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When Hermione Granger ran into him in the bookstore Draco Malfoy had been wondering whether the proprietor would sell him anything. Not everyone would, but he was tired of the ancient and dreary tomes with which generations of his family had stocked the Manor library and he was getting desperate for something to read that had been published in the last century.
The witch looked so happy to see him – something no one ever was – that he found himself agreeing to go back to her place for tea even though the idea of spending that much time with another person made him nervous.
He didn’t really do people anymore.
She pulled him along by the force of her personality, chattering about people they’d known in school and what they were doing and soon he found himself in the small kitchen of her small flat leaning up against the counter as she put water on and spooned tea into a pot.
She finally asked him the question he’d been dreading.
What, she asked, had he been up to since the War. Five years, she said, I haven’t seen or heard of you in five years.
She sounded almost wistful and he wondered whether she missed him or envied his low profile. She’d been fawned on in the shop when he paid for his books and he’d thought at least no one had refused him service with Hermione Granger at his side. She’d been accosted at least two times on the street and he was fairly sure someone had snapped a photograph of them.
She’d grimaced at that but not acknowledged it, just kept up a stream of light and empty prattle.
Now, standing here with her, he sighed. “Well, for three years I was under house arrest. I didn’t think it would be that bad – I mean, you’ve seen how big that place is – but somewhere in there I realized I was alone with just my thoughts. Everyone I knew was… no one was owling me, you know. I got to sit around and think about who I was and what I’d done.”
“That must have been…” Hermione hesitated.
“I don’t recommend it,” Draco muttered as Hermione opened up a package of biscuits and pulled a plate out of a cupboard and dumped them out. “Presentation not big in your life?” he asked.
She smiled, an oddly sad expression. “I got tired of all the crazy fancy platings when I was going out all the time. I like things simple now.” The water had begun to boil and she poured it into the teapot. “What happened when your house arrest was over?”
He sighed. “I’d thought I couldn’t wait to get away from that place but when I could really leave I was too scared to. I spent another month inside.”
“That’s awful,” she said and he was shocked to see actual concern on her face.
“I got better,” he hastened, not sure why he cared so much about reassuring her. “But… well, former Death Eaters aren’t exactly welcome anywhere. There are a handful of shops that will sell me things, places I can go, but even there it’s clear I’m not wanted, just tolerated. It’s easier to stay in so I do.”
She nodded. The prejudice against former Death Eaters was virulent; people let all their fears from the War spill out on to the handful of people from the losing side who weren’t in Azkaban. She didn’t seem surprised it had been hard for him.
“How about you,” he asked as they stood in her kitchen and waited for the tea to steep. “What have you been doing?”
She shrugged. “After the War, you know, I was a bit of a celebrity and I went out, well, all the time. Every night. It was fun, or something, for a bit but after a while you’ve gone to every restaurant and been whisked into every nightclub. Every place to eat has some variation of a chicken dish, a fish dish, and some kind of ‘we picked it in the woods and scraped it off the road’ trendy dish and every man has one of the same three pick up lines. I got… tired of sleeping with a different man every week. At some point I even lost count; they were all the same anyway. It was the loneliest I’ve ever been.” She sagged against the counter a bit and lifted the lid of the pot as though to check to see if the tea was ready. “Ron’s still enjoying the scene but I decided I’d rather just stay in and read. After a while you realize how empty and pointless the whole thing is. I realized it didn’t make anything better.
“This is probably the first thing even close to a date I’ve had in almost a year.” Hermione pulled a pair of cups down.
“You lost count?” he asked, his voice shaking.
“You aren’t going to be all judgey, are you?” she asked, sounding suddenly tense. “There’s no reason a woman can’t – “
“No,” he said quickly, holding a hand out. “It’s just a little… Merlin, Granger. I’ve barely left the house for five years, no one will talk to me and you’re… it’s a little intimidating is all.”
“Oh,” she said, a sudden look of comprehension flitting over her face. “I… you’re not…”
“Yeah,” he muttered before he stood up. “Look, I should go. It’s been great to run into you - “
She grabbed his arm. “Don’t go,” she said. “I promise I won’t... just… stay. Have the biscuits. Talk to me.”
“You don’t need me to talk to you,” he said, standing there. “You have – “
“No one who matters,” she said. “No one who understands what those days were like.”
“You lost count,” he said again, hopelessly overwhelmed. He’d lost the ability to deal with people when he’d been tucked away alone in that giant house and he didn’t think he’d ever get it back.
“One.” She put her hand on his chest and he flinched. Human contact was something he hadn’t had a lot of in the past years. “Two.” She moved it to hers.
“I’m not even sure I can do two anymore,” he said, swallowing.
“I’m very quiet,” she said. “I read a lot.”
She turned away and poured the tea and he stood, torn between wanting to flee and…
“I’m different,” he said. “I’m not who I was.” He didn’t know how to make her understand. “It’s not just the… it broke something in me, all that solitude.”
“You think I’m not broken?” she asked and he looked at her then, really looked at her. The shallow nattering on she’d done, the way she’d dragged him back here, the years of going out with people she barely knew. “The War,” she said. “I’m still…”
“Granger,” he said and she closed her eyes.
“Please,” she whispered.
“I can try two,” he said he reached out and, very carefully, took her hand. She closed it around his and they stood there for a long time as the tea cooled.
Two, as it turned out, wasn’t too many. Two was… doable.
Two was, eventually, perfect.