Chapter Text
Draco had brought the wrong wine.
It was all wrong; too showy, too expensive, too red. He should have played it safe and purchased a cheaper wine from three summers ago, it had been hot that year, it would have at least been palatable.
It was games night; he had no idea what kind of games it would entail but he was almost certain it would be a far shot from the formalities of his mother’s evening events.
This was a mistake. It wasn’t just the wine. He shouldn’t be here…why did he agree to be here?
Any second now the door would open, and he’d watch someone’s face turn from surprise to confusion to abject horror. He wasn’t prepared for this, he’d not been to see his mind healer in weeks, and he’d not worn the right shirt; it clashed horribly with his trousers. Why did he wear his formal cufflinks? His designated pub pair would have sufficed. He may as well have worn emerald green.
The door swung open, and a whip of red hair sent his entire, miserable life flashing before his eyes. His arms— no longer ruled by reason— lifted the bottle of wine in a sheepish greeting. Ginevra Potter, formally Weasley, narrowed her bright brown eyes at him.
“Ferret.”
“Ginevra.”
She stepped back, appraising him; while home on the quidditch off seasons Ginevra had appeared in the office on multiple occasions to bring Potter his forgotten lunch— though Potter claims she just doesn’t want to admit that she misses him. Draco had been raised to dislike the Weasleys, a misplaced but deeply engrained superiority complex that had been difficult to overcome even in adulthood.
Since working for the DMLE and having his hind saved more times than he’d admit without veritaserum, he’d grown a begrudging appreciation for the lankiest member of the Golden Trio. And he would be remiss to say that George Weasley had not provided some of the hardest and most stitch-inducing laughs he could remember in recent years. All of them had welcomed him with arms far more open than he deserved, and the few Death Eater comments were made over copious amounts of firewiskey and always in jest. Ginevra, however, had not once pulled her punches. She had a particular knack for knocking him down a few pegs, all while the amused glint in her eye assured him that it was with no ill will. He liked Ginevra immensely.
“You are connected to the floo,” she said, leaning against the doorframe, not moving to invite him in.
“I didn’t imagine a room full of traumatised Gryffindors would appreciate my sudden appearance from the very green flames of your fireplace.”
“Gods, how noble.”
She pushed herself up from the doorframe and stepped aside, ushering him into the mouth of the lion’s den. There was something to be said about feeling so desperately uncomfortable in his old family home, but he could not find the words, not when every eye in the room rounded on him with the intensity and speed of lightning tearing through the night’s sky.
Many faces he had seen at work, more he had not seen since the trials, some he’d not seen since the battle. Draco had always considered himself to be a pleasing specimen; with striking white-blonde hair and piercing eyes to match, all carefully carved around his angled face. Humility was made of red and gold, and he wore no such colours. And yet, the second he stepped over the threshold and came face to face with the consequences of his adolescence, he wished to appear as anyone but himself.
His hands shook as he gripped the bottle tighter, was it too late to run? He was a tall man, his legs were long and lean and well kept from flying, he could make it out of here and to the apparition point in approximately sixteen strides if he trod carefully—
“Whiskey is this way,” Ginevra said, securing her vice-like grip on his elbow and dragging him further into the hallway, adding a stride to his escape with every passing second. “Relax, you’ll give yourself a hernia.”
“A what?”
“Harry says it’s a— oh, never mind.”
He didn’t have the cognition to press for an answer, not when he stepped into the kitchen and suddenly felt less like a man in a lion’s den and more like a well-cut, smoked piece of prime rib. It was a carousel of people he owed apologies to; Katie Bell, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Potter and Weasley— though they would clobber him around the head for trying to apologise again, they’d accepted six months of it before telling him his sincerity was unnerving and begging him to stop— between them stood Hermione Granger. The one person in this world he perhaps owed the most apology to, as well as the most thanks.
Hermione Granger, whom he had spent his childhood ridiculing and bullying, who had spent her teenage years fighting his father, whom he had watched crawl and writhe on the floor of his drawing room while his aunt tried her best to break her. The same Hermione Granger that had testified on not only his but his mother’s behalf at their respective trials and had submitted the consideration of his employment as part of his parole, despite all the rest of it.
She worked at the ministry too, though Potter and Weasley were always careful not to say exactly which department she worked for, which meant only one thing; Hermione Granger was the youngest unspeakable in ministry history.
It also worth noting that once his fear-based hatred had subsided, and Draco began making his own decisions for the first time in his life, he decided that Granger had blossomed into something quite beautiful indeed. He’d watched her laugh until her eyes watered while visiting her friends on their suspiciously well-timed lunches, he’d heard her rant and rave about new wizarding legislation or enthuse about a new book while Weasley groaned and begged Merlin for a swift death. But that warmth was long gone now as she stared at him, still stood in the kitchen doorway clutching this ridiculous bottle of wine, with nothing but ice in her eyes.
“Harry, pour the rodent a drink?” Ginevra called, and her husband didn’t hesitate.
Draco didn’t even notice the tumbler in his hand until he brought it to his lips.
The next hour was a dizzying mix of awkward re-introductions, strangled apologies, and savouring moments of silence that the various small plates of food offered him. He was by no means having a good time, but he was beginning to think he might just come out of the night alive when Potter called everyone into the lounge. Hermione stayed behind, saying that she’d be in after she cleaned the place up a bit, and Draco realised this was his opportunity.
She was bowed over the sink scrubbing dishes— the muggle way, he noted— her arms covered to her elbows in bubbles. He sucked in a deep breath and an even deeper sip of his whiskey before straightening out his shirt collar. He should be used to this by now; the shameful admissions, the breathless seconds waiting for a verdict.
“Hermione,” he started, and she straightened like a bolt. He grimaced and made a mental note not to sneak up on war heroines. “Can we talk?”
“What could we possibly have to discuss, Malfoy?” her tone was so flat that he wondered if she was using occlumency.
“I need to apologise—”
“Need to or want to?”
He should have known it would be this challenging, and he wished he was glad for it; it shouldn’t be easy, after all. The bite in her words raised the hairs on his arms and conjured beads of sweat on the back of his neck, it sent his mind whirling again with calculations of steps to the door, but he shook it off. If there was ever a time to focus, it was now.
“Both.”
“Why?”
He blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. “What do you mean?”
“Why do you need and want to apologise?” she asked, still facing the sink.
Merlin, did Potter have a fire going? Why was it so spitting hot in here? How was he supposed to make sense of his words in these conditions? It was impossible, unmanageable, and he wish she’d stop scrubbing and turn around to look at him.
“I owe you a great deal, after what you did to get me the position at the DMLE—”
She turned quickly then, stopping him in his tracks. Panic and regret shot through him like a curse, he’d started with the wrong thing. Apology first, thank you second, this was a cardinal rule that he had managed to break in merely eighteen words. Her eyes were alight with indignation, her soapy hands resting pert on her hips, and the curls of her hair looked alive with magic.
She was a vision of contradictions; filled with furious energy and yet utterly burnt out. She’d not managed to glamour the bags under her eyes, nor the frailty of her frame. And yet she stood before him looking like she might hex him back into battle any second. He swallowed, loudly, and longed for the time where she was facing the sink.
“That came out wrong,” he tried again, shifting from foot to foot. “Hermione—”
“Granger.”
He blinked again. “What?”
“That is my name,” she hissed, taking a step forward that caused him to take a step back. For a horrifying second, he thought back to third year— when she’d cracked his nose with her fist. “I am Granger to you, and you are Malfoy to me. We are not friends, we just somehow ended up with friends in common, so let’s not mistake each other. You owe no apology and I certainly owe you no forgiveness. I am not a pawn in your redemption, so let’s nip that in the bud. I did not do you a favour by recommending your employment at the ministry. It was not for you; it was for Harry and Ronald and their investigation— which would have stalled without the information you possessed. Now, let us go back to pretending to enjoy this miserable evening from opposite ends of the room.”
She spun back to the sink, leaving him staring at the back of her head with his jaw clenched so tightly he might have cracked a tooth. There had been plenty of rejected apologies in the last six months and he was sure there were plenty more on the horizon— yet this one had stung. This was the one he selfishly wanted to work; this was the benchmark to which he could measure his growth. But she was right, as usual, she was not to be a pawn in his redemption. He had wounded her too deeply and too consistently to be trusted with something as delicate as forgiveness. She owed him nothing, not even the time it would take out of her day to listen to him grovel.
He turned back to the party and headed straight for the door, ignoring the sea of watching eyes. It took thirty-six of his long strides to get to the apparition point, and only five more after that to reach his stash of firewhiskey.