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Draco stepped nervously from one foot to another, a bouquet of red carnation, honeysuckle and here and there a cornflower, in a tight grip. He checked his watch repeatedly. Time seemed to crawl.
6:55pm
Five more minutes and she will be there. Hopefully. It had been a huge step out of his comfort zone to ask her out after running into each other at the birthday parties of their shared friends group or in the corridor at work for years.
But what if she didn't show up?
He took a deep breath to calm his nerves.
7 o’clock
He looked up and down the empty street, trying to make out a hidden crack of an apparition, but nothing.
7:05pm
His stomach dropped. She stood him up. Of course she would. The Golden Girl would never lower herself to dating a former Death Eater.
7:10pm
Draco walked over to the nearest bin and stuffed the flowers through the narrow opening, when he heard the clicking sound of heels on concrete.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Granger with messed up hair almost running over to him.
“Granger.”
“I’m so sorry, Draco.” She gasped for air, touching his elbow. “I splinched myself, can you believe it?” she laughed.
He pulled the now ruined flowers out of the trash and turned to her. “You splinched yourself?” he asked in shock. “Are you okay? Do you need a healer?”
“I’m fine, Draco. I am a healer!” Granger said with a twitch of her mouth as if he had forgotten.
How could he ever forget the countless times she had patched him up after missions? Their mutual banter that made him smile for days, her gentle touches that lingered on his skin for hours, her scent that only lingered minutes before she left the room to heal other patients.
“I only lost a part of my hair, nothing life-threatening. I tried to fix it, but it's fiddly to reattach each single hair back the opposite part. So I gave up. I have been thinking about getting a new haircut for a while now. Can you hold my bag, please?”
Draco was stunned by the speed with which she spoke, still holding his ruffled flowers in his hands, as she wrestled her hair into a bun. Pulling some curly strands out that framed her face. He had to hold himself back, not to twirl a curl around his finger.
She checked her hair in the reflection of a window nearby before taking her bag. “Thank you.”
“I… brought you flowers,” Draco croaked, holding out the ruined bouquet.
“Looks like I wasn’t the only one who got splinched tonight,” she said with a laugh, taking the flowers in her hand. Draco’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment.
Why did he have to overreact like that when she was only ten minutes late?
But he had the entire evening to save this date, so he held out his elbow for her to take. They made their way over to the Muggle restaurant he had chosen without any major accidents. A heel of Granger’s shoes broke, but that was fortunate for him as it allowed him to hold her closer as he walked her to their table, which was not by the window with the beautiful view, as he had requested, but in the middle of the room. “It’s all right, Draco,” Granger said as he was about to argue with the waitress.
The ruined flowers were placed in a vase on their table for everyone to see and Draco anticipated using a fair amount of occlumency. But when he saw the amused but lovingly sparkle in Granger’s eyes he relaxed and huffed a laugh.
He wanted this date to be perfect and so far, everything was going terribly wrong.
The next half an hour was truly wonderful. They ordered expensive wine, laughed and waited for their food. As if nothing had ever gone wrong before. If only that one fly would stop pestering them. He was about to cast a hidden fly-repelling charm, but this was supposed to be a Muggle date. He wanted to subtly prove that he was worthy of her, so he kept waving his hand in an attempt to chase this damn shit fly away.
Granger talked bubbly from her new study beside her day-to-day work, gesticulating with her hands and looking as stunning as ever when she talked about what she loved. Until he knocked over her glass while swatting away that utterly annoying fly, staining the white tablecloth with deep red wine. She giggled with a hand clasped over her mouth and Draco forced a smile on his face while grabbing their table napkins to stop the flood. But it was too late. Her cream-coloured dress had deep red stains.
“I’m so sorry, Granger,” he said, leaning over to her to help her dab the liquid away to prevent more stains, only making it worse. Her dress looked like he had dragged her into a bloodbath, not a date. She grabbed his hand. “It’s okay, Draco. It’s Friday the thirteenth,” she said, giggling. “What did you expect?”
As he sat back down in his chair, he nearly knocked over his own glass, snorting an exasperated laugh. Their eyes met. She pressed her lips together, cheeks adoringly flushed, as if she was about to explode at any moment. The fly landed on Dracos forehead and both burst out laughing. After countless sorries, no thank yous, everything’s fine, to the waitress, they finally brought their food, which looked delicious although Granger did not get the salmon pasta she had ordered.
“Oh, we are so sorry. I guess it’s the date, today. Everything goes wrong.”
After another few minutes, with barely contained laughter between Draco-in exasperation-and Hermione-who seemed like having a good time-, the Pasta was delivered.
The waitress rushed over to them with her hands at the outer edges of the plate.
“Hot, hot, hot!” she called warningly, before tripping over the corner of the carpet. The the plate in her hand tilted and the pasta slipped off the plate and landed directly in Draco’s lap.
“I’m so sorry!” the waitress gasped.
Hot noodles burned his skin through the fabric of his trousers and he shot to his feet, at the same time as a shocked Hermione.
She rushed around the table, knocking over the vase, and quickly cast a wordless and wandless cooling and numbing spell.
“Are you okay?” she breathed, the laughter gone, replaced by worry.
“As well as, you can be with a cooked noodle–” She cut him off with a snort of laughter.
“Let’s go home and let me heal you.”
They left the restaurant with a fresh bottle of wine, the food they had ordered in plastic containers, and a gift card.
“For any other activity, we should wait until tomorrow,” she said, grinning. He laughed and pressed a kiss on her temple as they walked down the street to his flat in Muggle London, both in ruined clothes, Granger on one heel, tucked to his side.
“We had enough accidents for a while.”