Work Text:
June
“No way, Ginny.”
“Yes way, Hermione.” The redhead tugged Hermione’s arm, urging her towards the shop door. Not that there was any way of knowing it was a shop from the outside. The black plaque, with its ornate silver lettering, was so discreet that it might as well not have been there - unless, of course, you knew where to look. And Hermione only knew because she’d already told Ginny earlier that week, twice, that she was not going in. “It’s about the only place we haven’t tried yet. And besides, I made us an appointment.”
“You did what?” Hermione groaned. “Gin, really. I won’t even be able to afford a shoe in here.”
“Mione, you’re getting married at the Burrow in October. You’ll probably need wellies, not shoes, but you can make up for it with the dress.” Ginny grinned at her, and gave one last tug on her arm. It was enough to propel her across the pavement and in front of the door and, with a last triumphant smile, Ginny pressed the buzzer. Hermione felt her stomach sinking and her cheeks heat up as the black door swung open. If she’d known, she thought furiously, she would have worn something other than jeans and a t-shirt. If she’d known, she would have been a bit more careful with her frizzy curls that morning. If she’d known, she would have been even firmer about saying no.
She followed Ginny up the staircase. Deep, polished cherry wood gleamed under her sandals - Birkenstocks, she thought ruefully, why on earth had she worn her old scruffy Birkenstocks? - and the cream walls were lined with wedding photographs. Staged, of course, Hermione thought, but still. Rings and tiaras and flower arrangements and dresses, all in muted, romantic tones. The air was already scented. She caught a drift of lilac, perhaps freesia, the faint traces of a woman’s perfume, and her stomach sank even further at the idea that they might not be the only ones there.
Not for the first time that day, she felt a flare of irritation. Everything was so much hassle. A quick registry office appointment followed by dinner afterwards would be far easier, and then she felt guilty for even thinking like that. She should be excited. She was excited. She was marrying someone she'd loved since they were fifteen.
“Miss Granger?” A smiling woman, dressed impeccably - of course - in a knee-length floral dress, stepped over from behind a kind of reception desk, and Ginny pointed at Hermione.
“This is Hermione. I’m Ginny, we maybe spoke on the phone? I’m just along for the ride.”
“Ah, yes, we did.” The woman held out her hand to first Hermione, then Ginny. “I’m Olivia, I’ll be looking after you today.” She gestured them forward through a set of open double doors. “Welcome to The Bridal Garden.”
Hermione groaned inwardly as she followed Ginny and Olivia through. The place was absolutely beautiful, just as the photos on the website had promised. The dark wood floor gave way to a lighter parquet, burnished golden in the late afternoon sun that streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Light chiffon curtains floated in the breeze. Hermione could see rack upon rack of frothy white: chiffon and lace and tulle and silk floating together in an endless stream of dresses, crowned with glittering tiaras on a shelf above and set off with lightly sparkling fairy lights and twisted garlands of greenery along the cornice. It was like a wedding fairyland, but, rather than igniting little twinges of excitement in her chest, it made Hermione inexplicably want to cry.
The scent had come from huge vases of flowers, placed on tables in the half of the space that was set aside for friends and relatives to wait, and drink champagne, and give their opinion whenever an opinion was needed. Two of the chairs were already taken, the women talking in low tones and looking expectantly towards the curtained-off dressing area.
“My apologies, ladies, that the salon isn’t entirely yours this afternoon.” Olivia really did look apologetic as she ushered them forward to another table set well apart. “It’s such a busy time of year, and of course Saturday afternoons are in demand.”
“Oh, it’s fine,” Ginny said breezily, accepting a glass of champagne and looking eagerly towards the dresses. “Where do you want to start, Mione?”
Olivia smiled. “Usually we begin by talking through your ideas for your big day, and get an idea of your style. We want your dress to be perfect - your wedding is your fairytale, after all. So we’ll take our time. You can try on as many as you want to.”
But Hermione wasn’t really listening. She was looking at the occupied chairs, where one of the women had just turned around, and her heart gave an uncomfortable, sickening thump as she saw who it was - the last person that she’d expected to run into here.
“So, what kind of wedding are you planning?”
Ginny tugged on her arm again, and Hermione slowly sank down into one of the chairs. Olivia was looking at her expectantly, but she couldn’t quite tear her eyes away from the other table, from the blonde hair that she’d recognise anywhere, from the blue eyes that felt as if they were looking right through her.
“Uh…” She forced herself to try and concentrate, and turned to Olivia’s smiling face. For a moment, she could still feel those eyes resting on her back. “Well, it’s an outdoor wedding. In October. So I’m going to be kind of limited.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a woman come out of the dressing area who Hermione didn’t recognise. An elegant figure was draped in a satin A-line dress overlaid in lace, and Hermione vaguely heard appreciative comments as the woman twirled. Her senses honed in on the voice. That voice. She hadn’t heard it in over a year, and all it took were a few blurry words for her to realise that it had lost none of its allure. It still settled like a warm breeze on her skin.
She answered all of Olivia’s questions, going into detail about everything that they’d planned so far. There wasn’t much - at least, not that she was really sure about. She’d asked Ron so many times to sit down with her and choose a colour scheme, to think about the flowers, to think about the music for the reception because they’d probably already left it too late to book a half-decent band, but he’d just laughed and said that there was plenty of time, and that his mother would be the better person to talk to anyway. The only thing he’d shown an interest in was the food, and that was the first thing that they’d argued over. He wanted a full roast dinner, while Hermione couldn’t imagine anything worse than trying to eat beef and Yorkshire pudding in a wedding dress. Fortunately, Ron’s mother had agreed with her on that point, so salmon en croute it was.
Olivia took note of that as well, writing everything down on a pad of thick lined paper, embossed at the top with the same black and silver lettering that graced the plaque downstairs, and Hermione sipped her champagne. The bubbles dissolved in sweet bursts on her tongue while she listened with half an ear for that voice again. This next dress wasn’t quite right for Astoria. Too much embroidery. Simple was better, perhaps, didn’t Georgina think so? Georgina - who Hermione guessed was Astoria’s mother - did think so, and Astoria was sent back to the dressing area for another one. All the while, Hermione answered questions and tried to summon some enthusiasm, while Olivia scratched away on her pad and Ginny drank champagne, interjecting every now and then when Hermione wasn’t forthcoming enough.
“Well, it sounds wonderful,” Olivia enthused, putting down her pen. “I think we’re ready to start trying on…I’ll pull out some to start with that I think you might like, but do feel free to wander and have a look yourself, and we’ll see about finding you your dream dress!”
She sounded so excited that Hermione felt bad, and she put all her effort into smiling back.
“Look at that one.” Ginny nudged her as Astoria came out of the fitting room again. “That would look stunning on you.”
Hermione glanced over, but didn’t really see the dress because once again those blue eyes were looking straight at her, and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She’d missed them so much.
“Yeah, it’s lovely,” she said, and Ginny slapped her lightly on the arm.
“Come on, Mione! It’s your wedding. You get to try on as many gorgeous dresses as you want while drinking as much champagne as you want. And…” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “If you find one you like, then Harry and I are putting half towards it.”
That shocked Hermione into turning around, and she looked with wide eyes at her friend. “No, Ginny!”
“Yes. No arguments.” Ginny did look decisive. “I’m not going to buy you a toaster or a memory foam pillow or any of that wedding list shit, I want to get you something you’ll remember.”
Impulsively, Hermione reached over and hugged Ginny. Guilt stabbed hard - how could she not be enthusiastic about all this when everyone else was? - and she hid it in the hug. Ginny just laughed and hugged her back, and for a few seconds Hermione forgot all about who was sitting just across the room.
It didn’t last long. She had pass that table to go into the dressing area, and she wasn’t sure whether it was more like a walk of shame or a firewalk. Ginny, of course, was oblivious. Ginny had no idea that only a couple of years ago - when Hermione was supposed to be focusing on a promotion so that she and Ron could buy a house - those blue eyes had caressed her naked body. That voice had made her skin tingle almost as much as those hands had. Those lips had kissed her senseless, and she’d returned it with a passion she’d never felt before. She’d fallen so hard in love she’d felt bruised. It had, frankly, terrified her.
But Ginny didn’t know that. No one had any idea. And so she tried not to stare, and walked as quickly as she could. Surely, she thought, Astoria must almost be done by now. Surely, by the time Hermione was trying her dresses on, they would have left.
“Here we go.” Olivia cheerfully directed her to a large, curtained-off area at the end of the space, and hung four dresses on the large silver hooks that were spaced along the wall. “I have plenty more in mind, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. You’ll want to take your time and see what style and materials feel best.”
They didn’t leave. Astoria tried on dress after dress, and so did Hermione, going as slowly as she could, hoping to put off the next inevitable moment when she would have to venture out from behind the safety of the curtains to look at herself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, to show Ginny, to see what each dress felt like to walk in. She tried A-lines, sheath dresses, and princess styles; high necks and scoop necks and deep plunging v-necks. She tried a ballgown-style, flared like a cloud around her body, and a 1920s-style drop waist that Ginny loved (when Harry finally gets his act together, she said, I’m having that one). All of them were beautiful but none of them felt quite right, and each time Hermione walked out under the gaze of those blue eyes she felt less and less confident. She couldn’t imagine wearing any of these dresses to pledge her love to one man forever. She couldn’t imagine getting married at all, and she couldn’t help wondering whether that was really the fault of the dresses.
By the time the other little party was finishing - Astoria, it seemed, had chosen the original A-line dress after all - Hermione was just about ready to give up as well. She was hot and tired, and had switched to water instead of champagne. The dress she was wearing was okay, she supposed - a pretty strapless style with lace embroidery around the bodice - but it still didn’t feel particularly comfortable. She was too conscious of her breasts, too aware of the fabric clinging around her hips. She let Ginny twirl her around in it, let Olivia fuss over the back fastenings and fetch her some shoes to try on with it, and watched as those blue eyes got up to leave. Twinges of both relief and panic flashed across her chest. She wanted to say something. She didn’t want them to go. She wanted to turn around and forget they were ever there.
She caught Narcissa’s gaze, and held it, and it made her skin tingle all over again.
“Try that one.” The blonde’s face was inscrutable as she nodded towards one of the hooks that Astoria had abandoned. Her voice was soft, so soft Hermione thought she might have imagined it. “It’ll look better with your figure.”
Hermione looked. It was a simple empire line dress, with a sweetheart neckline and a delicate lace overlay on the straps, and the silk shimmered in the honeyed evening light. She hadn’t even seen it before. She must have missed Astoria trying it on.
She nodded and tried to smile, but Narcissa turned to leave without another word.
It was the one. It flowed over her body like water, light despite the layers, and she couldn’t stop looking at it in the mirror. The way it moved; the elegance of it. It made Hermione feel beautiful. Ginny adored it, and Olivia couldn’t stop beaming.
But when she imagined wearing it to marry Ron, something went cold in her stomach, and she tried to ignore the little voice deep inside that said she wished it was Narcissa instead.
***
September
She lay on the bed, in the dark, and listened. Cool air drifted across her body from the open window, and there was the faint noise of traffic from the main road, the rustling of leaves from the plane trees on the street, the scrabbling of something around the gate. A fox, perhaps, or one of the neighbourhood cats. Downstairs, she could hear the television - the television that she’d bought, along with everything else in the house. A football game. England against Poland, England losing. The pop of a beer can. The rustle of a bag of crisps. They grated on her like fingernails down a blackboard and she tried to focus on the outside noises instead, but it was hopeless, and she turned her face into her pillow to hide her tears. She was just tired, she told herself. Such a small thing: an argument over dinner. Another one. One small thing in a litany of small things. Small things that built up like paper cuts, until now she was convinced more than ever that she couldn’t do it.
In a month she would be marrying the man she’d loved since she was fifteen, and that, she thought, was the problem. He wasn’t a man; he was still a boy. He’d never quite grown up into the man she wanted him to be, and she’d realised a long time ago that he never would. They were both simply pretending.
Slowly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, and stepped over to the wardrobe. The dress was at Ginny’s, safely hidden from Ron’s eyes. But the shoes were there. The delicate shawl to look pretty against the autumn chill. The silver tiara, nestled in a box on the shelf. On the floor lay her wedding planner, full of details that Ron hadn’t even bothered to look at. The flowers would be deep reds and golds, lustrous colours for autumn. Buttonholes, bouquets, arrangements for the tables. He’d shrugged when she’d suggested them, said whatever she chose would be fine.
More and more often, she’d started to wonder how different things might be with someone else. She’d thought about blue eyes and blonde hair. She’d thought about Narcissa’s voice, telling her that the empire dress would look better; she imagined it telling her she looked beautiful. She knew she did look beautiful in the dress. She knew Narcissa would see it, and tell her, and she would feel it all the way down to her bones. She knew Ron would tell her, too. But she also knew he wouldn’t really see it.
She’d started to wonder how she might feel if she wasn’t marrying anyone at all, and the relief and lightness was startling.
In a second’s decision that felt like it had been made for months, she wiped her eyes dry and slipped her engagement ring off her finger. It felt heavy and cold in her palm, and rather than feeling strange her finger felt wonderfully free without it. She put it into the bedside drawer and went downstairs. In the living room, Ron was completely absorbed in the football, his hand stuck in a sharing-size bag of crisps and the beer open on the coffee table, and Hermione felt nothing. At one time she would have smiled fondly, or been exasperated, or at least asked him to turn it down. But now there was a gaping hole where feelings had once been, and she turned back into the hallway for her bag and coat. She wouldn’t try and talk to him tonight.
The door shut quietly behind her, and she knew she wouldn’t be going back.
Cool darkness wrapped around her body as she walked. She knew exactly where she was going, even though she hadn’t really planned it. Her footsteps tapped out a rhythm on the pavement as she threaded her way through the streets, and it soothed her. Car headlights flared one after the other. Taxis flashed red and green signs. Buses trundled past, and every so often a siren wailed, and she walked through it all as if in a dream. Every step seemed to lift something from her body. Every road crossed seemed to make her lighter, until she felt like she was dancing, not walking, and she couldn’t help a joyful laugh that made some fellow pedestrians stare and others smile back. She couldn’t even bring herself to feel guilty for it. That would come later, she knew, but for now all she felt was a wildly happy kind of relief.
She still knew which front door it was, in the row of immaculate Georgian townhouses on the west side of the square. It was quieter round here. Despite the late hour, a pigeon cooed softly from the small copse of trees, and under the glow of the streetlights she could see the wrought iron fencing around the square of garden, the benches where people would sit during the day and eat lunch, the bus stop on the opposite side. She’d only been here a few times. Usually they’d used hotel rooms, or each other’s offices, or even - one particularly desperate evening that made her smile and cringe in equal measure - the toilets of a posh restaurant. They’d kept what they had in a bubble, away from the lives they already had. They’d never really talked about it, and it had just evolved that way, but she couldn’t blame Narcissa for getting tired of it and wanting more. She had, too. She just hadn’t had the courage to say so.
Without hesitating - because if she did, she knew she’d never do it - she rang the small doorbell, and waited. She didn’t even know if Narcissa was in.
“Hermione?”
Golden light spilled out of the open door, catching on pale blonde hair. A slender figure, clad only in wide trousers and a sleeveless top, was backlit against the tiled hallway. Narcissa’s voice was quiet, her blue eyes wide and confused, and Hermione’s breath caught in her throat. She didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone so lovely. She wondered how on earth she could have been so stupid as to give it up.
“I’m not getting married,” she said simply, and Narcissa raised an eyebrow.
“Pardon?”
“I’m not getting married.” The more she said it, the better it felt, but Narcissa looked even more confused.
“You came here to tell me that?”
“Partly.” Hermione felt almost giddy. “I also came to ask whether I’ve completely screwed things up, or whether you still love me as much as I love you, and whether you can forgive me for being such an idiot, and….”
She broke off as Narcissa held up a hand, and it was only then that she heard the laugh echoing from inside the house, heard the clink of glasses and a man’s voice. Disappointment washed over her, and she took a step back. She’d never even considered the possibility that Narcissa might have company. Narcissa might have moved on.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come…”
“It’s only Draco and Astoria. Last-minute wedding preparations.” Narcissa wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her skin against the chill, and looked at Hermione with an expression that was impossible to read. Still, Hermione felt absurdly relieved. “You were babbling. What did you say?”
“I always do when I’m nervous, you know that.” Hermione shifted her bag on her shoulder, trying to ignore the slight twisting of her stomach, the butterflies and the thudding heartbeat she was only just beginning to notice. “I said I came to ask whether I’ve fucked things up completely, or whether there’s still a chance even though it’s been so long, because I still love you and I want to be with you, and I was an idiot not to realise it before.”
Narcissa sucked in a long, slow breath. Blue eyes ran over Hermione’s face, searching and probing and peeling back whatever layers of pretence were still left after the long walk through the streets, and Hermione basked in them, let them roll over her like the warm water of Narcissa’s voice.
“And if I say no?” Narcissa’s voice was barely a whisper. “Will you go back?”
“No.” Hermione shook her head, meeting Narcissa’s gaze with a relaxed kind of certainty she hadn’t felt in a long time. “Whether you let me in tonight or not, I’m not getting married.” She felt a giggle bubble up in her throat, and couldn’t hold it back. “I bought the dress, but I’m not getting married.”
“What a waste of a dress.” Narcissa’s lips twitched slightly, and Hermione shrugged.
“Maybe not,” she said quietly. “Wrong person, wrong time, but in the future…”
They looked at each other for a long moment. Everything was clear in Narcissa’s face - desire, trepidation, uncertainty, longing, love - and Hermione watched it all. Remarkably, she felt calmer now. It was the kind of quiet calm that only came, she thought, from doing the right thing, and she once again held Narcissa’s gaze. She’d always loved Narcissa’s eyes. They held so much, she thought she’d never fathom it all. But that didn’t stop her wanting to try.
Slowly, Narcissa stepped back, and let Hermione in.