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“Remember, you have to have your foot on the brake when you start the ignition.”
“I know, Granger. It’s not that complicated.” Draco presses his foot on the small pedal and turns the metal key, a small ring attached with a tiny advertisement for a pub hanging from the end. “The Frosty Mug” it reads in a cheerful, bubbly font.
Granger huffs, irritable as is usual these days. “It is, actually. Muggles learn over the course of weeks or months to do this properly. It took my father teaching me all summer before I felt proficient-”
Draco cuts off her swotty diatribe with a clipped, “It hardly matters, anyway. You will be the one operating this machine. I’ll be tucked quite cozy in that seat right there.” He waves a hand vaguely in the direction of where Granger is currently sat.
“And what if something happens to me?” She asks. Bossy as ever. Pushy as ever. Her nose tilted up in that very Granger way she has, looking down on her intellectual lessers. And people say Draco is a snob…
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” he returns. Draco says it because he believes it. Nothing is going to happen to Hermione Granger. It's a fact.
Granger, however, is not on board with this fact, and tries again. “But what if, Draco? If something happens to me, you’ll have to drive out, hopefully with me included, of course, but even if you have to leave me behind-“
“Nothing is going to happen to you!” He says it again because he believes it. Because he has to. Emphasis is added with his fist hitting the muggle guiding wheel and silence rings around them. Outside, the world is muffled by the interior of the ‘89 Audi Qutro.
“What if, though?” She’s quiet now, and Draco turns his head to find her staring at her hands, stiff and unmoving.
Draco shifts in the cramped space, turning his body to face her, and holds a hand over hers. Her eyes stay focused to her lap, now watching as his thumb plays over her knuckles, and he says it again.
“Nothing, Granger, is going to happen to you. Do you understand? Because if it does, I will Avada every last one of them, and you wouldn’t want my damaged soul on your conscience.”
He watches her lip twitch the barest of acknowledgement.
“Granger…” Draco pulls at her hand gently until she looks up. “Potter will be fine. You will be fine. And I will be exceptional, because I’m Draco Malfoy.” The twitch evolves into a small indulgent smile, and he tugs her hand again, pulling her closer into him and leaning over the automobile’s various compartments and gears.
“And when it is all over, when the last horcrux is gone, you’re going to remember this moment when you taught me to operate a motor-”
“No one calls them motors anymore.”
He gives her an unimpressed look and finishes, “how to operate this nonsense contraption right before saving the day with your Gryffindor heroics as you always do.”
“And then?” she asks, eyes searching his, and he moves to close the distance. He’s been waiting for this moment, to kiss her, to show her his affection that has only been hinted in clever flirtations. Hinted in the delicate brushes of fingertips as they pass each other in corridors, pass notes in meetings, pass the time over muggle cards. In the silence at Grimmauld, huddled around mismatched tables with harried Order members, all searching for something to say while Draco and Hermione watch each other for cues. In the warm gaze he affords her when they are tasked with menial chores, alone together. In laughter, in tears, in screams as they rage their frustrations, safe with each other to show their most raw selves.
He rests his weight on what she called the Handbreak-
“Draco!”
The Audi is in motion, and for a moment, his cool facade slips, and he panics. Other vehicles are few and far between in the barely populated carpark, but the kerb and low walls loom closer as they roll slowly. Draco shifts his feet, suddenly not remembering which of the operations will make the car faster or slower. Left or right? His foot slips from one to another, testing with barely there pressure while shifting from side to side.
He finally finds it with confidence, applying a firm press of his foot until the car stops and holding it there, staring out the windscreen and panting softly. Beside him, Granger does something with the handbrake which he thought was only for emergencies. He would suppose this almost was.
Incredibly, she’s laughing.
“Yes, yes, terribly fucking funny. Glad you are so bloody tickled that I almost killed us afterall.”
“Oh, please. No reason to be dramatic. We were traveling at perhaps 2 miles per hour. Anyway, you can take your foot from the brake now, I’ve placed it back into park.”
“I thought that was only for emergencies,” he grumbles mockingly, mimicking her swotty tone when she told him as such previously.
“That,” she says pointing at a thin plastic handle,”is the handbrake. That, “she says, pointing at the handbrake, “is the gearstick. Remember?”
She looks smug and Draco huffs, pouting slightly. “Right. Yes, I remember.”
This time, it is Granger that reaches over. She turns the key and the soft rumbling hum of the Audi comes to a stop. “Handbreak,” she says again, pointing at the long control, “and gearstick.” Her fingers rest lightly on the top of the knobbed head and then slide off and find Draco’s hand. “We have a few days, anyway. I didn’t mean to push you so hard.”
“It’s irrelevant,” he says again with a sniff. “I’ve told you, you’re driving, so I don’t really need to learn.”
Granger tugs his hand now, turns him to face her, and they are back where they were before he nearly killed them in a muggle carpark. She’s close and his heart picks up. “Let’s say you're right,” she begins. “It might go perfectly. I drive us in, I drive us out, the horcrux is easily found, no Death Eaters arrive, and we disappear into the sunset to meet Harry. All that being the case, spending an extra two days learning might not be necessary, but it won’t have killed you.”
He starts to speak, but she talks over him. “But if it doesn’t,” she silences him with a severe look, “then I would feel better knowing that you will be fine. That you can get out and get to Harry and destroy the horcrux. I’d rather go with you, of course, and it would make me feel loads better to know you can drive us out if I can’t. So, please, just try.” Granger reaches up and pushes a lock of hair from Draco’s forehead. That one stupid lock that always tickles at his skin, but she told him once looks ‘rather fetching’. He has carefully combed it onto his forehead every since.
Draco exhales a deep, affected, exasperated breath, then catches her hand in his, pulling it down from his platinum locks to clasp between them. His eyes search her gaze, a question in his irises, an answer in hers.
Hermione Granger kisses him, gentle as rose petals, then pulls away to whisper, “Now show me you can park between the lines.”
XXXXX 1 Year Later XXXXXX
“I told you, Weasley, that’s the gearstick.” Draco scoffs, gesturing to the controls between the bucket seats and pointedly ignoring Granger as she rolls her eyes in the mirror. Weasley doesn’t need to know Draco’s initial vehicular struggles.
“Piss off, Malfoy, I’ve got it. I’ve been driving longer than you, haven’t I?”
“Crashing your father’s jalopy into the Willow does not make you a professional driver, you cretin. And what on earth are you doing with your hands?! Ten and Two!”
Granger leans forward slightly, smirking as she dips her head between them. “Maybe I should-”
“NO!” Both wizards deny her in unison, painfully aware she was trying to take over. As adamant as she was that Draco learn this ridiculous muggle skill, she rarely gives up control of the wheel.
“Merlin, we’re just going round the shops. It doesn’t really matter who drives us there.”
“It does,” Ron emphasizes, “because this prat thinks he’s a better driver-”
“Knows he’s a better driver,” Draco corrects.
Quiet until now, Potter leans forward, smashing his head nearly against Granger’s to see through the windscreen. “What if I give it a go?”
“Merlin, save us, Harry, you can hardly push a trolley at the market without crashing into the rutabagas.
Draco smirks. Even Weasley is a broken clock once a day… or however that muggle phrase goes.
In the end, Weasley drives. Draco’s knuckles are white as he grips the bar over his head with one hand and the console where Granger keeps her extra mittens with the other. It’s been a year since the war ended, since Draco drove a bleeding Hermione away from St. Paul’s cathedral, clutching a horcrux in her fist and muttering incoherently as Death Eaters searched in vain for magical means of escape.
She had been right, of course. It was vital that Draco could get them away if she couldn’t.
She’s right a lot, is Granger. He doesn’t let on quite how much, but the witch is brilliant.
She is everything.
Of course, being with Hermione comes part and parcel with a great number of challenging things. Exhibit number one, her Gryffindor cohorts, though Harry isn’t so bad, he would suppose. Muggle things as well. Tellies and pot noodle and cars. Driving when she has had too much wine, then listening to her nag when it’s his turn to indulge. Waking with her monstrosity of a familiar tucked between them, claws stuck in the silk of Draco’s pants and orange hair clinging to his black sheets. Holding her when she cries, trauma still working its way through her system. Apologies after they yell, other traumas coming out in louder forms. Lazy Sundays of which his mother does not approve. Soiled knickers left laying about on the floor even though the hamper is RIGHT THERE. Burnt saucepans, and crowded bookshelves, and that one brake light that they both keep saying they need to take to be fixed but the Mechanic, Barry, will keep them chatting for ages and they both are terribly busy through the days, and really, there are two lights anyway and the other is working perfectly which should be more than enough…
Draco looks up, catches her brown eyes in the mirror hanging on the glass, a smile crinkling the corners.
And he knows that all of it, the war, the friends, the car, Barry the mechanic…
He knows as sure as he’s ever known anything that it’s all worth it.