesture. That only confused her. She yawned. It was incredible how tired she was, even as she’d slept for ages. It occurred to her she didn’t even know how long she had slept. “How long have I been sleeping?”

He frowned. “Er, well, it’s Saturday. I didn’t notice until you missed potions yesterday. Then I asked Longbottom if he’d seen you and he gave me an earful.”

“Oh,” she said. She had frowned at his admission that he hadn’t noticed, surprisingly hurt by it. Trying to cover, she counted in her head from Thursday and took a breath. “Well. That’s three days gone, then.”

“Merlin, Granger.” 

“Madam Pomfrey said I’d be out for a week at least,” she said with a weary shrug. Then she sniffed. “So don’t worry, you’ll have the sitting room to yourself a few more days.”

He looked at her oddly. For a moment she thought he might say something, but he just shook his head slightly and turned to look at the fire. Hermione looked at it too. After a moment she started to lose focus, a hazy fog settling in her head. Whatever waking time she’d had to talk to Harry was gone. She put her hand on the hearth and pushed herself up, using the mantle to steady herself once she was on her feet. It made her dizzy to stand up. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever been this ill in her life. 

And then Malfoy was at her side, his hands surprisingly gentle on her back and her elbow, steadying her and helping her to her room. He walked her to the side of her bed and then watched as she took her potions, taking the empty bottles when she was done. Only then did she notice that her prior empties had already been taken. 

“I’ll check on you,” he said, running his hand through his hair. She genuinely couldn’t wrap her head around what had just happened, and she was so, so tired. So she just looked at him, watching him stand there awkwardly beside her bed.

Finally, she laid down and pulled her blanket up to her chin. “Thanks, Malfoy.”

“Sorry I didn’t notice sooner, I just…” he started, and then he looked at her and frowned. She was fighting to keep her eyes open, wondering where he was going with this. Hermione took a breath and turned to her side, blinking at him. He watched her blink slowly at him and seemed to give up. “Just get some sleep, Granger.”

***

Malfoy did better than check in on her. Every time she woke up he either already had food waiting for her or went and got it. More often than not it was from the Three Broomsticks; Madam Rosmerta’s famed pumpkin soup, the chicken and leek, a corn and potato chowder, and a hearty bean and vegetable stew. When her sense of smell had returned and she’d been able to stop taking most of her potions, she admitted she was getting a bit tired of soups. 

That evening, he brought back two jacket potatoes covered in cheddar cheese and chives and sat with her to eat at their little table.

“How are you deciding what to bring me?” she asked.

“The soups were the soup of the day. This is just my own order twice,” he admitted. He gestured to his own potato. It was exactly the same.

“Well, I like your order. I might’ve added a bit of bacon,” she said, giving him a small smile. He nodded, making an approving face. “Why are you avoiding the great hall?”

“Too many people.”

“Oh,” she said. She could relate to that. 

“Plus, I’ve been working for Madam Rosmerta. Helping her when I don’t have classes,” he said quietly, his gaze on his food rather than on Hermione. “I owed her an apology after the war. I mentioned that you had the pungous pox and she was happy to send the soups along.”

“That’s kind of her, thank her for me,” Hermione said. 

“I will.”

“Is that why you aren’t around a lot?”

“It is,” he nodded. He used the side of his fork to cut a chunk off the potato and then speared it, popping it in his mouth. Hermione watched him curiously. She’d never considered he would be working in his spare time. It caught her off guard.

“Is that part of your probation?” she asked. He shook his head.

“I wanted to,” he said. For a moment, they just sat quietly and ate. He didn’t look at her; he just focused on his food. It was such a simple meal but it was so good. She probably would have eaten anything that wasn’t broth-based at this point, but he’d provided genuinely good fare. She was thankful for it.

“What did Neville say to you?” she asked. He looked up from his food at her. “You said he gave you an earful, I was just curious.”

“Nothing I didn’t deserve,” he said. “I’ve been a pretty shit roommate.”

“I haven’t exactly been great either,” Hermione admitted. 

“Potter called a few more times while you were sleeping,” he said. “I told him I’d get you if you were awake, but that I wouldn’t wake you.”

“I appreciate it,” she said. She took a bite and chewed quietly. After she swallowed, she said, “He means well.”

“I did overhear some of that conversation you had the other day,” he said. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, it’s just so quiet in here otherwise. His voice carried.”

“I don’t mind if you heard it,” she said. “It’s your sitting room, too.”

“Even still,” he said. “Weasley’s not talking to you? I thought you three were inseparable.”

“I broke up with him,” Hermione said, softly. She shrugged. “He wanted it so much more than I did and then it was just… it wasn’t right.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I think it was inevitable,” she said. “Harry says he’s been in love with me since at least fourth year, if not earlier. Either he gets past it or he doesn’t.”

“Pans eventually did,” Draco said. “I broke up with her in sixth year. It changed things for a little while, but we got past it.”

Hermione frowned. “But she and Theo seem to be ignoring you—”

“No, we’re friends. Theo’s my best mate. But both of their probations say they can’t spend time with me,” he said, frowning. His tone darkened bitterly as he added, “If I so much as sit near them in the great hall I could get them in trouble with the ministry.”

“What? Really? ” Hermione blurted out, a little loudly. It took the frown off his face, replacing it with a mildly amused expression. She added, “That’s so extreme.”

“It’s the terms. I took the dark mark, so I’m considered an undue influence. I can’t talk to them until our probations end.”

“When is that?”

“We all have three year terms.”

“Oh my god,” she muttered. She thought immediately that three years without speaking to Harry would simply kill her. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” he said. Then he gave her a small half smile. “They won’t be together, though. Theo and Blaise have been hopeless for each other since fifth year.”

“Oh,” Hermione said. She smiled back at him. “I guess I didn’t keep up with Slytherin romance gossip.”

“We didn’t warrant attention from Rita Skeeter,” he said. Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

“I’ll have you know that none of what she wrote about that sort of thing was remotely accurate.”

“So you never dated Potter?” he asked, raising a brow. Hermione gave him a look that she hoped told him clearly that the entire notion was madness. He chuckled, so it must have worked. “That’s a no.”

“Never,” Hermione confirmed. “Harry’s like a brother to me.”

“Your best friend,” he said. Hermione nodded. 

“I can’t believe they put it in their probation terms,” she shook her head. The whole notion seemed egregious to her, a step across some invisible line. Actual offense was settling in her chest on Malfoy’s behalf. She crossed her arms. “As if friendships aren’t already hard enough to come by. I can barely maintain mine and I don’t have the ministry meddling.”

“For what it’s worth, Granger, it’s been easier with you around,” he said. Hermione blinked at him. She didn’t feel like their interactions thus far had warranted much of a note, excepting the parts inside the potions classroom, which could easily have been chalked up to both of them wanting to make good marks. As if he could read her mind, he added, “I know it hasn’t been much, really. But compared to what I get out there,” he gestured to the door that led to the rest of Hogwarts, “It’s something. It helps.”

Hermione felt a swell of emotion and a lump rose suddenly in her throat. She looked down at what was left of her potato and took another bite, hoping to swallow down the volatility. Across the table, Malfoy did the same, though she imagined her lack of response had probably hurt his feelings. She didn’t want that, either. Not when he’d been so open. So she opted for honesty. She spoke softly. “I have a hard time nowadays with feelings. They’re never small, and they happen too fast. It was really nice what you just said to me, Malfoy, I just… don’t want to cry into my potato.”

She risked looking at him, knowing that if he looked upset with her she’d probably burst into tears. But when she caught his stormy grey eyes with hers, he was smiling softly at her. Then he smirked. “Well, now you’re stuck with me.”

“What?”

“We’re friends now, Granger.”

“Are we?” she couldn’t help but smile a little. His tone was deliberate. He was purposely lightening the mood, and she was thankful for it. “That’s weird.”

“Yeah it is.”

“Stranger things have happened,” she said.

“Like what?”

She made a thoughtful face. “In fourth year I was dragged under the lake as bait for Viktor Krum?”

“Okay, yeah, that had to be pretty weird.”

***

Hermione had a lot of catch-up work to do after her illness. Even after reviewing all of Draco’s notes from potions class, she felt inadequately prepared for the next time class convened and managed to work herself up into a particularly anxious state. She arrived in her seat just a few moments before Slughorn called class to order, her hands already shaking badly and her hair in an impressively wild agitation around her head. 

Malfoy glanced toward her with concern. He tipped in her direction and muttered, “You okay?” She glared at him in response, and he sat back in his chair, pressing his lips together. “I’ll take that as a no.”

Slughorn assigned them individual work that day, a deceptively simple draught of balance, meant to help people who suffered from vertigo. The trouble with it was that if brewed incorrectly, it would release fumes that caused vertigo, causing the rate of accidents associated with the brewing of this potion to be unusually high. Hermione despaired as she read through the potion’s description and its recipe. “I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can,” Draco said from beside her. She held her hand up in front of him to show him just how badly she was shaking that day, and he twisted his mouth thoughtfully. “So I’ll help you.”

“It’s an individual assignment.”

He looked at her flatly. “I wasn’t offering to do it for you. You’ll do what you can and I’ll help where you need it.”

“Okay,” she said. She managed more of the potion than she thought she would, though she also had to stop in the middle of cutting some mandrake root because her knife slipped and she wound up cutting deep into her thumb. Frustration threatened to overwhelm her and she wound up standing still with her eyes closed and breathing deeply while her thumb bled onto the table because she thought she would either cry or scream if she tried to do anything else for a moment. Without a word, Draco healed her thumb with his wand. Her eyes snapped open again as she felt his spell work, knitting her flesh back together. She glanced toward him and he just shook his head at her.

“Clumsy.”

“That’s me,” she muttered. From the corner of her eye she watched him smile to himself and turn back to his work. She finished chopping her mandrake root and added it to her potion, glad that stirring could be done with spellwork. The next step was adding a single drop of an oil extracted from a nettle, and she turned to Draco. “Would you mind?”

He carefully added a drop to her potion, returning to his own with a little nod. Twice more during the course of the class, she asked for his help and received it without complaint or comment. Her potion turned out wonderfully. Draco decanted it for her while she wrote out her labels, her handwriting shaky but still legible. 

“Thanks,” she said, offering him a weary smile. He nodded.

“That’s what friends are for,” he said, softly. That made her smile less weary. He returned it and then went back to his parchment.

***

One chilly morning in late November, Hermione started her walk later than usual, having stayed in bed debating whether or not it was worth it in such cold conditions. She finally bundled herself up in her heaviest clothing, including a wool hat, scarf, and gloves. She was so terribly fond of walking, she decided to risk it. To her surprise, Draco was flying around the castle towers as she walked out of the castle doors. 

“You look like a marshmallow,” he said with a grin as he landed beside her. He wore a Slytherin scarf and a coat, but otherwise seemed to be relying on a warming charm.

“You know I get cold,” she said.

“I like marshmallows,” he added. That made her smile. They’d been slowly settling into their new friendship, and Hermione had found him to be completely unlike she had thought. He’d said as much about her as well; they’d both done a lot of assuming over the years. He brought her food from the Three Broomsticks on the days that he worked there and they’d gotten into the habit of asking questions of each other as they ate. Sometimes they were serious; a week prior they’d actually wound up discussing his trial. But other times they were lighthearted. The discussion the night before had been about sweets and desserts. Now she knew his favorite candies were jelly slugs and chocolate frogs, he knew hers were sugar quills and ice mice, and it turned out both of them were most fond of simple chocolate ice cream. 

“You really walk this whole way every time?” he asked as they rounded the black lake. 

“Sometimes I skip the part where I cross the grounds to Hagrid’s hut and just circle the lake,” she said. “If it’s too cold.”

“What is too cold, if you’re out in this?” he gestured at the air around him. “It’s bloody freezing.”

“This is too cold, I’m going in and finding cocoa when we get back to that side of the lake,” she grinned. 

“I could fly you back if you like,” he offered, lifting his broom. Hermione hesitated. She was not a fan of flying. He smirked. “I wouldn’t drop you, you’re my only friend here.”

“Well I hope that’s not the only reason you’re nice to me,” she muttered. He rolled his eyes at her.

“I told you, you’re stuck with me. Even if I become the most popular man in the world. Which I won’t.”

“You could,” she said. “You’re actually very likeable, you know.”

“That so?” he peered down at her. Hermione just glanced up at him for a moment and then looked down at the ground. She’d been enjoying their newfound friendship quite a lot, actually. She looked forward to their shared meals and had fun in potions class. Their conversation had gotten easy, and though neither of them seemed able to go without goading the other just a little now and then, it was no longer mean or defensive from either of them. Now it was lighthearted banter.

But there was more there, between them, at least where Hermione was concerned. Their dynamic had shifted quite a lot. She was starting to wonder if he’d ever see her as more than a friend. She was starting to look forward to seeing him smile wholeheartedly and making him belly laugh. She stayed out in the sitting room all the time hoping that he’d join her, even if he only had a minute, and reveling in it when he had the chance.

The thing about it was that she thought about him constantly when he wasn’t around. 

She decided to reply about the broom. She gestured toward it. “I get nervous.”

“Why? When’s the last time you even—“

“In the war,” she replied. He raised an eyebrow with curiosity, so she continued softly, looking at him a little warily. He’d been there, too. “In the room of requirement, when it was burning.”

“Right,” he frowned, and then nodded slowly. “Right. I was there.”

“Yeah, you were.”

“I can promise you it’s different when it isn’t life and death,” he said, gently. “I can stay low. It’s just another mode of transportation, Granger.”

She was very cold. 

“You’ll have your cocoa that much sooner,” he added, and that was enticing indeed. She glanced toward the castle. The sun was coming up, and the grounds were covered in icy frost. It glistened in the rising light. Fog rose off the surface of the lake. It was a gorgeous view from here, Dumbledore’s tomb in the center of the still lake, backdropped by the castle beyond. Hermione could hardly believe the war had ended here. There was no visual indication at all. 

“Okay,” she said, warily. “Please don’t do anything funny, I really don’t think I’d be—“

“You have my word, I will just fly you to the doors,” he said. “I’m not cruel.”

“I know you aren’t,” she said apologetically. “I’m just nervous.”

“Come on,” he said, and then he held a hand out to her, which she took. He got on his broom and then helped her mount it in front of him, putting one arm around her waist and holding onto the broom with the other. He spoke into her ear, low and warm and careful, “Hold on however you like.” 

Her heart flipped in her chest a moment before her stomach flipped when he took them off the ground. Her hands went to his arm around her waist and she leaned back into him, his body against hers the sturdiest thing she could rely on. He gave her a reassuring squeeze as he moved them forward. True to his word, he just took her to the front doors, though he went around the lake rather than crossing it. All the better, Hermione thought, as the possibility of falling into the lake would have only added to her anxiety. As soon as her feet were back on solid ground, he grinned at her.

“Not so bad, was it?”

“No,” she admitted. “Not so bad.”

“Go on, get your cocoa,” he said, gesturing to the doors. 

“Do you want any?” she asked, and he smiled at her. 

“That’d be nice, Granger,” he said, getting back on the broom. He hovered over the ground and added, “If you’ll bring it to our room. I’ll meet you there.”

***

Hermione sat on the couch, her feet on the center cushion, reading for History of Magic. It was getting late and Malfoy had yet to come home. Crookshanks hopped up onto the hearth and paced in front of the fire. 

As Hermione turned a page, she pushed her hair out of her face. Getting irritated with it, she gathered it quickly and twisted it around, shoving her wand into it to hold it back. A piece in front fell out almost immediately, but she tucked that behind her ear and went back to her reading. 

The door opened and Malfoy walked in, running his hand through his hair. Hermione glanced up from her book and caught his eye. She smiled at him. He let the door fall closed behind him and just stared at her for a long moment before returning her smile. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she replied. “It’s later than usual.”

“There was a brawl tonight,” he said. “There was more to clean up than usual.”

“A brawl? Why?”

“No idea,” he replied. He toed his shoes off and then sat down on the other end of the couch. “I was in the kitchen when it happened.”

“Too much excitement for a Tuesday night, if you ask me,” she said. She pulled the scrap of parchment she used as a bookmark from the back of her book where she’d tucked it, marking her spot and closing her book. She placed it underneath her knees, which she had up in front of her. 

“You’re telling me,” he said. He pulled a knee up onto the couch and turned to face her. She looked at him thoughtfully, trying to think of a way to broach the topic she had on her mind. He opened his mouth and gave her the opportunity on a platter. “You look like you want to ask me something.”

“That’s because I do,” she said. She looked around the room. “Can we put up Christmas decorations?”

“If you want to,” he said, frowning. 

“I just thought it might be hard for you,” she said. “I wasn’t sure how big or small your Christmases were before.”

“Mum threw parties,” he said. “But it was just the three of us otherwise. I don’t… if you want to do Christmas I won’t stop you.”

“It was only the three of us, too,” Hermione said sadly. “I thought you and I might have that in common. But then I thought that maybe we could do Christmas together instead of just being sad about it. I’ve always loved Christmas, I’m not really keen on letting it go on top of everything else.”

He tipped his head just a little. Hermione shrugged softly and dropped her gaze to her knees. In front of her, Malfoy shifted again. “I’d like that, Granger.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go for the holidays, I’ll be here,” she said. Making a face, she corrected. “Well, I’ll be at the Burrow Christmas day. But the rest of it, I’ll be here.”

“The Burrow?”

“The Weasley house.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “You want to be there?”

“I can’t turn Molly down. I haven’t got the heart. And I do love them all, it’s just been difficult since the war,” she said. Malfoy nodded. After a moment, Hermione nudged his knee with her foot. “What do you want for Christmas?”

He chuckled. “No one’s asked me that in years. Surprise me. What do you want for Christmas?”

“I never know how to answer that question,” Hermione admitted sheepishly. Then she lobbed his answer back at him. “Surprise me.”

***

Hermione loved their little sitting room once they’d gotten their decorations up. She’d already grown fond of it regardless, but the addition of a tree and stockings and other festive things around the mantle only made it more charming. Her favorite part was the magical ornaments on the tree. Draco had taken one look at it after she’d finished decorating it, muttered, “It’s not done yet,” and returned from Hogsmeade that evening with dinner, a bag from Honeydukes, and another bag from the Christmas shop that opened there every November.

After he’d added his purchases—a book that fluttered slowly through its pages, a little flying snitch, and a bubbling cauldron that occasionally let off a cinnamon scented puff of festive smoke—he declared it complete. When she’d come closer and taken a good look at them, he’d smiled at her and said, “One for you, one for me, one for us. Tops in potions.”

She’d had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. It was so thoughtful. And then he’d handed her a pack of sugar quills from the Honeydukes bag and she’d had to fight not to hug him. 

She didn’t think they were hugging friends. 

Hermione spent ages trying to figure out what to get him for Christmas. He probably already had everything he’d ever want or need; as far as she understood he was now in control of his family’s entire fortune and all of their holdings. She wanted it to be thoughtful and useful, but not just a pack of jelly slugs or a new sheath of parchment. It was agonizing. Christmas crept closer day by day and she still had nothing.

She dreamed her answer. Saturday afternoon a few days before Christmas, she woke from a nap and immediately went down the hall and knocked on the door one past Neville and Dean’s. Theo Nott opened it a few moments later and frowned at her.

“Granger,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. “Can I talk to you for a minute? Pansy too, if she’s here.”

“She is,” he looked at her warily. Then he stepped aside and let her in. They’d also decorated for Christmas, though more simply than she and Draco had. As could be expected from a pair of Slytherins, their Christmas decor heavily favored green.

“It’s nice in here,” she said, and Theo just nodded at her. He kept an eye on her as he went to Pansy’s door and gave it a sharp knock.

“Granger’s here,” he said. “Wants to talk to us.”

Pansy opened her door a moment later and peeked out. She looked at Hermione warily. “Why?”

“It’s about Draco,” Hermione said, and the two of them looked at each other and then came out and sat on their couch, gesturing to the armchair. Hermione sat and looked at them both. They could be related. Both tall and dark-haired, both with aristocratic features, like paintings. Theo had a bit of stubble, and Pansy had clearly been napping, as she kept smoothing the hair on one side of her head with her palm. Evidently their meticulous routines were lax on the weekend.

“Did something happen?” Pansy asked.

“No, nothing like that,” she said. “I’ve been trying to figure out a Christmas present for him and I’m at a complete loss, because he’s Draco Malfoy, what could I possibly buy him—“

“You’re getting Draco a Christmas present?” Pansy asked. Theo just looked at her with a bit of amusement. “You?”

“Yes, I am,” Hermione said a bit primly. She’d assumed they would treat her coldly, but she wanted to get the idea out there. “Anyway, I know you three aren’t allowed to interact—“

“Bloody ministry,” Theo scowled. 

“It’s extreme,” Hermione nodded. “Completely uncalled for.”

That seemed to surprise them both. They each looked at her with open expressions, raised eyebrows and curious eyes. Theo spoke up first. “So what are you thinking?”

“What if my Christmas gift to him was to just be your go-between? You get him gifts, I’ll tell him to get you gifts, and you three can all get presents ‘from Hermione,’ but really you’ve—“

“You would do that for us? Why?” Pansy asked.

“Because I care about him,” Hermione said. “And it’s Christmas, and if I was told I had to go years without speaking to Harry if I wanted to live a normal life I think I’d go mad.”

“It’s awful,” Pansy breathed. “I miss him all the time.”

“Me too,” Theo said. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “You’d really do this?”

“I really would,” Hermione said. “We’ve become friends, believe it or not. I want to give him something good. I think this is it.”

***

“What is this?” Draco asked with a laugh as he walked into their sitting room at the end of the day to find Hermione sitting on the floor by the tree with a little hat on that blinked Happy Christmas Draco in little sparkling green letters. “Christmas is days away.”

“Yes, but for my gift to work, I have to tell you about it today,” she said, grinning and pointing at the hat. “Hence the haberdashery.”

“Did you charm that yourself?”

“Course I did,” she smiled. “Come, sit.”

He dropped down to the floor and sat cross-legged in front of her. Curiously, he said, “What have you concocted?”

“A nefarious plan,” she said. “My Christmas gift to you is to be your patsy. A red herring.”

“What?” he chuckled. His curious expression only grew, a dashing crooked smile developing on his lips. Hermione beamed at him.

“You’re going to get Christmas gifts for Theo and Pansy,” she said. “And they’re going to get gifts for you. And you’re all going to give them to me to wrap and bestow, so all of you are going to get gifts from Hermione Granger. No probations violated.”

“You what?” he blinked at her. “How—“

“They’re already aware, they are on board. They have roughly six hours on you in terms of shopping time. Pansy hugged me,” Hermione said. Draco just stared at her, that crooked smile of his having turned incredulous. She wrung her hands. “That’s why I had to tell you now. So you’d have time to—“

She was cut off. Draco had reached out and dragged her into a hug and suddenly her face was pressed into the crook of his neck and she could feel the warmth of his throat against her cheek. He muttered against her, “It’s the best present. I can’t believe… it’s the best present.”

“You can have the hat, too,” she said, to try and keep herself from crying. He just laughed against her and then let her go, beaming. He looked so happy it wrenched her heart. “Happy Christmas.”

“Thank you,” he said. Then he laughed. “Merlin, my gift to you won’t match this. There’s no way.”

***

He got her a new falcon feather quill, a new set of inkwells, a pair of dragon’s leather fingerless gloves lined in a ludicrously soft fleece, and a sleek brown leather-bound journal, into which he had slipped his real present: a potion recipe. 

“It’s the potion my mother used when she got her chills,” he explained. “I’d have brewed some for you, too, but there are two ingredients on the list I am not presently allowed to handle outside of a potions class assignment.”

“Thank you,” she said, smiling widely at him. She scanned the recipe. “It seems simple enough.”

“Just finicky, from the sound of it,” he said. “The note about the ripeness of the pepper makes it seem like that’s where it could go wrong, if it does.”

“Yeah,” Hermione agreed. She smiled widely at him and slipped the fingerless gloves on, wiggling her fingers. They fit wonderfully. “Well go on, open your gifts.”

“I wish they could see this bit,” he said, frowning, as he picked up the presents from Pansy and Theo. Hermione watched as he opened Pansy’s gift, a black cashmere jumper with green stitching at the sleeves and collar. As he unwrapped Theo’s, a fine green wool scarf, he grinned. “We all had the same idea, didn’t we?”

“You did,” Hermione laughed. Draco had gotten Theo and Pansy both things they could wear as well; jewelry for Pansy and a pair of sleek dragon’s leather gloves for Theo. She smiled. “You’ll all be wearing each other’s presents all winter. Take that, Ministry of Magic.”

“Thank you,” he said, and then he stood and pulled her up off the couch for a proper hug. “Really. Thank you so much.”

“I’m glad I could help,” she muttered into his chest. Her heart was drumming in her chest in his arms, and as she returned the hug she closed her eyes and breathed him in. She let herself enjoy it for the brief time that it lasted, indulging, just because it was Christmas, in that feeling she was so sure was unrequited. Convinced she could get past it if she could just admit it to herself, accept he’d never see her that way, and move on as simply friends, she nevertheless couldn’t help taking the moment. When he pulled back he smiled at her, a big and genuine smile, and she returned it just as enthusiastically. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas,” he said. Then he looked at her with an expression she couldn’t quite parse. For a moment they stood awkwardly, and then he asked, “When do you have to be at the Weasley’s?”

“Now, more or less,” she shrugged. “I wanted to do gifts with you first.”

He gave her that crooked smile again, the one that made her heart skip, and then laughed. “They’re going to think you’ve lost the plot if you show up late because you wanted to spend your morning with Draco Malfoy.”

“So let them,” she smiled. “Madam Rosmerta’s not making you work today, is she?”

“I volunteered,” he said. “I haven’t got much else to do. And I’ll get a good meal out of it since it’s Christmas day.”

“Well don’t work too hard,” she said. Then she sighed. “Right, well, I should get going, before one of them appears in the floo. With my luck it’d be Percy.”

***

The potion recipe Draco had found for her turned out to be extremely effective, though she had to schedule six-hour sessions with Slughorn in order to brew them. Draco’s probation meant she couldn’t do it in their quarters, lest he be caught with forbidden ingredients in his home.

Every time she did it, she grumbled about his terms more than she ever grumbled about the fact that it occupied the majority of a day of her weekend to do it. Slughorn was amenable; the first few times, he lingered and offered pointers, but once she had done it a few times he would simply let her into the potions classroom and then check in on her near the end to see how the brewing had gone. 

One mid-March Saturday when she was returning from the classroom with her newest batch, she caught Neville sneaking out of Pansy and Theo’s room. She cleared her throat as she approached her own door and he looked up, startled.

He had a love bite on his neck. His hair was wild. He’d misaligned his buttons.

“Parkinson, huh?” she asked, raising her brow. His cheeks flared bright red. “I won’t judge.”

“It’s not… it’s new, this was the first… thanks, Hermione,” Neville stammered. Then he smiled broadly and ran a hand through his completely debauched hair. “She’s so pretty.”

“Does Dean know?” she asked, curiously. He shook his head, his eyes widening.

“Nobody knows, I barely knew an hour ago,” he said. “Well, I mean, now you know—”

“Your secret’s safe with me, Neville,” she said. “Though it won’t be secret much longer if you don’t do something about that love bite.”

“Merlin,” he muttered, and then he crossed the hall to his own door. As he opened it he looked back at her. “You know, you ought to talk to Ginny. She thinks you’re upset with her.”

“Why would I be—”

“I don’t know, she just does,” Neville said. “There’s a thing in Gryffindor tower on Tuesday night for St. Patrick’s Day, you should come.”

“St. Patrick’s Day already?” she frowned. He laughed.

“Yes, time does that,” he said, and then he dipped into his room. “See you, Hermione.”

***

She got to the portrait hole and realized she didn’t know the password to Gryffindor Tower. For a moment she just stared blankly at the fat lady, and then she asked, “Can’t you just let me in? You’ve known me for years.”

“No, no, that’s not how it works, my dear,” the fat lady said in a sing-song voice. “You’ll need the password, or you’ll stand out here all day long. Never let it be said that I would fall for a polyjuice potion!”

“Bloody brilliant,” Hermione grumbled. She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms and her ankles, deciding to give it a few minutes and then leave if no one came by to let her in. She was just pushing off the wall a few minutes later, ready to give up, when Dean came around the corner. 

“Hey Hermione,” he said. 

“I don’t know the password,” she replied, and he laughed. 

“It’s bobotuber,” he said. He tipped his head toward the portrait hole, now swinging open as the fat lady moved to let them through. “I’m surprised to see you here, you’ve been keeping to yourself all year.”

“Yeah,” Hermione said, quietly. “Haven’t really felt up to crowds.”

“I get it,” he said. “I never feel up to classes in the dungeons. Too prisony.”

“How do you stand it?” she asked. “Doesn’t it overwhelm you?”

“All the time,” he said. “But I think about Seamus. At least I can go to class.”

“How is he?” she asked, as they stepped into the Gryffindor common room. Dean shrugged.

“It’s the Janus Thickey ward,” he said. “Some days he knows my name and remembers a few things from first and second years. Most days he just asks if I’ve seen his mum.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione said. Seamus had taken a devastating blow to the head during the war coupled with a hex that had done significant damage to his memory. After he’d recovered from the head wound enough that the healers at St. Mungo’s were confident he’d live, it became apparent that the effect on his mind was catastrophic. He was Dean’s best friend. Dean visited most weekends; sometimes Neville joined him and visited his parents as well.

“Malfoy came with us last weekend,” he said, and Hermione raised an eyebrow.

“Did he?”

“Yeah, he talked to McGonagall and got permission. It was his mum’s birthday or something,” he said. “You know he seems pretty fond of you.”

“We’ve become friends,” she said. “He’s not what I thought he was.”

“Yeah, he mentioned,” Dean said. “This year’s weird, isn’t it?”

“It’s not all bad,” Hermione said. Then their conversation was cut short by Ginny, who finally saw them and barrelled through the common room to sling her arms around Hermione. 

“I can’t believe it, you finally came ,” she said. “And you picked a good night! Harry and Ron are coming!”

“Is that good?” Hermione laughed nervously. She hadn’t seen or spoken to Ron since Christmas, which had been painfully awkward. 

“Well, the Harry part definitely is,” Ginny said. “And you can handle Ron.”

“Do I want to handle Ron?”

“You’re going to have to,” came another voice from her left. She turned and there was Harry, smiling at her. Ron had been caught in a conversation by Neville, and Harry gestured back toward him with a thumb. “Just to warn you, he’s been pining for you, so naturally you’re also pining for him.”

Hermione just groaned. She suddenly felt like she wouldn’t be staying long at all. Harry just laughed and dragged her into a hug, which she took without complaint. Harry Potter was the world’s most famous person and , to Hermione’s mind, the world’s greatest hugger. 

“You know how he is,” Harry muttered against her. He pulled back and kept a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve tried to dissuade him, I really have.”

“It’s going to take a boulder to the head,” Ginny said. “We may have to kill him.”

“Merlin,” Hermione muttered. Harry looked at her a little oddly.

“Since when do you say Merlin?”

“What?”

“You’ve always said ‘oh my God,’ like a proper muggle,” Ginny said. “You’ve been spending too much time with Malfoy.”

“I like spending time with Malfoy,” Hermione protested, and of course, that was when Ron finally joined them. He frowned.

“Who are you and what have you done to Hermione?” he asked. “I must have heard you wrong just now.”

“He’s my friend, Ron,” Hermione said. He made a face.

“Strange choice of friends, ‘Mione,” he said. She frowned at him and opted not to say anything, lest she cause a fight. Thankfully, Dean piped up to try and change the subject. 

“Hermione’s top of class,” he said. “Slughorn talks about her all the time. Says she’s the brightest—”

“Brightest witch of our age?” Ginny asked, laughing. 

Neville joined the group and grinned. “As if people haven’t been saying that for years.”

Hermione wanted to shrink into the wall. Her hands were starting to shake, and that familiar, tight feeling in her chest was rising. The common room was filled with people. Students from lower years were filtering in to see Harry Potter as word got around, and very quickly the common room was getting too crowded to handle. To her surprise, Dean leaned down and whispered in her ear.

“You okay?”

“It’s getting a bit much,” she admitted. 

“You two telling secrets over there?” Ron asked, and Hermione had to fight the urge to roll her eyes. Dean just smiled at him.

“Why don’t we go somewhere a bit less crowded?” he said, and gestured out the portrait hole. Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Neville nodded, and Dean took Hermione by the hand and pulled, dragging her out the hole and assuming everyone would follow. He practically hauled her to the alcove down the corridor that looked out over the black lake. It was the same place Hermione used to come to get away; where she had launched canaries at Ron so many years earlier. Familiarity lessened the panicky feeling in her gut, but she still sat down on the floor and pulled her knees to her chest as everyone settled in. Harry sat beside her, and Ginny settled herself between his knees.

Ron sat down on Hermione’s other side. He sat too close. He bumped her shoulder genially and she shifted closer to Harry. 

“So what’s it like living with Malfoy?” Harry asked, and Hermione could have hexed him on the spot. She glared at him and he just grinned cheekily at her. In front of him, Ginny shook her head with a laugh.

“It’s quite nice, actually.”

“Bollocks,” Ron muttered. “It’s Malfoy.”

“You don’t know him,” Hermione said. 

“I know enough.”

“No, Ron, you don’t,” she said, and she said it sternly, hoping he would stop. But of course he didn’t. He had to continue barreling on. Harry groaned on her other side, clearly regretting he’d started this conversation.

“He’s a death eater, Hermione. He let them all into the castle and Dumbledore died , how can you just—”

“You know as well as I do he was forced to do those things. He’s not like that,” Hermione spat, and she stood up. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to this. He’s my friend. I care about him. You haven’t been here, you wouldn’t understand.”

“‘Mione—”

“Shut up, Ron,” she said, and then she walked off. She heard a scuffling of footsteps behind her but didn’t stop walking, and didn’t turn around. When a hand landed on her shoulder, she shook it off. “I don’t want to hear it, Ron.”

“It’s Harry,” he said, and she stopped. She turned to him and he sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Hermione, I should have known that would happen.”

“It’s not you that needs to apologize,” she said, and he frowned.

“Ron’s… you know how he is,” he said. 

“How many times does he get to get away with something because that’s just how he is?” Hermione asked. “Everyone just gives him a pass and excuses it. How is he supposed to learn? And why am I supposed to put up with it?”

“Hermione,” Harry said, sympathetically. “We spent seven years at odds with Malfoy, he’s—”

“No,” Hermione argued. “How long does Draco have to pay for his childhood? Everyone else seems to be allowed to grow up. And the ministry won’t even let him… never mind. He has been genuinely kind to me this year, Harry. He isn’t the same as he was before the war.”

“Really? The only son of Lucius Malfoy? Pureblood heir to a sacred twenty-eight fortune? That Malfoy?”

“Yes, that Malfoy,” Hermione said. She furrowed her brow thoughtfully. “Harry, I don’t think I’ve heard him say anything about blood status all year, not about anyone.”

“Really? ” Harry repeated, his eyebrows rising. 

“Yes, really,” Hermione said. “He’s trying. He’s understanding. He’s working at the Three Broomsticks in his off time to make up for what he did to Madam Rosmerta. He got me a very thoughtful Christmas gift. And he’s under really unfair probationary terms, which he’s kept to by the letter, even though it means he can’t see any of his friends at all. He’s not a bad person, Harry. He’s important to me.”

Harry looked at her seriously and then clearly measured his words before he said them. “How important, Hermione?”

“More important than I am to him,” she said, sadly, and then she shook her head and took a breath. “It doesn’t matter. We’re friends.”

“You like him?” Harry asked softly. He stepped closer and put a hand on her elbow, a gentle gesture. “Malfoy?”

“It doesn’t matter, Harry, he’s never going to see me like that,” she said. She gave him a smile she didn’t mean, choking back the lump in her throat. “I’ll get past it. Please don’t… don’t tell the others, okay? Not even Ginny.”

“Okay,” he said. It was enough.

***

Somehow admitting it out loud to Harry made it impossible to live with. Every time Draco came home after a long evening at the Three Broomsticks and smiled at her on his way in, every time he brought her a soup of the day or something else from Madam Rosmerta’s menu, every time he stopped by Honeydukes and brought her sugar quills and ice mice, her heart flipped in her chest and a small amount of lonely despair filtered through her. 

She was completely convinced he would never see her that way. All the changes in his demeanor, all the kindness he showed her as a roommate, that he kept her in a constant supply of her favorite candies, it didn’t seem to matter. Deep down she was convinced he would never see her the way she saw him, would never consider that she could be beautiful or sexy. Would never want to be with her, because she was muggleborn. Even though he hadn’t said a word about anyone’s blood status all year, not even his own.

She made an attempt to floo Harry one evening and it failed; he wasn’t home. She was so despairing about her feelings that she then went down the hall and knocked on Neville and Dean’s door. Dean answered.

“Hey, Hermione,” he said. “What’s up?”

Her emotions overwhelmed her in the face of his curiosity and she simply blurted out, “I’m in love with Draco Malfoy,” and burst into tears. He frowned and let her inside. She sat down on the couch and put her face in her hands, and Dean sat beside her and threw an arm over her shoulder. He used his other hand to conjure a handkerchief.

“You know I testified for his trial?” Dean asked, as she wiped tears from her face. Hermione furrowed her brow. She’d done it, and so had Harry. But she hadn’t known of others. She looked at Dean with confusion. “Because I was in the dungeon. Luna testified, too.”

“Why?”

“Because it was the right thing to do,” Dean said. “I never actually saw him do it, but he’s the reason we got as much food as we did. Luna saw him bring it once.”

Hermione blinked at Dean and then frowned, feeling like she might cry again. Dean gave her a small squeeze around the shoulder. She croaked, “Dean—”

“He’s a prat, Hermione, there’s no arguing that,” he said, and that made her laugh a little. “But I also don’t think he’s as bad as everyone out there thinks he is.”

“That doesn’t help,” Hermione said. Dean looked at her curiously.

“What? Aren’t you upset because you’ve fallen in love with the terrible, horrible Death Eater Draco Malfoy?”

“No,” she said, and then she leaned against him as more tears flowed. “I loved him already and now you’re telling me he defied Voldemort to bring you food. You’ve made it worse.”

Dean laughed. “Whoops?”

“Fat lot of help you are.”

“You never know,” he said, reassuringly. He rubbed her shoulder. “Neville’s bagged Pansy Parkinson, after all.”

“It’s not the same,” she said despairingly. “I’ve gone and fallen in love with the last person on earth who would ever see me that way.”

***

Once Dean knew, it was only a matter of time until Neville knew, and then Ginny and Pansy, and then a few weeks later, Theo Nott cornered her in the corridors after history of magic and dragged her into an empty classroom.

“Is it true? Are you and Draco shagging?”

“What? No! Who said that—“

“I’m kidding, Granger, I just wanted to see your face,” he said, grinning mischievously. 

“Git,” she frowned and slapped his shoulder.

“It is true you’ve got a thing for him though, right?” he asked. Hermione knew immediately her cheeks had turned red. He smirked. “The rumor mill has it now, Granger.”

“I’ll kill Dean.”

“It isn’t his fault. Neville’s the worst at secrets. Pansy had a full two hours of privacy before Ginny Weasley knew they were shagging.”

“I’ll kill Neville,” Hermione amended, and Theo laughed.

“It’s not the worst thing, Granger. I may not be allowed to talk to him but I can still look at him. He could use someone on his side.”

“I’ve been on his side all year.”

“I know you have, Granger. I haven’t forgotten Christmas.”

“Those probations are—“

“Terrible, yes, we are all aware,” he said. “Look, Granger. If it’s the real thing then by all means, go after him. He might surprise you. But he’s… well, he’s actually pretty sensitive, under all that Malfoy bravado. Hurt feelings and heartache hit him hard. He and Pans took like two years to find something resembling normal. And just between you and me, I think he and Potter were so badly at odds because it hurt his feelings that the famous Harry Potter didn’t want to be friends with him.”

“I don’t think you need to give me this talk, Theo,” Hermione said, frowning. Her heart dropped to her knees, as it always did when discussing Draco these days. “It doesn’t matter what I feel if he doesn’t think of me that way.”

“Do you know he doesn’t?”

“He hasn’t let on.”

“Hm,” was all Theo said. “Well.”

“It’s all right,” Hermione said, though it wasn’t, and she knew she couldn’t say it convincingly, not even if she were threatened with death. “I’ll get past it.”

***

“It’s a sopophorous bean,” Hermione sighed. “As much as I hate to admit it, we should be crushing it with the flat of the knife. It’s more effective.”

“It says to cut—“ Draco protested, and Hermione sighed.

“Remember sixth year? When Harry of all people was suddenly tops in potions?”

“Yes,” Draco said flatly. “Bloody irritating, that.”

“Well he had Snape’s old textbook,” Hermione explained. “And in that book, one of the little tips he wrote down was that crushing a sopophorous bean was a better way to extract its juices.”

“That filthy cheat,” Draco muttered, shaking his head even as he turned his knife and flattened the bean with the side of the blade. 

“That’s what I said,” Hermione smiled to herself. “We had a whole row about it.”

“You? A row with Harry Potter?” Draco looked at her just a little incredulously.

“Believe it,” she said. “He and I have had our fair share.”

“I can’t picture you in a row with anyone,” he said, and she turned to blink at him. She featured prominently in many legendary Gryffindor rows. But of course, Draco wasn’t a Gryffindor. He laughed. “Have I forgotten something obvious?”

“I hit you in third year,” she said, and he laughed.

“I don’t think we could call that a row,” he said. “A row is more like… friends suddenly having a fight, not just people who never got along in the first place resorting to physical violence.”

“You’re being incredibly particular,” Hermione said, shaking her head. “A row is a row.”

“Maybe I just don’t want to have any rows with you,” he said with a grin. Hermione smiled and shook her head.

“Unfortunately for you, we’ve got at least the one,” she said. Then she grinned cheekily at him. “Which I believe I won.”

He laughed brightly. “Yeah, you did.”

***

Her walks became downright pleasant as March came closer to April. Near the end of the month there was an unseasonably warm week in which she was able to forgo not only her warming potion but also her coat and scarf, wearing only a light knit jumper and jeans. 

Malfoy landed beside her on his broom as she rounded the far side of the lake and the castle came into view beyond the trees of Dumbledore’s island. 

“Hey, Granger.”

“Hey, Malfoy,” she replied, smiling as he tossed his hair back off his forehead. He was tousled. It was painfully attractive. She tried not to stare.

“It’s almost April,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. It made her sad. After April came May, and then they’d be taking their N.E.W.T.s and the term would end. She had yet to even consider what she wanted to do after Hogwarts. She’d been putting it off.

“You’re not worried about your N.E.W.T.s, are you?” he asked. “You’ll be fine, you’re the smartest person I know.”

“High praise, from the smartest person I know,” she replied, and he smiled at her. 

“Anyway, I came down here because you were swerving,” he said. “So either you’re drunk, which would be a new and different thing as far as I know, or you were thinking too hard about something and not paying attention to your feet.”

“I don’t know what to do after N.E.W.T.s,” she admitted. She sighed. “I don’t even know where I’ll live. I don’t really want to think about it. I’m fond of our little space.”

“Well that doesn’t have to end if you don’t want it to,” he said plainly, as if she had missed something wildly obvious. She looked at him curiously, and he just grinned at her. “We can find a flat together, you know.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he smiled. “We find a flat we both like, we move from here to there, we keep being roommates as long as you like. Easy peasy.”

“Lemon squeezy,” Hermione added, and he laughed softly at her. She smiled widely, thrilled by the arrangement. And then her smile faltered. “I need a job if I’m going to pay rent.”

“Granger, I’m sitting on a ludicrously large amount of money,” he said with an eyeroll. “Take your time.”

“I couldn’t—“

“Yes you could,” he said. “I insist. I love living with you, don’t deny me over my parents’ terrible money. Help me spend it.”

“You’re sure?” 

“I’m sure,” he said, and then he shook his head. “Merlin, Granger.”

“I just—“ she started, and then she glanced at him to find him looking at her wearily. It made her laugh. “Okay. Okay, we can do that.”

“Great,” he beamed. “That’s sorted.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling. Then she huffed. “I wasn’t swerving.”

“You were swerving,” he said, and he jabbed her in the side with a finger. He added with a grin, “Like you’d had half a bottle of firewhiskey all by yourself. You can barely think and walk at the same time.”

“Shut up,” she said, though a wide smile grew across her face. 

“It’s adorable,” he said, and just like that, Hermione’s brain short circuited.

“What?” she blinked at him. “What did you just say—“

“I said it’s adorable,” he said, and he sounded suddenly like he was regretting having said it out loud. She looked at him to find him looking nervous.

Nervous. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

“What?”

“I said—“

“I heard you—“

“Then why are you—“

“Please don’t toy with me,” Hermione said, softly. “I don’t think I could take it.”

“What?” it was Draco’s turn to sound baffled. Hermione looked at him again and found his eyes fixed upon her, a stormy curiosity brewing in his gaze. 

Very quietly, so quietly she wasn’t sure she was even speaking out loud, she dropped her gaze to her shoes and said, “I think I’ve loved you since Christmas. Maybe before.”

“Wait—“

“Please don’t say anything if you don’t feel the same way, I’d rather just have no answer than a definitive rejection at this point—“

“You mean I could have been snogging you all this time?” he asked, and he grabbed her hand and pulled her back toward him. “Stop walking.”

Hermione was pulled from her path into his chest and before she could truly wrap her head around what was happening, his lips were on hers. Her heart hammered in her chest and she almost burst into tears, breaking the kiss and gasping against him as he started to laugh. A smile spread across her lips as she put her hands to his chest and the reality of what had just happened began to sink in.

“I never thought you would want me like this,” he said, and then he kissed her again.

“I never thought you’d look at me that way,” she replied.

“I look at you that way every day. All year I’ve looked at you that way,” he said softly. Hermione just smiled up at him giddily. And then he laughed and said, “We’re so stupid.”

“You’re the smartest person I know,” she retorted softly. He just grinned and kissed her again.

***

EPILOGUE - TWO YEARS LATER

“What are we doing here?” Draco asked, as Hermione dragged him down Diagon Alley by the hand, heading toward Gringotts. 

Gringotts, which was closed.

“We’re using their clock,” Hermione said. She pointed up at the clock on the front of the building. “Just wait.”

“It’s nearly midnight,” he protested. They’d been out for a late dinner and drinks, and there was just a bit of rosiness to his cheeks. Hermione found it quite attractive, even as he complained, “I’m tired, can’t we just go home—”

“Two more minutes, love,” she said, and then she shushed him with a kiss. She pulled him down to her, sliding her fingers into his hair behind his ear. He hummed appreciatively as she lingered at his mouth. She smiled against him and then broke away, whispering, “I promise it’s worth it.”

“Wait, you said we,” he said. “What do you mean we?”

Hermione just grinned at him, patting his chest with the hand he wasn’t holding. The ring he’d put there at the end of April sparkled in the light of the old lamp in front of the bank. She looked up at the clock again. Behind her, she heard the pop of apparition, and then Draco raised an eyebrow. She turned to find Neville approaching, running his hand through his hair. Hermione laughed. “You really have to stop letting her do that to your hair.”

“Is it that obvious?” he asked, and then he took both his hands and scrubbed at his head as if lathering with shampoo. He beamed at her. “Better?”

Hermione cracked up. “It’s something.”

“Hey Malfoy,” Neville said, giving him a nod. Draco returned it, though his brow was furrowed.

“What is happening?” Draco asked, and then Hermione turned and looked up at the clock again. She kept her eye on it, and her hand on Draco’s. The hands finally met at midnight, and then she looked at him and beamed.

Two more pops, one right after the other. Draco turned. Pansy and Theo were standing behind him, side by side. Hermione dropped his hand and stepped back, watching as his two greatest friends wrapped him in a group hug, their arms around his shoulders and back. They all had their eyes squeezed shut. Pansy was crying. Draco just dropped his head between theirs and held them close. Their probations had finally ended.

“This was a good idea,” Neville said, leaning sideways to mutter it to her. She nodded, happy tears rolling down her face. “Maybe your best idea yet.”

She glanced back up at him and beamed. She’d never been so happy. “Honestly, Neville. Your hair.” 

***

For you and I have both passed under the wings of the Shadow, and the same hand drew us back.

-J.R.R. Tolkien