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Hermione Granger is fine.
There’s no logical reason for her not to be, nothing that can account for the unending pit in her gut that keeps her up at night. In fact, relative to most, she’s come out of the war relatively unharmed.
But her mind won’t quiet.
She’s taken to meandering through the Hogwarts grounds at night, finding a spot to lie and just stare at the night sky.
It’s only there, beneath the near infinite stars and the wash of the Milky Way that she feels settled, that the pit dims and her breath can calm.
1
When she’s paired with Malfoy on an Astronomy project, she feels her insides tangle at the thought that her only reprieve will be tainted, that his crass tongue will spoil the peace of lying under the night sky. Years of taunts and sneers flash in her mind, and she struggles to keep her hand from shaking from the fear that courses through her.
“Tuesday night? Quidditch pitch?” he proposes gruffly, looking just past her as they pack their things.
Fighting the tears building behind her eyes, she agrees, then races from the classroom before anyone can catch her quivering lip. She feels weak, like the barest thread is keeping her grounded and there’s nothing she can do about it. Years of war and prejudice she could handle, but existing in the after leaves her unfathomably brittle.
On Tuesday when they meet she’s stiff, and it takes her a few minutes to realise that so is he.
“Did you do the homework?”
“Yes.”
“Did you bring the charts?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
They lay five feet apart, watching the stars and scribbling notes on their star charts. Neither of them speak, and eventually Hermione manages to unclench her jaw and let the light of the stars wash over her and the brisk wind sooth her.
“Next week?” she asks as they put their charts and quills away.
He gives a cursory nod and swiftly turns on his heel.
It’s only later that night that she realises he hadn’t said a single disparaging thing. That in fact, he looked as afraid of her as she was of him.
Under the stars beside him, she still found her respite.
3
There’s three types of people at Hogwarts: the ones who seem lost, the ones who cover up their pain with too much laughter, and the ones who seem fine.
Hermione’s fairly certain they’re all the same though, that beneath the tears and the bluster, they're all desperately trying to find equilibrium in a world that’s taken so much.
Over the next week, she catches herself glancing in Malfoy’s direction, trying to figure out in which category he falls. He sits alone at meals, as though there’s some sort of barrier between him and the other Slytherins she’s never noticed. His robes are immaculate as always, but they hang loose over him, drawing her to his too sharp cheekbones and the deep purple bags under his eyes.
Lost , she decides, wondering how she’s never noticed before.
She’s not nearly as terrified when she sloshes through the still-wet pitch the next Tuesday, finding him in a small dried spot below a set of Quidditch hoops.
“I’m not sure we’ll be able to see anything,” Malfoy points out, and Hermione looks up to see he’s right; the sky’s still overcast from the afternoon’s storm.
There’s still something beautiful in it. A few stars peek through the grey and the crescent moon shines hazily above them, as though fighting through the morass of the clouds. Not unlike her, she thinks, as an unconscious smile spreads over her lips.
“Granger?” Malfoy breaks through her reverie and she blinks, whipping her head to face him. She’s expecting raised eyebrows or a mocking laugh but he just looks…
Lost.
“Yeah.” Swallowing, she casts a charm, illuminating a screen that lets them see through the fog into the night sky.
Malfoy’s eyes widen and a flash of amusement crosses his gaze before he schools his features into indifference. “Neat spell,” he says, glancing her way out of the corner of his eye.
She developed it months ago after she’d snuck out one night and found the stars hidden. She’d panicked and lay on the ground, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to imagine the stars, thinking that maybe with the wind tickling her neck and the echoes of the lake she could still feel the comfort the stars wrought. But it wasn’t enough, so she’d scoured the library, piecemealing charms until she’d come up with the spell.
“Yeah,” she says again, thrusting her quill between her teeth and digging through her satchel for the charts.
“I’ve never seen it before.”
She snaps her head up, finding Malfoy watching her with a surprising combination of dread and curiosity. There’s a glint in his eye that she recognizes, a look she sometimes sees in her own reflection when she lets herself forget the cruelty of the world and immerse herself in a problem.
“I created it,” she tells him.
He opens his mouth, as though he has something to say, before closing it again and silently taking his place on the ground to stare up at the sky. He’s dreadfully quiet, not that she minds, just that he’s always been so large in her mind, taking up space with his bluster and bravado.
The spell taints her view of the sky, not overtly, but knowing it’s there makes the experience of staring into the stars less cathartic, makes it feel contrived.
She realises she’s closer to Malfoy than she was a week ago when she catches a whiff of his spice infused musk filtering through the petrichor scent lingering from the afternoon storm. It’s strange, she thinks, to be lying exposed like this beside her childhood enemy, but here beneath the stars such simplistic notions seem foolish.
She wonders in that moment what the war took from him, and suspects he’s lost far more than her.
“How did you create it?” His voice cuts through her reverie and she turns, his grey eyes and too blonde hair illuminated in the starlight.
She’s so surprised by the question she tells him, the explanation pouring from her in excruciating detail. Looking back to the sky, the words tumble out—how she’d used basic Arithmancy alongside Ptolemy’s theories in conjunction with basic charms work. For a moment, she’s beaming, a familiar feeling of pride overtaking her until she hears a slight chuckle and she’s jolted back to the present.
She expects him to be cruel, maybe for him to sneer something terrible at her. But when she faces him, his features have softened, the tension set in his jaw released. His lips curl and his eyes brighten, and an errant thought hits her, that he should smile more often.
“Sorry,” he says easily, as though it’s not an extraordinary thing for Draco Malfoy to say he’s sorry.
Though maybe that’s one of those things he had to give up: pride.
He continues, “It’s impressive. I’ve tried to create a few spells, but typically they never turn out quite how I intended.”
Somehow, underneath the stars, a wall that’s stood between them since the day they met has shattered. She babbles on about the use of Latin versus Greek in spellwork while Malfoy argues the merits of wandless casting. He scoffs at her insistence that Runic symbols are the basis of wand movements, but she bites back that at least she’s successfully created a spell.
It’s riveting, and Hermione forgets who they are and that they’re sat beneath a false night sky. She’s so immersed that when droplets of rain hit her forehead, she lets out a slight shriek, scrambling to shove her barely written-in star charts in her bag and stand up.
Once more, Malfoy laughs at her, and this time she doesn’t doubt his intention. Her neck reddens at his slight smile as he far more gracefully stands and looks up into the sky, watching the rain fall amidst the clear night.
“It’s impossible,” he says, the rain slowly picking up momentum as he stays rooted in place, apparently unbothered that his tailored robes are getting soaked and his star charts may be ruined.
He doesn’t explain himself but Hermione doesn’t need him to; she tilts her head up at the stars and pretends the spell’s not there, imagines that the sheen that separates them is simply an impossibly translucent cloud and that it’s actually raining on a clear night.
Eventually, when the rain’s so thick that they can’t keep their eyes open, they make their way back to the castle, entirely drenched but smiling. It’s only when they’re inside amidst the artificial light and judgemental portraits does Hermione’s grin fade and that familiar pit returns to her stomach.
“Next week?” she asks, her voice shaky.
“Sounds good.”
4
Discussions on spellcasting evolve into debates on Arithmetic theory and the origins of Runes. Their weekly meetings under the stars, which once filled her with untenable dread, have become a reprieve.
Malfoy’s both intelligent and obstinate, so much so that on the rare occasion he sighs and admits she might be right, she finds herself brimming with pride.
Sometimes, when she catches herself smiling at Malfoy as she passes him between classes or looks for him in the Great Hall, she wonders if she’s gone mad. Draco Malfoy spent years belittling her; rationally, the idea of striking up a friendship seems categorically absurd.
Then again, rationally, she should be fine.
A month after they watched the rain fall from a cloudless sky, Hermione looks up from her star charts, catching Malfoy mumbling something into his wand as a familiar melody sounds around them.
She blinks a few times in surprise, her eyes widening as she recognises the song. “Is this—Billy Joel?”
He freezes and turns to her. “You know him?”
“Of course,” she says, thinking of dinners as a child with Billy Joel playing on the tape deck. “I’m surprised you do.”
She bites her bottom lip, forcing herself not to ask him how he knows Billy Joel, but the question must be written across her face because he tells her anyway: “Last year, after the, you know—” he makes a motion with his hand and she raises an eyebrow in challenge “—the war, I started going to a Muggle town near my home. I just needed to—” he snaps his jaw shut and lies back on the ground beside her, looking up into the night sky. “I needed to get away. Everything was impending court dates and lawyers. My parents were desperately trying to figure out how to retain their freedom while still keeping the Malfoy riches, while all I wanted to do was return to normal.”
She’s afraid to breathe. Debates on wand movement and analyses of Runic lore are one thing, but discussing the war, venturing into the ‘before’, means tearing down something else that sits between them.
And she can’t help but worry that a misspoken word could change everything, could take away her respite under the stars.
Malfoy continues, “I walked. A lot. I’d walk miles every day to simply not be at home. I’d walk until my feet were sore with blisters, but I’d refuse to heal them, for no other reason than I wanted to feel the sting of each step.”
She wants to turn, curious if his cheeks are turning pink or if he’s looking at her, but his voice is raspy, trepidation eking into every syllable. So she keeps her gaze skyward, letting his words drift against the melody of “And So It Goes”.
“There was a pub I’d pass each day. It was always so full, and loud . Some days I hated it. I couldn’t stand the easy laughter, the sounds of drunken fools wandering in and out. Like the world just was , like nothing had happened. Other days I was envious of the camaraderie, the easy way everyone seemed to fit. But it was always the same.
“Until one day I passed by and it was utterly silent, except for the nearly undetectable timbre of a piano. So I stopped. I must’ve looked foolish, just leant against the door. The place was packed , men and women practically sat on top of one another, but no one said a word. Everyone was watching this man play the piano. And then he started singing, and to me, it was nothing. Until everyone started to sing along.”
Malfoy shifts and with a whisper changes the song. Hermione’s unsurprised when the dulcet notes of “Piano Man” surround them.
“It was…” he trails off, and she finally turns, catching him looking wistfully up at the night sky. “Jarring. Revelatory. I don’t know. I’d never seen anything like it, let alone been a part of something like it. It was indescribable. I somehow had goosebumps prickling up my back and a fire burning through my veins. In all of my endless walking and attempts at something like self-flagellation, or maybe self-pity, I’d never imagined finding what I did.”
He turns to her, his gaze open, vulnerable.
“What did you find?” she whispers, abruptly aware of how close they are, that with a few inches her fingers could trail over his wrist.
“I found that the world was nothing like I thought it was.” He doesn’t break eye contact and Hermione’s breath involuntarily hitches.
She wants to ask more, to understand how a pub in Wiltshire could have such an impact. She wants to know what else he knows, what other music he’s discovered.
She wants to ask him to take her to the pub, to stand in the crowds and be a part of something again.
She wants to lean forward and kiss him.
The errant thought hits her like a freight train and she rolls onto her back, her heart threatening to beat out of her chest.
Malfoy shuffles beside her, and they’re both once more staring at the night sky, that familiar silence sitting between them.
A cool finger brushes against her hand, so faint she wonders if it’s in her head. But she flips her hand up, inching it just slightly towards him.
Her breath hitches when he folds his hand over hers, her heart clenches when his fingers carefully tangle with her own.
5
Malfoy tells her about his journey into Muggle music. Every song gives her a glimpse behind the lost facade, and through the melodies of Billy Joel and Elton John, he answers every question she’s never thought to ask. He tells her about childhood tutors and his futile attempts to learn the piano that resulted in endless tantrums. He smiles wistfully when he tells her about his favorite flavor of ice cream, and how spoiled he was as a small child.
When she argues he’s still spoiled, he elbows her in the side and she’s grateful it’s night so he can’t see the blush that blooms up her neck at the contact.
Sometimes he brings up the war; his voice is shaky when he speaks of Voldemort, the fear and anguish still palpable. She clutches his hand when he tells her his greatest regret is getting the Dark Mark, knowing it’s something he’ll never be able to take back.
She drifts a finger over his covered forearm. “It doesn’t define you,” she tells him.
Between the stories, the confessions, he apologises. It takes her a while to notice them, but in between a tale of flying with Gregory Goyle and coming home to find Voldemort in his drawing room, he tells her how much he regrets not having known her sooner. He bemoans his childhood ignorance, whispering apologies between his confessions.
And she does the same; tells him about the vacations she went on with her parents, regaling him with stories of Christmas markets in Prague and the Mayan temples in Guatemala. She admits that the Wizarding World is simultaneously the most accepting and lonely place she’s ever known, and since the end of the war, she’s felt off balance, out of kilter. Or she had.
“What changed?” he asks.
“I found the stars,” she confesses. They’re lying side by side, inches apart, their completed star charts thrown off to the side because neither of them are willing to drop the pretense of their meetings.
Tentatively, he reaches a hand towards her, brushing a curl behind her ear and letting his fingers linger against the side of her face. Infinitesimal shocks eke over every inch of her. The pads of his fingers are blissfully cold against her blushed cheeks, and just when she worries he’ll hear the erratic beat of her heart, he cuts the small space between them and kisses her.
His lips graze hers, his eyelids fluttering shut as he slowly angles his mouth over hers. Her stomach clenches with each brush of his thumb across her cheek, her breaths quicken with each feather-light kiss.
She wants to draw him closer, to grab his face in her hands and run her fingers through his hair. She imagines he tastes sweet, imagines the saccharine from the nectarine tart he ate after dinner still stuck in the back of his throat. She wants to wrap her leg around his knee and tuck herself into him. She wants to tell him a story with her lips and the tips of her fingers.
But she’s terrified, like with the slightest prod whatever exists between them will shatter.
It takes her a moment to realise that this thing they have, built with stories and music beneath the stars, fortified with confessions and apologies, is so much more than a thin sheet of glass. She wraps a hand around his waist, letting her fingers drift over his back as she presses her tongue to his lips, tucking herself to him.
He does taste sweet.
She doesn’t know how long they stay there, lying entwined and sharing hesitant kisses with unsure fingers exploring over thick layers. But she feels safe, centered.
Eventually, when she can no longer stifle her yawns, they walk to the castle hand in hand, sneaking glances at one another. When they reach the castle doors, he tugs her to her, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead.
“Goodnight, Hermione.”
Peace , she realises as she walks to the Gryffindor Common Room, the echo of her name on his lips tickling her skin. She feels peace with him.
6
Their weekly stargazing evolves to study sessions in the library and late night dates in the kitchens. Every night there’s some excuse to either sit under the stars or otherwise explore the castle that only now feels like home again.
As winter gives way to spring, they stay out late to see the stars in the pitch of dark, because even if there’s no longer that ache in the pit of her stomach, Hermione still wants to relish that feeling of lying beneath the Milky Way.
It’s another cloudy night on the Quidditch pitch when Draco stands abruptly, holding his hand out to her and flicking his wand so that the warm melody of ‘Vienna’ surrounds them.
She looks at his hand suspiciously. “What are you doing?”
The moonlight reveals flecks of silver in his gaze. “Will you dance with me?”
Fear floods her, a familiar pang from that first time they’d met on the grounds. Then, it had been a worry he’d somehow disturb the fragile respite she’d found. But now, between stolen kisses and talk of N.E.W.T.S. and careers, she fears breaking this thing they’ve made.
“Hermione.” His face softens. “Please.”
So she nods, letting him pull her up and tug her to him. He places her hand on his shoulder, threading her other with his and whispers: “Ready?”
“No,” she breathes. “But let’s dance anyway.”
His responding smile eases the tension that’s bubbled in her chest.
He leads her slowly, the stubble at his chin brushing against her forehead. They rock side to side, and after a few minutes, Hermione’s eyes flutter shut and she relaxes her cheek against him.
His quickening breaths soothe her, like he’s just as nervous as she is, swaying back and forth. Everything about him has become familiar, and tucked to him, beneath the moonlight, an irrevocable feeling of ‘home’ overtakes her.
Because lying under the stars and sharing stories and songs didn’t just bring them together; it reminded her that what comes next can be better than what came before. That going forward doesn’t mean forgetting the past, just not letting it dictate your future.
“Hermione?”
Lifting her head, she smiles softly at him as they hold each other, barely swaying in the slight evening breeze.
“I love you.” His words lace with the music, washing over her in the hazy starlight.
“I love you.” She doesn’t pause—her words don’t catch in her throat. Right there, in the middle of the night in his arms, she’s certain of it.
It’s when he kisses her and she clutches his shirt, giving up all pretense of dancing, that they feel the first drops of rain.
And she’ll happily suffer soaked robes to kiss Draco Malfoy in the rain on a clear night.
Fin