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It was a freezing night in London, no one in their senses was roaming the wet roads that reflected the shine of the streetlights after the soft rain that fell an hour prior. Hermione stood in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to sing while “Nightmare Before Christmas” played as background noise.
It became a routine at this point, every 3 days or so she would watch a muggle movie while drinking a hot beverage, it wasn’t glamorous or excessive, mundane would be a better term to describe it. After the war, the mundane became comfort, the only thing the young witch yearns for to calm her nerves and silence the loud memories that torment her daily at the ministry. Hermione knows she needs professional help, it would be stupid to think that someone, let alone a 12-year-old girl, could fight in a bubbling war for 7 years without getting any physical and emotional scars. The golden trio tries to support each other as much as they can but there's just so much the three of them can do to hold themselves.
Mental health is nonexistent in the magical world and it's not like she can go and trauma dump about the magical civil war to a muggle therapist, it would be as good as asking to be locked in Azkaban for breaking the statute of secrecy or to be interned in a mental institution for the madness of it all, to be frank, she doesn’t know which is worse.
The bell rang, startling Hermione out of her thinking spiral just before her mind took her to some bad memories threatening to stain her comfort time.
“-Who would it be so late” it’s the first thing that crosses her mind.
Harry has his key she gave him for emergencies that he abuses frequently, so he barges in whenever he pleases. Ron would never come in without calling now that his mother's teachings finally kicked in, and her parents… are not that strong-minded.
She looked through the peephole and was surprised at who was on the other side.
“-Draco?” she said surprised while opening the door, he looked nothing like the bratty boy of her schooling years, instead of fancy robes with metallic embordering he was wearing a Manchester jumper and some sweatpants and instead of dragon leather boots, his feet were wearing blue sneakers that, while no beat up, has seen better days.
He seemed as confused and surprised as she felt, not expecting to hear her voice after all these years “- Granger, hi” he mustered
“-What are you doing here?” Hermione answered, she knew it wasn’t polite but what else could she do? Stay there and converse politely with the biggest prat she has ever known? She may be many things, but she has standards.
“-I live down the hall, I didn’t expect to see you, or anyone for that matter, the whole floor seems deserted”
At least that part was true, the only other person who lives on the same floor as her was Miss Jenkins, and last week she informed Hermione that she was traveling to visit her grandchildren in California, she still remembers how jealous she felt when she heard it from the old lady. While Miss Jenkins and everybody else could explore the world overseas, Hermione can't even go to France on the weekend without being the main gossip in the newspapers and sprouting thousands of theories about the reasons for an impromptu trip. Not that she could ever tell Malfoy any of that, speaking of which, he was still awkwardly standing there without a trace of his self-absorbed and irritable personality.
“-You didn’t answer my question, what are you doing here Malfoy?”
He breathes in and fixes his posture, looking like a washed-up copy of the purebloods she encounters daily at the ministry. It's a weird sight considering he doesn’t look like them but rather like a typical London guy besides his platinum hair.
“-Introducing myself as the new neighbor is a way to show sympathy and good manners” he recites as a memorized lesson, the same way she used to recite hundreds of textbooks in Hogwarts. Malfoy was part of the Muggle Society Reintegration program, known as MSR. The program was for death eaters’ kids and other purebloods as a form of redemption by living in the muggle world without magic for a year after a series of workshops and classes to reconstruct their bigoted belief system, in the end, they are given the choice of coming back to the magical world or staying in the muggle world with their wand, it’s a program Hermione funded and personally works in it, so it was strange she didn’t realize it till now.
“-You're in the last part of the process”
“-You don’t have to sound that surprised” He huffed
“-I'm sorry but you are the first one to get this far” Hermione says honestly, purebloods are stubborn and are not fond of being told that their beliefs are wrong, even when they know said beliefs are not more than racist thinking their parents drilled into their brains since young, generational cycles are hard to break but still it was worth trying.
“-Well, I'm not but persistent Granger”
“-I know, if anything our school years taught me, is how persistent you can be”
She meant for it to be a joke, like the ones she shares with Ron often. It was a way to cope with their traumas, not a good way per se, but she considered it was better than losing themselves in Fire Whiskey and antidepressants like Harry tried to do the first year after the war, it was a harsh time for everyone. She knows she is not the funniest witch out there, but she isn’t a lost cause with her dry humor that Harry loves. Regardless that didn’t seem to be the case as the weirdly casual atmosphere instantly wore off leaving an awkward one in its place.
“-sorry” Hermione couldn’t help but mutter in the heavy silence, she didn’t even know what she was apologizing for, it was a terrible joke, but it didn’t seem fair for her to apologize for this, not after everything that happened. Why should Hermione be the one to apologize for making him feel uncomfortable? Granted, the simple fact that he was here meant he had been working hard on the reintegration program, but it could also mean he just said exactly what the instructors wanted to hear, he was good at it before.
The simple thought of that made her cringe, what was she doing? The program was for purebloods to open their mind further than the racist and classist ideas they were taught and stop the prejudices that started the whole problem in the first place. She couldn’t just be a jerk to someone just because he was a brat when they were twelve till they were… fifteen maybe? She remembered how Harry freaked out when Malfoy stopped being a jerk and then the war started, and everyone got too busy growing strong and getting scarred that…
Hermione sighed and looked in her apartment at the kettle still running
“-What about we have some tea?”
-
For some reason, they ended up on the fire escape balcony outside her window, it was cold and damp, her favorite Christmas blend didn’t feel as sweet as it usually does, and Draco Malfoy was at her side with a cigarette at hand and his mug at the other. It was an uncomfortable atmosphere; they could barely maintain the most superficial conversations, and it made no sense for them to share a cup of tea. And still, there they were, with their noses running and their arses freezing, not what she expected her evening to go.
“-So…” Draco started “-That is what a TV is? I expected it to be… bigger, I guess”
Hermione chuckled at the absurdity of this whole situation rather than the comment of the blond “-Well, there are bigger ones but I’m only one person and I don’t find pleasure in buying immense screens”
Draco seemed to think about it “-I supposed it makes sense, I don’t think there's a world where Hermione Granger would prefer to sit down and watch moving pictures better than work”
“-Excuse me?”
“- You were dubbed the brightest witch of the generation, won a war, finished school, and became a high rank in the ministry of magic at the ripe age of 23, I don’t think I’m in the wrong to say you are not someone who prefers to have fun”
“- I have plenty of fun, thank you” Hermione huffed indignantly “- I just don’t like to watch much TV, that’s all”
Malfoy puffed a laugh and turned into the distance with a smile “-You haven’t changed since school, haven’t you?” he said, finally taking a sip of the tea after finishing his smoke
“-No, the war changed us all in more ways than one” Hermione soon realizes It’s not the time to bring the conversation to that part of their shared past and panics “I like to think that my hair is one of the good changes”
“-It certainly improved since then, you were more hair than a person in our first year” he mumbled and weirdly enough, Hermione could see a peek of the blond kid she knew just without the mean edge that she remembers
“-Well, it wasn’t just me, you’d finally quit the slick back hairstyle, it made you look bald”
“-Pardon?”
“-Your hair is almost the same color as your skin, don’t tell me you never realized” Hermione laughs at the memory “-Ron used to say he could spot your egghead from a mile away”
“-Weasley has no say about my looks given how he was in first year. He looked like a scarecrow with old clothes and straw-like hair, why you liked him was anyone's guess because his looks surely weren’t it -”
“-Well, for starters, he wasn’t a complete prat” Hermione spat, cutting his bigoted ranting.
That was it
The unsaid “unlike you” was heavy in the air, and the protective instinct combined with the cold of the night made her hair frizz like a mirror of the hot-headed, snobby know-it-all twelve-year-old Malfoy used to bully out a weird combo of jealousy, racist ideals, and weird tween hormones. Hermione knew what would happen after that, Malfoy would get upset, insults would be thrown, and he would dramatically leave the apartment after she shouts at him to get out. Of course, it would be awkward to bump into each other later but Hermione can plan her schedule so they never have to, she is in the ministry most of the time anyway so it would be easy to-
“- Granger, I'm sorry”
“-What?”
“-For everything I mean, I know I was an asshole, and I didn’t have the right to treat you or Weasley like that, I thought I was better than you two for stupid reasons like money or blood, in the beginning, it was just that. I was bitter that Potter chose you two over me to be his friend, I thought it was some bad joke. Then stuff started to get serious, and we already got our sides to fight, and people started to die, at this point, I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t leave the manor, I couldn’t leave my parents. And then Crabbe died and I- I’m sorry, I’m making excuses for myself, and I really shouldn’t”
At that moment Hermione saw Draco Malfoy, not like the brat of her memories or a deformed copy of the ministry purebloods of everyday work, but like a man who fought a war way too young and got scared by it, someone like her who make their choice out of loyalty, not to darkness or light, but to the people they love the most. At that moment a thought that would make her laugh in any other circumstance crossed her mind “We are not that different, Draco and I”
“-It’s okay” She says “-I mean, it's not, but as lesson 5 of MSR says ‘generational teachings and generational trauma have a strong impact on the worldview of the infant which without proper understanding and active therapy work it’s difficult to deconstruct” She recites only to see the slightly confused face of the blond
“-What I mean, is that while you are at fault for your actions before Voldemort, your mind was filled with the values your parents taught you and those were the same values their families thought for multiple generations, in your mind, you were justified and now that you know how harming those values were you are actively trying to change a do better, right?”
“-Yes, I swear, I want to redeem myself”
“-Good, I can’t forgive you right now, but I hope you’re telling the truth” She says seriously before trying to de-escalate the situation a little “- Talking about your parents, how are they? I can’t keep track of the sacred families for the life of me”
“-I’m not sure, father doesn’t want to see me again and mother stopped trying to contact me after the tenth attempt I rejected”
“-oh, sorry about that”
“-Don’t be, as you said, the war changed us all. They weren’t the parents I admired when I was little and I'm not the child they loved”
“-I’m sure your mom still loves you” Hermione reassured “-Narcissa only helped us to keep you safe, if your mother didn’t love you, Harry would be dead now”
“-I know mother loves me but I just- I need to regain respect first, she doesn’t need to be associated with me while I’m still a hated man in society, she doesn’t deserve that again”
“-I understand, but still, write her to let her know you’re okay”
“-I don’t need you to tell me how to manage my relationship with my mom”
Hermione didn’t respond to that, a little embarrassed. The silence stretched on the fire escape in the same uncomfortable ambient they were trying to ignore this entire conversation, both drinking their tea on the cold London night.
“-So, Granger, have any plans for yule?” Malfoy tried to start the conversation again “Or do you prefer Christmas or perhaps Hanukkah? The course was extensive in the importance of celebration for the muggles at this time of the year, I guess you also celebrate”
The witch scoffed “-Yes Malfoy, I do celebrate Christmas, although not in a religious way”
“-All right, so what are you, Weasley and Potter doing this year”
Hermione smile flatters as she looks to the side “-Ron and Harry are going to the burrow for the holidays”
“-And you’re not?”
“-No, I haven’t been able to go back to the burrow since we broke up” She then realized how that sentence could lead to some troublesome morning headlines, not that she thinks that Malfoy could sell it to the prophet but it better to play safe “-It’s not like we had a bad break up, Ron and I realized we don’t work romantically and made peace with it, It’s just that I have so much work to do, besides, Christmas and Yule's celebrations are considered family matters, I don’t have any business attending to the burrow this year”
“-I didn’t know you two broke up” Malfoy said surprised “-I thought you two were going to get married and lead a redhead invasion in Hogwarts with the others of the Weasley clan”
“Well, we all thought many things back then” she said softly, nursing her now cold beverage
“-You are planning to work on Yule then?”
“-Oh no, I couldn’t even if I wanted, the ministry closes for Yule” She rolls her eyes at the smile Malfoy gave her, reminiscent of twenty minutes ago “Actually, With Neville and Luna we are planning to make a little Christmas hang out here in the apartment. We’ll eat, drink, and play some muggle board games… you can come if you want to”
Draco turned to look at her surprised at her suggestion, as if Hermione said the most outrageous confession ever
“-I mean, assuming you don’t have plans that is, I thought it would be good for you to have some controlled exposure to muggle activities and common foods that you can’t find in the magical world such as fast food, besides, Luna is kind and open to everyone and Neville-“ her passionate speech abruptly cuts as she sneezes, the cold of the night finally getting to her
“-we should get inside, it's getting late”
+
Already inside, with the cups in the dishwasher, the movie has been long forgotten as background noise and Draco Malfoy was standing at the door. Hermione couldn’t remember why she was so upset earlier that night, she never thought she would spend an evening with Draco Malfoy of all people nor that it would feel… cathartic in a way
“-Thank you for the tea, Granger”
“-Uh sure, of course, welcome to the building” She smiles, some of the tension between them already softening after the tea
“-right… I should get going, it's late and tomorrow I have a “job interview” as the program suggested” Malfoy made physical air quotes and Hermione had to suppress a laugh
“-yeah, you should go to sleep, you’ll need it”
Draco smiles at her and opens the door to pause at the frame between the apartment and the hall “-I’ll think about your… Christmas offer”
“-of course… and Malfoy?”
“-Yes?”
“-I'm sorry I broke your nose in third year”
“-Don’t worry about it, I deserved it”
“-Yeah, you did”