Work Text:
Throughout the years at Hogwarts, he had watched her face anything thrown at her head on every. Single. Time. Every bit the lioness that was claimed by her house, every moment showing the braveness that only a Gryffindor could possess. He was supposed to hate her, yet he was constantly in awe of her.
She was always ten steps ahead of him and the reason for his own daily struggles during the school year, the reason his father constantly spoke down on him.
How dare him not be able to beat out a mudblood at his own game, she wasn’t even deserving of the magic she had stolen. How dare he let her win.
It didn’t stop him from watching her though. He watched her work hard, never giving up to the point that even when she got the answer she’d always reach for more. Then he had to start hiding those glances he shot her away, lock the thoughts of her in a box inside his head to never be found again.
His thoughts and actions were at a constant battle, as he tried to stay alive…to prove he was on their side. Every day was a war within himself, one he was never sure he’d make it out of. As the years continued on, he watched as friends and foes chose sides and they looked at him differently. He knew what they all wanted from him, what they expected him to become.
He separated himself from those around him, putting up more walls and distance as the war got worse. His family more involved than ever before. No longer did he have a place to find comfort, they had invaded his home…his safe place. No longer did he have a soft landing when he couldn’t face what was going on around him. The freedom of openly speaking was no longer available to him. His father had only gotten worse in the last few years. Though he never laid a hand on him, he was no longer the person Draco had grown up around. A ghost of the man he once was.
It was being talked about that Hogwarts was closing down out of fear of what would happen. Draco knew that Dumbledore would never allow that to happen, that he couldn’t admit defeat or let fear be shown. The thought of it being a possibility of not having somewhere to go brought him to a new low, that along with the idea of not being able to know if she was safe. The idea he might never see her or her wildness again. He couldn’t do anything, but the daily sound of her voice from across the Great Hall was enough to reassure him that she was okay.
The years that had passed and the thought of war wore him down and he felt like he was going crazy, the Black side of the family craziness finally coming to claim him. Draco had come to the time where he was either going to prove he was worthy of his name or he was going to die. He had no choice. He had to do what needed to be done, whatever it took.
The war wasn’t what he thought it was going to be. To most it might have felt quick like it passed in the blink of an eye, to others it could have felt like a lifetime…but to him it was like going home. He’d been fighting for most of his life, so this was no different. He understood anger and hatred. He was tired of it but he understood it, he longed for the years when it was peaceful.
Draco had finally made a choice for himself, he had always done what he was told, always let someone else make the decision. This time it was his and he was choosing to help. The moment he saw Potter come back to life was the moment he knew he would do anything to insure her survival. Before he thought he could do it by staying away, but now he knew that was no longer a choice. It had been the easy way out, a coward's way.
That decision to help Potter may have been what saved his life, without it he would be rotting away in Azkaban with the rest of them. Instead, he had been given a second chance. Not that he deserved it, but they fought for him. She and Potter. They showed up to every hearing and gave reasons as to why he should be allowed to continue to exist in the wizarding world. He couldn’t face her. Not after he listened to her speak on his behalf.
The deal struck was that Draco would work with the Ministry in order to clean up the remaining Death Eaters and their followers. He would help get rid of any left behind before they had a chance to start another war. However long that took, he was to put all his time and effort behind it.
Everyday felt like hell and they were no closer to catching the remaining followers as they had been during the first year of his sentencing. He heard the aurors all talk down on those they were hunting, knowing they were thinking the same thing about him. He didn’t want to prove himself to these people, he didn’t even think he would be here and that he would survive let alone work alongside the people who wanted him dead. In the midst of his own personal hell, there was one daily spot of sun..watching her walk through the ministry. Fierce as always, ready to tackle the injustice that the Ministry was always trying to hide.
He knew what she wanted, so he gave it to her. To pretend. She’d walk past him as if she didn’t save his life. As if that night years ago after his final trail hadn’t happened. He had gone out trying to drown his own self hatred, not expecting to see a head of familiar wild curls sitting at the bar. Apparently, she had come out wanting to drown some demons of her own…not for him to ask about, so he sat on the other end. Just far enough away, but close enough to watch.
She had been downing firewhiskey with a disgusted look on her face one moment and the next she was acting out of character but somehow still exactly how he expected her to. Drunkenly raging at the bartenders, trying to climb over the bar to make a point about one thing or another. Finally, if only to save the person on the other side, Draco had approached her.
The next day, they both went on pretending as if they hadn’t known one another.
It made seeing her daily difficult. Knowing the way she smelled, the way she looked wrapped around him, underneath of him. But for her, he would do anything even if it was torturous he would do it if it made her happy. So here they were years later, never speaking, never looking at one another, and avoiding each other.
Draco was packing up his things, trying to forget anything about today. They had finally made a breakthrough. Maybe now he could back off, not have to constantly be surrounded by these people. The raid had included some of the final members of Voldemort's inner circle. People that Draco knew personally. He also personally knew they deserved to be locked up.
“Malfoy!”
Draco paused his walk out of the office, turning to face the voice that had called out to him. “Yes?”
Potter stood across the way, already surrounded by those that wanted to celebrate his next big victory. “You should join us tonight.” He had been bothering him for the last few years to come out, to join society once again.
He looked at the group surrounding the golden boy and really didn’t want to be out with them, but he did need a drink. “One drink,” he said as he waited for the rest of the group to walk out. Draco followed Potter as they made their way to the Hidden Keep.
He knew that going out into society with others for the first time was going to be difficult. Draco knew that he would get stared at, that people would judge him under their breath or even judge him aloud to his face. What he didn’t expect was for her to join them, coming in that door, taking up space, and making it harder for him to drown his sorrows and sit in self hatred. She had always been like that, making him want to be more and act better.
From that point forward, he was drinking but now for a different reason. He didn’t know how to be around her, he used to ignore her and it was easy, now all he could think about was the past and how he only wished for more. Draco chose the cheap stuff that night hoping it would help.
He couldn’t tell if it was simply the drinks clouding his judgment, but it seemed as if Hermione had been watching him more and more adamantly as the night went on; and all he wanted to do was meet her gaze and show her once and for all that he was utterly at her disposal…what a terrible idea that would be. Though something told him, it didn’t matter if he thought it was a terrible idea or not, sometimes the alcohol chooses for you.
Slowly, the two of them gravitated closer and closer to one another like magnets until they were barely a few centimeters apart.
“Have you ever been in love?” She whispered hoping nobody but him would hear as she stared across the bar.
He followed where she had looked, watching Ron and Lavender moving to the beat of whatever song the DJ had picked out. Draco’s eyes glazed over, finding himself too far gone to stop the next words that came out of his mouth. “With you.”
She snapped her head back at him, “That was years ago…you surely can’t mean from that one time?”
“6 years ago,” he said, meeting her eyes, “but for me it was long before that.”
Shaking the curls from her face in disbelief, “I don’t think this is a conversation we should be having right now. You surely aren’t in your right mind.”
“I know what I’m speaking of, Granger.” Draco stood up from the bar stool and moved in closer, “It’s been 12 years of watching your swotty attitude and loving every minute of it.”
“Draco, we’ve both had too much to drink for this conversation. That and somehow you’ve gotten better looking, which is just so annoying.” She looked away, “Merlin. You couldn’t have gotten fat or grown a beard?”
He laughed at her, knowing he was going to have this conversation with her one way or another. It could be tonight, or tomorrow, or five years from now, but the moment he admitted those feelings out loud there was no going back from them.
“Fine, we can stop talking about it for now. But just know Granger, this conversation is far from over.”
15 Years Later
The soft voice coming from the other side was just as captivating as it had been for the last fifteen years, but this time it was holding Draco in place as it spoke words he hadn’t heard since he was a child. Words that reminded him of a time before…when the home he grew up in was surrounded with family and love and acceptance because they weren’t fighting for their lives
He paced the floor, wearing into a spot that had probably been worn down by ancestors before. Maybe not for the same reasons, probably something a little more nefarious than pacing outside of the door terrified of speaking to a woman that they would deem below them. Which is exactly what Draco was doing, pacing because he couldn’t get it together long enough to open the door to speak to the woman who had always been anything but beneath him.
Draco opened the door, the difference in the hallway and the room before him like night and day. She really did always have a way of taking up every space she was in, but this felt right...she was always meant to be here. Always meant to be sitting at that piano playing that song. He wasn’t sure where she had learned it, or who had taught her. Maybe his mother? It didn’t matter anyways. All that mattered was the sight of her singing it to her captivated audience.
She paused, her fingers hovering over the keys in mid song, turning her golden brown eyes to face him as he walked closer. They weren’t supposed to be, but nothing in this world would stop him from having her the second she had given him that same look many years ago.
“Please don’t stop on my account,” he said, stepping in beside her.
“How was work?” She placed her fingers back over the keys, ready to start but waiting for him.
“Well…you know how it is. Potter’s got something to prove and won't stop until every last rouge member of Voldemort’s has been plucked off the face of the earth.”
“So fun then?” She laughed, shaking her head.
He humphed at her as he reached down to tilt her head up in his direction, softly kissing her as a way of hello.
“EWWWW!”
Draco glanced up, finally giving the other voice in the room the attention he knew they had been waiting for. “Ew?” He laughed. “I’m just showing your mother that I love her…you don’t like that?”
Scorpius glared in his fathers direction, pouting and waiting. A loud, boisterous laugh was pulled from Draco, the kind only a son could get out of a father.
“He’s going to be like that the rest of the night if you don’t pick him up. All day he’s only talked about you and when you would be home.” Hermione finally placed her fingers back on the keys and started up the lullaby again as Draco made his way across the carpet. Once he had Scorpius in his arms, he glanced around the room taking it in. He’d made it…he was able to give his son the childhood he had wanted. One full of love, laughter, and surrounded by those who would always support him and be there for him.
Nothing would take that from him.