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This was mad. Idiotic at best. And yet, Draco couldn’t stop himself. The idea was too deeply implanted for him to go back now.
“Are you going to tell me why you Flooed over, or do you insist on wearing a hole into my carpets first?”
Draco paused his pacing to glare at Theo. So many quips played on his tongue. A reminder of the time an alcohol-addled Theo had led them in a contest to see who could more accurately trace the centuries-old carpet pattern with poorly aimed Incendios. Or would it be more fitting to bring up the delightful memory of Draco stepping through the same Floo to find a naked Theo curled on top of the carpet next to an equally naked Daphne Greengrass the morning after his twenty-sixth birthday?
The temptation was strong, but Draco locked the memories inside. It wouldn’t serve his purposes to annoy the wizard he’d come to for help.
Salazar’s saggy balls, Draco was going to regret this.
“I need a drink.”
A shout later, Nippet appeared with a crack and a bottle of whisky. Draco downed his glass before Theo had even finished pouring his.
“That bad, huh?”
That bad? Draco would laugh if he wasn’t fixated on how the whisky settled in his knotted stomach.
For the better part of a year, he had told himself it was nothing. She was just one of the countless customers who frequented his shop. A Healer required Potions. Potions required a Potions Master. As such, a Healer required a Potions Master. That was all it was. An exchange of business between two professionals.
Then why the hell had she felt compelled to go and muddy that up?
Three weeks later, he still didn’t know what to make of it. And dear Merlin, the knots in his stomach each time she walked through the shop door were only getting worse.
Digging into his pocket, Draco retrieved the shrunken record she had gifted him. Not even for his birthday, Christmas, or some Muggle holiday he didn’t know about.
“I thought you might like this.”
Those words were stuck in his head more than any of the damn songs that had echoed through his flat above the shop ever since.
She’d been thinking about him. She’d been bloody thinking about him.
Charming it back to full size, Draco handed the record to Theo who merely stared at it. In Theo’s defence, Draco had spent a significant time staring at the strange cover, too.
“Magical Mystery Tour The Fool on the Hill Flying Blue—”
“It’s just called Magical Mystery Tour.”
“And are those—”
“Animal costumes.”
“I don’t get it.”
Neither did Draco.
Not that she hadn’t tried explaining it. Something about an accompanying film and a conspiracy theory that one of the band members was actually dead. Less than half of her words had properly reached his ears.
Hermione Granger had given him a gift. A gift that was Muggle. And whose significance hinged on one of their first non-antagonistic conversations. All these months later, she hadn’t forgotten it either.
“I assure you, Granger. These are the best beetles Britain has to offer.”
“Oh, I can think of many people who would disagree with that statement.”
“If you believe my Potion ingredients to be inferior, then feel free to shop elsewhere.”
“No need to get snippy, Malfoy. It’s a joke.”
“I fail to see the humour.”
“You know, The Beatles?”
“What about beetles?”
“The Beatles.”
“Potter and Weasley may have a history of poor listening comprehension, but I heard you the first time. What about beetles?”
A laugh.
“I’ll let you figure that out on your own.”
It had taken Draco two hours of research at a Muggle internet cafe to uncover the meaning of her “joke.” How in Merlin’s name had she expected him to understand that she was alluding to some old Muggle band that couldn’t even spell their name correctly?
He never should have succumbed to his curiosity.
Which brought Draco back to why he was standing in front of Theodore Nott, in urgent need of assistance.
“Do you know anything about dentists?”
Theo wrinkled his brow, the word appearing equally as foreign to him as it initially had been to Draco. He flipped Magical Mystery Tour to the back cover but found no answers.
“Someone who makes dents on something?”
Founders help them, this plan was going to go worse than Draco feared.
“No, it’s a Muggle profession,” Draco answered as he took the record back into his hold.
“And just what does that have to do with you chugging fifty-year-old whisky like a common heathen and that offensively vibrant record cover?”
The knot in Draco’s stomach tightened.
“It’s from a customer. A— A Muggleborn customer.”
Theo hardly needed two seconds before he appeared to piece everything together. On the third second, he refilled Draco’s tumbler.
“Cheers, mate,” Theo said as he lifted his glass.
The amber liquid disappeared past their lips, leaving both glasses empty by the time he and Theo returned them to the table.
“I take it I don’t have to guess which Muggleborn?”
At the rate this conversation was going, Theo might as well have placed an Automatic Replenishing Charm on Draco’s whisky glass.
“No, you do not.”
“And I also take it this means you’ve finally snapped out of your delusion that you don’t have feelings towards Granger?”
Oh yes, Draco was most certainly already regretting this.
“I did not have feelings towards Granger.”
“But you do now.”
It wasn’t a question.
Draco didn’t even try denying it.
Each visit over the past several months had led Draco closer to a steep, spiralling slope he’d been too shrouded in past resentments to see approaching and later took every desperate measure to prevent himself from slipping down. For a while, he remained safely rooted at the precipice. A passing comment about how he’d received his Potions Mastery immediately after his release from a two-year stint in Azkaban. A casual question inquiring what type of healing she did that required three scoops of moonseeds. She patroned his shop; he supplied the expertise.
But with increasing frequency, their conversations had wandered elsewhere. Who exactly was this ‘Beatles’ band, and if they were so popular, how had he never heard of them? When had Draco moved out of the Manor, and why did he work when the Malfoy vaults could last five extravagant lifetimes? What did they do when memories of the war threatened to pull them out from the peaceful lives they were both now determined to maintain?
Their interactions never lasted longer than fifteen minutes, but as the months passed, he came to savour them as if they had lasted hours on end. With each exchange, they slowly chipped away the ice that had frosted their feelings towards one another for more than a decade until none of it remained. Draco never allowed himself to think anything greater of it. Anything more than a fleeting, friendly acquaintanceship had felt like an impossibility.
And then she brought him a bloody present.
Pushed off the edge, Draco plummeted into freefall, grasping at empty air for what to do next.
Curse the damn song that had given him this idea. This was Granger’s fault. All of it.
Goo goo g'joob, his arse.
Draco slumped into the chaise lounge across from where Theo sat.
“Her parents are dentists.”
“That explains nothing.”
“Yes, well, that’s about all I know right now,” Draco said with a mild groan. “She mentioned it this morning.”
The first time she had ever said anything about her parents. The first time. After countless conversations. And with the way she had said it—so artfully slipped in between topics with her brown eyes scanning his every feature—part of Draco couldn’t help but feel like this was the second instalment in a personalised examination.
Is Draco Malfoy still harbouring hateful beliefs about Muggles? Let’s test him with the strangest, most nonsensical album I can find and then see how he reacts when I comment about my Muggle parents’ so-called “boring” job that actually inspired me to go into magical healing.
Well, if it was a test, Draco was determined to pass.
Enter: Theodore Nott and the worst plan Draco Malfoy had ever devised.
“And what do you expect to happen? You woo Hermione Granger with your well-versed knowledge in whatever a dentist is?”
“Not exactly.”
Theo lifted an eyebrow.
Fucking wanker of a best friend.
A long, resigned sigh escaped Draco as he knocked his head back and stared at the ceiling.
“I— It sends a message.”
“A message that you can be just as insufferably bookish?”
“That I’m not the same prejudiced pureblooded bigot she used to know.”
For months, he’d gotten to witness the way her face lit up whenever she explained something Muggle to him like the once annoying, now adorable little swot that she was. Now it was time for him to discover what her response would be when he impressed her with his own Muggle wisdom. And maybe, just maybe, that would prove him worthy of more than a short conversation in his shop. A chance to see if this stir inside his chest could actually turn into something lasting, or if he and Granger were destined to forever remain two former adversaries who had managed to find common ground but nothing more.
But first, he had to find out what a dentist was. Beyond what he had been able to look up at that internet cafe. He needed to be knowledgeable.
When Draco sat upright, Theo was looking right at him.
“Let me guess. You’re not here just to ask me questions about Muggle things you know I have no idea about.”
Merlin, was Draco becoming that predictable?
At least that would make this next part easier.
“Theo Nott has a dentist appointment for noon tomorrow at Granger and Granger Dentistry.”
“Theo Nott has a what?” Theo pushed himself to the edge of the sofa. “Not before he learns what a dentist is!”
“They clean teeth.”
“With Muggle instruments?!”
“Well they certainly aren’t using magic.”
“Nope. No way.”
“I am asking for one favour.”
“And it’s barking!”
“You only need to get your teeth cleaned.”
“Oh yeah? Go get it done yourself!”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Give me one good reason why I should and you shouldn’t!”
Draco’s lips parted halfway before he sealed them shut.
Why couldn’t he have stayed friends with Goyle? The stupid oaf wouldn’t have questioned a single aspect of this plan, let alone fight Draco on the fundamental aspect. And perhaps most importantly, he wouldn’t have been smart enough to answer that unspoken question for himself.
A grin slowly spread up Theo’s lips, and Draco seriously considered grabbing a handful of Floo Powder off the mantel and abandoning this entire plan. But it was too late. The damage was done.
“Don’t tell me you’re already planning for the possibility of one day meeting her parents and don’t want to risk them recognising you.”
That was it. Draco officially needed a new best friend.
At the lack of response, Theo’s damn smile spread wider.
“And if I’m the one getting my teeth cleaned, then what will you be doing during all of this?”
Theo collapsed in laughter when Draco told him.
~*~*~
This was a great plan. An excellent plan. It was going to work fine.
This was Draco’s dumbest idea since every failed murder attempt his sixteen-year-old self was arrogant and desperate enough to believe would actually succeed.
At least now he was wise enough to know when his plans were imbecilic, illogical, insane.
"Who brings their ferret to the dentist?" Theo half-mumbled, half-chuckled as they walked the remainder of the distance from the Apparition point to the Grangers’ dentist office. "Doing all right in there, you smitten little creature?”
Theo was lucky Draco was already locked inside the cage or he would have bitten him.
If John Lennon was a walrus, then Draco Malfoy was a ferret—regardless of how much he despised the way his whole body twitched as a result of the transfigured state.
Chimes tinkled overhead when Theo pushed open the door and entered the lobby. Draco couldn’t see much from his vantage point beside Theo’s thigh, but he heard a receptionist greet Theo from behind the front desk.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here for an appointment.”
“Ah, you must be the new patient. Welcome! Let me pull up your file. One moment, please.” Click. Click. Click. Tap. Click. “Are you— The Nott?”
“Theo Nott.”
“Apologies. My records say ‘The’ here. You must have misspelled it on your online registration.”
Theo quirked an eyebrow at Draco through the cage’s top. “Right, because I commonly forget the ‘o’ in my own name.”
Draco hissed. He would like to see Theo attempt to find all the letters on that garbled alphabet typing board contraption!
“It looks like you already completed all of your initial paperwork, so I can take you right back.”
Those words spiked Draco’s adrenaline and sent his little heart racing. Ready for action, his fluffy white tail swayed behind him as he circled in the cage before settling on facing forward.
This is it, Draco. Pay keen attention. Granger appreciates details. Show her how much you’ve changed. How much you’re still trying to learn.
I am in control of this.
Theo had hardly made it three steps past the front desk when the receptionist stopped them.
“Oh— Um, you’ll have to leave your pet outside. We can’t let animals back here for health reasons.”
The world must have been playing a cruel prank. Muggles didn’t let their pets into their medical facilities?! It wasn’t common practice in the Wizarding World, but it was certainly allowed. What in Merlin’s name was Draco supposed to do now?
Plan. Plan. Plan. He needed to come up with another plan.
Theo and Draco exchanged short glances, and Draco couldn’t tell if Theo was more amused at the crashing and burning of Draco’s short-lived scheme or relieved that he didn’t actually have to go through with a dental cleaning.
Answer: both.
The cage rattled within Theo’s grip as he closed the door to the office behind them.
“Well, we tried your ridiculous plan, and now I’m calling a Termino on this mission!”
A growl curled Draco’s ferret lips. Theo wasn’t getting out of this that easily.
“I already told you I’m not going in there alone,” he said when Draco’s growling didn’t relent. “The entire purpose of this field trip was to get you inside, not me. I will live a perfectly happy and healthy life without subjecting myself to whatever Muggle mouth torture goes on in there. But like the stupid, loyal friend I am, I was willing to endure it so I wouldn’t have to keep hearing you prattle on about Granger without you actually doing something about it, but if you’re not in there with me, consider this favour complete!”
Another growl.
“Don’t try that with me,” Theo fired back. “If you’re so determined to find out what a dentist really does, then surely there are plenty of other dentists in England you can go to yourself.”
Yes, but none of them were Granger’s parents.
With his small, mustelid features, Draco stared at Theo, trying to make his conviction clear, but Theo didn’t budge.
Fine. If he wouldn’t help, then Draco would finish this job himself.
Perching onto his hind legs, Draco pawed at the latch.
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake. You have got to be kidding me.”
Draco tuned out Theo’s grumbling and kept working on the latch. Slowly, it began to jostle from place, when a sudden snort broke Draco’s concentration.
“Fuck it. Let’s see how this plays out.”
Theo pulled back the latch, and the metal door swung open.
Free from his confinement, Draco shot out of the cage and scurried as his claws clicked against the pavement that surrounded the building.
Another way in. He had to find another way in.
His solution came in the form of a cracked-open window right above a perfectly-sized bush.
Pointy leaves and jagged branches poked Draco’s fur as he climbed through the bush. If ever Draco needed convincing to never volunteer to return to this ferret form, this right here was the only memory he would need. One moment, he placed his paw on a seemingly safe branch, the next, a blur of green slapped him across the face.
I am okay with this.
Was Draco really willing to put up with this just so he could glean the smallest insight into Muggle life?
If it meant something to Granger, then yes, yes he was.
Which proved yet again how idiotic Draco had truly become.
When he finally reached the top of the bush, Draco pulled himself onto the ledge and after checking to make sure no one was within sight, wiggled his body through the opening. He landed on the tiles with a soft thud and thanked Merlin that whoever had used that bathroom last had left the door ajar. With a nudge of his head, the bathroom door opened a couple inches more, allowing Draco to slip into the back section of the dentist office.
For once in his life, having white-blond hair—or in this instance, white-blond fur—helped Draco blend in rather than stand out. Against the clinically white walls, Draco padded down the hall completely unnoticed. The Muggle healers were in too much of a rush or were too concentrated on the files in their hands to spare one glance at the animal in their midst. Not that Draco was going to risk this open exposure for long.
Ten minutes. That’s all he’d afford himself.
Moving quickly, Draco slinked through a doorless frame and into a room where a patient sat in a large reclined chair under a glaringly bright light.
“And what are you studying in school?” a woman too young to be Granger’s mother asked.
It would have been easier for the patient to answer if the woman wasn’t using some silver instrument to prod inside his mouth. Draco flinched when she removed it, revealing the sharp, pointed hook.
What sort of barbaric torture device was that?
“Now spit before I brush your teeth.”
When the woman selected a loud, whirring instrument attached to a long chord, Draco had seen enough. And had that man spat out blood?
It was moments like these that Draco was eternally grateful to be a wizard. Muggles could get their teeth cleaned however worked for them, but this was not for Draco. Surely her parents used more humane medical tools?
Returning to the hall, Draco scuttled towards a new room where he thought he heard a man’s voice. Granger’s father, perhaps?
Draco had barely caught a glimpse of shorter but still recognisable curls when he stalled at the sound of the front door chiming open and a far too familiar voice.
“Afternoon! Are my parents still with patients?”
The muscles in Draco’s body grew rigid. Of all the bloody days Granger decided to visit her parents at their office, did she have to choose today?
Jerking his body back into motion, Draco started to scramble. He darted away from Granger’s father’s room and ran as fast as his little legs would carry him back to the bathroom. But just his bloody luck, the door was closed with a pale yellow light illuminating from the crack underneath.
“Your father’s noon patient never returned, so he should be somewhere in the back.”
“Thanks, Sandra.”
Shit. Bugger. Fuck.
Draco whipped his head in every direction. He needed a place to hide, but there weren’t many options. A fake plant in the corner. A cabinet only an inch or two off the ground. A lamp. Nothing actually viable.
If he just stood beside the plant and pressed himself against a wall she wouldn’t notice unless—
Granger turned right down the hall and her eyes locked straight on Draco’s ferret form.
Too late.
“Is that— Malfoy?”
Fucking, fuck, fuck.
Draco scurried past her, into the lobby, and out the front door before this plan turned into any more of a catastrophe.
~*~*~
He had no plan. Not a good one; not even a bad one.
How in the ever-loving fuck was Draco going to explain why he had been at her parents’ dental office in his transfigured form without sounding like an absolute lunatic?
Oh yes, well, you see, I decided to reminisce about the good old days and my ferret past, until suddenly, I had the world’s tiniest toothache.
He wasn’t convinced that was any worse than the truth.
Vials filled with the Hiccoughing Solution Granger had ordered two days ago rested an arm's length away, waiting for her to pick them up. Would she still come? Or had his furry escapades jeopardised all the progress they had made?
Forget hoping for more than their casual, near-daily conversations. Draco might have lost that as well.
Yet he couldn’t shake one thing: why had her first impulse been to assume it was him?
He was far from the only ferret in England. Who was to say he was that ferret? Had some part of her actually hoped it was him?
It was the barest of threads to cling to, but Draco latched onto it with all of his strength.
Or maybe he really was just a right idiot.
Dropping his head into his hands, Draco cursed himself for his apparent inability to properly consider the possible consequences of his poorly conceived plans. Best of intentions be damned. But a spark of hope reignited inside of him when he heard the shop door open.
His stomach was in instant knots.
Granger.
Gods, she wasn’t even doing anything special, yet Draco couldn’t tear his eyes off of her. How had he ever let himself believe that he wasn’t interested in this witch?
She walked past the display of pre-brewed potions and glass containers of potions ingredients, heading straight towards Draco behind the counter. Damn those curls that haloed her warm brown eyes and inviting smile, all of which he was finding increasingly difficult to shake from his thoughts.
Wait.
She was still smiling at him.
This was good.
“Morning, Malfoy.”
“Morning.”
Their typical greeting.
Normal.
“Are my Hiccoughing Solutions ready?”
“Have them right here for you.”
Draco retrieved the four vials, taking a moment to collect his thoughts.
She was acting as if nothing happened. As if this was any other day between them.
Perhaps Granger realised how crazy it would sound if she asked Draco if he had been the ferret in her parents’ dentist office. Maybe she no longer thought it was him. Or, at the very least, they were both going to pretend this whole debacle never happened, and keep things just the way they had been the past few months.
Draco could live with that.
For now.
“That will be thirty-two Sickles.”
She handed him the coins.
“Thanks, Malfoy.”
“Pleasure, Granger.”
As she took the vials and placed them in her bag, Draco allowed himself a moment to breathe.
See, Draco, you had nothing to worry about. The plan went just fine in the end.
He had less than ten seconds of peace before it all came crashing down.
“You know, I actually tried stopping by yesterday to see if these were done early, but the strangest thing happened. Your shop was closed during my lunch.”
Blast it all.
He had been so close.
“I had another obligation.”
“Oh?” The beginning traces of a smile inched up her lips. “That obligation wouldn’t have anything to do with why your eye is twitching right now, would it?”
Of course she knew. How had Draco ever deluded himself into thinking Hermione Granger would just drop something like this?
He would be annoyed if he wasn’t so damn smitten with her.
And one big fuck you very much to Theodore Nott for making Draco admit that to himself.
The truth. Draco had to tell her the truth.
“You said your parents were dentists, and I wanted to know more.”
The light behind her eyes instantly brightened, though she covered it with a laugh. “And you thought sneaking into their office as a ferret was the best way to do that?”
“It wasn’t my first choice,” Draco said with a huff. “Though I must ask how you were so certain it was me. It’s not as if I make a habit of returning to that form.”
A subtle pink tinted her cheeks.
“Your eyes,” she answered after several seconds’ pause. “Albino ferrets have red eyes, and dark eyed white ferrets have black eyes. But Draco Malfoy ferrets have the same silver grey eyes as their human counterpart.” She glanced downward for only a moment before snorting. “That, and it became quite obvious when I passed Theo Nott carrying an empty pet cage.”
So that was why Theo had been ignoring his Floo Calls!
But Draco couldn’t fixate on that long. Granger had just admitted to recognising Draco by his eye colour alone.
Merlin’s beard, was there a chance that his feelings towards Granger weren’t one-sided?
Her blush disappeared as she looked up at Draco.
“And just out of curiosity, how did you manage to get into my parents’ office if not with Theo?”
Draco groaned at the memory. “I came in through the bathroom window.”
A burst of laughter rang through the shop. “Any chance you were protected by a silver spoon?”
His forehead scrunched. “What would a silver spoon be doing in a bathroom?”
Her smile turned vibrant. “It’s another joke, Malfoy. But now I know which Beatles record I’m giving you next.”
Next. Granger had a plan for what she wanted to give him next.
The knots in Draco’s stomach loosened.
I am most certainly okay with this.
“As long as you promise this one doesn’t have any more strange animal costumes on the cover.”
Granger snickered. “Promise. But there is another piece to the conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney is dead.”
“In that case, I look forward to hearing all about it.”
They wished each other a good rest of the day, and Draco made no pretence about not watching her as she headed towards the exit.
He wouldn’t have been able to plan something better than that, even if he tried.
“Hey, Malfoy?”
A final call of his name from the open door sent his heart straight back into a rapid pace.
The pink returned to her cheeks. “That was sweet of you to try to learn more about my parents and their jobs, but maybe next time, you could just ask? As cute as you are as a ferret, I like you better this way.”
The door had barely closed before Draco zipped from behind the counter and chased after her.
Enough planning. It was time to act.
“What are you doing after work?”
He was so focused on the answer to his question that Draco hardly registered that he had instinctively reached for her hand to make sure she didn’t get away.
Salazar strike him down. He didn’t want to let go.
Her gaze fell to where their hands met, and a smile crossed her lips.
“Nothing at the moment.”
His heart leapt. “I’ve been spending some time at Muggle internet cafes lately, but any chance you want to introduce me to a regular Muggle cafe? I hear their black coffee is far superior to that sludge they serve at the Leaky.”
She snorted—just one of many more times he hoped to make her laugh tonight. “I’m more of a masala chai person, actually.”
“Just as long as you don’t steal any of my pastry, you can order whatever you like.”
“I make no promises.”
At the prospect of a night full of conversation with Granger, Draco walked back to his shop with a regained sense of confidence. Despite how much of a disaster his plan had been, everything turned out more than all right in the end. Though that didn’t stop Draco from making himself one final vow:
He would never transfigure into a ferret again.