Chapter Text
The villa offered little relief from the heat.
The thick limestone walls softened the relentless Mediterranean sun but couldn't quite banish it. Warm air lingered in every corridor, scented with citrus blossom and old stone. Somewhere beyond the open arches, laughter drifted from the gardens where guests had begun to gather beneath strings of white lanterns.
Hermione slipped inside before anyone could stop her for another conversation.
She loved Ginny dearly. She was genuinely thrilled she was getting married. But after less than twenty-four hours back in Britain’s social orbit (if one could call a destination wedding in southern Italy 'Britain's social orbit') she'd already exhausted her tolerance for curious smiles, careful questions and people pretending not to stare.
Three and a half years bought you a certain mythological quality, apparently. Everyone wanted to know where she'd been. No one asked outright, instead they danced around it.
"You've been keeping busy?"
"Still travelling?"
"Are you back for good?"
Hermione had become very good at answering questions without actually answering them.
She reached the cooler shade of the entrance hall and exhaled quietly. Water. That had been the objective. Not social interaction. Just a single glass of cold water before she had to survive this rehearsal in thirty-degree heat.
She turned down one of the long corridors, grateful for the temporary silence. Then voices carried around the corner ahead. Familiar ones. She slowed automatically.
"...I'm serious," Theo was saying. "Did anyone actually know she was coming?"
"No," Blaise replied. "I assumed she'd send a gift and a politely worded excuse like she has for everything else."
A ripple of laughter followed.
Hermione couldn't stop the small smile that tugged at her mouth.
It wasn't entirely unfair.
She had become rather notorious for declining invitations.
Birthdays.
Christmas parties.
Ministry galas.
Reunions.
Ginny’s birthday dinners, she had promised to attend “next time.” Every owl had received an impeccably polite refusal. Distance was easier to maintain when it became habit.
Then another voice slipped effortlessly into the conversation.
Lower. Smoother. Infuriatingly familiar.
"Well," Draco drawled, "she had to resurface eventually."
The smile disappeared. Even after all this time, she recognised his voice instantly. Some things, apparently, lodged themselves too deeply to ever really fade.
"Three years is a bit excessive, even for Granger." Theo pronounced.
"Three and a half," Draco corrected.
Silence. Hermione blinked. Three and a half. An oddly precise correction. Someone chuckled.
"That's exactly my point.' stated Theo 'Nobody disappears for three and a half years unless they're hiding from something."
"Or someone," Blaise offered lightly.
Another murmur of agreement.
Hermione remained motionless in the corridor, one hand still resting against the cool stone wall. The sensible thing would be to leave. Instead, she found herself rooted to the spot. Because she wanted to know. Wanted—despite every sensible instinct—not what they thought of her. What he thought.
"Whatever the reason," Draco continued, "she turns up less than twenty-four hours ago, and suddenly half the guest list is acting like they've spotted a rare magical creature."
A beat. Then, quieter than before—
"I just wasn't expecting her."
There it was again. That note she'd never expected to hear. Not irritation. Not amusement. Not even resentment. Surprise. Real surprise. As though the possibility of seeing her again had existed only in theory.
The conversation drifted on. Someone mentioned the open bar. Theo began arguing about seating arrangements. Blaise laughed at something she couldn't quite make out.
Hermione stopped listening. Three and a half years. He hadn't rounded it. He hadn't guessed. He'd known. Exactly.
An uncomfortable warmth settled beneath her ribs that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Italian sun.
Interesting. Very interesting.
She pushed herself away from the wall before anyone could wander into the corridor and discover her eavesdropping.
The courtyard greeted her in a wave of shimmering heat and bright white light. Voices mingled with clinking champagne glasses. Someone called her name from across the garden. She pasted on the smile she'd perfected over the last few years and stepped back into the celebration.
For once, she barely noticed the heat.
--------------------------------------
Hermione’s footsteps had long since faded by the time Draco spoke again.
“Well,” Theo said lightly, stretching the word out as though it might reveal something if he pulled at it long enough. “That was… interesting.”
Blaise made a soft sound of agreement, the kind that wasn’t quite a laugh but wasn’t far off it either.
There was a pause. Then Theo again, far too casual. “You seemed, surprised.”
Draco didn’t respond immediately. He shifted his glass in his hand instead, watching the condensation slide down the side of it. Ice clinked softly as he turned it once, then again.
“I wasn’t,” he said finally.
Blaise hummed. “That’s impressive, considering you just spent five minutes dissecting her disappearance down to the decimal.”
Draco shot him a look. “That’s not what I was doing.”
“It sounded a lot like what you were doing,” Theo said cheerfully.
Draco exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled. “I was pointing out a statistical inconsistency in how people are reacting.”
“Oh,” Blaise said, eyes glinting. “Of course. Purely statistical.”
Theo nodded solemnly. “Nothing emotional about it at all.”
Draco’s jaw tightened a fraction. “There’s nothing emotional about it.”
A beat. Then Blaise tilted his head slightly. “So you didn’t know she was coming.”
“I already said that.”
“You didn't,” Theo agreed. “But you certainly sound, 'something' - i cant quite put my finger on it.”
Silence settled between them, warm and heavy in the way summer air always was here—thick enough that even unspoken things seemed to stick. Draco took a slow sip of his drink.
“You’re imagining things,” he said.
Blaise’s mouth twitched. “Are we?”
“Yes.”
Theo leaned back against the corridor wall, watching him now with open curiosity. “It’s just… you seem to have been unusually invested in this guest list situation.”
“I haven’t.”
“You counted” Blaise said, almost lazily, with a tilt to his head.
Draco’s gaze flicked to him again. Blaise didn’t look away.
“Three and a half years,” he continued. “Very specific.”
“That was correctional,” Draco said flatly.
“Mm,” Theo murmured. “Noted.”
Draco set his glass down on the nearest table with a little more force than necessary. It made a soft, decisive sound against the marble.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “She’s here. People are reacting. That’s all.”
Blaise’s eyes lingered on him for a moment longer than comfortable.
Then, gently, almost kindly: “You say that like you didn’t react.”
“I didn’t.”
Theo made a small noise of disbelief. “You literally stopped talking mid-sentence when you heard her name.”
Draco’s expression didn’t change. “I didn’t.”
“You did,” Blaise repeated, still mild.
A silence stretched. Draco stared at them both for a long moment, as though weighing whether this conversation was worth continuing.
Then he said, carefully, “I noticed the talk that she was here because it’s unusual for her to attend anything these days. That’s it.”
Theo nodded slowly. “Right.”
“That’s it,” Draco repeated.
Blaise pushed off the wall, stepping closer now, voice lowering just slightly.
“You know,” he said, “for someone who’s so committed to the idea that Granger is irrelevant to your current state of mind, you’ve spent an impressive amount of time tracking her absence.”
Draco’s eyes narrowed. “I haven’t been tracking anything.”
“Three and a half years,” Theo echoed softly, like a reminder rather than a question.
Draco didn’t answer. The silence this time was sharper.
Then Blaise smiled faintly, as if conceding something invisible.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s say you weren’t tracking it.”
Draco said nothing.
“Let’s say,” Blaise continued, “you just… noticed.”
A beat. Theo raised an eyebrow. “That would still be worse, you realise.”
Draco’s gaze flicked between them. “Why?”
“Because it means it stuck,” Theo said simply.
That landed differently. if even possible Blaise’s expression softened even more just at the edges of his eyes, though his tone stayed light.
“People don’t usually notice absence like that unless it matters,” he said.
Draco let out a quiet, humourless breath. “It doesn’t.”
Theo smiled. “Alright.”
But he didn’t sound convinced.
Neither did Blaise.
And Draco, for once, didn’t add anything more.