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After the castle had long gone to sleep for the night, Hermione cozied up on a loveseat sofa in the 8th Year common room and whittled away at a little extra study. A fluffy ball on her lap, Crookshanks purred softly and slept.
Outside, rain pelted the windows. Heavy clouds had covered the castle all day, its pressure finally breaking at curfew. That morning at breakfast, she’d eavesdropped on Malfoy giving Zabini and Nott the forecast with the Daily Prophet laid out flat. Lo and behold, as he had forewarned, a thunderstorm had come. He’d looked so harassed by the report, but she always loved the rain. At home, she’d open a window to chill her bedroom and sit beneath it in a nest of pillows and blankets.
Absentmindedly, she patted the side table for a mug of tea, her fingers bumping into the warm ceramic. She never looked away from the textbook. She wrapped up the tea in her hands and enjoyed this blissful moment: the perfect cup of hot tea, a cozy blanket, the heavy warmth of Crookshanks asleep beside her. After a long day, she elevated her tired legs over cushions. She inhaled black tea and honey, over and over, and hummed low in pleasure as the heat permeated her.
Lightning flashed. She held her breath in the lingering quiet that preceded the booming thunder. When it came, she exhaled.
But then tea splashed onto her notes.
It wasn't the rain that startled her.
Draco Malfoy, sleep-tousled hair and wide-eyed, stood petrified at the other end of the couch.
They looked at each other.
Sharing a dormitory with students from other houses never failed to mystify her. Malfoy had always been polished up, but now she witnessed his knobby, hairy knees peeking out under plaid shorts (she chose to believe those were merely shorts). His light blond hair was fluffily mussed on one side, his neck shadowy with a growing beard. She felt inexplicably naked in sweatpants, an old sweater from a holiday in Paris years ago, and thick gray socks. Her bushy hair was braided into submission. A year ago, such intimate undress between them would have been preposterous.
“Sorry,” he said hoarsely, “I didn't realize anyone was down here.”
Beyond them, in the wilderness that surrounded the castle, thunder groaned low and steady. He tore away from their bewitched staring to look out the window. Hermione found herself transfixed not by the weather but by the shape of Malfoy’s chest hidden under a plain white shirt. At every pounding drum of thunder, Malfoy flinched and his breathing sped up.
Light exploded. Silent rivulets of awe-striking brightness shot up the sky. It lit the window so brilliantly that shadows from the stained glass criss-crossed on the carpet. Blanching, Malfoy slapped hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. Crashing thunder tore apart the common room. He cowered away, whimpering.
Astonished, Hermione set down her tea.
This cretin who’d tormented her over the years was scared by a little rain. She ought to revel in it. A year ago, she very well might have. Nevertheless, her heart pounded. It meant nothing that this pitiful sight was Malfoy; he suffered, and she couldn’t stand to witness his pain. Thunder rolled again. Once the windows flickered with inhuman light, the hair on her arms stood up.
Malfoy shivered, a flurry of movement like he’d been left out in the storm to freeze.
Hermione thought fast. Tea. He needs tea.
She waved her wand, conjuring a clean mug. The pot on the side table rose on its own and filled the mug with hot, steaming English breakfast. The lid of a mason jar flipped open and ladled spoonfuls of honey. She hopped off the couch. Jostled from his cozy pillow, otherwise known as Hermione, Crookshanks peeked open a groggy eye and curled into a tighter, grumpier ball.
She gave the finished tea to Malfoy.
“Drink,” she urged him.
He looked anywhere but her, as if he were lost in a labyrinth in his mind. She wrapped his trembling hands around the cup.
An unpolished Draco Malfoy shivered like a frightened rabbit while holding a very delicious cup of tea. She’d fix that up, too.
She gently urged Crookshanks off the blanket. Grievously offended, he slunk off to rest at the fireplace, stopping once to hiss at Malfoy. She wrapped the blanket around Malfoy and whispered a spell to keep the blanket from falling off.
His eyebrows furrowed. “Thank you.”
She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her oversized sweater. “You’re welcome. Do you feel better?”
“Yes, a little.”
“Nothing tea can’t fix, as they say.”
His smokey eyes met hers at long last, wary. He looked as if he might say something, but nothing ever came.
Surreal.
She didn’t hate Malfoy, but she didn't like him, either. He’d delivered a modicum of kindness by not identifying Harry on the doorstep of his house, but his family still kept house elves. Maybe Malfoy had recorded reliable notes last month when Ron had been out sick, but he still wrote that awful song during Quidditch games. It was a familiar debate since the beginning of term. Between herself, between friends. After witnessing a row with Harry, the portrait of the Singing Siren had sung to her that “even the longest trek began with a first step.” Sitting together these past months in classes, the rawest wounds of the war had healed, but he remained Malfoy at the end of the day. She simply couldn’t live with herself if she neglected to offer any assistance as he endured the storm, but they weren’t friends.
The fireplace crackled too loudly, and it grew discordant with the rain. Hermione couldn't stand this painful silence. The nervous urge to chatter bubbled up. She firmly stomped it down, but that left her limbs itchy to move, her mind whirling.
She plopped back down on the couch and reined in her focus on homework. And yet Malfoy’s gentle stride to the fireplace broke through her concentration. She couldn't not pay attention. This was Malfoy, former Death Eater, the thorn in her best friends’ sides, scared of lightning and wrapped up in a blanket with a mug of her very favorite tea.
“My apologies, sir,” murmured Malfoy. She glanced at the fireplace. He shared the space with Crookshanks, her loyal kneazle swatting his tail and keeping good distance. Malfoy smiled down at him. “You're a handsome fellow, aren't you?”
A million debates ignited. She resolutely cast them aside.
Eventually, she disappeared into her studies. When the clock chimed midnight, she'd added several pages of new notes.
At the other end of the couch was a neatly folded blanket with a torn piece of parchment on top. Thanks again. I'm sorry, he’d written.