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The last day of eight year at Hogwarts was filled with surreal emotions. It was an additional year they had to take after the war. It was a year of unknowns, of closure, of hope, and of sorrows. It was also a year where Malfoy, out of all the people she could have thought of becoming close with, became a friend, a confidante, an ally.
During nights where sleep wouldn’t come and the silence of the night rang in her ears, she sought his company, knowing he too was plagued with the darkness of the war.
Quidditch was one way he thought to redeem himself. He would help coach and train the seekers from the different houses, stepping in as a beater or a chaser or keeper for any of the four teams during training when someone was injured or unable to make the training. Even if he wasn’t fully part of the team, he gave his all during trainings, earning the trust of the players. Through his tenacity and his love for the game, others started seeing him as Draco, a student just like everybody else at Hogwarts trying to move forward.
When the houses were given the opportunity to recruit eight year students as part of the year’s quidditch game, it wasn’t surprising to Hermione that Draco was one of the students that were begged to join their house. Hufflepuff and Slytherin wanted him as their seeker. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor wanted him to be one of their beaters.
He took his time in deciding, and he admitted to her that he was going to play for Slytherin, for old time’s sake. “I’d like to have a fun game with the snakes one last time,” he said, and Hermione expressed her support.
“Do I get the Golden Girl’s cheer during the game?”
She scoffed and punched him on the arm, but he was unfazed. “Don’t call me that. And I may cheer for Slytherin. We’ll see.”
The first Slytherin match against Ravenclaw was won thanks to Draco’s quick catch of the snitch. After the game, he ran up towards her and showed her the snitch he caught, then smugly asked for a prize. “You’ll wear a Slytherin scarf next match.”
She had laughed at his request, but complied, and wore the scarf until they won the next game. For each of the next Slytherin’s games, the scarf was then accompanied by green gloves, a green knitted hat, and finally a Gryffindor shirt transfigured to be Slytherin green, with the words “Fan of the Green Seeker” printed on the front, which made him laugh prior to the game.
It was, unfortunately, the last game for the Slytherins as they were unable to get to the final game. Despite catching the snitch, Slytherins lost by ten points. “Don’t look sad, Granger,” he had said with a smirk, “I got you to wear more green than I had ever seen you in. That’s prize enough.”
There was something fleeting between them, and they were both cognizant of it, but refused to talk about it or label it. They would continue to spend time together at night, with Draco casting Arresto Momentum on the snitches so they lazily float above them, and she would transfigure leaves into birds, reminiscent of the ones she flung at Ron back in sixth year. This time around, the birds and snitches would playfully flutter above and around them as they talked and laughed.
With eight year now drawing to a close, the dread Hermione had hidden far away in the back of her heart surfaced. They hadn’t said their goodbyes and it was the last day. She couldn’t find him after the celebratory feast for the seventh and eight years. She refused to sulk in front of everybody and so she excused herself, reasoning that she needed to pack.
When she got to her quarters, there was a package wrapped in green and silver right in the middle of her bed. With the colors already a dead giveaway of who it came from, she immediately sat on the bed and pulled the ribbon off and opened the box, and saw the three golden snitches Draco had caught. She picked up the note folded at the top.
A snitch, golden and bright, will open when the first touch holds it tight.
“Flesh memory,” she said, shaking her head at his attempt to do a puzzle for her. Scouring her memory, he would have had to be the first touch. But then she remembered clearly after a few minutes or so. Seekers wore gloved hands and, right after his wins, Draco would immediately come find her and drop the snitch into her palms and she held it tightly between her hands, not realizing that while she enjoyed the little flutter of its folded wings under her palms, it was also committing a flesh memory.
With trembling fingers, she took one of the snitches and held it between her hands, her palms clutching the golden orb. She heard a click, and when she looked at the snitch, there was a small parchment folded within it, and the words made her eyes wide. She grabbed the others, clutching each one at a time between her hands and reading the words written on the parchment, each letter making her heart beat. She hurriedly put the snitches and the letters back in the box and carried it in her arms as she bolted out of the room.
She hurried down staircases, willing her legs to run as fast as possible, as she reached their alcove. And there he was, dressed impeccably in his robes. His white platinum hair was mussed up, as if he had been brushing it over and over again with his hand. His eyes locked in on hers as he breathed out, “What do you say, Hermione?”
She flushed at hearing her name, and with a flick of his wand, the box in her arms opened and the snitches came out, hovering around her, as she sprinted to him and gave her answer in the form of a kiss.