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"Cuppa?" Hermione asked, setting down her bag on the spare chair with a heavy clunk.
Across from her at what Hermione had inevitably come to think of as their desk, Malfoy pushed his hair back from his forehead in a fussy, familiar gesture. "I'm busy."
Long broken, the dusty window by that desk was the only one in the building non magically spelled. It showed the evening sky just as it was: low clouds dusted in gold, pink fading into deep indigo.
"Take a few minutes anyway."
"I would have the time if a certain Cursebreaker didn't keep bringing me extra projects. And before you ask, I've still to find any mention of that Astraea artefact you're after." Draco shot her a glare above the rim of his glasses.
"Someone's got to keep you academics in grants. Speaking of favours-"
"Walked right into that one," he muttered into his book.
"What do you know about celestial charts?"
Draco frowned as if thrown by the question. "What is the relevance of this?"
"Indulge me."
"I do far too much of that already."
Hermione presented her peace offering in the form of a round tea caddy, black with a yellow gold label. Mollified, Malfoy relented, same as always, and explained how these maps detailed selected aspects of one's future based on interpreting the firmament at the moment of birth.
"That's pseudo-esoteric nonsense," Hermione protested.
"The Muggle version most assuredly is, probably a corruption of the original work of gifted diviners."
"You can't tell me you believe in this."
"It is real. Personal beliefs are immaterial," he countered.
"But it can be wrong."
"No. It can be misinterpreted, but one way or the other, it will come to pass."
"But… What about free will? If there is such a thing as destiny, do our actions count for nothing?"
"Ah," Draco tutted. "Now we're getting into the meat of it. Your will remains your own, of course, but it will always play out loosely into the pattern."
Her brow furrowed. "Define loosely."
"Fixed points." He pointed at the inkwell, his page of notes and absurd albino peacock quill, then charted a winding path between them. "This ink might have been spilled, so I might have had to use a different pot, or my quill might have been stolen - again - but, in the end, the notes still get written. The path will differ, and it will branch and move back in on itself, but it will always do so along core elements."
"It has to be vulnerable to a million different ways of changing it," she insisted.
"Can't be done. But a very successful way to drive oneself mad trying. If it bothers you quite so much, leave yours be."
Hermione had heard that plenty of wizards opted not to read their celestial chart, in case it turned out to be consumed with tragedy. "Have you seen yours?"
"That's a bit of an invasive question, isn't it?" Then he surprised her by saying, "I do not have one. None of the Malfoys do. Old bloodline curse. I'm glad of that particular one, as I would much rather not know."
Hermione bit into her bottom lip, then placed a carved wood scroll keeper on the table between them. "Guess I should have asked your thoughts on it before I retrieved mine from the Ministry, then."
Draco leaned back and away as if it were a volatile potion instead of a completely harmless piece of parchment. "It is considered taboo-"
"Yes, I'm being ever so secretive and self-conscious about it, which is why I set it right in front of you. Get on with it, will you?" Hermione's attempt at a light tone felt wrong to her ears, ringing into the silence broken only by the soft scrunch of unrolling parchment.
She tried to read the look in his eyes as they went over the lines, anxiety building in the pulse at the base of her throat. He did it twice in quick succession, betraying nothing but deep thought. Then he folded the parchment again and put it away with neat, precise movements. "Well. Not the most exciting, but still - congratulations will be in order soon, I suppose."
"So you think so, too? Sometime between the solstice and my next birthday…"
"Your 32nd, isn't it?" He knew perfectly well that it was. "Makes sense, in a way. A number of great significance for Virgos. Why did you show me this?"
Because I need you to understand. Tell me you do. "What, is my destiny not interesting enough for you?"
"I make a point not to pry into the private lives of acquaintances."
"Acquaintances?"
He made an unconvincing gesture of dismissal. "Haven't come up with a better designation for a woman that keeps pestering me for help every five minutes."
"Don't do that. We're not just coworkers."
"We're not even that."
This wasn't going anything like what she had imagined. But she had to try. Hermione smoothed her fingers over her knees, took a slow breath, and replaced the scroll case in his hands with the tea caddy. Their fingers brushed for a mere second during the exchange.
The scent of the tea rushed to fill the space: flowers and sweet citrus, soft and enchanting, dragging memory with it.
Like the one of her showing Draco one of her memories on a Pensieve under the flimsy pretext of needing a manuscript identified.
…will share the form of one's inner world…
Their brief picnic, cut short by a Spring shower, and how they poured the rest of the bottle into the river.
…baptised with wine over water…
Draco rolled the caddy between his hands. Ethereal, almost transparent sugar stars studded the dark fragrant leaves.
…a gift of stars by the hand of sincere love.
"You're trying- surely not. Granger."
She didn't dare breathe.
"You are. It won't work," he said.
"It might. If you wanted to try with me, that is."
"There is someone that could meet the terms of the chart, isn't there? Someone else, that is. Your perfect, destiny-sent love story is out there, Granger. What are you even doing right now?"
"Say there is someone else it could be," because there was, "what would it matter? If there is a chance…"
He was already shaking his head. "There is not."
"It's my life. I can choose you if I wish, but only if you choose me back."
Malfoy wouldn't meet her eyes. "This isn't about me, it's about you feeling trapped, and I'm not getting involved."
He pushed the tea caddy across the table.
Humiliation and rejection sat, hot, in Hermione's chest. It was awful. "Well. I came for an answer, and I suppose I got one. I'm imposing. I'll go."
Draco remained at the desk late into the evening, until the clouds smothered all the stars in the darkening sky.
♍︎
Hermione went to great lengths to avoid any sight or sign of Draco for weeks, and eventually stopped going to the Archive altogether. So, she'd misread her year-long infatuation and it turned out she'd spent eighteen months pinning for a man that felt nothing for her in return. But what's three years wasted, in the end?
She was not about to embrace defeat and give into the raving predictions of some random diviner. This much, she could and would control.
Which is how she ended up at her parent's cabin in Halfren Forest in the eve of her birthday - alone, Untraceable and sick as a dog.
The storm raged as she bundled into her pile of blankets, discovering hitherto unknown muscle groups that appeared to have no function except to hurt. Her head and sinuses felt like they were going to explode and the prospect of something as gentle as getting up for a cup of tea felt like an effort equivalent to climbing the Himalayas. Still, getting help either through potion or Healer meant leaving the safety of isolation and inviting destiny to crash her perfectly good plan.
She only had to make it another day.
The wind set the door jangling, over and over, howling until it started sounding a lot like shouts of her name. "Granger, open this cursed door!"
Malfoy blew in and past her like a gale, dropping bags full of groceries, his mood foul as the skies.
"You're here." Worth checking it wasn't a hallucination, although those usually didn't entail thinking about how she hadn't brushed her hair in days, plural.
"Don't. It took me much too long - a runic circle, by the way? Really? Circe damned woman - and I'm not in the mood and I have three things to tell you. Where's your kettle?"
He marched into the kitchen, unpacked several potions, biscuits, fruit and fresh bread, and started making tea. She wanted to kiss him. That wasn't new. "What do you want to tell me?"
"That you are an idiot. I meant what I said about insanity - you simply cannot cheat destiny. Trying to get events to fit into the narrative and twisting the threads of fate by force will only make them snap back even harder. Just look at you."
"I'm fine."
"You look like a blob of congealed snot," Draco said.
Hermione sniffed. "Rude."
Draco wove a hand through his hair in the way he always did when he got flustered. "Even with your ridiculous levels of stubbornness, you probably have one of the best analytical minds on the planet, so listen to me, just this once. This is bad, and it's just the start. Your whole life will start to collapse around you. You cannot fight this. From a practical viewpoint alone, you must consider how foolish it is to reject the prospect of a perfect, lifelong love."
Hermione had to swallow down the sudden urge to cry. Trust Malfoy to barge in on a sick woman and make her hard earned emotional stability go to pieces in a handful of minutes. "I don't want perfect. Perfect is boring. I want you, instead."
"Drink this." He passed her a mug, a look on his face like he'd been stabbed. "The second thing, I should have told you a long time ago. I love you. Wholly, helplessly, without reason. So if you ever need me, I will be there, and nothing will change that. Not any sort of celestial body, not the choices either of us makes. I am yours." Draco drew a long inhale. "I'm saying this so you understand why I'd really rather you didn't curse the remainder of your existence on my account. And because, whatever happens, you deserve to know you were loved that way at least once."
"Is that really suppose to convince me?" Hermione asked through her tears. And even more snot.
He shrugged, the bastard. "It needed saying."
"And what's the third thing?"
"Oh." Draco set a crinkled package in front of her. "I finally retrieved the Astraea artefact you were after. Not exactly by legitimate means, so if the subject should come up, you know. A white lie about provenance would be appreciated." He worked for a few minutes in silence, angry that Hermione had been ill and alone, fuming at the unfairness of the universe, furious at himself for delaying the pain of having to leave her. The fact it needed to happen made it no easier.
By the time he was done, the kitchenette had been put to rights, the fire grate was clean and refuelled, the bed freshly made. He'd run out of excuses to stay.
When he returned to Hermione's side, she was lost in thought, the gold medallion in her hands. Her thumb moved over the laurel wreath and, for a moment, he thought the delicate ancient gold had broken off, until he realised it was on a near invisible hinge.
Under the leaves, the goddess was wearing a familiar branching circlet of stars.