Summary:

Draco and Hermione have tea. And angst.

Chapter Text

In the moment between her knocking on his door and him answering it, she marveled at how oddly familiar this all felt. It really wasn't that long ago that she had been doing this very same thing, albeit under rather different circumstances.

Her stomach was an absolute disaster. Every breath she drew set shivers of ice into her gut. Each step she heard him take towards the door made her mouth a little drier. When he finally opened the door, her tongue was practically welded to her bottom teeth.

"Granger," he greeted.

"Hello," she managed to murmur.

"Come in." He opened the door wider and gestured for her to follow him inside. She gave him a thin smile and followed.

The flat was much smaller than she had imagined. In fact, it was downright tiny compared to Malfoy Manor. She knew that even though the Ministry had seized his family's mansion, Draco still had plenty of money. Why was he living here?

"Not what you pictured?" he asked, obviously noticing her wide-eyed survey of his abode.

"Not quite. But it's very nice. I mean that." She did. The furniture was sleek and modern: a black leather sofa, a glass coffee table, and a dark wood bookshelf that spanned an entire wall. She was, of course, immediately drawn to this.

"Would've put money on that," he said as she began to inspect his books.

"Whatever." The shelves were filled with a standard array of books: old textbooks from Hogwarts, biographies of famous witches and wizards, and strategy guides for wizard chess and Quidditch. But scattered amongst these tomes were other texts, ones that hinted at his previous life: a handful of cookbooks, a book about football, and, of course, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. She ran her finger over its creased spine.

The only other thing on the bookshelf was a single framed photograph of a very young Draco and his mother. She leaned towards him, using a gloved finger to wipe an invisible smudge off of his cheek, then turned to the camera and smiled as Draco hugged her.

"They let me go through some stuff from the Manor," he said. "That's how I got the picture and the books."

"I ... I wasn't ..." She drew back from the picture quickly, face reddening.

"There were other pictures, but that's the only one I like," he said, ignoring or dismissing her stammer.

"So ... uhm ... how long have you lived here?"

"A few months. They didn't really know what to do with me at first. I stayed at an Inn until they decided I should be allowed to have access to my family's money." His tone had started out civil, but became bitter towards the end. "Then they couldn't tell me where to live or what to do."

"So you ... moved here?"

"Yes."

"And you ... like it here?"

"Yes."

"Hmm."

They were still standing across the room from one another.

"Well then."

"Yes."

She put her bag down on the floor and glanced around the rest of the flat. There were far more windows here than in his previous residence, and no television or washing machine. But other than that—and the fact that his bookshelf had books on it—it bore a striking resemblance to where he had lived in Muggle England.

"I don't suppose your kitchen window looks out over a dumpster?"

"Come see."

He led her into the kitchen. There was a small table with two chairs, a stove heating a kettle, and a large picture window that offered a glorious view of the park across the street.

"A marked improvement," she observed, propping her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hands. The trees beneath them were dotted with white and pink blossoms.

"I don't know," he mused, leaning against the counter next to her. "I sort of miss watching the rats crawl around looking for moldy old chips."

"I can see how one would. You don't get that kind of excitement here. Just trees and flowers and grass. How pedestrian."

"Utterly."

The kettle began to whistle.

"It smells fantastic in here, by the way," she said as he poured the tea into two mugs.

"I've got an apple tart in the oven."

"Shut up." She gave him a look of disbelief.

"What?"

"You're baking?"

He shrugged. "This is more satisfying. It's a magical oven, of course, because getting electricity in here looked like it was going to be far more trouble than it was worth."

"You know," she began, taking a seat at his table, "I always thought your fascination with cooking was a result of a subconscious desire to make potions." Her voice trailed off at the end as she realized how appalling her words truly were. Not only had she made herself seem like a know-it-all, she had made him sound the subject of a psychiatric evaluation. She supposed both were true, in a way, but still ... there was no reason for her to say that. He made no reply, instead muttering a charm over his hands and taking the tart out of the oven.

"Less clumsy than rooster oven mitts, eh?" she asked weakly.

"Something like that."

"Draco, I'm sorry I said ..."

"Forget it, Granger." He began to cut the tart.

"Ok." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, put her hands in her pockets, took her hands out of her pockets, and then crossed her arms across her chest.

Curls of steam wafted up from the slice of apple tart that he placed in front of her. Hermione's mouth began to water. "I bet this would be good with ice cream," he said.

"Mixing cold and hot hurts my teeth."

"Can't your dentist parents fix that?" He sat across from her and spread a napkin across his lap.

"I've never asked," she said.

"You've got two parents who specialize in fixing teeth and you've never thought to ask them how they could fix your teeth?" he asked drolly.

"It's weird to have dentist parents. I never felt like I could eat a toffee in their presence. And you should have seen how disappointed they looked when they realized that I was going to have an overbite. It was like I had failed them somehow. So I didn't think my minor issue with tooth sensitivity was worth it." She ate a forkful of tart. "This is really delicious."

"Are you seriously telling me that your parents were disappointed by your teeth?"

"I mean, it's not like they were going to disown me or anything, but ... why are you looking at me like that?"

"You have very nice teeth," he said, sipping his tea casually.

"I suppose I have you to thank for that. The densaugeo really did wonders for my smile."

"I was aiming for Potter."

"Yes, that makes it loads better."

He shrugged at her. "So what did your parents think of Madame Pomfrey's handiwork?"

"My mother was quite pleased, but my father kept insisting that good old fashioned braces would have done the job better."

"Interesting."

"I'm sure," she said.

"You don't believe that I think it's interesting?"

"Draco, my parents are Muggle teeth doctors. How interesting could you possibly find that?"

"Don't assume things about me, Granger." He gave her a hard look. She fixed her gaze on her plate and pushed the last bits of her tart in a circle.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"Do you know how my father died?" he asked her, voice still harsh.

"I do."

"I'm not asking if you know the physical circumstances that caused my father's death."

"Then what are you asking?" The edge in his voice had spawned a similar one in hers.

"I'm asking if you know what my father was thinking when he died."

"Of course I don't."

"He was disappointed in me, Granger."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do."

"How can you possibly know that? You weren't anywhere near him when he died. You couldn't have used any sort of Legillemency on him, and even if you ..."

"He had to have been disappointed in me. I had failed him in everything."

"Draco ... the things he was probably asking you to do ..."

"That doesn't matter." He slammed his teaspoon on the table.

"It most assuredly does." She slammed hers in response.

"Not to him."

"What about to you? To ... your mother?"

He picked up his teaspoon again and began to stir furiously. "That's an entirely different ..." he began, but then snapped his mouth shut, watching the teaspoon swirl around. "Is she still happy?" His voice had softened. "In the States?"

"Yes." The teaspoon clanked against the sides of the mug. "Harry sneaks me the file every Friday. She's got a huge birthday party for the children of some hotshot golfer next month."

"Is she ... seeing anyone?"

"I don't think there's anyone serious. But ... she doesn't seem lonely. Do you want to see the files? I think I could copy them for you."

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"This way is easier."

"Alright."

"But you'll tell me if anything ..."

"I promise."

The look that had seized his eyes at that moment made her want to grab his hand the way she had before, to cover his fingers with hers, to stroke the bony ridges of his knuckles with her thumb. Instead, she told him that he made a really lovely cup of tea.

"She taught me," he replied. "It was the only thing she insisted on making herself instead of just conjuring it up or asking a house-elf to bring her."

Under most other circumstances, the mention of a Malfoy house-elf would have launched Hermione into a lengthy diatribe about the Welfare of Magical Creatures, but she hardly considered it appropriate in the current situation. "Where did she learn?" she asked. It was better than saying nothing.

"Not a clue." He sipped his tea. "Probably not from Aunt Bella."

Hermione stiffened at the name. She opened her mouth, but closed it before she could say anything.

"If you close your fingers around that mug any tighter, you're going to break it."

"Possibly," she replied through gritted teeth.

"That's why this won't work, Granger."

She loosened her grip on the mug and tried to keep anxiety out of her voice. "What are you talking about?"

"Why were you so sad after we saw that play? And the morning after we slept together?"

"Because I knew it couldn't last. One way or the other, it had to end. "

"Do you still believe that?"

She sucked one side of her cheek between her teeth and considered how best to answer him. To hell with it, she decided. Might as well go with the truth. "I don't want it to."

"What about your bloody friends? Your family? Your ..." He was taunting her now. She didn't answer his question. Apparently, however, her silence was a sufficient reply.

"You're an utter fool," he said, voice laced with scorn.

"Maybe so."

He said something under his breath, his voice harsh but too quiet for Hermione to discern his exact words.

"What?"

"Nothing," he sighed. "Look, I have some things I need to ask you."

"About what?" she eyed him suspiciously.

"About what happened to me."

"Can I be an arsehole in answering them?"

His eyebrows shot up to meet his hairline. A noise that might have been a chuckle escaped from his lips. "If you like," he replied.

"Alright. Then ask."

"First," he began, taking a deep breath. "What bloody idiot decided that my name should be Drake O. Malford?"

She smiled into her tea, trying desperately not to laugh. "I can't tell you that."

"It was Dean Thomas, wasn't it?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Because he was the one in my hospital room with you when I woke up. And because he's a fucking idiot."

"I can neither confirm nor deny your suspicions," she said, even though she was rather certain that her grin gave it away.

"Fair enough. By the way, was that your attempt at being an arsehole?"

"Not really."

"Good. Because that was a poor showing."

"I'll try harder."

"Please do. Why did you bring me that book?"

"Shakespeare? I ... I just ..."

"And don't feed me any lines about empty bookshelves."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Because I wanted you to have it, you moron."

"That's better," he nodded appreciatively. "Next time try something stronger than 'moron.'" If he had smiled when he had said that, she would have assumed he was joking. "Now," he continued, "when did you start to notice that something had ... gone wrong with the spell?"

"You woke up from the coma in 23 days. It took everyone else three months."

"Hmm." He seemed almost proud of that fact.

"Other than that, I couldn't tell much of anything was wrong in the first few weeks. Mostly because you wouldn't talk to me, and because you were being a hellacious prat."

"Better. But not much. And when you noticed that things weren't quite right, why didn't you just cast the spell again? Or have someone from the Ministry do it?"

"Because I didn't know what that would do to you."

"I couldn't have used Occlumency that second time. It would have worked perfectly."

"I didn't know you used Occlumency the first time, idiot."

"What the hell were you afraid it would do to me?"

"I don't know," she said, her voice nearly a shout. "But it could have been worse."

"Worse than that?" His voice also rose. "Granger, I was ready to fucking kill myself."

"I know that." She slammed her fists on the table "Why the hell do you think I reversed it?"

"Well it took you bloody long enough!"

"I didn't know if that was the best option. I had to do a lot of research before I ..."

"Research? Of course Hermione Granger had to fucking do research." Veins pulsed along the sides of his pale throat.

"What the hell would you have preferred I do? Just pick a remedy at random and cross my fingers that it wouldn't screw you up even worse?"

"What did you care?"

"That is the absolute dumbest question you could possibly ask me," she yelled, rising from her chair.

"Why?" His chair scraped back from the table as he stood across from her.

"Because you know how I felt about you, you stupid prat."

"Why did you feel that way?"

"Because ... I ... I ... I just did, alright? And you felt that way about me. And don't pretend like you didn't." She was still shouting.

"I'm Draco fucking Malfoy," he shouted back.

"So fucking what?"

"You stopped seeing me as that, didn't you? You started thinking of me as Drake Malford." It wasn't a question; it was an accusation.

"Of course I did," she said. The anger seemed to leech out of her body. "How could I not? You didn't act like Draco Malfoy. You waded around in a scummy pond to save a stuffed rabbit. You said kind things to me. You ... looked at me like ... like ..."

"Like what?"

"Like a person and not a piece of garbage." Tears began to burn at the corners of her eyes.

"I'm not Drake Malford," he hissed at her. "You have to understand that."

"Well then you're not Draco Malfoy either," she said, wiping the corners of her eyes with a napkin. "Because you still look at me like a person. Because we were having a perfectly civil conversation just a few moments ago."

"For fuck's sake, Granger," he said, walking to the other end of the kitchen. "What is it going to take?"

"For what? What do you want me to do? Ignore you? I was doing that just fine before you invited me here, you stupid arsehole! You made me tea and an apple tart! I didn't know you still had a scrap of paper from the legal pad! I wasn't trying to write to you then! And you're the one who sent me that paper rose on Christmas! So if you just want to forget about this whole thing, you're going about it the exact wrong way!"

"I can't forget about it, Granger! That's what I'm fucking trying to tell you! I can't forget about what happened!"

"Well that's ironic, isn't it?" she snapped. "Considering how desperately you wanted to remember things a few months ago."

He barked out a short, bitter laugh. "Well at least you've finally succeeded in your attempt to be an arsehole."

"I'm not going to apologize."

"I didn't ask you to," he said gruffly.

"So what are you asking me to do? I don't understand, Draco! Make some bloody sense!" She threw her mug on the floor, sending ceramic fragments skittering across the tiles.

He said nothing, but quickly crossed the kitchen toward her, pieces of mug crunching beneath the soles of his shoes. He seized her arms, fingers pressing so tightly into her flesh that she knew his prints would remain as bruises. She focused all her attention on not allowing fear to seep into her eyes, Her muscles tightened as he strengthened his grip, but relaxed slightly as he pulled her towards him, pressing his mouth against hers.

His lips were firm and insistent. His breath rushed against her nose, his hands wound themselves in her hair. She felt his tongue drive into her mouth and wrestle against hers, felt his body collide against hers. One of his hands roamed down her back, settling on her hip. A low moan resounded in his throat before he pushed himself away from her, panting, flushed, and noticeably aroused.

"Shit," he muttered. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and hunched his frame over the sink as if he were expecting himself to be sick at any moment.

She stared at him for what might have been a full minute, trying in vain to process what had just happened. Her lips felt swollen and her knickers were uncomfortably wet. "I'm ... I'm just going to go, Draco," she said as soon as she could manage the words. "I can't take this."

"Can't take what?" he croaked.

"Whatever mind game you're playing with me. Is it some kind of revenge for the rescripso?" She marched into the living room and got her bag. "Because if it is, well done. You've fucked with my head the way we fucked with yours. Are you satisfied?" A sob escaped before she could swallow it.

"Granger, wait." She could hear his footsteps behind her.

"Goodbye, Draco." She reached for the doorknob.

"Granger! Please."

The word made her pause and turn towards him. She tapped her foot on the floor and gave him the most evil look she could summon.

"Look, I'm ... I'm not ..." He exhaled mightily. "I'm not trying to play mind games with you."

"So what are you doing?" She took her hand off the doorknob and turned towards him.

"I ... haven't the foggiest idea." He looked down at his feet, then up at the ceiling.

"Why did you invite me over here?"

"Because I want to understand."

"Understand what?" she was beyond exasperated now.

"I want to understand what happened to me. And what I should do now."

"Draco," she sighed, "you can't expect yourself to have perfect clarity about this. You went through something ... extraordinary."

"That's not good enough, Granger."

"That's all I've got." She reached for the doorknob again.

"Don't go." He covered her hand with his. "Not yet."

"I don't have answers for you."

"Just stay. Please. A little while longer. I can even conjure up a notebook for you if you'd like."

She sucked her lips in to prevent a smile. "That won't be necessary."

"Good. Sit with me?"

He sat at one end of the couch. She sat at the other. She folded her arms across her chest and waited for him to say something. When he didn't, she took the initiative. "Why did you decorate your flat this way? Why are you living here?" she asked.

"I don't know. It just feels more comfortable."

"This tiny flat is more comfortable than the palatial estate we both know you can afford?"

"Why are you asking me that?"

"I'm trying to get you to answer your own questions, Draco. Don't you get it? Some part of you obviously enjoyed being Drake Malford."

"I know that, Granger."

"You do?"

"Of course I do. Do you think I'm an idiot? When I got back, I barely made it two days without going for a run. I just baked a sodding apple tart. I read Muggle papers to keep up with the football scores. I've even found myself sort of missing being an accountant, if you can believe that."

"So what's the problem, Draco?" she asked, rubbing her temples. Her head was positively throbbing. "If it makes you happy to live here and go for runs and bake things, then do that."

"It's not that easy."

"Why not?"

"Granger," he said slowly, "it's taken me a very long time to come to terms with the fact that he and I are actually the same person. You said yourself that you had to think of me as Drake Malford."

"But I ..."

"Listen," he said. "When I got back here, I tried to reassume as much of my old life as possible. I tried spending time with people I used to know."

"Like Astoria Greengrass?" The words fell out of her mouth before she knew what she was saying, and in a tone far more catty than she knew she was capable of producing.

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Yes. Like her. What of that?"

"Nothing," she huffed. "Forget it."

"Jealous?" He sounded like he was smirking, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of looking in his direction.

"I said forget it, Malfoy." The leather couch cushions made squeaking sounds as she crossed one leg over the other. "Just finish what you started to say."

"Right ... well ... the Ministry offered to give me all of my old clothing, all of the furniture out of the Manor, all of the heirlooms that belonged to my family. I didn't want any of it. Looking at it made me physically ill. The only things I took are on that bookshelf right there." He pointed to the shelf she had inspected upon arriving, then closed his eyes and ran two fingers over his forehead. "I was a Muggle, Granger. For all intents and purposes, I was a Muggle. I had a Muggle job, I lived in a Muggle flat, and I had what I thought was a Muggle girlfriend."

"Girlfriend?"

"And when I remembered everything," he continued, either not hearing or ignoring her interruption, "I was disgusted. Not at Drake, but at Draco, because how could I have put that much energy, that much passion, into loathing the Muggle-born? And Muggles? Muggles."

"That's how you were raised," she said. It all sounded so simple when she put it that way: compacting all of the cruel things he had ever done or said into a facile maxim.

"But I never even questioned it, Granger." He slapped his open palm on the arm of the sofa.

"You were a child."

"I grew up, and I wasn't any better. And the things I did when I was a teenager, when I should have been making independent decisions, the things I almost did ..." He stopped talking and drew in a sharp breath. "And when I thought about you ... about us ... Granger, I couldn't even look at you for weeks. I could barely look at myself. Because I know how Drake felt about you. And I know how Draco felt about you. And the two feelings are incredibly mutually exclusive."

"Believe me, I understand that," she said, settling back into the couch cushions.

"You don't, though. Not really. Because you knew who I was and what you were doing the entire time. You may have let yourself believe that I was a different person, but you must have remembered everything I had done. How did you ... how did you stand to be in the same room with me, Granger?" His voice hovered somewhere between amazement and revulsion.

"I'm not going to lie and say it was easy, Draco. It wasn't. I just ... tried to see it as my job. And that's how I got through it at first. But after a while, I ... somehow I started to enjoy spending time with you."

"But how could you?" he asked incredulously.

"I don't know," she said, throwing her hands in the air. "I certainly didn't mean to! What do you want me to say? That in reality, I loathed you? That my apparent fondness for you was really just a clever ruse?"

"Was it?"

"Yes, of course it was, Draco. And that's why I'm still sitting here with you when anyone with half a brain would have left hours ago, provided, of course, that she had even shown up at all. God."

"You didn't answer my question."

"You know, if you don't mind me playing armchair psychiatrist with you, it sounds to me like you're asking me how I forgave you so you can discern how to forgive yourself."

"That's not what I'm doing," he said quickly.

"And I can't answer your question," she continued, eyes locking onto his, "because I don't know how I forgave you, or even that I forgave you at all. Because it wasn't about that to me. It wasn't about reconciling your past with your present. It was about loving the person in front of me. And that's what I ended up doing." She snapped her mouth shut and averted her gaze. She certainly hadn't meant for all of that to come out. The resulting silence that hung between them was practically palpable. He lay his head back against the couch and stared at the ceiling.

"Could you still do that?" he finally said.

"Could you?"

"Don't turn this around on me."

"This isn't about me, Draco. This is about you. I'm not the one having an existential crisis here."

"I wouldn't be having an 'existential crisis' if it weren't for you, Granger."

"Alright. That's enough." She stood up. "You obviously don't want to ..."

"I'm glad I'm having an existential crisis," he blurted out.

"What?"

"I am. I ... Look, this isn't easy for me to say. Please sit back down. Thank you. I've thought about this a lot. More than you could possibly imagine. What the Ministry did to me and my mother was utter bullshit. We weren't doing anything wrong. We were just trying to live as quietly as we could."

"We didn't know that. We couldn't risk the ..."

"Let me finish, Granger. What I'm really trying to say is this: as horrible as some of this has been, I just ... I don't really see how else I could have come to understand things differently. So Granger—Hermione—I am being hot and cold with you and acting like an arsehole because I'm still very confused about a lot of things, and I don't know when or if that will ever stop. But no matter what I say or how I act, I want you to know that I am very deeply grateful for how much you've done for me. Not the Ministry. You."

"Draco, I was on the Council! I agreed to the rescripso!"

"I know that, Granger. Will you just let me ..."

"No. Look, I'm sorry, Draco, I am sincerely sorry for what we ..."

"Merlin, Granger. Do you ever let anyone get a word in edgewise? I know what I did to you and the people you care about. I know what my family did. You had no good reason to care about me or to put so much on the line for me. I don't understand it, but I think that's just because at the end of the day, we are two very different people."

"We might not be."

"I wouldn't have done that for you," he said quickly.

"Drake would have." Her voice was a whisper.

He swallowed hard and blinked slowly, but kept silent..

She stood and walked towards the door. "I'm going to go now. Please don't stop me this time."

"I won't."

He kept true to his word, not even rising from the couch. She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Thanks ... for the tea."

"Of course."

"Well, I ... I guess I'll see you around."

"I've thought about you every day, Granger."

She turned towards him. He wasn't looking at her, but instead staring at the blank wall. His face was moon-pale, his hands laced together and trembling slightly. Every molecule in her body wanted to go to him, to wreath him in her arms, to press his face against her neck.

"Goodbye, Draco."

"Goodbye, Granger."