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Everyone stilled when he walked into the pub, and Draco almost turned around, but the weight of the stares held him in place. Stares and harsh, hissing whispers. No one moved. The only person who didn't seem Petrified was Madam Rosmerta. She finished drying a tankard, put it on the smoke-stained bar, and tossed the towel down beside it. She walked around the bar, wiping her hands on her apron, and approached him. Draco wanted to cower, wanted to run out of the pub. Instead, he raised his chin and straightened his shoulders, hiding his trembling hands in the wide sleeves of his robes.
"Heard you got parole," Rosmerta said. Draco opened his mouth to explain why he'd come, and she slapped him. Decades of lifting barrels, pulling taps, and ejecting drunks had given her remarkable upper body strength, and she put every ounce of it into the blow. It snapped Draco's head sideways, and he turned, slowly, to face Rosmerta as she drew back for a second hit. He stood there, absolutely silent, and let her slap him again.
"Get out," Rosmerta said, rubbing her hand. "Get out of here. Don't you ever dare set foot in my pub again." She spat at him, literally spat, and Draco held still as a gob of saliva dripped off his jaw and down the front of his robes. "Go back to prison and go to hell, Death Eater."
"I'm sorry." He spoke in quiet tones, but it carried to every corner of the pub, silent except for the crackling flames in the hearth. "I'm sorry, Rosmerta."
He turned and walked out without another word. Just outside, he almost ran over a familiar trio. They stared at him, at the red prints on both his cheeks, prints that he knew clearly showed the marks of Rosmerta's fingers. Ron looked amused. Harry looked bewildered. Hermione, to his surprise, looked concerned.
He wanted to say something. Anything. He wanted to toss an insult or a sneering jab, but he didn't. He couldn't. Draco turned around and walked away, pretending he didn't hear their babbling voices behind him.
He knew the news of his release had been in the Daily Prophet. Draco Malfoy, convicted of a list of crimes that included complicity, collusion, conspiracy, three counts of attempted murder, and, last but by no means least, being a Death Eater. Draco Malfoy, convicted and sentenced to Azkaban, along with the handful of others who survived the war. They received life sentences. As a minor during the war, and one under duress and coercion, he received twenty years.
For good behavior, co-operation, and a bribe from the family's hidden bank accounts in Russia, one that even someone of his wealth considered substantial, he was released early. He walked out after seven years, and had outlived every other Death Eater in England. Twenty-five years old, the only survivor of Voldemort's forces, and as thin and gaunt as the skull burned into his arm.
He knew what they saw, knew what they read. He knew what they thought. None of it mattered. None of their thoughts and whispers and gossip mattered. What he was doing, that mattered, even if it only mattered to him.
It hurt him, though, hurt dreadfully, and the physical pain of Rosmerta's slaps were as nothing compared to how much it ached to be doing this. For the second time he was on a mission that kept him awake at night, that made his heart race and flutter like a Snitch. This time, though, it was a mission of his own design. Seven years in Azkaban gave a man plenty of time to think, and he'd made his decision.
It burned his pride, seared his dignity. He'd have rather plastered himself with sticky bandages, ground them into every inch of skin, covered his hair from head to chest to groin, and ripped them all off in one screaming agony, than undertaken this self-appointed job.
And he was doing it regardless. Draco thought perhaps Azkaban had driven him slightly mad. Maybe if it had, he deserved it. He shook his head, crossed Rosmerta off his mental list, and trudged to the outskirts of the village to Apparate home.
At Magical Menagerie, Katie Bell stared at him from across the counter, her hands clamped so hard on the till that her knuckles had gone white and Draco would not have been surprised if she'd managed to drive her nails straight into the burnished metal. He toyed with a short display of leather collars, black and brown against his pale knuckles. As he flicked through them, he came across one done up in silvery dye, with small white stones embedded into the leather in an elaborate pattern. Moonstone, mother-of-pearl, opal --
Opal.
He jerked his hands away and folded them into the sleeves of his robes. Katie flinched at the movement and Draco took a step back from the counter, his head bowed until his fringe fell into his eyes as he stared at the floor and the speckled stains left on it from years of bat guano and cat piss. "That's it?" Katie spoke, and the birds and toads and rats of the shop all fluttered and squealed in response to the violent growl in her voice. "That's it? After what you did, after what happened? Do you have any idea what you did to me?"
This time he was the one who flinched, and he shook his head so violently that he heard the bones in his neck grind. "No. I never-- They never told--" He caught his breath and gripped the linings of his sleeves, clinging to the chill of the satin in efforts to calm his rushing heartbeat. "I didn't know what it did. Not-not entirely." He'd only read enough of the display card at Borgin and Burke's to know that it might be useful in his flailing attempts to finish the job he'd been sent to do, in his attempts to fulfill the particulars of his assignment to assassinate Albus Dumbledore. It had been a suicide mission for a boy of sixteen, and he had tried everything his desperate mind could conceive, to prevent his death and his parents' punishment.
He scraped his teeth over his lower lip and took a deep breath, with his exhale shaky and rough. "I'm sorry," he said for the second time since he'd walked into the shop. Her stare seemed to cut through him as much as Harry's curse had years before, and he had to force his head up, force himself to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, Katie."
"Get out." She released her grip on the till, finally, her fingers stretching with a glacial action before they curled into fists so quickly even his Seeker's eyes couldn't catch the movement. "Get out, Draco Malfoy. Get out, get out!"
Her voice rose to a banshee wail and the animals formed a shrieking chorus that joined her scream and shoved him out the door on a wave of sound. He skidded on wet stones and went down in a huddle of robes, his fingers squelching in a heap of green-tinted shit. He spat and retched and scrabbled his hand on the hem of his robes, then a handkerchief fluttered into his line of sight. He snatched it without bothering to wonder who had given it to him, and scraped the filth from his palm.
"You can keep that," a soft voice told him, and Draco muttered brusque thanks before he stilled, the familiarity of the voice pushing into his mind. He looked up through his fringe at the knotted brows and narrowed eyes of Hermione Granger. He snarled and threw the handkerchief down, slapped away the hand she extended in a gesture of assistance.
"I don't need your help," he said, scrambling to his feet, his boots sliding on the stones until he gained his balance with a grip on the wall of the shop.
"I think you might," she said, and Draco whirled away before he could hear more. He yanked his robes around his thin body and stalked down the street, headed for the narrow, shadowy entrance to Knockturn Alley. Behind him came hurried footsteps and he tensed, hunching into his robes as he expected a hex to land between his shoulder blades. "Draco, wait," she called, and he moved faster, trying to reach the alley before she caught him.
She was quicker than he'd given her credit for, and she grabbed his sleeve just as he slowed up to cross the threshold into Knockturn. "Leave off," he said, whipping around to glare at her. He could feel heat in his cheeks and the tips of his ears, and knew he was flushed with the embarrassment of having been seen on the ground and filthy, of having been chased from the shop like a rat. Knowing he was pink with humiliation only made the blush rise higher. Draco jerked his sleeve out of her grasp. "Leave me alone."
"I know what you're doing, Draco." She stepped around him, pushed in front of him to block the entrance into the alley, her arms spread to grip the buildings on either side. "I talked to Rosmerta. I know you apologized to her. That's what you were doing in the Menagerie, too. I heard you through the door. You were apologizing. You're-you're going down some sort of list, I think."
Draco looked away from the gleam of comprehension in her dark eyes, but he didn't move, as if his feet had been weighted down with boulders and chains.
"I can help," she said again, and her hand touched his sleeve. "If you do have a list, if you really are trying, I can help. I'm sure there are people you'll never be able to reach on your own, people who'd hex you before you could even open your mouth. I can help you."
"Why would you bother?" The words came out in a harsh growl he barely recognized as his own voice, and Draco cleared his throat with a cough. He didn't bother to acknowledge the validity of her conclusion or to dispute it. He only stared at her hand on his sleeve, at her short nails, cuticle ragged at the pinky from chewing. "Why the hell would you care? Lose a bet? Acting on some prank those ginger freak friends of yours dreamed up?"
"I owe you," she said, and those three words startled him enough that he looked directly at her. Her lips were chapped and bitten, her nose was spattered with freckles only a few shades darker than her skin, and a halo of frizzed curls surmounted her forehead. She blinked, several times, her lashes almost seeming to brush her cheeks. "I owe you, Draco. You've helped me before, though I know you'll deny it. At the World Cup, you warned us. In the forest, you warned us to get away. And-and during the war. At your house. You pretended not to recognize us. You wouldn't identify us. You've helped us - helped me before. I can help you. It's a fair trade."
"You're mad," he said, shaking his head at her, trying not to show that her words were hitting home. It wasn't a fair trade. She didn't owe him anything. He'd done what he'd felt was necessary at the time, and during the war, and now. That was all there was to it. "Completely mad."
"Maybe. But I'm also right."
Draco snarled and shoved past her, running into the twisted lanes of Knockturn Alley and running away from her worried brown eyes.
"Is this really where you live?"
Draco stared at the bushy-haired woman stamping mud off her boots onto the ratty carpet in the corridor outside his door. "It's where the Ministry told me to live," he said, folding his arms and leaning against the jamb. "I'm on parole, if you'll remember. It's not as though they gave me much choice. They can keep an eye on me here. Whole place is covered in spying charms."
She wrinkled her nose at his tone, which even he would admit was full of bitter resignation. "But your Manor--"
He held up one hand, interrupting her. "Confiscated. Death Eater headquarters. The Ministry confiscated the Manor, sold all the furnishings and the peacocks, and used the money to set up a...." He ground his teeth and growled. "A centaur refuge."
She started to laugh and Draco slammed the door. After five solid minutes of pounding and screeching demands that he open the door right that second, he yanked it open and caught her hand before she pounded on his chest. "Go away."
"I'm sorry, Draco. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you. It's just-just the image. I didn't realize they, the Ministry I mean. I didn't realize the Ministry had taken everything."
Draco shrugged, pretending that was true, and pretending harder not to care, but suspected she didn't believe him. The look on her face held a little too much pity for his tastes, and he stepped back, ready to shut the door again. Before he could close it, she shoved her foot in to block him and leaned forward, putting her weight against the wood. "Draco, come on. You said you'd let me help you."
"No, I said you were mad. I never actually agreed to let you help me. I certainly didn't agree to let you show up at my flat. How the hell did you get my address, anyway?"
"Harry. Auror's office. Doesn't matter." She shoved on the door, pushing him backwards with a stumble. She was much stronger than she looked, but then, he told himself, he was a lot weaker than he had been. The meals in Akzaban hadn't been what anyone would call nutritious, and he certainly hadn't received regular exercise. Cowering in his cell didn't count. "Now, come on," he heard her say, and Draco looked up to realize she'd made it into his flat and was looking around with curious interest as she stripped off her scarf and coat. "We need to set up a plan for you."
"I haven't agreed to this," he said, but it looked like it was already too late. Hermione had perched on the edge of his broken-down charity sofa and was pulling a parchment and quill from her voluminous bag. She tossed her hair back over her shoulders, licked the sharp nib of the quill, and set it point-down on the parchment. It balanced and wrote as she spoke.
"First, you need to tell me who you were planning to make all your apologies to, and then we can decide what order would be best. A plan of attack, if you'll forgive the terminology, but we need a strategy. You'll want to start with Harry, of course."
"No." The word came out in an acerbic grunt, and Draco unconsciously put his hand to his chest, prodding at the scar he kept hidden, the scar from Potter's attack. As much as Draco was reluctantly willing to give his apologies to those he'd wronged, he knew he'd cut his own throat before he'd give Harry Potter the satisfaction of seeing him that weak again. "Potter can go to hell, and if that's your best suggestion, you can get out. Right now."
She looked at him in silence for a moment, her eyes unexpectedly soft, then she nodded once, seeming to come to a decision. "I understand. Could you get me a glass of juice?"
Draco goggled at her, his face twisted in bewilderment at the bizarre change of subject. Somehow he'd lost control of his afternoon, when all he'd planned to do was sulk on the sofa and go to bed early, like every other day. "Don't have juice," he muttered gracelessly. "Water, though it's out of the tap and a bit on the greenish side. Something up with the pipes, they won't fix it. Milk, but it's a week old. Got something fizzy I haven't been brave enough to try."
Hermione huffed and got up, pushing past him to tromp into the tiny galley kitchen. She opened cabinet doors and rummaged through his refrigerator. "Is this all you have? A box of puffed rice and a load of take-away menus?"
He leaned against the counter, his fingers wrapped around the edge to keep from strangling her just to get her out of his house. "The only reason I have a kitchen at all is because it came with the flat. Don't ask me, I don't cook. I'm not even certain I have more than one glass."
"Draco, there's bachelor living and then there's living like-like.... I don't know. I don't think I've seen anyone living in these sort of conditions."
He shrugged again, avoiding her eyes. "Better than prison. Of course, slimy things living under rocks in the bottom of the lake live better than in prison."
Hermione gave him a long look and he turned away, opening the refrigerator in a pretend search for something to drink, his shoulders tense as he waited for her to say something compassionate, caring. Something ever so understanding of the little boy sent on a mission his master was afraid to do, sent to prison because he was desperate enough to do anything to save his mummy. He'd throw her out if she tried it, he told himself. No pity, not right there, to his face. Behind him, Hermione exhaled softly, then her hand fell on his shoulder and she rubbed for a moment instead of speaking. The touch was far more acceptable than useless words, though he couldn't explain why, and Draco straightened. "Right. Let's get to work, shall we?"
Dinners, conversations, planning - it had all led to this. Negotiations and offers between them had progressed slowly, Draco unable to agree to let her help him without giving something in return. Despite her claim that she was doing this because she owed him for his efforts during the war, he couldn't accept that as the end. Finally she demanded that he share a dinner with her at his flat once a week while they planned the next apology, and that he teach her to fly with a little more grace. The flattery she gave him over that, and the minor relief that he wouldn't be in debt to her, even in his own mind, was enough to gain his agreement, and that had been their pattern since.
They'd gone through several meetings, several minor incidents, where Draco had sucked it up, apologized, and been very grateful that he had Hermione with him for each of them because no one slapped, hit or spat at him while she was watching with that hopeful, determined look in her eyes. The worst he got was a bit of swearing these days. Improvement, he thought. But now they were at this meeting, and it hadn't started well. A lot of swearing, for one thing.
"I can't believe you, Hermione." Ron Weasley twisted his rook in both hands, the wooden chess piece creaking in his palms. He looked at her, looked at the table, looked at the wall of the Leaky Cauldron. He looked everywhere except at Hermione, and everywhere except at Draco, who sat silent beside her and wondered how long it would take before the man attempted a swing at him. Though, he thought, it was a toss-up if the hit would come from fist or wand.
He kept his hands folded together on the table, kept them in plain sight and obviously empty, with no sign of wand to hex or curse or even to defend. This had been Hermione's idea from the start, and he'd thought it insane in every detail. Of course, he'd agreed to it, so maybe that made him just as buggeringly insane as her. He shifted on the bench and inhaled sharply. Beneath the table, out of sight of Ron and the multiple patrons of the pub who were trying hard not to look like they were eavesdropping, Hermione's foot tapped against his boot. Her thigh pressed to his, and Draco lost track of whatever insult he'd been about to throw, too surprised by the warmth of her leg and the curve of her hip touching him.
He looked down at his hands and spun his signet ring on his finger with the edge of his thumb as Hermione spoke. "I'm quite serious, Ron. You don't even have to do anything. Just sit there and listen. This is very important."
"I don't care. I don't care what's important to him." Ron slammed the chess piece onto the board, knocking a dozen others over to roll across the table and drop to the floor. "He's Malfoy. He's a Death Eater. Who gives a damn what he wants?"
"Was." Draco looked up, meeting Ron's eyes for the first time. "I was a Death Eater. They no longer exist, and I find it unnecessary to refer to them in the present tense."
"Ron." Hermione extended one hand across the table, but Ron ignored it, nostrils flaring as he glared at Draco. "Ron, please. Just say you'll listen."
"No." He shoved back his bench and stood, leaning on the table with both hands pressed flat to the surface. "In case you've forgotten, he poisoned me."
"That was an accident and you know it." Hermione curled her fingers up until her nails dug into her palm. Draco, confused about why he was moving and yet doing it anyway, touched her wrist. Just one finger, just the lightest touch, but her hand stilled. She glanced at him and he shook his head.
He looked up to Ron and sighed. This was mad. He'd known it all along. "Weasel. Weasley. Ron. I'm--" He dipped his head and swore under his breath, then bucked up his courage to continue. "I never intended for anyone to get hurt. I never wanted that. I'm sorry."
"Never intended for anyone to get hurt." Ron sneered as he mocked Draco's accent and inflections, the clipped vowels sounding strange in his voice. "Well, isn't that just sodding brilliant. Suppose that's why you were trying to murder Dumbledore, then."
Draco's shoulders stiffened and Hermione leaned against him. The movement was subtle enough not to be much of a movement at all, more of a brush of robes against robes, innocent to any observer, but powerful to him. Draco knew that he should most likely be disgusted by the simple fact that she was sitting so close at all, much less that they'd touched, repeatedly, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that. There in the Leaky Cauldron, surrounded by drinkers and diners who'd given up any pretense of not listening and who were all now staring with looks of open, naked anticipation for a fight, with Ron Weasley staring at Hermione's hand and Draco's finger on her wrist with outright disgust and loathing in his eyes, Draco could not bring himself to care for one minute. He'd said his piece.
He stood, and Ron moved, a wand suddenly snapped out and aimed right between his eyes. Draco stilled, stood without moving, without breathing, without taking his gaze from the tip of the wand. "Ronald," Hermione said, her voice full of shame, and the wand dropped. Ron snarled, some profanity muttered under his breath, and he stormed away from the table.
"Well." Draco straightened his robes, pretending that his hands weren't shaking from the adrenaline of being only seconds away from a hex or curse. "That wasn't an awkward picture at all. He's an absolute delight, isn't he?"
Hermione sighed and chewed a bit of her pinky nail off. Draco resisted the temptation to pull her hand from her mouth and smooth away the frayed nail with gentle strokes. "He holds grudges," she said. "Always has. I've tried to work with him on it."
"Most people would say he deserves to hold this one." Draco looked at her and shook his head. "That's an O for effort, though. Yours, at least. You tried."
She smiled at him and stood, pushing her fringe out of her eyes. Draco wanted to tuck a loose curl behind her ear and he stuffed his hands into his pockets to stop himself as she spoke. "So did you. Let's go get some dinner, shall we? My treat." She leaned close and whispered. "I'm in the mood to confuse some of the Nosy Parkers around here, aren't you?"
He thought about refusing her, about going home to lick his wounds and forget the day, but with all the patrons of the pub staring at him, he wasn't willing to back down. With the opportunity to have a good dinner and some better conversation with her, maybe another flying lesson before the sun went down, he was more than willing to spend a little extra time in her presence. "Yeah," he said, extending his arm to escort her out, his head high and his stride relaxed for the first time in weeks. "Sounds good."
It should have been a solemn grey space, dull and institutional. It didn't seem right for the room to be so brightly colored, the walls painted in a cheery yellow that reminded Draco of the Honking Daffodils in the greenhouses at Hogwarts. Greg had found them hilarious, and had loved making faces at the plants, poking them to set up a chorus of honks. He'd meant to bring one with him, as a gift, but they'd taken it from him at the desk, with patently false apologies and smirks masquerading as smiles. The scent might disturb some residents, they told him. The sound might bother others. Outside influences were detrimental to everyone's recovery.
Draco stared through the large, one-way window at the activity center. It didn't seem like 'outside influences' could be much of a concern when they wouldn't even let him in the same room, would only let him see his friend through a pane of charmed glass, unless the influence they were worried about was him. He watched Greg lumber across the room and fall heavily into a chair with a soft toy clutched in one hand, eyes unfocused and blank in his scarred, red face. The fire that had killed Vince had damaged Greg, burned his face and body, broken his mind. Draco supposed that was a good thing. At least Greg couldn't remember what it had sounded like that day, couldn't remember how high and twisted Vince's screams had been as he burned to death.
Draco put his hand on the glass, imagining that he could reach through it and touch Greg. A pat on the shoulder, maybe, or even just a handshake. Something, some form of human contact. Something familiar, something to stand for family, since Greg had none left. Draco wondered if anyone had told Greg that his mother had died of dragon pox, if he knew that his father had died in Azkaban with the rest of the Death Eaters.
He wondered if Greg even knew his own name these days.
Behind him came the soft click of low-heeled shoes. Draco kept his eyes on Greg as Hermione stepped up next to him. He didn't bother to wonder how she knew he'd be there. Over the past few months, she'd seemed to know his schedule and plans better than he did. Of course, that made sense, as she'd organized most of them. Hermione had an absolute fetish for schedules and lists, he'd learned. "I never treated him well," he said, as she stood beside him, her hair brushing the pleats of his sleeve. "I was fairly cruel to him. Called him names, insulted him. Treated him like absolute shit, I have to say, and he was probably the best friend I had. He'd have done anything for me."
He dropped his hand from the window and turned around to lean against the narrow ledge that ran the length of the glass. "He did do anything for me," Draco continued, staring over his folded arms at the shining toes of his dragonhide shoes. "Took Polyjuice over and over, guarded me while I worked on that ruddy cabinet. Kept my secrets, watched my back."
He dipped his head until his fringe fell in his eyes. "And I almost got him killed."
Hermione stayed quiet, but moved closer. After a long moment of silence, she put her head on his shoulder and took his hand. Draco knew he should pull away in disgust, knew that every last one of his ancestors were rolling in their graves at a Mudblood's touch on the sole remaining carrier of their ancient, pure blood. In the depths of his mind, he told them all to sod off. He squeezed Hermione's hand and shifted his grip to lace his fingers in hers, taking the comfort she offered.
He stood with her in silence for several minutes, her hand clasped in his. He thought maybe he should apologize for the chill in his fingers that seemed to have been there since the first day he'd walked into the barren stone cell of Azkaban. Each time another inmate gibbered in the night, each time another guard dragged heavy boots through the corridor, a sound he'd learned to associate with nervous, twisting fear and a desperate prayer that someone else's cell door would open, someone else would scream for the guards' amusement - each time, his hands had ached and stiffened a little more as his blood went sluggish and cold.
"Do you ever wonder if they were the lucky ones?" he heard her asking, and her fingers tensed around his, her thumb rubbing the back of his hand in tiny circles, leaving behind a small spot of warmth. He wanted to ask her for more of it, thought maybe the touch could warm more than his hands.
"Pardon?" Draco forced himself out of the memories of stone walls and howling laughter, out of the inexplicable desire to seek out more of her touch. "If who were the lucky ones?"
She gestured with her chin over her shoulder at the window. In the room behind them, Greg made a small design out of scraps of paper, his lips clamped together in a blatant show of effort as he held his breath to keep from blowing away his work. "Them," Hermione said. "People like Goyle. Gregory, I mean. And Vincent as well, I suppose. The ones who died, the ones who can't remember living through it all. Do you ever envy them a little bit?"
Her voice softened with each word, until Draco was leaning in to listen to her. Without quite noticing what was happening, except in a small and curious part of the back of his mind, he turned slightly to let her move in against him. She nestled to his side, her head against his heart and his hand caught in both of hers. "I do," he said quietly, looking down at the tangle of her hair. "Envy them rather a lot, actually. There's too much I don't want to remember. Things I saw. Things I did. I almost want to say that I wish it had all happened to someone else, but I wouldn't wish that life on anyone." He shook his head and slumped against the glass. "And there's nothing I can do to make it all go away, either. The past, the memories. Every time I try, every skeleton gets dragged up into the light again. No one's ever going to forget what I did, you know."
"Probably not," she said, her head moving against his robes as if she were listening to his voice through his chest. "But you're not that man anymore, Draco. I don't think you wanted to be that man when you were him."
He snorted and shook his head. "That's an understatement."
She looked up to him and he looked down, and for just a few seconds, their lips were only inches apart. For just a few seconds, Draco wondered what would happen if he moved closer, if he closed that small distance, then his eyes widened as he realized what he was wondering. Hermione's eyes narrowed, her head tilted, then she moved away with a flush on her cheeks. "I need, er. I need to get going," she said quietly, smoothing her hair from her forehead. A curl escaped her hand, and Draco reached out to push it behind her ear without thinking.
"Yeah," he said, turning to look at Greg again to stop Hermione from saying anything about his gesture. "That's.... Right." Before she could walk away, he took a quick breath and asked her a question he hadn't planned to ask. "Will you come with me, next week? I was going to go visit Vince. His grave, I mean. If you don't mind cemeteries, will you come with me? We could go for a flight, after."
She stared at him, her lower lip caught in her teeth. Draco suspected she had no idea what to answer. Not once had he asked her to come with him on one of his apologetic visits. She came without his permission, pushed him into meetings and quiet speeches. He never asked. He started to speak, to tell her never mind, he'd thought better of it, then she smiled. It was quick and quavery, like a Snitch on the wing, but it was there. "Sure," she said. "I'll go with you."
She left and Draco turned back to the glass. He put his hand up again, pressing his palm on the glass until he could imagine that he was patting Greg on the shoulder. "Sorry, mate," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."
They walked across the frosted grass, cloaks brushing against each other with every step. Draco hadn't had much to say beyond "I'm sorry you're dead" to Vince once he'd found himself staring at the headstone. The bloke had turned on him, after all, and had caused the fire that had nearly killed him and Greg and the woman walking beside him. Harry and Ron too, he supposed, but he didn't really care much about them. He was afraid to admit that he did care about Hermione Granger, but she'd turned out to be a decent friend over the past few months. She certainly was difficult to get rid of, he'd learned. Maybe that's why those two had put up with her for so long.
Why he was putting up with her, he was finding out, had nothing to do with the difficulty involved in shaking her free and everything to do with the lack of desire to be rid of her. When she wasn't being swottish and bouncing around with her hand in the air, trying to get a professor's attention, he thought she was actually quite nice. Smart, no forgetting that, but she was more than smarts. She was smarts and loyalty and bravery and a freckle-spattered nose under wide brown eyes under a thick mass of hair that was so much softer than it looked.
If she'd been a pure-blood, he'd decided, there would have been practically nothing to keep him from paying her some attention a long time ago. Then again, there was practically nothing to keep him from that now. His father had died in Azkaban with the rest of the Death Eaters and his mother-- Draco shut his eyes for a moment. His mother's death was a raw spot in his heart still. She'd never been a Death Eater, but she'd suffered the same punishment, her assistance in saving the life of the Boy Who Lived notwithstanding. Draco considered it a small blessing that she'd only lived for six weeks in the prison. The guards had plans, detailed and debauched plans, for an attractive woman in Azkaban. They'd enjoyed telling him about those plans, enjoyed watching the horrified looks he could never stop, no matter how hard he tried.
He realized that he'd kept walking, but Hermione had stopped. He turned to see her standing in front of a grave, her head bowed. The stone, when he approached it, looked several years old, but the carved letters were still crisp and sharp-edged. Colin Creevey. Draco stood beside Hermione, his arm brushing hers, and listened to her cry, her sniffs muffled in the thick wool of her scarf as she put clear effort into not being obvious about her tears. Draco thought maybe he should pat her on the shoulder, say 'there there', or give her some other friendly platitude or caring gesture. Maybe he should--
She turned to him and slipped her arms around his waist, burrowing into his cloak and wiping her face on his jumper. Maybe he should stand there and let her cry on him, his arms around her shoulders and his head bent to hers. He gave into temptation for just one second, while she had her head bowed and she couldn't see him. He touched his lips to her hair and tried not to breathe, because his exhales wanted to quiver. "Hermione," he said softly, pulling her hair out of her face to dangle into the hood of her cloak. "Hermione, it's all right."
"No, it's not." She shook her head against him. "Too many dead, Draco. Too many dead, too young. Half the people in this cemetery were practically children."
"I know." He cradled her to his chest, one hand rubbing gently between her shoulders. He looked out over the cemetery, at the rows of graves with fresh, clean stones and bright grass marking every recent burial over the past decade. So many of them held not only the same year carved into their granite, but the same day. It was close to nothing but luck that had kept his name from joining the list of those buried there. He bowed his head and held Hermione close. "I know."
They paid their respects to the memorial built for the victims of the war, then flew over the lake, looking at the battered walls of Hogwarts, its Astronomy tower left in cragged ruin as a memorial to the war that had raged in the halls of the ancient castle. Draco was content to fly in silence, to hover over the black, icy waters with the ends of their scarves fluttering gold and green behind them. Hermione was not, and she edged closer until their thighs pressed together and the tips of their brooms crossed. "So do you think you're finished?" she asked, her gaze never moving from the school they'd both attended for so many years. She'd gone back to complete her education and sit her NEWTs; he, for all intents and purposes, had never got through his seventh year. Lessons and essays had taken a holiday when torture and the Carrows came into his life, and he'd stopped going to class before the Christmas hols rolled around. Hermione never scolded him for essentially dropping out or gave him sad looks for his lack of education, and he found he was grateful for that small mercy. He had enough of lectures and pity.
She took a deep breath and spoke again. "Think you're done? Made your apologies to everyone?"
Draco shrugged one shoulder and shifted his feet, the heels of his boots resting on the broom's pegs. "I suppose. Can't really think of anyone else." He knew he'd said the wrong thing when she leaned away from him and folded her arms under her breasts. Her thigh tensed against his and she twisted her broom free, the shafts scraping with an abrasive noise. "What?" he asked, looking at the back of her hair, each curl shining in the moonlight. "Who did I miss?"
"Me, you prat." She swiped one hand across her cheeks and pulled her cloak tight, huddling in it like a dark cloud. "You haven't told me. You haven't apologized to me, haven't said your 'sorry' to me."
He stared at her, brows furrowed in confusion. "But this," he said, gesturing at the landscape and the night, trying to encompass months of conversations and discussions and moonlit flights with a few waves of his hands. "But all this?"
"Yes, yes, all very lovely. Comfortable and pleasant and rather nice, really, but you haven't said it. You've never said it to me. I didn't want to have to ask outright, but if you're too dense...." She couldn't curl up on herself very well while on a broom, but he saw her make the effort, shoulders hunched and head bowed.
Draco opened his mouth, and it stayed open for several heartbeats. He tried to speak, tried to force words out of a choked throat and over dry lips, but nothing happened. Nothing emerged, not even half a syllable, and he closed his mouth with a snap that made his jaw ache. He couldn't speak. He knew he should, knew she wanted it, could see how much she needed it in her posture and the slight quiver of her shoulders.
But he couldn't.
He yanked his broom away from her and spiraled, arrowing down in a near-vertical dive. He knew why he couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear. He knew exactly why, and he didn't want to say it, didn't want to face it.
Draco jerked out of the dive, the toes of his boots dragging through the cold waters of the lake. He jumped off at the shoreline and his broom fell into the rocky sand as he staggered from it. Staggered away from his broom, away from his fear, away from her. That last was futile, he knew, but he couldn't stop himself. He stumbled on rocks, his scarf falling behind him, his cloak tangling in his legs. Far above, she called to him, and her voice grew closer as she flew after him, followed him along the shore.
It took her a few minutes to catch him up, her broom whipping around him in a move he'd taught her, a Seeker's trick to block an opponent from reaching for the Snitch. He drew up to keep from hitting her and she grabbed at his cloak.
"Draco." He'd expected shouting, but her voice was steady and soft. "Draco, what's wrong?"
He looked at her hands, his boots, the moon, looked anywhere to keep from looking at her deep brown eyes and the concern he knew would be filling them as much as it filled her voice. "I can't," he said, embarrassed of the tremor in his words. He continued in a whisper to keep that tremor from being so obvious. "I can't, Hermione. I can't tell you I'm sorry. I can't ask your forgiveness. I can't."
She dismounted without letting go of him, as much as she had to struggle and nearly pull them both to the ground in her efforts. "Why?" There was no censure in her question, no anger or irritation. Just a hurt bewilderment that made him want to throw himself at her feet.
He resisted that, but the fight for control had to break somewhere. To his shame, it rose up, turning his cheeks hot and his eyes watery. He gripped her wrists and bowed his head, his throat thickening as he shut his eyes against tears. "I can't."
Hermione stepped in close, her hands moving up and around the back of his neck to lead his head to her shoulder. Her fingers laced through his hair and she cradled him in her embrace. "Draco, why? What's wrong? You've managed for everyone else - Rosmerta, Katie, even Ron. You've spent the past year apologizing to everyone under the sun. Why can't you say it to me?"
"I didn't care about them." His voice cracked, and he turned his face to her neck, his arms around her waist to clutch her as though she were the only strength left to him. "I didn't care if they accepted it, didn't even care if they listened. That's what I kept telling myself, and I was believing it up till now. But you. You, Hermione." Now that he'd spoken, he couldn't stop, and this was exactly what he'd been afraid of, exactly what had terrified him. "I care. I care what you think. I care what you have to say. I care about you. And that's why I can't apologize. That's why I can't ask your forgiveness."
Draco clung to her, breathing rough as he tried not to let tears fall, making every effort to stifle any sound she could identify as a weakness. It was humiliating enough that he'd lost so much control already. "I can't ask. I can't apologize. I can't say I'm sorry. Because-because." He sniffed and burrowed into her scarf. "I can't ask your forgiveness because I'm afraid you won't give it to me."
"Draco."
How she managed to fill that word, the two small syllables of his name, with so much compassion, he couldn't determine. He couldn't even begin to think. He clung to her, gripped her tight, held her as if he'd never let go of her, and he broke. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I'm sorry. For-for everything. For everything I've done to you, everything I've said. I'm sorry."
She patted his hair and rubbed his shoulders, murmuring to him, shushing him gently. "Draco, hush. There's no need for this. Don't be scared. I forgive you. I forgave you ages ago."
He didn't know why those three words - I forgive you - made him want to weep, and before he could do just that, he tore away from her. He ran down the shore to snatch up his broom and fly away, blaming the water in his eyes on the speed of his ascent.
"Draco Malfoy, if you don't open this door right this sec--"
He jerked the door open, grabbed her by the wrist, and yanked her into the flat. Hermione stared at him, wide-eyed with the shock of being interrupted before she could finish her shout. "I need your help," he said, without letting go of her wrist. He'd done loads of thinking over the previous twenty-four hours, and if he consumed one more cup of that horrible blueberry tea she'd started leaving at his flat for their planning sessions, he thought he might burst with tea and thinking. "I need your help, Hermione. There's this girl, you see. This woman, actually. She's brilliant, she's pretty, and she is irritating as all hell. I rather like her, but don't know how to tell her. And I-I-I rather made an arse out of myself in front of her yesterday. I need to do something about it. I need you to help me. Help me make this right."
She gaped at him, her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. Draco twisted his hands together, watching her, and when the silence had stretched for a good handful of heartbeats, he groaned quietly and turned away. "Never mind. I'd thought maybe that she.... No. I was wrong, never mind. Just, er. Just." He fell into the sofa, cursed when one of the springs poked him in the back, and sat forward with his face in his hands. "Never mind."
The sofa creaked as she sat down beside him. Draco glanced sideways at her around the edge of his hand. "This woman," Hermione said in a slow, wondering voice. "Pretty? Brilliant? You rather like her?"
He considered his options, considered saying that he was wrong, he'd changed his mind, please leave and never come back. "Yeah," he said instead. He'd dragged all his skeletons into the light so far and lived through it. One more couldn't hurt. Not too much, at least. "All of that." He dropped his hands between his knees and stared at the odd stain on the carpet that he'd always thought was in the shape of a cauldron. "She's been good to me over the past few months. Been quite helpful even though I didn't want her help. But, er. We've done loads of talking, and gone on several flights, and had dinners and things, and she's been nice. Been very nice, really, and I think I might have started liking her, y'know, at some point. I know I started caring about her, but I'm not sure how it happened. Something bigger than me at work here, I think. But I also think I'm a little bit mad. Probably went bonkers in prison. That can happen, especially in my family."
He closed his eyes and waited. None of that had made any sense to him, and he thought it probably didn't make any sense to her, but she was smart. If anyone could figure it out, she could. "Well," she said, and his shoulders tensed. "I think the very first thing you should do is kiss her."
Draco looked full at her when she said that, and it was his turn to gape like a goldfish. "Pardon?" he asked, his voice tighter, warier than he liked.
She slid her arm across his shoulders and pushed her fingers into the ends of his hair. "First, she needs a kiss, because she's noticed several times over the past few weeks that you've looked on the verge of giving her one, and she really wants to know how good you are at it."
She kissed him without giving him a chance to respond, which was rather a good thing, he decided later. He couldn't think beyond kiss kiss kiss kiss Hermione Granger kiss. When she pulled away after a light suck to his lip, he had only one thing to say to her. "Oh my god."
She laughed and patted his knee. "Now she knows. And now, I'm certain you won't be the least bit surprised to discover what she plans to do next." Hermione reached into the huge bag that never seemed to leave her side, pulled out a parchment and quill, and set to work. "Step one, kiss her. Done. Step two, take her to dinner. A real dinner. Someplace with tablecloths and candles."
Draco settled back in the sofa, careful to avoid the broken spring, and watched her make a list. He'd said a lot of 'sorry' in the recent past, and there was one more thing he was sorry for, he decided. He was sorry he'd never kissed her before. He still wasn't certain he wasn't mad as a Lovegood, but this was the sort of insanity he thought he might get to enjoy.