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Chapter Text

Draco's POV

I crossed the doorstep as I had done almost every morning for the past seven years, then headed for my office. No one from the team was there today; it was Monday, and the gallery was always closed on Mondays. The main lights were dimmed, the front desk cleaned up. You could barely hear the upstairs tenants moving around, Artemis Consulting, a strategic consulting firm for magical institutions helping old wizarding organizations modernize, get funding, and align with “new wizarding governance standards”. Light and shadow waltzed across the white walls, conjured by unseen travelers braving the storm. A whiff of cold air and minuscule shiny snowflakes moved around the main entryway as the door closed behind me.

I heard footsteps in Michael's office… or rather, his old office. It was Sabrienne, busy filing accounting assignments and invoices in a packed cardboard box. Since the departure of the Executive Director last month, she had been in charge of acting. Not that she particularly had spare time on her hands. The gallery wasn't her only involvement as a volunteer on a board, and she had her own career to take care of, but she was a remarkable woman. When she would tell me about her schedule, I often felt dizzy.

She noticed I'd arrived early and came to meet me. I set my leather bag down on my chair, feeling that this might be the last time I would use this particular chair. I told myself that if I were anyone else, I wouldn't have the luxury of being comfortable this morning. That thought affected me more than it should have.

“Caroline and Daniel are already in the meeting room. I'll be there in a moment,” mumbled my chairwoman, barely lifting her gaze as a quill hovered beside her, scratching notes across a floating parchment.

I fetched myself a glass of water, the pitcher obligingly refilling itself from thin air, and sat down in front of my board members, all busy reading diagonally through the stack of enchanted documents that rearranged their paragraphs whenever someone frowned. From the gilt frames on the wall, a few painted figures peered down, whispering among themselves about the meeting’s tone.

Sabrienne joined us a few seconds later and sat next to Caroline. The quills stilled, the paintings fell silent. She sighed, content.

“Well, let's get started! I'm glad you thought about my invitation and sent me your résumé. With me are Daniel and Caroline from the Board of Trustees, whom you've already met at our events. They're on the selection committee with me to find the gallery's next executive director,” she explained, with a kind and genuine smile.

I nodded, ready to begin the interview. I’d prepared extensively: drafted sample answers that rearranged themselves on parchment every time I second-guessed a word; asked some charmed quill for advice on executive interviews. It had been insufferably confident, of course. I read up on the qualities expected from a director, and even spoke to Theo for guidance which turned out to be useless. Theo wasn’t even working at the moment and had no interest in leadership roles, not by a long shot.

Still, I was ready for this hour to be over already. It wasn’t nervousness, it was fear, and the feeling sat strangely in me, cold and foreign. I wasn’t someone who feared. I had ambitions carved into my bones, a mind trained for precision. I had character, and a will sharper than most wands.

I had already been curating the gallery’s collections for several years. I knew every corridor, every cursed frame, every whispering portrait that hung on those ancient walls. When Sabrienne visited me after Michael’s departure and strongly encouraged me to apply for his position, I was... flattered, though also cautious. I hadn’t realized the board had taken an interest in me… in me, of all people.

Not that I hadn’t already considered applying, of course. But having their confidence, or at least Sabrienne’s, made the idea feel almost legitimate. Almost.

If I failed the interview today, it would mean I had let them down. That despite my understanding of magical art and its restless politics, despite the Chairwoman quietly rooting for me, someone else had proved to be the safer choice. The thought unsettled me more than I cared to admit. My work had become the structure that kept everything else from collapsing. My career wasn’t just something I did. It had become part of who I was, and what people saw when they looked at me.

At thirty-three, I was well aware of what this opportunity meant. If I didn’t become director now, I probably never would.

“It’s time,” Theo had said, with the kind of simplicity that makes things sound easier than they ever are.

I wasn’t someone who failed. Yet, I had put myself in a vulnerable position. If I hadn’t applied for the director’s post at the gallery, failure would have been impossible. But here I was, sitting before the selection committee, forcing myself to smile as I tried to convince three of the most influential patrons in wizarding London that I was the natural choice to restore the gallery’s reputation: to fill its empty halls, attract new collectors, and win back the confidence of private donors Michael had so carelessly alienated.

A simple task, really.

I wondered what I’d do if I didn’t get the job. Would I stay on as curator, quietly cataloguing enchanted portraits for people who could buy them just to match the curtains? Would I manage to pretend I was content with that? Or would I simply walk away, as I had from so many other things? Best not to dwell on it. That kind of scenario wasn’t in my nature… or so I liked to think.

Questions flowed by: predictable, safe, almost insultingly so. Nothing that couldn’t be handled with a bit of composure and the right cadence of confidence. When Daniel asked about a professional mistake I’d made and how I’d turned it around, I almost laughed. My mind briefly entertained the idea of mentioning my brief entanglement with Elara, our resident enchantress a couple of years ago. An artistic genius, allegedly. A whirlwind of volatile charm and disappearing wine bottles. Hardly my brightest decision, but entertaining.

Still, no need to raise eyebrows over past… experiments.

Instead, I leaned forward with deliberate calm and delivered a well-rehearsed story about an incident with a shipment of cursed portraits and a financial oversight that nearly cost the gallery a month’s worth of restorations. I explained how I’d negotiated with the goblin accountants, restructured the budget, and avoided both bankruptcy and bloodshed. I finished with a faint smile, the sort of expression my mother had once said could charm portraits off the wall. If it couldn’t push my career forward, then what else was it for?

One of the final questions was whether I had anything to disclose that might be relevant to the position. Considering the last director had been a complete fraud : forged credentials, falsified sales reports, and a disappearing act worthy of a second-rate illusionist. I doubted there was anything I could say that would come close.

Well, except, perhaps, for the obvious.

“My family name tends to attract attention,” I said carefully, choosing my words like hex ingredients. “I assume you’re aware of our… past associations.”

Caroline’s eyes narrowed over the rim of her enchanted spectacles. “Are you asking your board members whether we read the Daily Prophet, Mr. Malfoy?” she asked, her tone sharp enough to cut through parchment.

A few polite smiles rippled around the table. I managed one myself, though my palms had gone cold.

I froze for half a second, caught off guard. I hadn’t known her to be so feisty. The sharpness in her tone made me reconsider everything. Maybe the trust stopped at Sabrienne after all, and my nomination wasn’t as secure as I’d secretly hoped.

I met her gaze evenly, refusing to flinch.

“I implied nothing,” I said evenly. “My family’s affairs hold little relevance, given my minimal contact with them. That said, I felt it prudent to disclose what was already a matter of public record in the Daily Prophet and other publications.”

I didn’t flinch. My father’s past, messy as it was, would not derail me here. Not today.

Daniel noded, convinced, though Caroline’s expression didn’t soften. The faint tension in the room lingered, and I found myself wondering how much of it was about me and how much was about her own unspoken doubts.

I shifted my weight slightly in the chair and allowed a practiced, confident smile to creep onto my face. If she was looking for a crack, she wouldn’t find one.

“Fair enough. Now, do you have any questions for us?” asked Sabrienne, changing the tone of the conversation.

I did have a few, budget-related questions, mostly. I knew the gallery was having financial challenges, if I could put it that way, but I did not know the extent of it. If I was in fact going to have to turn it around, I had to know more. They were careful with their answers, but it gave me enough to make up my mind.

Sabrienne rose gracefully, offering her hand in thanks, her composure flawless. I returned the gesture with a polite nod. The other two board members followed suit, their handshakes firm, yet lacking the warmth of genuine curiosity. I noted it all, cataloguing every detail in my mind, already imagining how I would navigate the gallery’s intricate web of influence, donors, and magical curiosities.

“I don’t know if you planned on working here today, but we would prefer you leave the gallery, as we have three other candidates coming in for interviews.”

I forced my expression into neutrality, hiding any trace of annoyance. It was a reasonable request, and naturally, I expected others to be considered for the position. Still, I had planned to work from the gallery that day, even on a Monday, having made the commute to my own office, among the old enchanted canvases and softly glowing portraits that lined the halls.

“Of course,” I answered politely.

I left my office and bundled myself into my winter coat. February in London was merciless, wind slicing through the narrow streets, sleet turning the cobblestones slippery, and a chill that seemed to seep into your bones.

Walking home made sense. The Floo network in this part of the city was temperamental, and apparating in such weather was frowned upon by the Ministry: high gusts and stray enchantments could send you careening into the wrong alley. A brisk walk would clear my mind anyway, and twenty minutes on foot was just as fast as waiting for a cab or a misfiring Portkey.

I strode through the streets, my boots crunching on the frost-slick cobblestones. Snowflakes swirled in the air, hovering for a moment before settling, enchanted to sparkle faintly even in the gray storm. Winter walking was a sport in its own right: the wind nipping at my face, the occasional flare of magic from streetlamps casting playful, flickering shadows, the city alive with whispers of enchantments and distant charms. By the time I reached my flat, my cheeks tingled and my fingers were numb despite the gloves. The lobby’s warm air wrapped around me like a velvet cloak, and the portraits along the walls murmured to each other as I passed, their eyes following me with faint curiosity. I peeled off my gloves, wincing at the bright red of my fingers. Definitely need warmer gloves, I thought, shaking off the chill.

Ding! The elevator arrived with a soft shimmer rather than a clang. I stepped inside, the brass cage humming faintly as tiny motes of light danced in the air, swirling around like captured fireflies. A thin veil of warmth wrapped around me, enchanted to keep frostbite at bay and gently nudge away the lingering chill from the streets. I clasped my hands, trying to warm them on a cup of coffee that wasn’t really there, but the elevator obligingly conjured a faint steam, scented faintly of cinnamon and roasted beans, curling around my fingers.

“6th floor,” chimed a melodic, slightly echoing female voice, the notes twirling like musical ribbons. I watched my reflection ripple in the enchanted mirror: cheeks pink, scarf askew, and a stray lock of hair that stubbornly refused to obey. A small, hovering quill scribbled the floor number in golden ink midair, floating before dissipating in a puff of sparkling dust.

I stepped out into the corridor, the enchantments lingering in the warmth of the air. Reaching my door, I fumbled with the wrong key twice, muttering inaudible, exasperated words. The door finally clicked open with a polite little bow, as if acknowledging my effort. I stepped inside, shedding my coat, the warmth of the building seeping into my bones at last.

I lived in a small flat, but everything had its place. Keys on the hook next to the door, bag on the bench, coat, beanie, gloves, scarf in the closet, boots neatly lined on the right side of the black rug. In that order, always.

After the war, I’d spent some time crashing at Theo’s place while I figured out my next steps. I didn’t want anything to do with my father’s money or influence, and the idea of living off family wealth felt wrong. A studio was all I could afford on my own, and I wanted to stay close to the gallery, which limited my options even further. I’d been lucky to find this flat a couple of years ago: a modest, 6th-floor unit with a view of the skyline. It felt like my own little world, unconnected to the Malfoy's money, and exactly what I needed.

I painted all the walls in muted shades of charcoal and deep taupe. Anything too bright made my head ache, except for the occasional piece of art, of course. My home was deliberate, almost ritualistic: dark woods, worn leather, heavy fabrics, and carefully curated shadows. I owned nothing I didn’t need. Some might have called it austere, but to me, it was sanctuary.

You’d think that working in the arts, or in a world threaded with enchantments, would inspire a life of flamboyance and spectacle. But truthfully, the industry could feel overwhelming. The gallery thrived on intensity: glittering displays, enchanted canvases that shifted with the light, pieces that demanded attention. After hours among that ceaseless energy, my mind craved quietude. Yet I did own a few works for myself, including a massive Frère Jérôme painting whose pastel whispers seemed almost magical against the darkness, suspended in the main living space like a rare, breathing fragment of calm.

The story of that particular painting was the sort of tale that belonged in a dusty, leather-bound tome, half legend, half scandal. My great-uncle Alaric, who had spent most of his career as a curator for the Ministry’s Department of Magical Arts, always had the most outrageous stories about enchanted canvases and bewitched exhibitions. This one, though, was my favorite.

Back in 1987, the Ministry had sponsored a Frère Jérôme traveling exhibition, a prestigious event that drew wizards and witches from across the country. The paintings themselves were subtly charmed: colors shifting slightly under moonlight, brushstrokes that shimmered faintly when observed at an angle. But somewhere during the transit between galleries, two works vanished. Not stolen, exactly, but left behind, mysteriously, in a storage room that was supposed to be magically secured.

At first, it seemed like a simple oversight. Alaric enchanted a tracing charm and sent a polite note to the courier wizards responsible for moving the paintings. Weeks became months, and the couriers’ replies grew increasingly vague: misfired Portkeys, misplaced crates, even one tale of a painting that apparently refused to leave the gallery until it was “ready.” The canvases remained where they were, unclaimed and quietly bewitched, as if aware of their own abandonment.

After a year, it was clear the couriers would never return. Together with his director, Alaric decided to divide the works between themselves - part practicality, part defiance of bureaucratic negligence. “Better to give them a home than leave them to sulk in the vaults,” he would say, as though it were entirely reasonable.

When Alaric passed years later, one of the paintings ended up with my father. My father, a man with no patience for the subtle charms woven into such works, scarcely looked at it before passing it to me. I claimed it immediately, not out of inheritance, but because the painting seemed to hum with secrets I wasn’t quite ready to understand yet.

The painting was everything I loved about art: bold, whimsical, and subtly alive. Frère Jérôme’s abstract style shimmered with faint enchantments, the colors shifting almost imperceptibly depending on the light or the angle of my gaze, as if the canvas itself were observing me. But as much as I admired its artistry, what I cherished most was the story behind it. A painting nearly abandoned, forgotten in a dusty, magically warded storage room, now hanging in my small flat, a survivor of neglect and bureaucracy, quietly demanding attention.

It reminded me of why I had chosen this peculiar, quiet life in the first place. After the war, I wanted nothing to do with my family’s fortune or the constant scrutiny that came with the Malfoy name. The world had changed, and I wanted to change with it, to exist in the shadows rather than the spotlight. Working in the magical art world (curating, cataloging, ensuring the proper care of enchanted canvases) was a perfect refuge. It let me live among beauty and subtle power, surrounded by objects that could speak for themselves, without attracting the kind of attention my family name usually did.

Every time I glanced at the painting from the kitchen, it reminded me of that choice: the strange, meandering paths art can take, the quiet ways it leaves its mark on the world and on those who care for it, and the life I had carefully built for myself in those shadows, far from the chaos of inheritance and expectation.

I did not have enough space in my bachelor flat for a proper table, so I perched on a stool by the light beige quartz counter, wrapping my hands around a steaming mug of coffee. The rich aroma filled the small space, curling into the corners of my studio like a gentle spell. I added a splash of heavy cream and a drizzle of maple syrup, mostly for taste, but also for the little sense of ritual it brought.

Owls came and went outside my window, carrying parcels of parchment tied with ribbon. I had stacked a small pile of unopened letters on the counter, and my eyes flicked over them without really reading. One was a reminder of my rent (always amusing, considering the gallery owned the building and it was our team who handled the tenants). Others were newsletters from magical societies, each a little duller than the last.

Nothing from Sabrienne.

Of course. Interviews would be going on all day.

I still hoped, irrationally, that a small owl might flutter in with her letter for me, endorsing me as the natural choice, though I knew perfectly well it wouldn’t arrive.

I sighed and let my gaze wander to the storm outside, the wind rattling the windowpanes.

And now, all that was left was to wait.

Chapter Text

Draco's POV

“So, who’s first?” asked Sabrienne, lifting the pile of parchment and scrolls I had carefully stacked, only to shuffle them into a new, slightly chaotic order.

“Kate Baker, the art history graduate. On paper, she’s my top pick,” I said, smoothing the edges of the parchments before nudging Kate’s documents to the very top of the stack.

Her resume was particularly… unusual. Tiny sketches of classical sculptures wiggled in the margins, as if stretching after a long nap. Letters faintly glimmered, occasionally shimmering gold or silver when the eye lingered too long. Sabrienne gave a distracted nod, her quill hovering over the pile as she flicked through the scrolls with practiced speed.

“And she’ll be here at… what? Three o’clock?” she asked, glancing at the clock.

I nodded. We still had a good twenty minutes before she arrived for her interview for the programming manager position. Sabrienne leaned back in her chair and asked kindly for coffee. I went into the office kitchen, where the kettle hissed with a faint rainbow shimmer, and prepared her a latte. For myself, an americano with heavy cream and maple syrup, the usual. Tiny sparks danced along the rim of my cup as I carried the drinks back to the conference room, careful not to spill any of the foam.

I adjusted the cuffs of my charcoal wool blazer and tugged lightly at the hem of my dark button-up shirt, making sure the ensemble looked tidy yet effortless before sitting down next to Sabrienne.

“Ah! Thank you! What a week this day has been already…”

Her complaint made me laugh. I could relate daily to what she said. If I had thought that directors spent most of their days making strategic decisions in an office while reading the newspaper, the last few months had taught me otherwise. There was always something: an employee quitting, a client’s complaint magically scribbling itself across my inbox, a problem with an artist’s enchanted installation, or some labor law demanding an update to policy. Never. Fucking. Ending.

“What’s going on?”

“You know what? Nothing special. It’s just been very busy. We’re also hiring someone new at the firm and prepping everything for her first day next week is just much with all there is in my workload currently.”

I tried not to feel like I was adding to her already impressive workload. After all, she did offer to do this interview round with me, as the highly involved board member she was. I also knew taking a break from running her firm for a couple of hours a month proved to be good for her mental health. Furthermore, I liked to think I was good company.

“Happy with that new hire?”

“Yes. Very.” She started, smiling. She put down her coffee mug on the wooden table before continuing. “She has extensive experience in organizational governance and compliance, which is exactly what I was looking for. Very sharp, principled, and capable of handling complex board dynamics. Not timid at all. My only concern is that she tends to move around a lot. She spent several years traveling for various advocacy causes. She said she wanted to settle down… Hopefully, it’s true and she doesn’t quit after one month like the first programming manager you hired.”

I sighted, rolling my eyes. What a waste of everybody’s time, that first hire had been. I tried not to think too much about it. Some things were just not meant to be. At least my new community outreach agent, Josh, was committed and was a quick learner. He was young, but I saw a lot of potential in him.

“I’m moving on” I offered as my only comment before gulping down more coffee.

Sabrienne smiled at me softly, resting her hand lightly over mine. Her gaze was gentle—not romantic, but the kind of steady, guiding look a mentor gives. She had compassion, a quiet understanding that somehow made the candlelight flicker warmer in the high-ceilinged conference room, where dusty tomes lined the shelves and enchanted ink on the papers shimmered faintly. I thought, perhaps I reminded her of herself when she’d first stepped into the CEO role. But how could that be? She seemed impossibly composed, sharp, and in control, as if life had never given her real trouble. A star in her own right: the first woman (and first woman of colour) to lead her firm, deeply involved in the London magical community, Ph.D. in management, and her consulting practice hailed every year in wizarding business journals.

“You know I wasn’t implying you’re a bad director because of this, right? Staff turnover happens. It’s part of the natural rhythm of our work.” Her words tried to steady me.

“Yeah, whatever,” I muttered, not quite ready to let her confidence in me settle fully.

I knew she was right, but I couldn’t fully convince myself. Not “bad,” exactly, but definitely far from “great.” When I’d applied for the director position, I was certain. I was prepared. I’d envisioned success down to the smallest detail. And then I got the job. And suddenly, none of that preparation mattered. Every decision felt like a precarious spell, ready to backfire at any moment.

My cup was empty already. I liked my coffee scalding, letting it sting my tongue just enough to wake me fully, and never lingered over it. I reached for the glass of water next, a pale, enchanted liquid that shimmered faintly in the candlelight, but it was uncomfortably cold in my mouth, and I frowned.

“I mean it, Draco. You’re doing well so far.” Her gaze held mine, serious and unwavering, before shifting, lighter now. “So… any interesting dates lately?”

I sighed again. I much preferred keeping my personal life separate from work, especially after what happened with Elara, the resident artist I’d made the mistake of dating a few years ago. She had been all brilliance and chaos, like a spell cast without warning or intent. Since then, I’d been careful, almost ritualistic, about maintaining distance. Yet Sabrienne always found a way to turn meetings into confessional hours, detailing her latest romantic catastrophes with disarming honesty. Perhaps she thought I might return the favour.

Her stories, I admit, were entertaining. It was like witnessing a potion brew over and over, each time with a slightly different explosion. Mine, however, would have bored even a ghost. I rarely saw my mother these days; our conversations had long lost their magic. My work consumed me. On weekends, I sometimes met Theo for a run along the enchanted Thames paths or a hike where the trees whispered gossip from other forests. I read detective novels that reeked faintly of dark spells, watched the occasional Muggle murder series. My life was quiet. After Elara, and after the war, quiet was good.

“No.”

“Nothing interesting, or no dates?” she asked, her tone teasing but curious, like she was stirring something deliberately.

There had been a date, technically. Dinner at a restaurant that shimmered subtly under a glamour charm, polished cutlery that refilled your glass when you weren’t looking, candlelight that leaned toward whoever was speaking. Afterwards, we walked through the fog back to my flat. She stayed the night. It was… fine. Polite. Fleeting. Whether I’d see her again, I hadn’t decided.

Either way, Sabrienne would never hear a word of it.

“Nothing worthy of sharing. I’m afraid my life ain’t quite as eventful as yours.”

“Maybe you’re better off. Eventful is exhausting.” She sighed loudly, with a faint smile.

A grin formed on my face. I was lucky Sabrienne was my chairwoman. She had grown to be a good friend and mentor over the last couple of months. She was patient, and professional, and funny, and kind. I would be proud to grow old to be half the leader she was.

I heard a knock on the door. It was Esther, the gallery administrative assistant, informing us Ms Baker had arrived and was waiting in the lobby. I invited her to bring the candidate in and thank her on her way out. I made sure the parchments were aligned properly on the table and placed my quill perfectly perpendicularly. I stood up to greet our first candidate.

Kate shook my hand, smiling confidently, and I immediately knew it was her.

***

Since my father had long been gone from my life rotting in Azkaban and my mother had moved to Paris with her new husband (a well-bred French pure-blood with far too many opinions about wine and wand craftsmanship) most of my holidays were spent with friends rather than family.

I saw Theo often, usually at his home in Bath or during one of his ill-planned escapades into the countryside with his twin girls. He had a talent for drifting through life without ever settling on what he truly wanted. Then again, it seemed to work for him.

He’d met Sylviana, his wife, at some tedious Ministry symposium on International Portkey Regulation… the kind of event where enthusiasm went to die. She worked for the Department of Magical Transportation, drafting cross-border travel policies no one ever read. Somehow, amidst the bureaucratic misery and lukewarm pumpkin juice, they’d found each other. And five years later, they were still absurdly, almost admirably, happy.

Sylviana had secured a comfortable position at the Ministry: steady hours, generous pay, and the sort of pension plan only bureaucrats and goblins could admire. She returned to work only a few months after the twins were born, though finding reliable childcare proved to be its own sort of quest. Magical daycares were either outrageously priced or run by eccentric retirees who thought Nifflers made good playmates.

Theo, ever the adaptable one, decided to try the stay-at-home father life. “Best decision I ever made, mate,” he’d told me one afternoon over tea, the twins levitating wooden blocks above their heads while he pretended not to notice.

It wasn’t a life I could imagine for myself, but I was genuinely glad for him. He’d found something he was good at, something that gave him purpose.

On Tuesdays, he volunteered as a coach for a local broom-flying youth league. He swore it was just to get out of the house, but I suspected he secretly enjoyed it.

It was the twins’ third birthday, and my attendance was non-negotiable. By now, I was practically their honorary uncle (a title I hadn’t sought but somehow earned). Theo had outdone himself with the decorations: the entire garden looked like a unicorn had exploded over it. Everything shimmered in rainbow hues, bewitched balloons bobbing under the ceiling, and far too much glitter sparkling on every surface. The children’s high-pitched shrieks, half excitement, half sugar rush, made my ears ring.

I made a direct line for the kitchen, in desperate search of something to drink. On the way, I narrowly avoided a flying paper mermaid and nearly ruined my charcoal waistcoat on a splash of enchanted paint that refused to dry. One day, I’d learn not to overdress for children’s parties.

“Firewhisky and butterbeer?” offered Sylviana, already mixing a drink with one hand while charming a spill to vanish with the other.

“Yes, please,” I said. She poured me a glass with her usual precision.

I rolled up my sleeves (the room was getting uncomfortably warm) and caught sight of the faint black ink of the tattoo on my forearm. The dark mark, a relic from younger days.

I thanked her as she handed me the glass, the faint scent of clove and burnt sugar rising from the drink. Sylviana asked about work, politely, as she always did. I took a measured sip, appreciating both her tact and the warmth of the Firewhisky as it slid down my throat.

With a practiced smile, I offered the kind of answer that sounded pleasant enough to end the inquiry without inviting more. A few months in management in a world still pretending to have healed from a war it refuses to name had taught me restraint. Speaking honestly about leadership, about the weight of decision-making in a field as volatile as the arts, was rarely worth it. People tended to mistake candour for complaint, or worse, conceit.

What unsettled me more, though, were the inevitable conversations about work that followed. They often turned into long, meandering tales about inept supervisors, impossible deadlines, or unfair expectations. And though I understood the grievances, they always left me uneasy. I wasn’t outside those stories anymore. I was the authority figure. Their frustration, even when not meant for me, clung to my conscience like smoke.

So I stopped speaking about work altogether. It was easier that way. Guarding that thin, fragile line between what I did and who I was felt like a kind of self-preservation, the last remaining ward protecting what little of myself still belonged entirely to me.

She switched the subject quickly noticing I was not going to give her many details.

“Claire told me you two went out last Thursday…” Sylviana began, her tone suggestive enough to imply she’d been waiting all afternoon to bring it up.

Claire was her friend from work. The two had bonded years ago over their mutual contempt for paperwork at the Department of Magical Transportation. She was one of those people who made bureaucracy look almost charming, though I suspected that charm faded after a few pints. Sylviana had introduced us a few weeks ago, and we’d seen each other three times since. As I’d told Sabrienne earlier that week, it really wasn’t worth sharing.

“Yes,” I said simply, swirling the drink in my hand. “We went to L’Odéon for dinner. The negronis were excellent.”

Sylviana arched an eyebrow. “L’Odéon? Fancy.”

I allowed myself a faint smirk. “I like their restraint. They manage to make pretentiousness look effortless.”

She laughed softly, shaking her head. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

I didn’t deny it.

“You do have to reserve in advance, though. I didn’t, so we ended up dining at the bar, but the proximity had its… advantages,” I said, letting the faintest smirk curve my lips. I didn’t see this with Claire going anywhere serious, but I wasn’t about to ignore a simple, enjoyable evening. Some things didn’t require overthinking.

“I’m pleased you’re getting along so well. I knew you’d be good for each other,” Sylviana said, her smile easy, as if she’d orchestrated some minor victory.

“We’re getting to know each other,” I replied, with a tilt of my chin that suggested I wasn’t entirely naïve. “It’s… easy with Claire.”

Theo appeared behind me, resting his hands casually on my shoulders. The gesture might have startled someone else, but I merely raised an eyebrow.

“I haven’t known you to enjoy easy,” he said, voice teasing, but his gaze sharp.

I let a small, confident shrug escape me. He wasn’t wrong, of course. Life had a habit of bending toward complication. Moving cities, stepping into a gallery that needed saving, navigating the art world post-war, dealing with the occasional emotional fallout from past connections. Still, simplicity wasn’t inherently beneath me. It was just… rare.

“Maybe it’s time I try,” I said, voice calm, measured, letting a hint of dry humor slip in. I lifted my glass. Sylviana’s subtle wand flourish had left it shimmering faintly, and I let the warmth slide down my throat. “Simple doesn’t have to mean boring.”

Chapter Text

Hermione's POV

I had been moving constantly for the past few years, hopping from one Ministry consulting assignment to another across Europe: Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt. Mostly governance audits and policy reviews, practical and important work, but always temporary. By the summer, I was ready to stop moving. I wanted to settle in London for a while, to put down roots even if only for a little.

Harry and Ginny’s house was the perfect stopgap. When they bought the place, they poured care into renovating it, keeping the Victorian charm while modernizing it just enough to make it comfortable. The attic, which they had originally planned to rent to a university student, had been turned into a self-contained flat: a small kitchenette, a compact bathroom, and skylights that let in soft morning light. It was warm, private, and quiet, exactly what I needed.

I unpacked my few belongings quickly. A suitcase of clothes, a stack of notebooks, and my well-worn collection of policy manuals and reference books fit neatly into the space. From my skylight, I could see the rooftops of London waking up, the chimneys and spires catching the first light of morning. It felt like a proper home, in a way I hadn’t felt for years.

Being back in the city had its own rhythm: bustling streets, the faint smell of rain and soot, the occasional owl delivering letters. I liked the feeling of being anchored somewhere familiar, even if my life was still largely defined by work. Here, in this attic, I could breathe, organize, plan. And maybe, finally, just stay put for a while.

I loved the attic. I never needed much space; cozy, contained spaces suited me perfectly. Even if I could afford something grander, I had no interest in it. My life had been in constant motion for years. Moving from one consulting assignment to another across Europe, living out of suitcases and enchanted trunks.

When I moved in three months ago, I wandered the streets of London, hunting for just the right pieces. Everything I brought into the attic had a purpose. Wool blankets in muted greys and creams covered the small bed, and the wooden floorboards gleamed under rugs of natural fibers. My mismatched teacups and plates were all secondhand, but carefully chosen, and the little side table in pale oak held my books and notebooks. Lace curtains filtered the light from the skylights just enough to create a soft, warm glow without being fussy.

The flat itself had a quiet kind of magic. I’d found faint protective charms in the corners, left, no doubt, by previous tenants. A few floating candles provided light without smoke, and a small enchanted kettle whistled gently when water was ready for tea. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Everything in the attic felt deliberate, practical, and comfortable, with a sense that I could finally breathe after years on the move. Here, amid the warm wood and soft wool, I felt grounded. Here, I was home.

That evening, the air was warm, and Ginny had already poured a few glasses of wine as Harry leaned against the doorway, watching me settle into the small wooden table.

“So, Hermione,” Ginny said, a playful edge to her voice as she popped open another bottle, “how’s the new consulting job treating you?”

I took a slow sip of the chablis she handed me. “It’s… different,” I admitted, letting my shoulders relax. “Corporate consulting is a lot more structured than I’m used to, but the work is fascinating. Governance issues, policy revisions… it’s challenging in all the right ways. And the team is brilliant. It makes it easier to feel like I’m actually contributing something.”

Harry gave me a faint, approving smile from the side. “Sounds like you’ve found your pace.”

Ginny rolled her eyes, smirking. “Don’t let it go to your head. Just because you’ve mastered paperwork doesn’t mean you’re running the place yet.”

I laughed, raising my glass. “Well, someone has to keep the magical world in check, right?”

Ginny snorted, and Harry chuckled quietly. I felt the tension of the past year, the constant moves, the contracts, the temporary rooms and hotel stays, begin to melt away. Here, in this attic above their home, with the warmth of friends, it felt like London might finally be home.

I settled next to Harry and Ginny, balancing my glass of red on my knee. The wine was surprisingly good. Ginny had a talent for picking bottles that didn’t taste like regret the next morning. The sun had gone down, and the warm air still held that soft hum of a London summer evening.

“You know,” Ginny said, glancing at me over the rim of her glass, “Ron’s moved not too far from here.”

That made me pause. “Has he?” I tried to sound casual, though my stomach gave the faintest twist. “I didn’t realize he’d left the old flat.”

“Yeah,” Harry chimed in. “Got a place near the river. The Auror Office has been treating him well. He’s been partnered with me again this year.”

I nodded slowly. “I see.” I hadn’t spoken to Ron in years… not since the sort of breakup where both people know it’s for the best but still walk away with that dull, familiar ache. We’d tried to stay friends. It hadn’t worked.

“He’s been doing good,” Ginny added, in that way she does when she’s watching you just a little too closely.

I smiled faintly. “I’m glad for him.”

And I was. Truly. Things had run their course, and we’d both changed since then. But still… it was strange, sitting there, glass in hand, talking about him like some distant acquaintance. The night air felt heavier all of a sudden, as if even the breeze knew not to linger too long on the past.

Ginny leaned forward with that mischievous grin she reserves for when she’s about to meddle.

“You know what? We should get the four of us together again sometime. You, me, Harry, and Luna. It’s been ages since we were all in London at the same time.

I smiled, swirling the last of my wine.

“That would be nice, actually. A proper catch-up.”

“And Ron, too, obviously,” Ginny added, far too casually.

I pretended not to flinch at his name. It had been years, and still, there it was: that brief tightening in my chest. I hadn’t seen him properly in… what, seven years? I knew I didn’t want anything to do with him (at least, that’s what I told myself) but the thought of him showing up to drinks made something shift uncomfortably inside me. Maybe I just didn’t like unfinished things.

“Sure, why not,” I said, and reached for the bottle.

Ginny arched an eyebrow.

“You really are making the most of that wine tonight, aren’t you?”

“I’m just being efficient,” I replied, filling my glass far too full. The liquid trembled dangerously close to the rim.

Harry chuckled.

“That’s what you said about the last two glasses.”

“It’s been a long week,” I said simply, and took a sip, or more like a gulp.

The wine was cold and soft and numbing in exactly the way I needed it to be. Ginny and Harry exchanged one of those looks. The kind that says they’re both worried and too polite to say so. I ignored it, leaned back in my chair, and smiled.

“Maybe if we start doing those little reunions again,” I added, feigning lightness, “I’ll stop wasting time with all those dreadful Muggle dating apps.”

Ginny laughed, tossing her hair back.

“Oh, come on. You say that every time, and yet you seem to be putting them to excellent use lately.”

“Company is nice,” I said, shrugging.

And that was true. Company was nice. It wasn’t love, or even connection, but it was enough to fill the silence for now.

Later in the evening, I climbed the narrow staircase back up to the attic. The steps creaked softly beneath me, shifting ever so slightly. Not from the wine, but from the house itself, which tended to settle and sigh like an old friend. Still, the wine didn’t help. I had to keep a hand on the banister, steadying myself as I went, the other hand clutching the nearly empty bottle.

The air grew warmer as I reached the top floor. My little flat (or rather, my glorified cupboard with a skylight) hummed faintly with residual magic. A self-stirring teacup rattled on the counter before remembering it was no longer needed and went still again. My books rearranged themselves with quiet rustles, offended that I’d left them out of order.

I set the bottle down on the table and went straight to the bathroom. The cool tiles under my bare feet grounded me as I opened the mirrored cabinet. Inside, potions and Muggle remedies coexisted awkwardly: hangover draughts, ginger tablets, a half-empty headache potion that always tasted like burnt cinnamon. I took both, just in case.

It wasn’t that I meant to drink this much. It had simply… stuck. In the years after the war, a glass of wine had made the nights quieter, the dreams softer. And even now, more than a decade later, I still found myself reaching for it on evenings that felt too heavy or too empty.

I undressed slowly, leaving my clothes in a small heap by the door, and pulled on a soft old shirt, one I’d nicked from a Muggle concert years ago. The fabric smelled faintly of lavender and dust. I didn’t bother with pyjamas. The attic was always too warm at night anyway, the insulation older than the Weasleys’ first broomstick.

When I lay down, the ceiling above shimmered faintly. The charm Harry had added to mimic the night sky through the skylight, constellations were shifting lazily. The stars spun a little too fast tonight. I watched them blur together until they became nothing but light and movement, and then, finally, darkness.

Sleep came quickly, heavy and merciful.

The next morning, I woke at 6:30 to the shrill alarm I’d forgotten to turn off for the weekend. Typical. My eyes felt gritty, my mouth dry, and my head hummed with the faint magical static that always followed a night of too much wine.

For one optimistic, delusional second, I thought: I could make this a productive Saturday.

Groceries. Maybe even cleaning.

Then I actually looked around. Fuck me.

My flat was a disaster. An honest, roaring, magical disaster.

I swung my legs off the bed and immediately tripped over yesterday’s clothes, which were now yesterday’s clothes plus two. I muttered a charm I definitely wasn’t supposed to cast before breakfast, levitating the heap into the laundry basket. It overflowed immediately, garments spilling back out like it was rejecting them.

“Join the club,” I muttered. “I’m overflowing too.”

The floorboards creaked under my feet as I made my way through the chaos. A stray sock tried to animate itself in protest. I nudged it back into lifelessness with my toe. The kitchen counter looked like someone had attempted a duel on it: a half-cleaned cauldron, mismatched utensils, parchment scraps, and an empty takeaway container that smelled faintly of last night’s pad thai. Or possibly something far more sinister.

I reached the kettle (Muggle and thankfully unenchanted) and flicked it on. Its familiar rumble felt grounding.

I grabbed my favourite ceramic mug, a little wonky from a failed warming charm, and opened the fridge. A half-lemon stared back at me, dry around the edges, looking as exhausted as I felt. Good enough. I plucked it out and found a crumpled packet of green tea wedged behind tomato soup tins and a jar of self-stirring honey.

As I waited for the water to boil, I leaned heavily on the counter, surveying the battlefield. I wanted to care. I truly did. But the truth was simple and embarrassing: at work, I was razor-sharp, perfectly precise. I built order like it was a fortress. But outside of that? My routines collapsed like badly stacked books.

I could marshal entire departments, untangle case files, and out-logic anyone alive, but ask me to maintain a sane sleep schedule or remember to fold laundry, and suddenly I was twelve again, living in a dorm piled with textbooks and hope.

I squeezed the lemon into the mug, tossed the rind vaguely toward the bin (it bounced off the rim and rolled under the table… I pretended not to notice), and took a long sip of tea. It was too acidic, too strong, and not remotely soothing.

“Good enough,” I whispered to no one. And drank again.

I’ve got this. Or so I told myself while my skull throbbed like a cursed cauldron. Every now and then, the urge for order strikes me with the force of a well-aimed Stinging Hex, and I slip into full-on Mister Clean mode, though Merlin knows he’d never approve of my technique. Music on, hair up, actual clothes on. Ready, set, go.

I started with the kitchenette tucked under the slanted beams of the attic, blasting a Muggle record Ginny pretends she hates: Nirvana, Come as You Are. I sang along, off-key and unapologetic, because no one downstairs could hear me over the enchanted insulation charms Harry installed after my “experimental” laundry spell incident.

I very deliberately avoided the inside of the fridge. That was a task for next month… or next century. Whichever came last.

I moved through the little flat briskly, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back with a ridiculously fluffy scrunchie Luna gave me “to protect my aura from domestic chaos.” The vacuum charm hummed behind me, blending with the sharp scent of eucalyptus cleaner as I wiped surfaces, banished stray socks, sorted parchment piles, and generally pretended I had my life under control.

By the time I reached the laundry, which in my case meant a single overloaded basket and a whisper of shame, the record had slipped to Something in the Way. Fitting. At least I was nearly finished. The advantages of living in a space the size of a large broom cupboard: what you can’t escape emotionally, you can at least clean quickly.

I straightened up and surveyed the room. My tiny kingdom of order, restored. For a moment, a fleeting, fragile moment, I let myself believe that maybe I could sort out my actual life with the same efficiency. Maybe I didn’t have to be perpetually undone by everything outside my job.

Maybe.

Chapter Text

Hermione's POV

I made it to the office obscenely early, already regretting my outfit. London was trapped in a brutal August heat charm rebound… some ancient ward over the city had destabilized during the wildfires up north, turning the air into a shimmering, sticky haze that clung to the skin like clingfilm. The sky hung low and orange, thick with drifting smoke particles that reacted with ambient magic in a way that made my hair frizz into sentient rebellion.

In a rare burst of optimism, I’d chosen a long-sleeved button-up. I regretted it the moment I stepped outside. By the time I reached the Knight Bus stop, I was ready to peel my shirt off with a Severing Charm.

The bus arrived with its usual violent lurch, and I climbed aboard, immediately assaulted by a wall of humid air and questionable odours: sweaty robes, over-steeped tea, and something that smelled suspiciously like a damp Kneazle.

I clung to a strap as the bus shrieked forward.

Across from me sat a man wearing a shirt that read: “Merlin Was Wrong and He Owes Me Money.”

He was also eating a raw green pepper. Like an apple.

Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.

Each bite echoed louder than the bus’s grinding gears.

Unfortunately, he noticed me looking.

“You ever think about how nifflers are basically the landlords of the magical world?” he asked, eyes bright. “They take everything valuable and contribute absolutely nothing.”

“I… hadn’t considered it,” I muttered, inching toward the nearest cracked window for a breath of air.

As the Knight Bus careened around the corner near Diagon Alley’s administrative entrance, I nearly sagged with relief. Almost there. I briefly wondered if I should stock green peppers at home (perhaps I, too, could achieve this level of serenity).

Moments later, I stepped off onto the cobblestones, the heat pressing down like an overeager weighted blanket someone had cursed to be clingy. I hurried down the quiet side street toward Artemis Consulting, carefully navigating around a pair of Ministry interns who were trying to scrape melted ice cream off a Muggle-proof rubbish bin with wands and zero competence.

When I reached our building, I spotted Eric and Antonia standing in the narrow back alley behind the offices. They both looked like they’d survived a minor duel and lost.

I braced myself. Nothing good ever starts with coworkers looking like that before nine in the morning.

I walked toward them, dread prickling the back of my neck.

“Please tell me the building isn’t on fire,” I said.

Both of them winced. Not a great sign.

“Antonia says the wards aren’t working properly in the office, and I noticed something… strange on my way here,” Eric said, looking vaguely guilty.

“What do you mean?” I dropped my messenger bag onto the cobblestones. Already sticky from heat and residual Firewhisky, I cursed the day.

“See this?” Eric pointed at a jumble of floating, sparking runes above a metal box.

I stared at him, completely lost. “I… what am I supposed to be looking at?”

Eric blinked, impatient. “These are the protective enchantments for our office. They’re… well, they’ve been tampered with. Someone tried to siphon magical energy from the wards. And look, that scorch mark? That’s where the thief probably got a shock for their trouble. Literally. You wouldn’t believe the smell.”

Fantastic. Just fantastic. I’d been looking forward to a normal, functional workspace after surviving my attic, and now even the magical security systems were betraying me.

“What are we supposed to do?” I asked, already imagining an entire day dealing with sparking wards and enchanted parchments instead of spreadsheets.

“Well, someone should talk to the building manager,” Eric said, checking his watch. “But it can’t be me. I’ve got a meeting with a client on Zoomspell in five minutes. Good luck handling this, girls!” With a wave, he practically vanished into the building.

I looked at Antonia. She shook her head, her face a portrait of sympathetic exhaustion.

“Nope. I don’t have time for this,” she said, her Italian accent sharpening slightly. “You go ahead, Hermione. Just go to the gallery.”

And with that, she disappeared, leaving me alone in the alley, glaring at the flickering runes and muttering under my breath about my life choices.

Well. I could handle this. After ginger tea. Definitely ginger tea. My head still throbbed like a minor curse from last night’s too-many gins and tonics. Warm, soothing, restorative. A potion for the soul. If only it could also fix mischievous wards and delinquent energy-siphoning thieves.

I sipped, took a deep breath, and muttered: “Finel. Let’s see what your gallery’s got for me today.”

I grabbed my mug of ginger tea, my fragile lifeline, and made my way down the narrow staircase to the gallery. This was the first time I’d actually stepped inside, and it felt nothing like I’d imagined.

The walls were painted a deep charcoal, almost black, absorbing the soft golden pools of light from low-hanging lanterns. Shadows clung to every corner, curling along the floor like curious spirits. Paintings and sculptures emerged from the gloom in fragments: jagged abstracts that looked almost alive, stormy landscapes that seemed to breathe, and a few portraits that felt like they were watching you back. The air smelled faintly of polished wood and beeswax, mixed with something faintly smoky… incense, or maybe just magic lingering from some long-ago spell.

The furniture was sparse, angular, dark wood, almost disappearing into the shadows. Every object felt deliberate, chosen to make visitors pause, to make them notice themselves as much as the art.

In the center of the space, a large desk stood near a tall window streaked with enchanted frost, framing London’s streets below. Pedestrians blurred past like ghosts, pigeons flitted silently, and a kneazle prowled along the gutter, sniffing at shadows. The desk itself was a picture of controlled chaos: hovering papers, a notebook glowing faintly with runes, and a single enchanted candle casting a wavering circle of warm light.

The corridor was narrower, the shadows deeper, with paintings leaning from the walls at impossible angles, their eyes following me in half-seen shapes. I stopped outside the office and froze.
At first, I thought I was imagining it. But no. That had to be him.

He was completely absorbed in some spell-enhanced parchment, fingers gliding over it like a conductor, oblivious to everything but the work in front of him. And of course (of course!) he was infuriatingly perfect.

Older now, but sharper somehow. Sharper in posture, sharper in jawline, sharper in the calm menace that always lurked behind his pale eyes. Grey streaks in his light blond hair caught the lantern glow, giving him a slightly spectral edge. Black button-up, brown trousers, polished Oxfords, like he’d stepped out of some moody, gothic novel and into real life. There was something special about him and his presence.

And yet… undeniably him. Draco. Malfoy.

I willed myself to stop staring. I reminded myself why I was here: the wards.

“Right,” I muttered, shaking off the woozy dizziness, and rapped sharply on the metal doorframe, letting the sound echo into the shadows.

Chapter Text

Draco's POV

Apparently, every eight years, the Ministry of Magical Affairs (or whatever wizarding equivalent of “government” had survived the last war) decided it was time to put non-profit building owners through an elaborate endurance test disguised as a tax-exempt status review.

The process? A masterpiece of bureaucratic agony: enchanted forms that multiplied if filled out incorrectly, documents that had a nasty habit of hiding themselves when you weren’t looking, magically self-rewriting floor plans, and, of course, a formal hearing in front of some dour half-blood judge who had clearly never seen a proper painting in their life.

Needless to say, when I envisioned life as the executive director of an art gallery, this was not in the brochure. Yet here I was, squinting at floating parchments and trying to conjure sort-of-scaled floor plans with a ruler charm that kept twitching as if it had a mind of its own. I felt like a first-year improvising an art project due yesterday.

The real kicker? I couldn’t, for the life of me, find the original notarized deed for the building. Or even a shadow of a copy. Every nook and cranny of my office (and several secret compartments I’d installed for emergencies) had been scoured. It was as if the parchment had vanished into thin air. Likely Michael’s doing.

Meanwhile, I was buried in financial records, meticulously uploading them to a Ministry platform that seemed designed by someone who actively hated wizards. Every click, every enchanted form, every stubbornly resistant document felt like an insult. I had left the artistic programming job, the curating exhibitions, the thrill of opening a new gallery show… for this.

On days like today, I couldn’t help but wonder what lunacy had possessed me to trade painting for paperwork. There was barely anything cultural about my life anymore, unless you counted the culture of frustration… and that thought made me want to hex something.

I was muttering incantations at a particularly obstinate document when the knock came. Not just a knock. A determined, “I’m here whether you like it or not” sort of knock on the metal frame of my office door.

I looked up.

And froze.

Hermione Granger. The Hermione. The one who had been a whirlwind of sarcasm, intellect, and stubbornness I’d somehow survived knowing in my teenage years. Not a stranger. Not a client. A hurricane I could recognize instantly.

Her curly brown hair was piled into a messy bun, held by some light, colorful scarf that probably had no business being in a professional office. A golden glow touched her cheeks, freckles dancing over the bridge of her nose. She wore black trousers and a slightly sheer green button-up that let a hint of lace peek through. Somehow, she looked completely herself, chaotic and brilliant all at once.

I forced myself not to stare at her shirt (or the golden glasses perched atop her head) and focused on her eyes. Brown. Bright, sharp, impossible to ignore. Even her floral coffee mug, held ginger tea in her hands, felt like part of her personality.

The gallery, the whole city outside, my papers, the blasted tax forms… all of it vanished. For a moment, it was just her. And, damn it, I’d forgotten how completely she could steal your attention without even trying.

She lingered in the doorway, and I realized I hadn’t even offered her a proper greeting. Polite, careful Draco Malfoy reflex, right? I cleared my throat.

“Granger,” I said, voice measured. “It’s… been a while.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line, just enough to tell me she’d noticed my hesitation but wasn’t going to comment. She stepped fully into the room, carefully setting her mug down on a side table without letting it wobble in the enchanted candlelight.

“Yes,” she said, voice clipped but professional. “It has.”

I let the silence stretch for a moment, resisting the urge to comment on how much older, sharper, and… impossible she looked. She had the same fire I remembered, the same chaotic brilliance, just tempered by adulthood.

“I’m here because of a… ward malfunction,” she said finally, eyes flicking toward the ceiling, toward the subtle shimmer of protective magic humming over the gallery, before returning to meet mine. “One of the wards protecting the building for Artemis Consulting isn’t behaving properly.”

I sighed, long and slow, feeling my patience evaporate. I hated managing this godforsaken building. It was one of the many joys of my position: handling issues that had nothing to do with my actual job.

She kept talking, oblivious to my mounting irritation. Something about a colleague noticing irregularities with the protective wards in the gallery and how it looked like someone had left rune siphoners loose in the corner of the basement, leeching the magic right out of them.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. Of course. Bloody idiots. Rune siphoners weren’t even worth a proper curse, and yet here I was, babysitting a building in a neighborhood where people apparently thought this was a brilliant place to experiment with petty dark magic.

“Amazing,” I said flatly, the word heavy with annoyance. “I’ll have someone come over to neutralize them.” Never mind that I had no idea who to call or how long this would take to resolve. Did I have an emergency contact for rune siphoners? No. Was I about to summon one from the Restricted Section? Maybe. Just one more thing to add to the ever-growing list of nonsense I didn’t have time for. I looked at her again, finally registering her face. Brown eyes, that familiar stubborn tilt of her brow, the same controlled chaos she always carried. Somehow, she looked sharper, older, but unmistakably Granger.

“You’re the new recruit at Artemis, then?” I asked, needing to place her in the midst of all this chaos. “How are you liking it?”

“It’s… interesting,” she said, her tone casual, though the raised eyebrow gave the word a sharper edge. “And apart from babysitting the wards, what do you actually do at the gallery ?”

“I’m the executive director,” I replied, folding my arms and leaning back slightly, letting the shadows from the flickering lanterns make me look more composed than I felt.

“Oh, that’s a serious job,” she said with a grin that managed to be both amused and infuriating at the same time.

“It keeps me busy, as you can tell,” I said, matching her energy, though inside I was already bracing for the added work of rogue magic.

“Well, I should leave you to it,” she said, turning toward the door, her voice polite but carrying that familiar edge. “Sorry to drop such disruptive news,” she added, clearly not sorry at all. She glanced over her shoulder just before leaving. “Try not to let the rune siphoners ruin your day.”

“Sure,” I mumbled, more to myself than her, already knowing I wouldn’t forget her, or that smirk, for a long time.

She left my office, leaving a faint trail of vanilla and ginger in the air, a scent that seemed almost enchanted in its subtlety. On her way out, she managed to brush against the coat rack, and one of the floating teacups wobbling on its magically-hovering tray tipped, spilling warm ginger tea across the sleeve of her blouse.

“Crap,” she muttered, producing a tiny charm-tissue from somewhere in the folds of her bag, dabbing at the wet spot with precise, almost ritualistic care. She adjusted her glasses, sliding them up her nose low and deliberate, like someone settling into a favorite spellbook, then pulled open the door to the staircase and vanished.

Alone, the office felt quieter, but not quite empty. And to my own surprise, I found myself smiling.

She had been catching my eyes like this long before, really. Back at Hogwarts, she’d been impossible to ignore. She was always reading something, always frowning at some injustice, always slipping into my peripheral vision in a way that made me watch without meaning to. Somehow, even then, she caught my attention effortlessly.

And yet, Granger was entirely herself now, sharper, more deliberate, more… distracting than ever.

She reminded me of Elara in some ways.

I met Elara a couple of years ago, during one of the gallery’s enchanted exhibitions. She had a presence that seemed to bend the light around her, as though the floating candles themselves leaned closer to listen when she spoke. I was drawn to her instantly. She didn’t just command a room; she enchanted it, her energy almost tangible, electric enough that the protective wards I’d painstakingly placed around the gallery hummed in acknowledgment.

She spoke of her art with a conviction that felt like a spell, as if each brushstroke carried the potential to alter reality itself. I envied her, envied the way her passion made ordinary walls shimmer with magic I’d never managed to conjure from myself.

At first, I thought she was everything I wanted. Bold where I was cautious, reckless where I was precise. She challenged me to see beyond the gallery walls, to understand that art wasn’t simply hung to be admired… it could shift perception, provoke change, even unsettle the most rigid of minds.

Life with her was a whirlwind of magical mischief and late-night revelry. We’d drift from dimly lit wizarding taverns in Soho to after-hours clubs where enchanted instruments played themselves, fueled by endless rounds of firewhisky, sparkling elixirs, and the occasional discreet charm to enhance the senses. Her laugh, loud and intoxicating, would pull me into her orbit as we stumbled through London’s neon-lit streets, dodging levitating street carts and bewitched cabbies, always chasing the next thrill.

Our nights weren’t always chaotic. Sometimes we’d sit in smoke-filled rooms at avant-garde magical poetry readings, incense curling in the air with the faint scent of dragon’s blood. We’d lounge on mismatched cushions, floating slightly above the floor thanks to low-level levitation charms, whispering commentary about the performances and weaving our own stories out of the raw, poetic intensity.

It was wild and untamed. For a time, I thought I loved it. Thought I loved her. But the highs always came with crashing lows. I began to see myself disappearing into her world, a world without boundaries, without brakes, where every spell was a gamble and every night an uncharted map of excess.

She became too much.

At first, it was small things: her comments during opening nights, questioning why we featured certain magical artists. “Another safe choice,” she’d whisper, just loud enough for a few attendees to hear, her wand tapping idly against a display pedestal. I laughed it off; she was opinionated, and I admired that.

Then came the public displays: impassioned posts in magical forums, glowing with enchantments that made the words shimmer and pulse. She critiqued the gallery, the Ministry’s cultural policies, the commercialization of wizarding art. She didn’t name me, but I knew.

The tipping point was an exhibition pitch: a bold, provocative concept that would have upended everything the gallery represented. I admired her vision, truly. But Peter, the director at the time, would never approve it and I couldn’t risk everything I’d built for a gamble.

She took it personally.

“You’re just like the rest of them,” she said one night, her voice trembling, a faint crackle of magical energy pulsing from the tip of her wand as if her frustration had manifested into the air. “Afraid. You’re supposed to stand for something!”

Maybe she was right. Maybe I was afraid. But I couldn’t see a way to make her happy without watching everything I’d worked for vanish in a puff of dark smoke.

Our breakup was… catastrophic. I drowned myself in firewhisky and late nights, all while maintaining a professional facade at the gallery. For years, I couldn’t entirely escape her. We still crossed paths at previews, exhibitions, and magical soirées. Her presence was a sharp reminder of everything I’d lost and unraveled.

Recently, she moved back to Milan. For the first time in years, the weight of her absence finally lifted, and I could breathe again, though the memory of her chaotic brilliance lingered like a spell I could never fully dispel.

Chapter Text

Hermione's POV

The days slipped by one after another, and rain had settled over magical London like a tired old cloak. It tapped against the windows of Harry and Ginny’s townhouse, rolled off the roof above the attic where I lived, and shimmered over the wards they’d put up to keep the worst of the weather at bay. Even so, everything felt damp: shoes, air, maybe even my bones.

People in Diagon Alley seemed almost relieved about it. The long dry spell was over; the sky could finally exhale again.

I arrived late to work that morning. Something I never used to do.

At Hogwarts, I was the girl who carried backup plans inside backup plans. Ink refills. Extra parchment. A quiet sense of certainty that I was always five steps ahead. Even after school, at the Ministry, being organized was almost… who I was.

But lately? Lately everything seemed to slip through my fingers.

My alarm charm (usually precise to the second) fizzled out sometime before dawn. I overslept. I rushed downstairs, nearly tripping over James’s toy broom, and only realized I’d skipped breakfast when my stomach growled halfway down Charing Cross Road. I didn’t even glance at the weather charm before stepping outside.

So by the time I arrived at the firm, I was hopelessly soaked. Rain plastered my curls against my cheeks and neck, dripping into the collar of my blouse. My robes were damp and clinging in all the places robes shouldn’t cling, and I was pretty sure one of my shoes made a faint squelching sound every third step. Running my fingers through my hair only made the curls rebel further, springing out like they were personally insulted.

And of course, I hadn’t brought an umbrella. I forgot.

By the time I slipped into the conference room at Artemis, the meeting was already underway. Every head lifted. Of course it did.

I pasted on a polite smile, but inside I felt exactly like what I was: drenched, disorganized, and a little bit lost in a life I used to have such a solid grip on. Some days, it felt like the rain wasn’t the only thing I was late outrunning.

Sabrienne didn’t even look up when she fired the greeting at me.

“Thanks for joining us.”

Brilliant. Everyone was already seated around the long glass table, eyes fixed on the self-writing board as it flicked through data sets at dizzying speed. I slid into the last open chair, trying to ignore the small puddle forming under my robe hem.

“Sorry, I’ll catch up,” I murmured, opening my notebook like a shield.

The room was… sterile. Perfect. Designed to impress the sort of clients who valued numbers more than people. Glass walls. Chrome fixtures. The faint smell of expensive coffee and fresh parchment. Even the chairs looked like they judged posture for sport. Everyone around me seemed carved out of the same corporate mould. Razor-sharp suits, quiet luxury accessories, smiles calibrated to neutrality. I used to thrive in spaces where decisions meant something: policy rooms, councils, war rooms when necessary. Here, everything was polished, profitable, and profoundly hollow.

The slide on the screen bloomed into a forest of acronyms and percentages. Q3 deliverables. ROI projections. KPI alignment. Billable hours. It was all very… tidy. And utterly meaningless.
I scribbled in my notebook, though none of it made a dent. Every now and then, Eric chimed in with classics like, “We need to optimize client impact through cross-functional initiatives,” or “Let’s table this and revisit by end of week.” I half expected someone to conjure a Patronus just to summon the will to care.

I glanced around. Everyone else was nodding, absorbed, comfortable in this sleek machine of profit and strategy.

Meanwhile, I felt like a misfiled document… in the room, but not truly part of it. Was this what I wanted? Intellectually stimulating problems with no real-world consequence? A job where my brain felt useful but my heart felt… unnecessary?

I straightened, pretending I belonged. Pretending I wasn’t still dripping rainwater onto a table worth more than my annual stipend at the Ministry. It wasn’t the jargon that unsettled me. It was the quiet, unmistakable ache of realizing I might have stepped into a world that had no space for who I used to be. By the end of the meeting, I felt wrung out in that particular way Artemis Consulting excelled at — polished presentations, immaculate robes, everyone speaking in strategic incantations about “growth projections” and “market share enchantments,” as if impact could be summoned with the right buzzword.

When the room finally emptied, I made my way to Sabrienne’s office. I tapped lightly on the glass door. It shimmered faintly (a privacy charm untangling itself) before swinging open.

“Come in,” Sabrienne called.

Her office was as curated as the rest of her life: charmed furniture that shifted into ergonomic positions on command, vases of self-watering fire lilies, and an array of abstract magical art on the walls, pieces she’d almost certainly purchased downstairs from the gallery to “support local creators.” Even her windows were enchanted to overlook a sunlit London skyline, despite the downpour outside.

I stepped in. “Do you have a minute?”

“For you? Always.” She closed a folder with a soft snap of magic. “Sit.”

I took the chair opposite her. “About the meeting earlier… I just…” I searched for the right phrasing. “I’m not sure this is the kind of work I’m meant to do.”

Her brows lifted. Not critically. Just paying attention, which somehow made it worse.

“It’s not that I’m struggling with the material,” I clarified. “It’s just… all these discussions about revenue streams and contract expansions and optimizing service outputs,” I sighed. “It feels miles away from what actually matters. I didn’t join a consultancy to help wealthy institutions become even wealthier.”

Sabrienne leaned back, fingers steepled. “I know.”

That threw me off. “You do?”

“I do,” she said gently. “And that’s exactly why I hired you.”

I blinked. “Pardon?”

She smiled. It was warm, genuine, the kind that made you feel briefly seen.

“Hermione, the rest of this firm is full of brilliant witches and wizards who think in profit margins and efficiency metrics. It’s useful. But it’s not everything.” She paused, tilting her head slightly. “I brought you in because you understand something they don’t: purpose. Mission. Impact.”

I felt heat creep up my neck.

“You’re here to handle our non-profit and community clients,” she continued. “Old magical libraries, struggling magical schools, wizarding cultural institutions that can barely keep the lights on. Literally, in some cases. They need someone who understands them. Someone who actually cares.”

“So… I’m not expected to become a corporate oracle of revenue-optimization?” I asked dryly.

She laughed. “No. You’re expected to bridge worlds. Bring humanity to the places that run on numbers. And yes, learn how this system works so you can use it for the right reasons.”

My shoulders unclenched in a way I hadn’t realized they were tense.

“But feeling out of place isn’t a flaw,” she added softly. “It’s a compass. It’s pointing you toward the part of this work that actually matters.”

I swallowed. “Thank you. Truly.”

She glanced at the enchanted clock hovering near her desk. “Speaking of work. Don't you have a briefing with a new client in twenty minutes?”

I groaned. “Right.”

“You may want to tame your hair. It currently looks like it’s trying to unionize.”

Despite myself, I laughed.

“Noted. I’ll go negotiate with it.”

She waved me off with a fond gesture. “Go. Change the world, one underfunded institution at a time.”

I left her office feeling… lighter. Not fixed. Not certain. But aligned. Just enough to take the next step.

Chapter Text

Draco's POV

Esther’s son was sick today, so I’d taken over the front desk to cover for her. Not exactly part of my job description as executive director, but Wednesdays were slow, and I didn’t mind. It was almost pleasant, being out here among the charmed frames and levitating spotlights, rather than buried in my office or schmoozing potential donors over overpriced cocktails.

I’d just returned from the break room with a glass of water (cold, thanks to the frost charm on the tap) when I saw her.

Granger.

She was drifting through the gallery like a small, determined storm, examining every wall, every plinth, every enchanted light fixture. A curl of steam rose from the delicate floral cup she carried, filling the air with the scent of peppermint tea and something faintly citrusy. I hadn’t seen her since the business with the vandalized ventilation charms, and she looked no less disheveled. Her curls were waging open rebellion, barely held back by her glasses perched atop her head. She wore all black today, save for an absurdly oversized vintage blazer patterned with floating geometric shapes that shimmered when the light hit them right. Everything about her made some dormant wire in my brain spark (inconvenient and unwanted) and yet I found myself moving toward her anyway.

“Can I help you with anything, Granger?” I asked, keeping my steps measured, professional. Mostly.

She beamed. “Yes, actually. Thank you for asking.”

Before I could brace myself, she spun in a slow circle, her tea sloshing dangerously close to the rim. Her arms spread wide as if she were about to cast a weather charm.

“This whole area,” she declared. “Do you rent it out?”

Her grin was disarming in a way I refused to analyze.

“Sure,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”

Immediately, she launched into her plan: quick, clipped, efficient, the cadence of someone used to shouldering more responsibilities than her job description allowed. A Christmas fundraising evening, late November. Something something grants for underprivileged young adults. She spoke with her hands, her curls bobbing at each point she emphasized.

“This place would be perfect for them,” she finished, clasping her hands together like she’d just whispered a wish to a shooting star.

And Merlin help me, I almost wanted to grant it.

“Well, as long as your client has adequate insurance, that could work,” I replied, keeping my tone professionally bland.

Granger clicked her tongue (actually clicked it) shaking her head with a theatrical little flourish that was so deliberately provocative I felt it land squarely in my chest.

“I don’t see any O’Keeffe blossoms or floating Calder mobiles in here,” she said, glancing around with exaggerated scrutiny. “I think your walls will survive my fundraiser.”

Ouch.

I blinked, taken aback by the sheer audacity. The corner of my mouth betrayed me, twitching upward before I forced it back into place. She wasn’t wrong, of course. Nothing in our gallery was worth a dragon’s hoard. We were a community space, focused on emerging artists and local talent. But still. The jab hit home.

“A connoisseur of American modernism, are we, Granger?” I asked, letting my voice cool to a mild frost.

Inside, though, a maddening mixture of irritation and intrigue unfurled. The sensation of someone poking at a bruise simply because they knew it would make me react.

“I must admit Calder’s a favorite of mine. The mobiles, especially.” She paused, her gaze sliding to meet mine, sharp and daring. “And don’t worry about insurance, Malfoy, it will be taken care of if we can find a date that fits.”

“Well,” I said, keeping my tone perfectly even as I gestured toward the corridor, “I’ll introduce you to Miss Baker. She handles rentals. This way.”

Her magic hummed faintly, that same restless, sparking presence she’d had since school, except now it carried peppermint steam and a chaotic sort of charm that made the air around her feel… disrupted. Too disrupted for the Hermione I used to know.

I ushered her into Kate Baker’s office, made the introductions, and escaped before the room could get any smaller.

Settling back at the front desk, I pulled my chair in and tried to drown myself in letters. Correspondence about grants, exhibition submissions, a note from a donor asking whether dragon-safe wards were truly necessary for a pottery opening. Mindless things. Contained things.

Granger went upstairs again about half an hour later. I heard the soft creak of the stairwell door but didn’t look up in time to catch her face. Only the swish of her coat and the fading echo of her steps.

She didn’t stop by the gallery to say goodbye.

Not that it mattered.

It didn’t.

Still, she could have. It would’ve been polite. Professional. Something.

I exhaled, annoyed at myself for noticing, even more annoyed for caring enough to notice.
She wasn’t the only woman in my orbit, for Merlin’s sake, and if my disaster of a relationship with Elisa had taught me anything, it was that smart, sharp-minded women with too much fire were more trouble than they were worth.

Better to focus on what actually made sense. What was right in front of me. Tonight, for instance: a quiet evening in with Claire. Predictable. Pleasant. Controlled. Exactly the kind of thing I should be thinking about… instead of the woman who’d just blown through the gallery like a gust of peppermint-scented chaos.

I had invited her to my flat for dinner. A deliberate choice, really—like selecting the most reliable wand in the shop instead of the one that hummed with dangerous potential. I told myself it was time to give us a chance. Claire was good for me: steady, kind, uncomplicated. And uncomplicated was a rare luxury these days. With my job already chewing through my sleep and my nerves, I needed someone who didn’t add storms to my forecast. She was the safe choice. She was beautiful in that catalogue-model way, all symmetry and quiet confidence. Pure-blood, of course. Polite, poised, the kind of woman who never spills her drink and never raises her voice. A woman who would never wind up in headlines, never press me with questions that required the truth, never sift through the rubble of my family’s ruins with trembling hands and impossible empathy.

And maybe that’s why I thought she was exactly what I needed. A calm harbour. A still surface. No depth to drown in.

But Merlin, even as I told myself all of that, something in me already knew: safety isn’t the same thing as solace.

On my way home from work, I swung by the grocer’s to pick up a few things for dinner. A tactical move more than an inspired one. Claire tended toward vegetarian dishes whenever we went out. Something light, digestible, and politically neutral, so I adapted. Merlin forbid I serve the wrong protein and spark unnecessary discourse. Back at the loft, I started on a minty orzo with zucchini, pine nuts, and feta. Simple, efficient, impossible to ruin unless one is actively trying. The place filled with the kind of warm, herbal smell cookbooks call inviting, though I’ve yet to meet a scent capable of dissolving war memories.

Claire knocked just as I was draining the pasta. Punctual, of course.

I opened the door with what probably passed for a smile and kissed her. She responded in that restrained, almost ceremonial way, before stepping out of her heels and hanging her purse on the hook. She lost an inch. It was… endearing, in a catalogue-model sort of way.

She wore a pencil skirt and crisp white blouse, the uniform of women who never spill wine, never raise their voice, and never—ever—ask questions sharp enough to draw blood.

“It smells lovely. Did you cook from scratch?” she asked as she slid onto the bench at the breakfast counter, composed as always.

“Yes,” I said. “Orzo salad. One of my favourites.” I retrieved a bottle of Chardonnay from the fridge. “Wine?”

She nodded. I poured. Domestic harmony, or the closest imitation I could manage. She told me about her day, specifically, her new responsibilities since being elected workers’ representative on her firm’s health and safety committee. She spoke about it with that quiet, earnest enthusiasm I could never quite emulate. Apparently there’d been a minor incident involving a bewitched ladder that kept climbing itself instead of staying put. No one injured, thankfully, though a junior analyst suffered an unfortunate head-butt from a filing cabinet that tried to “assist” by offering a helmet.
I should care more about these matters, especially as an employer myself, but truthfully? My tolerance for bureaucratic righteousness sits somewhere between limited and non-existent. I know what’s required to keep my organization compliant and out of the Prophet. Beyond that, passion eludes me.

Still, I made an effort. Nodded where appropriate. Asked questions to prove I was engaged.

At least she didn’t gossip about her boss. I’d told her on our last date that my friends’ constant rants about management drained me. She’d offered the sort of immaculate, uncontroversial response only Claire could deliver: that every job had its challenges. A safe answer. A safe woman. And that was the point, wasn’t it?

I would’ve offered to continue the conversation on a couch after dinner, but my studio flat had never allowed for such luxuries. Space was a premium when one insisted on living only off one’s art-gallery salary. A self-inflicted penance, perhaps, but after the war I’d wanted nothing to do with the vaults rotting at Gringotts under my family name. The money felt tainted. Contaminated. I preferred tight quarters and honest wages to the echo of bloodstained galleons.

So, no couch.

I stood to clear the plates, relieved to put a merciful end to the discourse on workplace health and safety training. Merlin help me, she had nearly segued into compliance spell calibration. Claire rose as well, but instead of helping, she simply took the dishes out of my hands and leaned in to kiss me. For a heartbeat, the ingrained Malfoy instinct to tidy the counter before engaging in any form of physical affection fluttered up, an absurd little ghost of a habit. I pushed it down. For once, I didn’t straighten the cutlery or wipe a surface before kissing someone back.Instead, I let myself fall into her lips, grateful (almost embarrassingly so) to be rid of the conversation, grateful for the warmth of her hands and the silence that finally settled over us like a blessing.

A man could escape the Malfoy vaults, it seemed.

But not health and safety lectures.

I trailed my fingers on the side of her neck to her collarbone and arm, sliding them under her blouse to push it down her shoulders. I pushed her with my body so her back and bum would touch the lower kitchen cabinets. She unbuttoned my shirt, one button after the other, patiently. I did not care much for patience tonight and brought her to the main loft space where my bed was and kissed her some more, removing her clothes off. We both let our bodies fall on the mattress after I threw my pants on the floor.

It wasn’t planned. Just… easy. She was soft, attentive. She was doing everything right. And I wanted her. Not with some consuming fire, but with a calm, almost reassuring need. I wanted it to work. Wanted to want her more.

Claire was usually quite subtle. I’d wished she’d let herself go a little more when having sex; I enjoyed a woman’s display of emotions, but with her, I had to deal with not really knowing how much I actually pleasured her. I would occasionally get a swift gasp from her when I would go deeper or faster, which made me wonder if I was hurting her. She would assure me I wasn’t, shushing me, pressing a finger on my mouth.

After a few minutes, I came inside her moaning loudly in her ears. I felt the goosebumps on her arms as I did and her breath slowing down. I lowered my right hand down between her legs to keep going for her while burying my head in her blonde hair, but she removed it almost right away and turned towards me. “I’m good,” she said with a smile, before kissing me some more. I nodded, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was agreeing to. The whole thing had felt… muted. Mechanical. Like performing a charm with no real intent behind it. She must’ve sensed the unease curling under my ribs, because she rested her cheek on my chest and murmured that she didn’t mind not finishing every time. That this was perfectly satisfactory.

“Right,” I said, brushing my fingers lightly through her hair. It felt like the appropriate gesture, even if my mind was already drifting elsewhere. We stayed like that for a while, the weight of her against me more soporific than intimate.

The sex itself was fine. But afterward, when she pressed against me in silence, I stayed awake far too long. Thinking.

There was nothing unpleasant, on the contrary. Everything was calm, neat, controlled. But that was exactly the problem. I felt almost nothing. No rush, no abandon. Just a series of proper, acceptable gestures.

When she finally slipped off to the bathroom, I took the moment to pull my clothes back on. The studio looked even smaller, the lamplight revealing the clutter of plates, wine glasses, and our halffolded evening. I flicked my wand toward the kitchen without much ceremony.

The dishes began washing themselves in the sink, enchanted bristles scrubbing dutifully while the pots floated back onto the drying rack like obedient birds. A few crumbs lifted from the counter in a lazy swirl, gathering into the bin. Even the cushions on the bed plumped themselves, as if trying to pretend the last hour had gone differently.

Claire reappeared, fully dressed and reassembled, and stepped in to help, her hands moving toward a plate before realizing it was already floating neatly into place. She gave a small, polite smile, not quite meeting my eyes. I turned toward her anyway, slipping my arms around her waist. Maybe out of hope, maybe out of habit. “Do you want to stay the night?” I asked. A morning redo might help. Or so I kept telling myself.

Her body tightened just enough for me to feel it. And I regretted asking immediately.

“Thank you, but I’ve got an early meeting,” she said. “And I didn’t bring anything to sleep in. I should head home.”

She gathered her things with that elegant precision she had. No fuss, no mess, no sign she’d ever been here at all. I kissed her goodbye at the door, brief and courteous, and watched her disappear down the corridor. I went back inside, flicking my wand to send the last floating knife into the drawer. The studio fell silent, spotless, lifeless.

An uneasy weight settled in my chest, the kind that didn’t respond to any cleaning charm. Maybe Claire and I weren’t a fit. Not really.

Still, I wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of her. Stability had to count for something.

Even if every part of the evening had felt like wearing a cloak tailored for someone else.

Chapter Text

I headed down the narrow staircase toward the gallery, ginger tea in hand, concentrating on not spilling any as I descended. Kate had already sent the rental contract by owl, but discussing a few details in person was easier than trying to untangle her footnotes from her sub-footnotes.

I crossed the main gallery, nodded a quick greeting to the temp at the front desk, and followed the corridor to Kate’s office. I stepped into the doorway and nearly stalled. Draco Malfoy was there. Already seated next to Kate, posture straight, file open, as though he had been part of this meeting from the start.

Not that it mattered. It didn’t. Obviously it didn’t.

It wasn’t surprising to see him here, of course. He ran the place. This was his domain. What caught me was the fact that he was also in my meeting, the one I thought would be a quick logistical chat about table layouts and fire-safety charms.

Kate stood immediately, smiling. “Hermione! Perfect timing.”

I returned the handshake and sank into the only empty chair, aware of Malfoy’s polite nod in my periphery. He looked… composed. Focused. Professional, even. It was disorienting in a way I hadn’t anticipated.

Not because I still pictured him in Hogwarts robes (though the image was never far) but because adulthood had turned him into someone I wasn’t entirely sure how to place. Someone who seemed competent and measured. Someone who looked like he’d learned how to function despite whatever shadows lingered from the war. Also someone extremely good looking. And I couldn’t help wondering, just for a moment, what he still carried under all that restraint. We all had our ghosts. Some of us just wore them differently.

I lifted my tea to hide the flicker of awkwardness and cleared my throat, ready to dive into floor plans and rental clauses as if nothing about this was the least bit strange. Right. A simple meeting.
Nothing complicated at all.

“I invited my director to sit in on our meeting today,” Kate said, her voice warm but impeccably professional, like a perfectly cast Sonorus meant to soothe rather than startle. “There are still a couple of legal details in our contracts I’m not fully familiar with, and I thought it would be useful to have him here.”

I nodded, keeping my expression politely neutral even as something pinched low in my chest, that tiny, irritating sting of being the newcomer. The one still learning the unwritten rules everyone else seemed to be born knowing.

“Of course,” I said, managing a small smile. “That makes complete sense.”

Being new sucked. There was no charm for that, though Merlin knew I’d have invented one by now if there were. Still, Malfoy being a boss was just mind boggling me.

I cleared my throat and pulled the contract a little closer, its pages rustling faintly, like parchment whispering secrets. “I really just had a couple of questions,” I said, flipping it open.
I went straight into the details: the alcohol permit, the cancellation policy, the equipment included in the rental. Each question felt like slipping my wand into a lock and waiting for the quiet click of understanding.

Kate answered effortlessly. Confident as if she’d walked through these clauses a hundred times before I even showed up at Artemis Consulting. Nothing about her felt “new.” She had the poise of someone who had been handed the map while the rest of us were still trying to chart the constellations. I hoped I was also perceived as confident as she seemed. The discussion flowed smoothly after that. Questions answered, clauses clarified, a few lines added and a few trimmed away. Then we reached my final point. A small detail, really… or so I thought.

I hesitated for a heartbeat, sensing the faint, anticipatory hush in the room. “One last thing,” I said, tapping the relevant paragraph with my finger. “About the lighting requirement the night before the event… uhm… the contract says an employee has to stay on-site to ‘maintain the vigil-lamp in the primary hall’ until midnight. I wanted to check whether that was actually necessary. Could we… remove it?”

Before Kate even inhaled, Draco’s voice sliced through the air.

“No.”

Not loud. Just firm, cold, and immediate, like a door slamming shut with perfect hinges.

I blinked, thrown off. “Why not? It seems expensive and useless.” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral, though something prickled at the back of my neck.

Draco leaned back, arms loosely crossed, expression carved from his usual infuriating calm. “Because it’s required. We’re an accredited gallery under the Arcanum of Magical Fine Arts. The vigil-lamp must remain lit and witnessed until midnight before any exhibition or event that includes enchanted or historically bound pieces.”

I stared at him. “That’s… a real rule?”

His mouth twitched. Not amusement, not quite disdain, something in between. “It’s been a requirement since 1724. It prevents dormant spells from destabilising during the transition period. Saves you a mess of broken enchantments.”

Right. Ancient wizarding fine arts bureaucracy. Of course.

Kate coughed lightly, clearly sensing the shift. “It’s one of those… very old traditions,” she added diplomatically.

Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age, and I had somehow missed an entire subsection of magical fine arts protocols. Brilliant. I exhaled quietly and nodded. “Alright. Let’s keep it, then.”
No need to duel over an enchanted lantern. “If you can send me the final version today or Monday,” I added, turning to Kate, “I’ll move forward with the signatures next week.”

And just like that, the moment passed, but Draco’s eyes lingered on me a second too long, as if he’d expected a fight.

And perhaps, annoyingly, I had too.

I gave Kate a courteous smile, then turned toward the door. Malfoy earned a nod. A polite one that said absolutely nothing other than I acknowledge your existence. With that, I stepped out and left the focused tension of the gallery behind me.

Back upstairs, the air shifted from gallery elegance to open-space chaos. Or, as Artemis Consulting insisted on calling it, collaboration-friendly design. In reality, it was a vast, echo-prone room where everyone pretended not to listen while very much listening. The polished wooden floors, the floating brass lanterns, the enchanted skylight projecting whatever weather HR deemed “good for productivity”. It all looked terribly modern compared to the gallery that felt like being in the forbidden section of Hogwart’s library all over again. But it still meant I could hear half the office’s conversations whether I wanted to or not.

I slipped into my ergonomic chair (spelled to adjust automatically to one’s posture, though it still somehow managed to feel judgemental) and gave a quick nod to my colleague Eric. Unfortunately.

Eric, in all his usual splendour, was performing a dramatic monologue into his crystal-synced phone (the magical world had evolved into having these kinda “phones” that felt like the muggle equivalent of cellphones). His chair was reclined at an angle that defied physics; a steady charm hummed beneath it, preventing the spectacular fall he so richly deserved. His feet were unapologetically propped on the shared desk, next to a half-eaten pouch of baby carrots.

“Yeah, yeah, the deck looks brilliant, totally brilliant,” he boomed, as though the poor soul on the other end was three floors down instead of quite literally in his ear. “We just need to smooth out the projections. Or sharpen them. One or the other. You know… align everything with what we discussed.”

He hadn’t listened to a word of the discussion. He never did.

I watched him for a heartbeat, silently willing gravity to reclaim its dignity and do something about his chair. No luck. The stabilising charm held firm, loyal to the wrong person, as usual. Eric carried on, punctuating every sentence with the kind of exaggerated pauses that implied deep contemplation when, really, he was just crunching another carrot.

Merlin help me.

The hum of the office mixed with Eric’s relentless phone theatrics, and I gritted my teeth as I arranged my floating spreadsheets with a flick of my wand. I didn’t hate Eric (not really) but if anyone deserved a gentle hex for excessive dramatics, it was him.

Then my desk crystal flared, a reminder charm lighting up with a cheerful little ping: Reminder: Your hours for Project Enchanted Safety Audit (Phase I) are overdue. Please submit by the end of the day.

I blinked. Slowly. And then glared at the audacity. Did this charm think I needed telling? Of course it wasn’t overdue. I’d finished it yesterday, checked it twice, and enchanted the totals to adjust automatically if anything shifted. Bloody useless reminder. I jabbed a finger at the charm and muttered a minor smoothing spell. The notification fizzled into harmless sparks. That was better. No one needed to condescend to me about deadlines I’d already annihilated.

Four hours left before happy hour with Harry, Ginny, Neville, and Ron. Finally, a little magic that didn’t involve contracts or spreadsheets; just laughter, butterbeer, and maybe a toast to surviving yet another day of corporate charms and overzealous notifications. I exhaled and let myself relax for the first time that day.

***

Ginny had chosen a bar on Wellington Street, thankfully close enough to Grimmauld Place that even the Knight Bus couldn’t entirely sabotage her sense of timing. I, however, had made the questionable decision to rely on it, and the Knight Bus reacted with its usual blend of chaos and dramatic flair. By the time I pushed open the heavy oak door, I was flushed, mildly disheveled, and entirely ready to drink something strong enough to quiet both my nerves and my temper. The sign on the stop had jumped from “Arriving” to “Temporarily Unavailable” to “One Minute-ish”, as though the whole transit system were powered by gremlins instead of enchantments.

Inside, the bar was dim and atmospheric, lit by floating amber lanterns drifting lazily above the tables. The air smelled of polished wood and spiced liquor, and the massive chalkboard behind the counter rewrote itself every few seconds, listing drinks with names like Basilisk Breath, Negroni on Holiday, and Patronus Spritz. Exactly the sort of moody, too-cool-for-its-own-good place Ginny adored. The kind where ordering a basic gin and tonic felt like confessing you had no personality.

I spotted them in a corner booth: Ron leaning back with a stout in hand, gesturing wildly at some story he was butchering; Harry laughing into his glass; Ginny rolling her eyes with fond exasperation; Neville smiling like the soft, grounding presence he’d always been. Neville noticed me first and brightened. “Hermione! You made it,” he called, scooting over to make room.
I slipped into the booth with a grateful sigh, letting the warm hush of magical chatter, clinking glasses, and the soft hum of enchantments settle around me like a comforting spell.

“You’re late,” Ginny said the moment I reached the table, her grin far too triumphant for my taste. I shrugged out of my blazer and draped it over the back of the chair, trying not to look as windblown as I felt.

“Buses are late,” I replied dryly as I slid into the last empty seat. “I’m merely a victim of their whims. The Knight Bus runs on pure chaos magic and spite.”

“You’re lucky we saved your seat. Ron was about five seconds away from declaring it free territory,” Neville said, taking a sip of a drink that was swirling itself cheerfully.

“Oi! Don’t drag me into this,” Ron protested, pointing accusingly at Ginny with the hand not holding his pint. “She was the one saying we should give your seat to the next witch who walked in.”

Ginny smirked, unbothered. “Punctuality is a virtue. I’m just promoting moral development.”

Harry snorted into his glass. “Yes, that’s exactly what you’re promoting.”

I rolled my eyes but felt tension slip off my shoulders all the same. Chaos or not, I was home.

My eyes immediately scanned the menu, which, as always, read like a list of potions brewed by a pretentious alchemist with too much disposable income: smoked rosemary syrup, charcoal bitters, cloudberry liqueur. Cloudberries. I wasn’t even sure those existed outside obscure Herbology textbooks.

“For Merlin’s sake,” I muttered. “Do they even serve a normal gin and tonic here, or is it made with something absurd like seaweed-infused artisanal gin?”

“It’s kelp gin,” Ginny said without looking up, smirking. “And if you order a plain G&T in this establishment, you should be escorted out by security.”

Harry slid his glass toward me. “Try this one. Rhubarb gin sour with red vermouth.”

I took a sip, prepared to judge. Unfortunately, it was… excellent. Annoyingly so. “Alright, that’s good,” I admitted. “What’s it called?”

“The Philosopher’s Grudge,” Harry said, all proud of himself.

“Of course it is,” I muttered, giving the glass back before ordering the same. At least if I was going to indulge in bar pretension, I’d do it properly.

Neville took a heroic gulp of his own drink. “You’re going to need something stronger than a G&T if you want to survive Ron’s latest theories about workplace hierarchies.”

“Hey!” Ron protested, but the grin on his face made it clear he absolutely had a new lecture queued up.

I laughed and felt the last remnants of my day finally loosen their grip. Even surrounded by drinks that came with existential names and questionable ingredients, this (this table, these people) felt like a soft place to land.

The conversation had drifted from Harry’s newest theory about wand-grip ergonomics (he insists it’s “important for Auror safety”) to Neville’s running commentary on whatever exotic plant he’s accidentally overfed this week. I thought I could escape the evening without becoming the centre of attention, but Ginny fixed me with that journalist’s stare of hers, the one that could probably get an answer out of a sphinx.

“Alright, Hermione,” she said, tapping her finger against her glass. “You’ve been suspiciously quiet. What’s going on at work? Didn’t you have that massive regulation overhaul due?”

I took a slow sip of my cocktail. The Philosopher’s Grudge, honestly, what a name. “Yes. I finished it yesterday.”

Harry blinked at me, jaw hanging just a little. “That thing was thicker than Hagrid’s stew.”

I shrugged. “Someone had to read it without crying.”

Harry tilted his head. “You’re hiding something. You only get that tone when you’ve done something either brilliant or deeply unwise.”

Ginny pointed at him. “Exactly. Spill.”

I sighed dramatically because they’d earned it. “Fine. I’m on a new project. A fundraiser event. And I’m renting the gallery space downstairs… and the director of the gallery is Draco Malfoy.”

Four distinct reactions:
Ginny: eyebrows shooting up
Harry: half-choke
Ron: full choke
Neville: a soft, bewildered “Oh?”

Ron recovered first. “Malfoy? You’re working with Malfoy? Pale, pointy, used to think blinking was for peasants… that Malfoy?”

“Yes, Ronald, that one.”

Harry frowned. “And you didn’t start the night with this information because…?”

“Oh please,” I muttered. “Before you all hex the air in shared outrage: he’s… surprisingly professional.”

Ginny leaned forward, eyes sparkling with trouble. “Professional? Draco Malfoy?”

“I know,” I said, lifting my hands. “Believe me, I’m as shocked as you are. He shows up on time. He knows his files. He doesn’t insult anyone, not even subtly. And he sent me follow-up notes yesterday. Organised notes.”

Neville blinked. “Well… that’s actually impressive.”

Ron shook his head as if trying to dislodge the idea. “No. No, absolutely not. Malfoy doesn’t do ‘impressive.’ He does… sneering.”

Harry gave me a look. “Hermione. Are you sure this isn’t, like… Polyjuice? Or a curse? Or a cry for help?”

I groaned. “I’m simply saying he’s not unpleasant to work with.”

Ginny gasped theatrically. “Not unpleasant?!”

Neville patted my wrist, very gently, like I’d suffered emotional trauma. “Change can be hard, Hermione.”

Harry looked ready to call in an exorcism.

“You’re all ridiculous,” I said, though I couldn’t suppress a laugh.
But beneath the teasing, the warmth, the clink of glasses and Ginny’s wicked grin, a tiny, traitorous truth nudged at me Working with Draco Malfoy wasn’t merely tolerable. It was… interesting.
And that was a complication for another day.

Tonight, I had friends to laugh at, and a drink with a name pretentious enough to distract me from every inconvenient thought.

As the conversation unfolded, Ron’s attention never strayed too far from me. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but enough to make me feel… noticed. His gaze lingered a little longer than strictly necessary, and when I caught it, that familiar easy smile curled on his lips. Harry and Ginny exchanged quiet glances, amused, while Neville, blissfully oblivious as always, carried on with his story about enchanted hedges at the botanical garden.

I felt a flicker of tension I hadn’t anticipated. Ron had always had this way of making me feel like I mattered, as if the world had paused just for us. And now, sitting here in the warm glow of the bar, I couldn’t help but remember, maybe there was something still lingering between us. Not like before… not in that chaotic, all-consuming way, but something quieter, steadier, like a familiar spell that hadn’t quite worn off.

My mind drifted back to the years we’d shared. The late nights in the common room, the laughter echoing down empty corridors, the secret triumphs and small victories only we seemed to notice. But that was a different time, a different us. I’d changed. I wanted grounding, stability. I wasn’t the same girl who had thrown herself into every risk with reckless abandon. Had he? Or was he still that same easy-going, infuriatingly confident boy who could charm his way out of anything?

A laugh from Ron yanked me back. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes bright with the familiar spark, asking questions about my work and my projects. I answered, automatically at first, but I realized I was letting half my attention wander to him, to the subtle warmth radiating from where he leaned just a little closer, as if proximity itself were an experiment. I took a sip of my drink, the sharp tang doing nothing to cool the warmth blooming in my chest. It wasn't a desire, not in that way. It was the memory of what we had.

Ron caught my arm lightly as we stepped outside the bar. “Hey… want to come up for one more drink? Just to unwind a bit?”

I froze for a moment, my mind flickering with hesitation. Was this a good idea? One drink could easily stretch into memories, comparisons, nostalgia. Still, his easy grin and that familiar warmth nudged me forward. “…Okay,” I said after a pause, my voice almost quieter than I intended.

I followed him through the narrow, lamp-lit streets of Soho, my heels clicking against the cobblestones. With every step, a tug of memory nudged at me. A memory I hadn’t expected tonight. The bar had left me light-headed, Ginny’s insistence on sampling every obscure cocktail hadn’t helped and Ron’s grin was a little too easy, a little too familiar.

“Relax,” he said, gesturing toward his flat with that mischievous glint in his eye. “One more drink, just to wind down. You’ve earned it.”

I hesitated again, the cautious part of me whispering that maybe this wasn’t such a brilliant idea, but I shrugged. Why not? It was harmless. A drink. A laugh. A little reminder of what had been.
As I walked up the steps, a pang of regret flickered through me. What was I doing? One drink at his place could stretch into more… memories, comparisons, nostalgia. I shook it off with a quiet sigh.

His flat smelled faintly of coffee and old parchment, as though the air itself had tucked away echoes of Hogwarts. I stepped inside, taking it all in. He poured a glass of firewhisky for me, and I accepted it with a small, appreciative smile. The warmth of the liquid matched the quiet familiarity of the room. He leaned back on the couch, close enough that I could feel his presence, but not close enough to intrude. We spoke mostly about mundane things: the upcoming fundraiser, my collaboration with Draco, the absurdities of magical bureaucracy, but the undercurrent between us was unmistakable.

It was in the way he smiled at a story I told, the way his eyes lingered a fraction too long, the faint echo of laughter that seemed to belong to another time. The late nights in the common room, the stolen smiles, the quiet victories only we understood, some part of that had returned tonight.

When I finally glanced at the clock, I realized how late it had gotten. I didn’t want to leave, yet I also didn’t want to overstep. “I should probably call it a night,” I murmured, the words heavier than they felt.

“Stay a little longer,” he said, voice soft. “For the drink. Or, you know… company.”

I hesitated, then shook my head. “No, I’m not… not that kind of staying over. I’ll crash on the couch, if that’s okay?”

He raised an eyebrow but smiled. “Of course,” he said, gesturing toward the sofa. “Couch it is.”

I nodded, grateful and a little relieved. “Thanks,” I murmured, arranging the throw and pillow just right.

He gave me a warm glance before heading into his room, closing the door behind him. The soft click echoed through the flat. I curled up, pulling the blanket snugly around me, and let out a quiet sigh of contentment. Safe, warm, and entirely in control of my choices. I congratulated myself for making the sensible decision. Goodnight, London, goodnight, Ron.

When I woke the next morning, the first thing I noticed was the dull throb behind my eyes and the uneasy churn in my stomach. No ginger tablets. No foresight. That’s what happened when you let someone talk you into just one more magical concoction too many, tonics with shimmering herbs and firewhisky twists. The soft smell of something fried drifted in from the tiny kitchenette. I hoped Ron, in his quiet pragmatism, had at least a stash of peppermint or chamomile somewhere, but somehow, I doubted it.

I stumbled toward the kitchen, my curls rebelliously springing in all directions, and found him there. Calm, composed, sipping from a mug that sent little ribbons of steam curling into the air like smoke from a charm. Of course he looked entirely unbothered, like he’d figured out how to survive every hangover in the wizarding world.

“Morning,” he said, flashing that easy grin as he set the mug down. “Sleep well?”

I muttered a flat, “Morning,” and resisted the urge to groan. That grin didn’t help. My stomach did a little flip anyway, and I forced it down.

“Already up, huh?” Ron asked, noticing me reaching for my bag. There was the faintest hint of disappointment in his voice, though he masked it well. “Breakfast’s ready, you know… unless you’re in a hurry.”

I paused, staring at him. Breakfast. The simple, mundane act felt loaded somehow. The cozy kitchen, the smell of eggs (or was that some enchanted blend of herbs he’d whipped up?) the quiet insistence of his presence. I wanted to linger, to feel that strange pull of nostalgia again, but I knew better.

“Ron… look,” I started, unsure how to phrase it. “Last night was fine. Really. But I…” My voice trailed off. I didn’t owe him more than this: a polite exit, a little distance, and a quiet victory for making a sensible choice and not sleeping with him last night.

I paused by the kitchen doorway, reaching for my bag, when Ron leaned against the counter, tilting his head like he was trying to read me.

“So… you finally stopped moving around, huh?” His voice wasn’t sharp, not cruel. Just… honest. Awkwardly honest, the kind that lands heavier than it should.

The words hit me in an unexpected way. He didn’t know half of it. Years of drifting from place to place, running from the mess left by the war, from the nights I hadn’t wanted to face myself. From the weight of everything I had survived. And yet, here he was, speaking like it had been that simple for me to just… settle. I swallowed the sting, forcing a small, polite smile. “Something like that,” I said lightly, keeping my tone neutral.

I didn’t elaborate. I didn’t need to.

He gave a small, uncertain shrug, clearly not realizing the weight of his words. And that was fine. I gave him a polite nod, grabbing my bag. “I should probably get going,” I said, my voice calm.

He opened his mouth, maybe to protest, but I stepped back, letting the warmth of the morning and the faint smell of coffee and parchment fill the space between us.

As I moved toward the door, I felt that familiar twist of nostalgia, and under it, a quiet certainty. I was better off walking away. I didn’t owe him explanations. I didn’t owe him my past. I had survived it, and that was enough.

Chapter Text

Hermione's POV

By the time I left the office with Eric, the rest of the teams were already halfway into their first rounds of drinks. The happy hour had been corralled into a nearby Irish pub that felt impossibly cozy and slightly sinister. Low, dark wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, catching the flicker of enchanted lanterns that hovered lazily above each table. Shadows shifted and wavered, distorted by mirrors that seemed to elongate the room unnaturally, and the scent of smoke mixed with bitter ale and a faint hint of honey.

Nearly twenty people were crowded around a long, rectangular table, a chaotic tangle of the firm’s team and the gallery crew. Their chatter was loud but warm, punctuated by bursts of laughter, the clinking of glasses, and the occasional clatter of enchanted cutlery that insisted on bouncing in dramatic arcs if anyone tried to set it down carefully. Three spots remained. I had hoped to snag the one beside Antonia. She had the sort of wit that could make even the dullest conversation lively, but Eric had already claimed it, as predictable as sunrise. That left me wedged between Sabrienne, my boss, and Malfoy. Not exactly ideal. I gave him a polite smile, feeling the familiar tension at the thought of enduring small talk with him so close.

At least Richard from HR had mercifully been distracted by something shiny and was nowhere in sight. Small victories.

I settled into the seat beside Sabrienne, taking in the pub’s shadowed corners and flickering lights, the magical warmth of a place that seemed to have its own pulse. Then, inevitably, someone brought up Quidditch.

I froze. Quidditch. The word felt like nails scraping a chalkboard. Positions, team strategies, match scores… every detail was a test of patience I wasn’t willing to endure. I hugged my mug of something strong and steaming, hoping that the low golden light and the shadows would somehow shield me from the conversation.

Draco, surprisingly, didn’t seem interested either. He leaned back slightly, arms crossed, giving a faint smirk as if he were silently judging everyone around the table. I almost wanted to high-five him for solidarity. Almost.

People leaned in, debating lineups and magical techniques with the kind of fervor that made my teeth grind. I sipped my drink slowly, searching for a distraction or a flicker of magic in the lantern above our table, enough to make it wobble and draw a gaze elsewhere. Anything to escape the relentless cheerleading for brooms and balls.

I was not here for Quidditch. I was here for a drink, a semblance of human company, and the hope that, by some miracle, the conversation might shift to something (anything, really) less insipid.
Even in an average Irish pub, Draco looked impossibly put together. The soft lantern light from above flickered across his features, highlighting the pale sharpness of his skin and the silvery tones in his hair. He had ordered an old-fashioned and rolled the large ice cube in his glass with the sort of casual precision that made it impossible not to notice. Unlike Ron, he didn’t pick the cheapest drink just to get it over with. Part of me wondered if I found it irritating or strangely attractive. I settled on the latter.

I tugged my coat a little tighter around me, easing into the seat beside Sabrienne, and signaled for my usual gin and tonic with cucumber. The familiar chill of the drink was grounding as I surveyed the room. The shadows of the pub seemed to lean closer, the air thick with the mingling scents of wood and ale. My gaze inevitably returned to Draco. He looked calm, detached even, as he leaned back, a faint smirk tugging at his lips, arms crossed.

Draco and Sabrienne quickly slipped into a work discussion, their words carrying across the table. I had no interest in it and didn’t try to follow; my attention drifted to Kate and Josh, but they were embroiled in a heated debate about quidditch players, and I didn’t care to intervene. The conversation buzzed around me like a distant spell I couldn’t quite catch.

I sighed, ordering a second drink, already halfway through the first. Sabrienne, noticing my quiet disengagement, shifted the discussion to lighter topics, attempting to include me. I appreciated the effort but mostly focused on my glass and the faint warmth creeping through my chest as Draco’s gaze, occasionally flicking my way, reminded me that some people seemed immune to the chaos around them. Even here, in a dim, slightly eerie pub in London, there was something almost… grounding about him.

“So, Hermione, where do you live?”

“Near Island Park and Wellington,” I answered, keeping my tone neutral.

Draco arched an eyebrow, glancing at Sabrienne with that faint smirk of his. “I didn’t realize your consulting firm, or whatever it is you do, paid that well,” he said, half-teasing, half-observing.

I laughed quietly, because the truth was far less glamorous. That neighborhood was absurdly expensive, yes, but my life was modest at best. “I live in Harry’s and Ginny’s attic. They turned it into a little studio. So I’m afraid I’m not rolling in gold like it might look.” I shrugged lightly. “Though I could probably manage better on my salary, but I don’t need more. Just me, and that’s enough.”

I studied him as I spoke, subtly curious. “And you? Living alone?” It wasn’t like I cared (truly) but I wanted to get a sense of him beyond the professional armor he always seemed to wear.

Sabrienne excused herself to the restroom temporarily. Draco finally leaned back, rolling the ice cube in his glass before answering, his voice smooth, deliberate. “Yes, Granger,” he said. “Alone. Quiet. I like it that way. Though I could definitely not afford anything bigger than that even if I wanted to,” he specified with a smirk. “That’s the advantage of renouncing the family name.”

I raised an eyebrow, letting a faint trace of curiosity show. “You… actually stepped away from it all?” I asked, careful not to sound judgmental. “From the Malfoy family, I mean.”

Draco gave a small shrug, the ice cube rolling lazily in his glass. “Yes. Not exactly a hard choice. The perks of freedom, I suppose.”

I nodded, turning the thought over in my mind. Part of me had half-expected him to be bound by the old ways, like so many others, but he wasn’t. He had chosen his own path, just as I had. “I see,” I murmured, letting the words hang between us.

He smirked, catching my glance. “It’s simpler this way,” he added smoothly.

I caught him staring for a moment longer than usual, and a small, teasing smile tugged at my lips. Part of me wondered why I even noticed (it wasn’t like I was unused to people watching me) but then again, Draco Malfoy wasn’t exactly anyone. There was something in the way he regarded things, deliberate, assessing, like he was trying to read more than just the surface. And I couldn’t resist. “Enjoying the view?” I asked, letting the words carry a playful lilt.

Draco blinked, apparently startled, and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry,” he said smoothly, “I… was lost in my thoughts.”

I leaned back slightly, a little tipsy and braver than usual. My question wasn’t entirely serious. It was partly to tease him, partly to satisfy my curiosity about what he really thought of me now, in this lighter, post-office, slightly tipsy setting. “You haven’t answered my question, then.”

He arched an eyebrow. “What question?”

“Do you like what you see?” I said, letting the words hang, a faint smirk on my lips. There was a part of me that wanted to know. Not in a prying, childish way, but because he had always been… complicated. And maybe I wanted to see if some of that had softened.

He didn’t lower his eyes, not even when the air between them seemed to pulse with something unspoken.

He gave me a long, appraising look, still smiling, before replying, “It’s hardly appropriate for me to answer that question.”

I chuckled softly, feeling the warmth of the drink and the moment. “Of course not,” I said, though I could tell the tension in his gaze suggested he wanted to answer anyway. And I found myself wondering how much of him was still hidden behind that perfectly measured composure.

It struck me, as I watched him roll that ice cube in his glass, how much he’d changed. Gone was the sharp arrogance of the boy who’d sneered at anyone beneath him; in its place was a calm, almost deliberate grace, the kind of presence that made people take notice without even trying. He was still Draco Malfoy, unmistakably, but the restless, reactive energy of his youth had been tempered. It was… disarming, in a way I hadn’t expected. I found myself wondering what had shaped him into this. Probably years away from the family, choices made quietly, battles fought alone. Somehow, he’d become someone I didn’t quite recognize, and yet, I couldn’t look away.

His gaze lifted past my shoulder, and the faint shift in his expression told me someone was approaching. I turned just as a blonde woman glided toward our table. Glided, honestly, as though she’d been trained at some finishing school for people who never mispronounce anything or trip on uneven flooring.

She was beautiful in that catalogue-model way: symmetrically perfect, all clean lines and serene poise. Pure-blood, probably. The kind of witch whose family probably ironed their table linens with magic and shame.

She sat beside Draco with the unselfconscious grace of someone who has always been welcome everywhere. Her blazer was sharply tailored, her skirt crisp, her bun immaculate. In other words: polite, graceful, uncontroversial. The type of woman who never spills her drink, never raises her voice, and is absolutely incapable of forming a sharp opinion.

And I hated her immediately.

Sabrienne reappeared from the restroom, and Draco introduced Claire to both of us. Claire launched straight into a conversation with Sabrienne about the “digital shift in magical institutions,” her voice smooth and eerie in its precision, like she was reading from a policy manual enchanted to sound friendly.

She kept going. And going. Each sentence perfectly measured, perfectly forgettable. Draco listened with polite interest, but I caught the subtle signs of strained patience, the micro-tightening at the corner of his mouth, the way he rolled the ice cube in his old-fashioned just a touch too long.

At some point, Claire reached into her pristine bag and pulled out a small, perfectly wrapped package.

“I almost forgot, happy birthday!” she said, offering it to Draco with a smile that felt engineered rather than felt.

Of course she brought a present. Of course it was wrapped like a department store display. Of course. I took a sip of my drink and reminded myself not to roll my eyes out loud.

“What? It’s your birthday and you haven’t told me!” Sabrienne practically exploded, throwing her hands up as if Draco had personally betrayed her by withholding state secrets. Her voice boomed over the music, and half the table turned to look.

I winced. Draco didn’t.

“How old are you?” she demanded, leaning forward like an interrogator with good lighting.

“Thirty-four,” he replied with a lifted brow, calm as ever in the face of Sabrienne’s theatrics. “And I didn’t say anything because I don’t celebrate it. Birthdays are frivolous.”

He delivered it in that quiet, clipped tone that discouraged further inquiry. He turned to Claire then, and his expression softened by a single degree… noticeable, but not enough to be meaningful. “How did you even know?”

“Theo told me,” she said, as if announcing the weather. No inflection, no curiosity, just… information transferred.

Draco’s jaw twitched, just faintly, before he muttered, “That git,” so low I suspected only I caught it. Not angry. Draco angry was sharp and intentional. This was more like someone who’d discovered a wrinkle in his perfectly ironed schedule.

I sipped my drink, letting the gin settle on my tongue while I studied him.

Frivolous.

I shouldn’t care.

But I did wonder… for a man who’d rebuilt his life from the ashes, what part of him still believed he wasn’t allowed to be celebrated?

Draco untied the ribbon with a kind of careful reverence I didn’t expect from someone who claimed birthdays were frivolous. He slid the paper off and opened the box, and the moment he lifted the gift, his entire expression shifted. It was a very old edition of Cyrano de Bergerac. The kind of book that had lived several lives: browned edges, fragile pages, the spine softened by a century of handling.

Beautiful.

And he looked… amazed. Truly pleased.

A spark of something warm flickered across his features, and for the first time all evening, he seemed unguarded. It pulled at something in me. Curiosity, yes, but also the faint, irritating tug of wanting to know why that book meant something to him.

I still hadn’t worked out what Claire was to him. Their dynamic was baffling. They didn’t behave like a couple. They barely touched. They barely… reacted. They were like two well-trained diplomats sharing a table.

Then he leaned in and kissed her in thanks.

Well. That question was neatly resolved.

My stomach tightened. An involuntary reaction, deeply annoying. I had no claim on the man, and frankly, I found him a bit much most days. The suits. The composure. The elegant stillness of someone who’d read every instruction manual life had to offer and followed them all. And… it was Draco Malfoy.

And yet… the idea of him going home to someone else was strangely irritating.

Emotion, of course, refused to consult logic before barging in.

Across the table, Sabrienne looked delighted, like someone who’d just spotted a unicorn wearing loafers. She kept glancing between the two of them, grinning like she’d been waiting years for this very reveal.

Claire invited Draco to leave with her, using that perfectly polite tone of hers, and they slipped out a little before seven. The moment they were out of sight, Sabrienne spun toward me.

“I can’t believe Draco has a date!”

I lifted a brow. “Why? He’s handsome. What’s shocking about that?”

“I know, but it’s the first time in eight years I’ve ever seen him with anyone,” she whispered, still scandalized. “He’s always so private.”

Private. Yes. That part I could see. He practically radiated boundaries.

I shrugged, fighting the strangely sour note sitting under my ribs. “Well, he does seem… very stable.”

Understatement of the century.

Stable. Composed. Maybe that was the trick to a successful, uncomplicated life: keep your voice low, your emotions locked up, and sip old-fashioneds like you were born in one.
Maybe I should try it. Or maybe I’d spontaneously combust from boredom.

Hard to say.

Chapter Text

Draco's POV

I was sitting on a weathered bench near the fountains in Hyde Park, waiting for Theo to show up for our weekly run. Even at 7:30 on a Saturday morning, the city thrummed with its usual impatience: cyclists slicing past in tight packs, dogs dragging their owners across gravel paths, the far-off hum of traffic on Bayswater Road refusing to grant the illusion of peace. London didn’t really do quiet; it merely offered different volumes of noise.

Theo and I never actually ran in Hyde Park. Far too many tourists, too many meandering families who believed they owned the width of the path. But it made for a convenient meeting point before cutting toward the Serpentine and looping across into Kensington Gardens. September light was gentle here, warmer than I expected this late in the year. A small mercy.

Predictably, Theo showed up twelve minutes late. Every bloody week.

While I’d grown… accustomed to his so-called “time blindness” (a term I firmly believed had been invented by chronically disorganized people to excuse their chronic disorganization), I still held onto the faint hope he’d prove me wrong one day.

Today was not the day.

Theo jogged toward me, grinning like someone who had never once arrived on time in his life and never planned to start. His hair was a dishevelled mess, charming in that irritating Nott way that allowed him to get away with anything.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, absolutely not sorry.

I stood, stretching with the kind of controlled efficiency that came from years of being early to everything. “No worries,” I replied, giving him a light shove. “You’re lucky I didn’t leave without you.”
He laughed, brushing imaginary dust from his running shorts. “You say that every time. And every time, you’re sitting right here.”

Annoyingly, he was right.

I scoffed. “I’m conducting a long-term study on your inability to respect clocks.”

“That’s not a real thing,” he protested. “It’s time-blindness.”

“It’s laziness with better branding,” I corrected.

He groaned, but fell into step beside me as we started down the path toward the Serpentine, the early morning breeze cool against my skin. London in September was… tolerable. Crisp, golden, with a sense of borrowed peace. Even the geese seemed less homicidal this time of year.

Nott glanced sideways at me. “So. Birthday boy.”

I exhaled sharply. “Must we?”

“Oh, we must,” he said, with the grin of a man who fully intended to be insufferable.

“Yeah. Now, thanks to you, everyone at work knows what day I was born,” I muttered, a grin threatening the corner of my mouth. “Since you told Claire, and she told everyone.” The annoyance was theatrical, but the irritation wasn’t entirely fake.

Theo’s laugh carried easily as he settled into my pace, his strides annoyingly unbothered. “Well, I can’t believe you didn’t tell her! How long have you and Claire been seeing each other? Three, four months?” His tone was light, but he was fishing. Theo always fished.

“I don’t bother with that sort of thing,” I said, rolling my eyes. And of course, my mind chose that moment to flick back to Granger. Her raised eyebrow, her blunt little observations, her maddening habit of actually listening. Entirely different from Claire. Which was utterly irrelevant. I pushed the thought away with the same efficiency I used on unpleasant memories.

“Right. Stuff the rest of us mere mortals enjoy,” Theo said, bumping my shoulder. “Come on. Just answer the real question: why haven’t you told Claire?”

My steps stayed even, but something in my chest tightened. “I don’t know. Claire and I, we’re just…” I exhaled, hunting for a word that didn’t exist.

Theo arched an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’re just using her for sex,” he said in a mock-grave tone. “Sylviana would absolutely kill you.”

I let the silence stretch. He wasn’t wrong, but also not completely right.

“That’s not it,” I said at last, voice steady. “I’m trying to make this work. I am.”

Theo shot me a sideways look, the kind he used when he was about to be both irritating and right. He didn’t answer immediately. Of course he didn’t. He let the silence drag on just long enough to make a point, his steps maddeningly light beside mine. Finally, he said, “Okay, so apparently you want it to work. Great. But wanting it and actually behaving like someone who’s in a functioning relationship? Two entirely different sports, mate.”

I exhaled through my nose, eyes fixed on the path ahead. The early sun bounced off the canal in sharp little flashes, much easier to look at than Theo.

“You might try talking to her or opening up a bit,” he added, because he apparently wasn’t finished torturing me. “Wild idea, I know. But it tends to help.”

“That’s rich, coming from you and your marital problems,” I muttered, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a real reaction.

Theo ignored that completely. He was annoyingly good at selective hearing. “Look, I’m not lecturing you,” he went on, softer now but no less persistent. “I’m just saying: if you keep dodging every serious conversation, it’s gonna blow up in your face. And honestly? You don’t have the emotional stamina for a blow-up. You’d combust. Like a Victorian lady.”

I shot him a glare. “You’re insufferable.”

“And yet you keep running with me every Saturday,” he said cheerfully. “Anyway. Point stands. You can’t just glide through this on charm. Claire’s… not that type.”

I didn’t respond. Mostly because he was right, and partly because I didn’t care.

I sighed, long, dramatic, and hopefully final. “I’ll figure it out.”

A blatant lie and we both knew it.

But Theo only nodded, mercifully dropping it. We kept running, our footsteps syncing with the city waking around us. The conversation dissolved into the hum of cyclists, rushing water, and morning chatter. But his words stayed in my mind, like a shadow pacing alongside me, refusing to be outrun.

Chapter Text

Draco's POV

The summons arrived by owl at dawn, embossed with a seal so ostentatious it practically hissed old money. The Magisterial Guild of Trade and Commerce was holding one of its quarterly assemblies. Attendance “strongly encouraged.” Which, in Guild-speak, meant mandatory unless you wanted your funding proposals mysteriously delayed for six to twelve months. I dressed the way one was expected to: tailored robes, understated cufflinks, hair perfectly in place. Pureblood camouflage. I’d grown up attending these things, standing silent beside my father while men in jewel-tone robes argued about tariffs on imported cauldrons or whether wand-core harvesting should be deregulated. I’d been raised for this exact sort of theatre: the networking, the politicking, the polished small talk that hid sharp edges.

I hated every bloody minute of it.

The Guild held its assemblies in a grand hall carved directly into the foundation of Gringotts. Only the wealthiest families and institutions had access. Every column shimmered with old enchantments, every chandelier floated overhead like captured stars. It was breathtaking, if you were the sort to be impressed by generational greed rendered architectural. I navigated the crowd easily. I always did. A nod to the Montagues. A brief, civil greeting to the Notts. A politely distant smile at two members of the Board of Magical Cultural Development, the same board that occasionally funded exhibitions at the gallery. They all knew who I was. They always had.

“Malfoy,” someone said smoothly. A tall wizard with a trimmed beard and robes embroidered in enchanted filigree stepped forward. “Good to see you back.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. As if I’d ever left.

“Guild attendance is part of the job,” I said lightly, the perfect bland politeness.

He clapped me on the shoulder as though we were dear old friends. “We’ll be discussing the proposal for increased security funding for art institutions. You might find that relevant.”

Translation: they wanted support. Influence. Favors. As always.

The hall hummed with conversation, clinking glasses, rustling parchment programs, the faint buzz of bureaucratic magic. Wizards schmoozed and smiled, all while calculating who might be useful in five years.

I used to think this world was everything I wanted: power, recognition, prestige. A place where my name opened doors like a password. But now, every time I stepped inside these vaulted rooms, I felt a familiar tightening in my chest. Like the walls were lined with the ghosts of expectations I no longer intended to meet. Yet, this was the world I knew best.

I would also often cross paths with Sabrienne and some of her team members. This time was no exception.

Sabrienne and Hermione spotted me first. I was mid-conversation with a wizard from the banking sector — the sort who spoke in monotone figures and percentages, as if emotion were an optional extra in human communication. His cadence reminded me unpleasantly of my father discussing “market discipline” at dinner. I nodded along, already wondering how long I had before my brain melted out of self-defense.

So when I saw Sabrienne and Hermione approaching, it felt like divine intervention. The banker excused himself with a stiff little bow and drifted toward the bar. Perhaps he found me dull too. Perfect. Mutual liberation. I turned to my… upstairs neighbours. Odd concept, but there it was.

Sabrienne was poised, polished, effortlessly in her element. She was the kind of woman who made influence look like a lifestyle choice. Hermione was Hermione. She carried herself with a grounded certainty that didn’t need embellishment. She walked into the room like she belonged there by virtue of sheer intellect, even if she’d rather be anywhere else. And the way the chatter around us shifted subtly as she joined the circle… well. Some people radiated presence; she always had. She was the golden girl, after all.

We exchanged greetings, and Sabrienne leaned in to kiss me on each cheek in that Paris-by-way-of-Diagon-Alley way the Guild adored.

“You two just arrived?” I asked.

“Yes,” Sabrienne replied. “Hermione’s going to brave the bar queue.”

Hermione gave a soft huff. “Do either of you want anything while I’m at it?”

“I’m all right,” I said, lifting my glass of sparkling water with a lemon wedge. “Thank you.”

She paused, eyeing the drink as though trying to assess whether I was ill, in recovery, or simply insufferable. I didn’t clarify. She didn’t ask. Then she slipped toward the bar. And I watched her go for a heartbeat too long. Too long, and I knew it.

I leaned in towards my chairwoman.

“Tell me,” I said, folding my arms, “why do you always come to these events with your female employees? Never men. Not once. Statistically improbable.”

She didn’t even pretend to hesitate.

“Because I run a for-profit company, Draco, and pretty women attract clients.”

I let out an exaggerated gasp, a hand to my chest. “I’m shocked you’d admit something so shameless.”

“Oh, spare me,” she shot back, rolling her eyes. “As if you never used your looks or your name to get what you wanted.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again.

She wasn’t wrong.

Not even close.

“…Fair point,” I conceded, lifting my glass in a half-toast. “But when I do it, it’s called tradition.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“When you do it, it’s called privilege.”

I laughed into my sparkling water.

I barely noticed Granger returning until she was suddenly there, slipping through the crowd with two glasses balanced like a seasoned barmaid. The music was stupidly loud and the room had reached that point in the evening where bodies multiplied and patience evaporated. Autumn happy hours always drew the hordes; apparently people got desperate once the temperature dropped.

She handed Sabrienne a glass of white wine. “Thank you, Hermione,” her boss said smoothly.

Before either of us could add anything, a man I vaguely recognized, some Ministry hanger-on with too much confidence and too little purpose, swooped in to speak to Sabrienne. She turned toward him with professional warmth, leaving Granger and me momentarily stranded together in the buzzing sea of networkers. Around us, the space pulsed with energy: introductions murmured over the bassline, business cards trading hands like cursed coins, people smiling too widely at people they didn’t care to remember. The kind of ambience I’d grown up mastering… and grown tired of long before I reached adulthood.

Granger edged closer so we could actually hear each other without shouting. Her shoulder barely brushed mine, just enough to spark that irritating awareness I’d been trying to ignore all evening.

“So,” she asked, entirely unashamed, eyes gleaming with that maddening, analytical curiosity, “how was your birthday evening last week?” She took a sip of her drink, watching me over the rim like she was evaluating a Potions sample.

“Do you always stroll into professional events interrogating people about their personal lives?” I replied, half amused, half wishing she were less… perceptive.

“So… uneventful and boring, then?” she deduced instantly, her tone dripping with playful judgment as she leaned a fraction closer.

I sighed loudly. There was no winning with Hermione Granger. She was unapologetically direct and devastatingly sharp. I sometimes wished I had even a fraction of that boldness… emphasis on sometimes.

“It was fine,” I muttered.

She grimaced at the word fine as if I’d just confessed to eating stale toast for dinner. Her eyebrow arched, lips quirking like she expected a real answer.

“‘Fine?’ Malfoy, ‘fine’ is what people say when they’re trying not to admit it was dreadful. You’ll have to do better than that.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The truth was embarrassingly mundane: after dinner with Claire, we went back to her flat, had sex that was… functional at best, and I ended up at home alone watching a mindless detective programme until one in the morning. Thrilling, in the way watching parchment dry is thrilling.

Hermione didn’t let up. She just kept looking at me, gaze unwavering, far too intense for comfort, as if she were parsing through truth and lies with that terrifyingly efficient brain of hers.

“And what does your girlfriend do for work?” she asked, voice casual but the question slicing clean through the noise around us.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said far too quickly. The words escaped before I could mask them in something dignified.

“Alright. Then what does your 'friend' do for work?” she corrected herself, clearly entertained.

I stared at her, not sure if I was offended or not. I’d dismissed my relationship with Claire without a second thought. Not a hesitation, not a flicker of guilt. I was… well, I was terrible.

“She does what everyone in this city does,” I said eventually, tone dry. “She works for the Ministry.”

Hermione’s smirk sharpened. “Ah. So I was right. Uneventful and boring.”

A laugh burst out of me before I could rein it in.

I arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t you work for the Ministry, Granger?”

She gave me a sly grin. “I didn’t really… I was consulting for the Ministry, mostly travelling in other countries. Lived in magical Paris for a while.”

“Paris, huh?” I said, impressed despite myself.

She tilted her head. “And you… how did you end up in the arts? I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

I shrugged, swirling my glass of sparkling water. “Many pureblood families are patrons of the fine arts. My mother was one herself. So I grew up surrounded by it, attending openings and exhibitions before I could even wave a wand properly. It was… just part of my life.”

“And after the war?” she prompted, curious.

I exhaled, a bit of the tension I’d been holding all evening escaping. “After the war, I wanted something where I could… reinvent myself, I suppose. To forget, far from everything. To build a life I wasn’t ashamed of. Something that wasn’t defined by old mistakes and bad choices I made. Working at the gallery was a way to do that and working in the non-profit sector is a way to give back to society. I still have some friends from school in my life, like Theo, but I cut ties with a lot of people. I try to be a better man. Not always successfully, but I try. And I put so many things in place to try to distance myself from my past. Yes, there’s the job, but also my relationships, the drinking less, the staying away from politics.”

Granger’s expression softened slightly, and for a moment, the noise of the gallery, the music, the chatter, all faded into the background. She was studying me, not judging, just… observing. And, for the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel the need to hide behind a perfectly controlled façade.

“You probably didn’t have all this reflection yourself, you know, being on the right side of history with your friends. You don’t have anything to run away from. And I know you probably think it’s on me for making bad choices and being influenced back then. But… it’s just been hard, and that feeling never completely leaves me.”

“You say that, but, even fifteen years later, I also feel the need to wear a long-sleeved shirt every single day… hiding from memories just like you,” she replied, eyes flicking to my sleeves. “We were kids.”

I looked at her for a moment. Damn, she was beautiful. I didn’t know what came over me to open up like that to her, but this experience had always haunted me and deeply shaped the way I evolved in my professional life, and I felt like maybe, just maybe, she would feel something too.

Two more people drifted toward us, all bright smiles and sharper intentions, eager to “network.” I shifted seamlessly into the usual bland, professional chatter: funding trends, donor engagement, the latest Ministry incentives for arts revitalization. Safe, sterile topics. Granger and I didn’t circle back to our previous conversation. Maybe it was for the best. Some things sit too close to the bone to be handled in a crowded room.

Eventually, we peeled off in different directions, swallowed by the flow of enchanted business cards and politely buzzing conversation. This was why I came to these Magisterial Guild of Trade and Commerce gatherings every month: connections, visibility… and, admittedly, habit. Pure-blood families attend these things the way other families go to Sunday brunch; because that’s simply what one does.

Before leaving, I made a point to swing by Granger and Sabrienne. They were speaking with someone from the Magical Transportation Authority who looked like he could bore a banshee to death.
“I’m heading off,” I said, leaning in to kiss them each on the cheek, a gesture that always felt natural with Sabrienne and oddly charged with Granger.

They wished me goodnight, and I stepped out into the cool London air. A wand-flick summoned a cab, one of the Ministry-regulated ones, the kind that could jump traffic by briefly phasing through the mundane world. I slid inside, suddenly aware of how drained I felt. Social charm took stamina. And food.

Back in my flat, the wards clicked gently behind me. I wasn’t in the mood for anything elaborate, so I kept dinner simple: sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil, a drizzle of good olive oil. My mother had taught me the charm to keep basil perpetually fresh; she’d insisted that “a Malfoy should never settle for wilting herbs.” She said it jokingly, but she meant it.

I ate on the sofa, legs stretched out, letting the quiet settle into my bones. A quick skim of my inbox showed the usual: budget drafts, artist proposals, a poorly spelled urgent message from Theo about a cursed frame he’d “accidentally accepted.”

And then, an owl from my mother.

She wanted to know what my plans were for Christmas and New Year’s. She was thinking of coming to London this year, visiting me and then spending a few days with her partner’s family in Northern Ireland. I hadn’t given the holidays a single thought, but I wrote back immediately, telling her I’d take time off whenever she arrived in London.

As I hit send, a familiar warmth settled in my chest. The idea of her visit tugged at something soft in me. I could already picture her enthusiasm, her insistence on planning outings, on “showing me around” as if I hadn’t lived here for years.

It was ridiculous.

And it made the flat feel a little less empty.

***

Hermione's POV

When I finally got home, the wards settled behind me with a soft shimmer, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. Draco’s words lingered in my mind far more than they should have… that sharp honesty, that quiet shame, that relentless desire to reinvent himself. It struck someplace I usually keep carefully walled off.

I hung up my cloak and moved to the tiny kitchenette, filling a pot with water. I didn’t feel like cooking, so I reached for instant ramen, the gloriously unglamorous lifeline of every overworked witch who can’t be bothered to summon a proper meal. As the water heated, my thoughts drifted where I didn’t want them to go.

Not to the arts, I’d never been in that world. But I did know what it meant to drown yourself in work until it numbed everything else. I knew drinking that wasn’t about pleasure, but about quieting something. I knew what it felt like to build a life in beautiful hotel rooms that never really belonged to you. Years of consulting for the Ministry had sent me everywhere: magical Paris, Madrid, Dakar, Vancouver. I was always reporting, troubleshooting, supporting local governments after conflicts or magical disasters. Always moving. Always alone. I’d arrive in a new city with my suitcase barely unpacked before I was already drafting policy memos at midnight, or reviewing reconstruction files while sitting cross-legged on some overly plush hotel bed.

It wasn’t the travel that ruined Ron and me. Not exactly. It was the distance that grew in the spaces between departures, the way I’d come back exhausted, smelling of whatever foreign hotel soap was standard that month, too wrung out to talk, much less be a proper partner. I told myself it was noble work, that it mattered, that the world needed me. Maybe it did. But Ron needed someone present, and I… wasn’t.

The water boiled. I poured it over the ramen and tried not to think about how many nights I’d ended my days like this: not with dinners out, not with friends, but with whatever instant meal was in the cupboard and a drink on the bedside table. And Merlin, the drinking.

Not the wild, celebratory kind. The quiet, private kind. The kind you justify with words like I’ve earned this or just to take the edge off. The truth was uglier: sometimes I just didn’t want to sit alone with my thoughts. Not about the war. Not about erasing my parents’ memories and sending them across the world. Not about how, even now, years later, the guilt still gnawed at me like an old curse that never quite stopped stinging. A glass of wine numbed it. A second made the edges blur. A third made it quiet. I wasn’t proud of that.

I sat at the small kitchen table, pouring the seasoning packet into the ramen, adding a handful of green onions to pretend it was something more sophisticated than it was. I flicked my wand and the old television sparked to life, landing on a Muggle reality show so ludicrous it barely required brain activity.

Perfect.

I slurped noodles and let the chaotic drama unfold, letting it fill the space where my thoughts would otherwise creep in. The flat felt too quiet, too still. I’d spent so long in hotel rooms filled with distant flirting or bustling lobbies that true silence now felt almost… confrontational.

Tomorrow would be another day, another client, another problem, another moment where I’d pretend moving constantly hadn’t taken pieces out of me. Where I’d pretend the drinking was under control. Where I’d pretend I wasn’t still carrying the weight of a war I was supposed to be done with many years ago.

But that was tomorrow.

Tonight, it was just me, the hum of the telly, the steam rising from my bowl, and the faint ache in my chest that I knew all too well.

Chapter Text

Hermione's POV

It was a Friday evening, and I was, predictably, still at the office, locked in combat with a cursed set of enchanted ledgers that refused to reconcile themselves. The numbers flickered, rearranging into unhelpful patterns every time I blinked. At one point they even spelled out try again, sweetheart, which felt personally offensive. Across the hall, Sabrienne was still in her office, deep in a meeting with Richard from HR. Their voices rose and fell, punctuated occasionally by bursts of laughter. Honestly, what on earth was funny about Ministry compliance audits? Had they discovered a joke hidden in subsection twelve of the Occupational Spell Safety Act? Lucky them.

At least Eric had left hours ago, presumably to drown some poor soul in tales of his diplomatic brilliance. Tonight’s victim was a witch from the French embassy. Very chic. Very cultured. Very Eric. I found myself missing the insufferable crunching of his baby carrots. It had become a strange sort of metronome for my evenings. After muttering a creative mix of swear words (some Muggle, some magical) I finally admitted defeat. I’d need to beg someone from Data Charms to help with these infernal ledgers before they developed sentience and unionised.

Enough was enough.

I slammed the ledger shut, stuffed my bag with the stack of parchment I’d been scribbling on all week, and wrapped myself in my thick wool cloak. If I didn’t escape now, Sabrienne would surely drag me into whatever HR delight she was dealing with, and I simply did not have it in me to pretend payroll hexes were fascinating.

Descending the stairs, I was met by a soft hum of music and a glow of shifting lights, enchanted, drifting lazily through the air like luminous jellyfish. Preparations for tomorrow’s exhibition opening were well underway. I heard footsteps, the rustle of fabric, the occasional clink of something delicate being adjusted.

I pushed open the door and found Kate at the centre of the chaos, wand in one hand, clipboard in the other, murmuring spells under her breath as she checked off her endless list. Floating above her was a string of enchanted lanterns, stubbornly rearranging themselves whenever she looked away.

On the floor, cross-legged and intensely focused, sat the young witch I’d met at the pub last month, Mirelle, I was fairly sure. She typed quickly on a little brass-trimmed, self-writing device that clicked like a caffeinated beetle.

“Evening,” I said, attempting something casual, something effortless.

Kate didn’t look up, only barked, “Don’t step on the runes, Hermione. They’re… oh, for Merlin’s sake ! Alive.”

I froze mid-step. Sure enough, the chalk runes slithered an inch to the left, as if offended.

Brilliant.

Draco stood by the entrance, arms crossed, wearing the expression of a man calculating whether the scene before him qualified as “controlled chaos” or simply “chaos.” With him, it was hard to tell. He could look composed while the ceiling caved in.

I raised an eyebrow. “What in Merlin’s name is going on here?”

Kate didn’t even look up, wand flicking as she ticked another item on her clipboard. “Opening night tomorrow. It’s always a circus. The art’s all in place, but now we need everything to look polished enough that no one notices the mess backstage.”

On the floor, Mirelle glanced up from her enchanted scribing device.Tthe brass nib scratched across parchment like it was personally offended. “Yeah, because nothing says ‘sophisticated evening’ like last-minute spell mishaps. We’re absolutely thriving.”

I snorted. “Are we sure this isn’t minutes away from bursting into flames? Because it doesn’t whisper ‘elegant.’”

Kate sighed like someone who hasn't slept since the last full moon. “It’s fine. It always comes together. Eventually.” She smacked her quill against the clipboard. “I just wish the artist hadn’t insisted the wine station be an ‘interactive ritual experience.’”

I turned. In the corner, a cluster of wine bottles sat inside a chalked-out set of runes that were… breathing.

“Well,” I said, “at least it commits to the ‘minimalist dread’ aesthetic.”

Draco’s mouth twitched, the faintest smirk. “Minimalist or not, it needs to feel refined tomorrow. The illusion of effortlessness takes a surprising amount of effort.”

Kate shot him a glare. “And the wine station?”

Draco lifted a shoulder. “We’ll make it work. As long as it doesn’t become a repeat of last time.”

Mirelle huffed. “Please. Last time wasn’t the wine station. It was the lighting.”

Draco winced. “Which is why everything has to be set tonight. The last thing we need is someone tripping over a charm line or having a bottle self-uncork.”

Kate nodded, though her eye twitched. “We’ve got it under control. Sort of.”

He softened, offering her one of those surprisingly gentle looks he kept hidden from the public. “It’ll be fine. It always is.”

Then Draco turned to me, smirk sharpening. “Did you need anything, Granger? Or were you just here to pass judgment?”

I lifted my chin. “Just curious. Mind if I look around the exhibition? I promise I won’t break anything.”

Kate glanced up from her notes. “You’re welcome to take a quick tour if you want, Hermione. I’ll be heading home soon to get some rest before tomorrow’s chaos, but the space is all yours.”

Mirelle stayed absorbed in her enchanted scribing device, muttering spells to keep her parchment organized, seemingly unfazed by the conversation.

Draco turned to me, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “How about a private tour? I can show you around before everything turns into complete mayhem tomorrow.”

I smiled, a little surprised by the offer. “I’d love that, thank you.”

I glanced at the clay sculptures as Draco guided me through the exhibition, my eyes lingering on the peculiar shapes of crystalized moonstone fragments and whisperwood twigs, all woven together with subtle enchantments that made them shimmer faintly in the gallery light. Each piece seemed alive, humming softly, as if carrying whispers of the magic used to transform them. The contrast between the natural materials and the delicate manipulations held me captive, and I found myself lost in thought.

“So, what do you think?” Draco asked, giving me a moment to process.

I nodded slowly, my mind turning over the layers of meaning. “I saw an exhibition from that artist in Paris. It’s fascinating… how she can make things that seem fragile… or even ordinary, made to endure, to carry a presence far beyond what you’d expect.” I hesitated, then added, “It makes you think about the footprints we leave, the traces of ourselves that linger, whether we intend them to or not.”

Draco’s gaze lingered on me as we walked between the sculptures, the faint hum of enchanted moonstone filling the space around us. “Do you… miss it?” he asked quietly. “Magical Paris, all the traveling, the constant movement?”

I froze for a fraction of a second, my chest tightening. Part of me (the part that remembered him as that sharp, infuriating teen) wanted to shut down, wanted to say nothing at all. And yet… here I was, walking with him through this gallery, and for reasons I couldn’t entirely name, I felt safe. Safer than I had in years.

“I… don’t know,” I admitted, my voice low, almost swallowed by the soft shimmer of magic around us. “Part of me does. But part of me feels like… it was time to come back.”

He gave a small, knowing smile, and it was gentle, without judgment. “Then maybe that’s exactly where you’re meant to be,” he said. “Not in the past, not lost in what you think you should have done, but here, surrounded by art. Right now.”

His words settled over me like a warm cloak, and for the first time that day, I let myself breathe. Hearing him say that felt… grounding. It was a quiet validation, a subtle acknowledgment that the choices I’d made, moving from city to city, carving out my own path, even leaving behind relationships that hadn’t fit, weren’t wrong. That maybe I was doing the best I could, and that was enough.

For a brief moment, I found myself caught in his gaze. "Shit, that was too long," I thought to myself, blinking quickly to shake off the unexpected pull I felt toward him. In that moment, the distance between us seemed smaller.

Draco glanced toward the door, breaking the moment. “Well, I won’t keep you. You’ve had a long day, I’m sure, and so did I.”

I nodded, feeling a sudden heaviness in my limbs. “Yeah, I should head home. Thanks for the tour… and the conversation.”

“Anytime,” he replied, his tone professional but warm, and for some reason, it made me want to linger a little longer anyway.

I stepped out of the gallery and into the crisp evening air, the faint scent of autumn leaves mingling with a hint of brewing potion smoke from a nearby apothecary. Magical London had its own rhythm, one that never quite matched the mundane streets below. Lanterns hovered along the sidewalks, glowing softly, casting a warm haze over the cobblestones. A broom zoomed past overhead, leaving a streak of silver light in its wake, and for a moment, the city felt alive in a way that made me both exhilarated and strangely calm.

I walked slowly to the Floo stop, letting the sounds of the city wash over me. My thoughts spun, not just about the evening, but about the path I’d taken to get here: years of hopping from one magical capital to the next, hotel rooms that never felt like home, dinners with important men and executives where I charmed and negotiated while keeping my own heart tucked safely away. Relationships had faltered; distance and ambition had made sure of that. Ron hadn’t fit into that life, and I hadn’t fought hard enough for us.

Tonight, though… something felt different. Maybe it was the way Draco had listened, asking about Paris, about my travels, about the life I’d carved out for myself. Part of me still recoiled, remembering him as a boy at Hogwarts, but another part, the part I rarely let surface, felt safe to lean into.

I wasn’t sure what I felt exactly. Relief? Comfort? Maybe both. “I don’t know,” I admitted quietly to the empty street, my breath curling in the cold night air. “I think… it was time to come back.”
From somewhere near the gallery, a faint voice reassured me, and I allowed myself to believe it. Whatever I was searching for in this city, this life, I wasn’t entirely alone.

The next morning, I woke up in an unusually good mood. I had a morning outing planned with Ginny, something that had slowly become part of our routine since I’d moved back into the attic.
It was still strange, in a way, to see her so often. I’d spent most of the past years bouncing between cities, hopping from one assignment to the next, never staying long enough for routines or relationships to form. Back then, my connection with Ginny had existed in scattered texts and rare evenings stolen between our busy lives. Now, with no real excuse to keep my distance, I was still adjusting to the shift. I wasn’t sure yet if I liked it… or if I even deserved it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t care about Ginny. I did. But she had a way of filling every silence, of always having an opinion, of subtly steering me in little directions I hadn’t chosen. She was nudging me with a flick of her wand toward a safer path, or whispering advice with just enough charm to make it feel optional. A little pushy, maybe. Or maybe I just wasn’t used to someone actually looking out for me so consistently.

Still, it felt… right. And for now, that was enough.

Ginny had convinced me to try a “magical mindfulness” class at a tiny hidden studio tucked above a bookstore in Diagon Alley, promising it would be good for my nerves. Skeptical but guilt-tripped into going, I figured it would be an easy hour of stretching and breathing charms.

The moment we arrived, though, I realized I had been misled. The room was full of oddly levitating mats and enchanted props, surrounded by tiny floating lanterns that glimmered like fireflies. The other participants (mostly older witches and wizards with perfectly polished robes) moved through their poses with uncanny ease, some even levitating a few inches off the ground while balancing on one leg. The instructor, a perky witch named Crystal with an aura of perpetual sparkles, greeted us with an unsettling amount of enthusiasm. Within minutes, I was struggling through a simple stretch while a wizened witch next to me executed a flawless upside-down levitation pose, arms crossed like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Ginny, meanwhile, mostly treated the class as an excuse to chat. While I wobbled in Warrior II, trying not to topple onto a hovering mat, she leaned over with that easy grin of hers. “Are you sleeping enough, Hermione? You have to prioritize rest. Sleep is the foundation of… well, everything.”

“Ginny,” I hissed, arms trembling as a stray enchantment made my mat tilt slightly.

“And hydration,” she continued, adjusting her own stance with effortless poise, a faint shimmer of protective magic keeping her steady. “Are you drinking enough water? I read this amazing study…”

“Ginny!”

By the time the class ended, I was sore, sweaty, and secretly impressed by her calm. But she steered me toward the enchanted smoothie bar, where glasses floated toward us and ingredients hovered in midair, mixing themselves. “I’ll get us both the ‘Sunshine Glow’,” she said. “Turmeric, ginger, a dash of something that clears the mind.” She winked, like she knew exactly how to nudge me out of my stress-fog.

I sighed as a pixie barista blended our drinks into an oddly glowing green. Ginny led me to a window seat where the magical autumn leaves outside shimmered in shades of gold and crimson, rustling with a gentle hum that sounded almost like laughter. The air smelled of crisp earth, a hint of woodsmoke, and faintly of spellwork lingering from the city’s magic.

Ginny stirred her smoothie with a levitating straw, watching me with that familiar, piercing gaze. “You know, you don’t have to pretend everything’s fine just to reassure me.”

I sighed and took a sip of my drink. It tasted aggressively healthy, as if someone had juiced a meadow and then whispered “mango” vaguely in its direction before enchanting it to hum with restorative virtue. “Ginny, I’m fine. Honestly. You don’t have to keep worrying about me.”

Ginny fixed me with a look over the rim of her cup. “Hermione, I’ve seen your flat.”

“So?”

“So? So, it looks like a tornado hit it. And not a natural one… more like one of my brother’s experimental mini-cyclones. The kind that targets laundry piles, empty teacups, and unopened owl-post with surgical precision.”

I grimaced. “Alright, perhaps it’s a bit… chaotic.”

“It’s a hazard zone,” she insisted.

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve always been messy. You know that. It’s just who I am.”

Ginny tapped her wand against her cup, reheating her smoothie with a quiet sizzle. “Yes, but it’s worse than usual. You’re working too much. You’re stressed. And since we’re discussing your wellbeing…” She paused, eyes narrowing in mischief. “Are you seeing someone?”

“Ginny.”

“What? I’m allowed to take an interest in your life. It’s practically my job as your best girl friend.”

I leaned back against the enchanted windowpane, which obligingly warmed against my spine. Outside, autumn leaves swirled through the street in perfect spirals.

“Look,” I said, exhaling, “I appreciate that you care. I do. But I’m fine. Really. My life is stable. Work is demanding, but meaningful. And yes, I’m busy, but that doesn’t mean I’m on the brink of collapse.” I met her gaze. “I’m allowed to be messy without it being a sign of imminent crisis.”

Ginny softened, giving me one of her rare, sincere nods. “Alright. Fair point.”

A beat.

“But you could at least Vanish the recycling.”

I snorted. “I’ll… think about it.”

Outside, a gust of magic-tinted wind swept the leaves into new patterns, spirals unfolding like small runes across the pavement. For a moment, it was almost soothing. Ginny took another sip, looking entirely too pleased with herself.

“Excellent. Now that we’ve covered basic life maintenance...”

“Ginny, please don’t.”

“...tell me about your love life.”

I stared into my smoothie as if it might offer an escape route. I didn’t even know what I felt towards Draco. It wasn’t attraction, was it? Surely not. It was… curiosity. Interest. A desire to understand someone I’d once sworn I had utterly figured out.

Something about him now tugged at me in a way I wasn’t equipped to name. I absolutely couldn’t tell her whose voice had lingered in my mind since last night. He was warm, steady, and unexpectedly kind.

Curiosity. Interest. Possibility.

Whatever it was, it had started. I wasn’t sure I wanted it to stop, but I also wasn’t quite ready to speak about it.

“There’s no one,” I simply answered.

Chapter Text

Draco's POV

I leaned back into the couch, trying to shake the strange feeling that had followed me all day. It had started earlier that afternoon, when I was reviewing a proposal Kate had sent me. It was nothing out of the ordinary. Except that last line: “We want partners who are all in.”

Just a polished closing. Nothing meant to linger.

Yet it followed me into my meeting with the artist, clung to me on my way to Claire’s, and now sat like an inconvenient truth that refused to be filed away.

“I’m so glad you came over tonight,” she said, curling into my side. “You’ve been so busy lately. I was starting to think I’d have to kidnap you to get some time together.”

I set my wine glass on the coffee table. “Yeah. Things have been hectic.”

She tucked her legs beneath her, smiling like the room itself was softening around us. “Well, at least it should slow down soon, right? December’s almost here. And I was thinking… maybe you could come to my parents’ for Christmas. My mom’s already asking about you. She said she’d make her famous turkey if you’re free.”

I froze.

Only a heartbeat, but long enough for Claire to notice. Her smile faltered.

“I mean… only if you want to,” she said quickly. “No pressure.”

The words were gentle. They only made the heaviness in my chest worse. I should want to go. Claire was warm. Steady. The kind of person who didn’t flinch at shadows. Her family was probably the same. But the thought of sitting at their table, pretending to be someone I wasn’t and pretending to feel something I didn’t, tightened something behind my ribs.

I straightened, creating just enough distance between us to breathe. “Claire…”

Her brow creased slightly. “What is it?”

I wished I had an answer ready, something easy, something that didn’t feel like stepping off a ledge. But all I had was the echo of that damned proposal line and the uncomfortable realization that somewhere, somehow, something in me had shifted.

And I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t any longer.

“You’re amazing,” I said, picking each word with caution. “You’re kind, thoughtful… honestly, anyone would be lucky to be with you.”

Her lips curved into a small, wary smile. “But…?”

The sigh escaped me before I could stop it. “But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I realized… I don’t think I’m the right person for you.”

“What?” She straightened, confusion tightening her shoulders.

“It’s not that there’s anything wrong,” I added quickly, the words tumbling out. “It’s just… I’m not fully here. And it’s not fair to you. You deserve someone who’s as excited about Christmas with your family as you are. Someone who’s all in. And I’m just… not.”

Her face fell. Not dramatically, but enough that I felt a twist of guilt settle low in my stomach. She nodded slowly, letting the truth sink in.

“You… you don’t want to try? To see if we can work through this?”

I shook my head, the answer heavy but certain. “I have tried. But I’m just… not in love with you.”

Silence settled between us. Even the faint hum of her enchanted heater seemed to dim. Finally, she nodded again, biting her lip. “I can’t say this doesn’t hurt, but… thank you for being honest.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, my shoulders lowering an inch. Hurting her felt awful, but this was still the right thing to do.

“Do you want me to leave?” I asked quietly.

“Actually… yeah. I think that would be best.”

I stood, pulling my coat from the back of her armchair. I hesitated by the doorway, one hand on the knob. “I really am sorry, Claire.”

“I know,” she whispered, eyes falling to the floor.

I stepped out, closing the door behind me. Relief and regret washed together in a strange, uneasy blend, light and shadow mingling like the charmed streetlamps flickering to life outside.
But beneath all of it, steady and undeniable, was the truth: I’d done the right thing. Even if I had no idea what, or who, I was walking toward now.

I Apparated home in near silence, the kind that settles into your bones after a hard conversation. Claire’s words kept replaying in my head. Her mother’s legendary Christmas turkey. The invitation. “I was thinking… maybe you could come to my parents’ for Christmas.”

The world had spun away when I Disapparated, but the question lingered like smoke in my lungs. It wasn’t a bad idea. Her parents probably were lovely. But the thought of sitting at their table, smiling politely, pretending I wanted to be part of their world… it twisted something in my chest. All in. I really wasn’t.

Kate’s phrase from earlier floated back again with irritating precision… partners who are all in. It wasn’t meant for me, not personally, but it stuck like a burr on my robes all the same.

When I stepped into my flat, the familiar hum of the wards greeted me quietly. I flicked my wand at the sconces and warm golden light filled the space. Everything looked exactly as it always did: neat, functional, curated to the point of sterility. A place that could pass for home without ever truly feeling like one.

I toed off my boots and rolled up my sleeves. With a lazy wave, the fireplace crackled to life, its muted glow settling over the room. I cast a charm at the Wireless and a low-voiced detective began narrating some grim case, the kind of programme I usually found oddly soothing.

I poured myself a glass of water and leaned against the counter, staring at nothing in particular. My laundry basket sat by the bedroom door where I’d left it. With a snap of my fingers, the clothes rose in a neat swirl: shirts smoothing themselves, socks pairing up midair, trousers folding into crisp thirds. Still, I reached out and caught one of the shirts manually, refolding it by hand. Old habit. Something to keep me busy while my thoughts wandered to places I didn’t much like.

Claire again. Would she cry? Be furious? She didn’t deserve any of this. I’d let it drift too long. But better now than at Christmas, when her mum would be basting a turkey and I’d be sitting there pretending I belonged.

The neatly folded shirts floated into a tidy stack on the dresser. The detective on the Wireless launched into his closing monologue, some melodramatic line about knowing when to walk away before mistakes turn permanent.

I huffed out a humourless laugh.

If only everything else in my life were that neatly scripted.

Chapter Text

Hermione's POV

I woke up with my head still foggy from last night and immediately regretted deciding to work from home today. My little attic studio looked exactly like my brain felt: cluttered, cramped, and on the brink of a small collapse.

My desk, which was really just an old table I’d rescued from a second-hand shop in Diagon Alley, was buried under parchment scrolls, annotated drafts, quills that had dried out mid-sentence, and an empty bottle of orange wine I definitely didn’t plan to explain to anyone. I nudged it further behind a stack of books, just in case it somehow got caught in the reflection of my work mirror. Merlin forbid Eric see it. He’d have an opinion. He always did.

I pulled on my standard working-from-home uniform: soft leggings and an oversized wool top that I was fairly sure had once belonged to Ron. At this point, I had no proof of ownership one way or the other, and honestly, I didn’t care. It was comfortable, and that was enough.

I padded over to the tiny kitchen nook, grabbing fresh mint to make tea. The mint plant looked as tired as I felt, leaves drooping like it had seen things and politely wished to opt out. I tore off a few sprigs anyway.

As I poured hot water into my favourite mug, my elbow clipped the mint pot. It toppled off the counter and shattered on the floor.

“Bloody hell,” I groaned, crouching to gather the soil. Of course the dirt skittered straight between the wooden floorboards, settling into the kind of crevices no wand charm had ever fully reached. Perfect. My life in a single metaphor: messes slipping exactly where I couldn’t get to them.

I was still sweeping at the dirt with my hands when the enchanted mirror on my desk chimed with its too-cheerful ping. My scheduled briefing.

Right on time. Naturally.

I wiped my palms on my leggings, smearing a streak of soil I pretended not to notice, then hurried back to the mirror. I tapped the rim, activating the call.

Eric’s face appeared, crisp robes, perfect posture, expression already primed for productivity.

I plastered on a smile that felt only slightly unhinged.

“Morning, Eric,” I said brightly, hoping he couldn’t see the chaos at the edge of the frame. “Thanks for hopping on the call,” I said, lifting my mug of not-ready mint tea and trying to look like a person who hadn’t just swept a plant’s worth of soil under a chair with her foot. “I heard you’re decent with spell-weaving for admin work, and…”

Eric narrowed his eyes playfully. “Please don’t tell me you want me to do something for you like Claudine did. I’m still recovering from enchanting her entire filing system to alphabetize itself.”

I laughed. “Relax, pretty boy. I just need guidance, not free labour.”

He preened, pleased, as always, by any nickname containing the word pretty. “Alright then. What’s troubling the brilliant Hermione Granger this fine morning?”

I leaned back in my chair, dragging a hand through my hair, which was aggressively knotted. “I’ve been doing everything manually. Planning, reports, follow-ups, dispatching notices. Merlin, even my contracts are still written by hand ! I’m trying to use enchanted quills and generative spell scripts to streamline everything, but I… can’t seem to write the right runes. Or prompts. Or whatever we’re calling them now. I just end up with a quill having a nervous breakdown or parchment that catches fire.”

Eric nodded with great, sage seriousness while simultaneously crunching into yet another carrot. “Alright, first things first. You’re overthinking it. These spells are like apprentices: they do what you tell them, not what you meant to tell them.”

The man switched dips today: tzatziki instead of hummus. Honestly, with the amount of carrots he consumed, I was shocked his complexion hadn’t taken on a tangerine glow. His skin remained perfectly normal. It was an injustice I would investigate one day.

He kept talking, gesturing with a carrot as if it were a wand, which, knowing him, he’d tried at least once. “Start simple. You tell the enchanted quill exactly what you want: tone, structure, length. Give it sample language. Don’t rush. precision is everything. Once you anchor the spell, the rest is refining.”

And damn it all… he was making sense. I found myself leaning in, listening more intently than I’d like to admit. Normally he annoyed me in small, specific ways, like a quill that always scratched slightly too loud. But today? He was actually helpful. Clear. Efficient. Almost… pleasant.

Maybe, just maybe, Eric really wasn’t that bad after all.

After about twenty-five minutes, we wrapped up our call, both of us offering polite, vaguely optimistic wishes for “a productive rest of the day.” I ended the spell with a flick of my wand, the shimmering image of Eric dissolving into the air like mist.

I felt oddly energized, the way I used to after perfectly brewing a complicated potion on the first try. I’d actually learned something, and for once I wanted to put it into practice immediately. The Christmas fundraising gala was only a few weeks away, and the planning parchments were piling up in threatening little stacks around the room.

I drank the last of my tea and set the mug on the counter behind me with a lazy backward reach. The kitchen floor still had soil in the cracks from the fallen mint plant, but I decided to ignore that particular disaster for the time being. One triumph at a time.

The rest of the afternoon passed smoothly enough. I sank into my work, and for a while I even forgot about the chaos of the morning. It wasn’t until later, when the sky had turned a dusky lavender and I’d finally stretched my stiff back, that I remembered the mess waiting in the kitchen. Typical. One problem solved, two others sprouting like mandrake roots. Just as I was considering tackling it, a silvery shape swooped through the open attic window. A tiny, iridescent owl landed on my desk and presented a neatly rolled scroll. Ginny’s handwriting was unmistakable even before I opened it.

Fancy dinner tonight? New tapas place in Diagon Alley. They claim their olives cost ten galleons a portion because they’re “sun-kissed by Mediterranean sprites.” Dress robes optional but strongly encouraged.

Of course Ginny would choose a restaurant that took itself far too seriously.

I sent back a short reply with my quill, thanking her and turning down the invitation, “work to finish,” which wasn’t entirely untrue. But the real reason? I was on a roll, and when the universe finally granted me one of those rare, razor-sharp evenings where my thoughts aligned and my quill practically glided across the parchment, I wasn’t about to tempt fate with overpriced appetizers and Ginny Weasley’s infectious, chaotic energy.

Instead, I uncorked a simple bottle of wine and sliced a bit of Manchego I’d splurged on at the enchanted market last week. I arranged everything on an old, chipped vintage plate I’d found in a second-hand shop in Diagon Alley, put on some music (a soft, jazzy witch-radio station), and settled at my desk. Crossing items off my to-do list felt absurdly satisfying, each checkmark sending a tiny thrill through me. I promised myself I’d celebrate another night. For now, I had momentum and I wasn’t willing to let go of it.

By the time I finally closed the file of parchment, my brain was humming in that strange, exhilarating state where exhaustion and inspiration twine themselves together like impatient vines. I stretched until something in my back cracked, and glanced at the hourglass on my desk. The last grains had fallen long ago. Midnight. Brilliant.

I really should have gone to bed. Obviously. Instead, I eyed the empty wine bottle beside me with deep suspicion, as though it had tricked me somehow. A faint tap-tap-tap scratched at my window. I froze, my quill still hovering over the parchment. Another tap, impatient this time.

“Alright, alright,” I muttered, pushing away from my desk.

When I opened the window, a tiny owl no bigger than a teacup swooped in with the self-importance of a royal messenger. Ginny had clearly upgraded to a more dramatic delivery system. Or perhaps downgraded… the owl immediately crash-landed on my stack of documents and began preening like it expected applause.

“Thank you,” I said dryly, untying the scroll from its leg.

The owl hooted primly and took off again, leaving a dramatic puff of feathers in its wake. Ginny’s handwriting danced across the parchment:
Saturday. Still up for a bit of shopping? I need to find something for a Ministry gala with Harry and I refuse to trust my own taste. Come save me from buying something that screams 'professional Quidditch player attempting adulthood.’
— G.

I smiled despite myself. I grabbed a fresh sheet of parchment and scribbled back:
Of course. But you realise I don’t actually need new clothes, right? I own at least three perfectly serviceable outfits. And why are you still up at that time of night?
— H.

I tied the response to the owl’s leg and sent it off. It disappeared into the night like a disgruntled feathered comet. Less than two minutes later, the owl returned, wings beating furiously, another note attached.

I rolled my eyes. Ginny Weasley, master of instant correspondence.

You never know what you’ll find when you’re not looking. Cloaks with hidden pockets. Charm-proof trousers. A sense of adventure. And don't ask me questions.
— G.

I snorted, grabbing my quill again.

Fine, I’ll come.
— H.

The truth was, the only thing I’d actually felt curious about lately had absolutely nothing to do with fabric. Or shopping. Or anything I could explain to Ginny without her eyes lighting up with mischievous interest. I sent the owl back, snuffed out the candles, and stretched until my spine protested. It was well past one, the room dim and quiet except for the lingering, pleasant buzz of having actually accomplished something. Saturday would be uncomplicated.

Friendly.
Harmless.
Right?

Saturday arrived, and I made my way downstairs to meet Ginny. When she opened the door, her hair was tucked under a silk scarf patterned with tiny stars, and she was humming to herself as she adjusted a charm on her cloak.

“Come in! I’m just finishing up a few things,” she called, stepping aside.

I hung my jacket on the enchanted rack and the warm scent of spiced pumpkin candles drifted through the flat.

“Tea? I just brewed some with cinnamon and a sprig of holly,” Ginny offered, motioning toward a steaming cauldron on the counter.

I waved my hand. “No thanks. I had one of those ginger-and-lemon tonics this morning. Tea after that would taste like… treachery.”

“Why do you drink those things?” Ginny called from the far room, where I could see her levitating a stack of scarves into her wardrobe with a flick of her wand.

“They’re supposed to… purify you or something,” I replied, sinking into the couch. “Although, honestly, I think they’re just purifying my ability to enjoy life.”

Ginny laughed, the sound bright enough to make the little enchanted lights over the ceiling swirl in delight. “You and your potions and tonics. Sometimes I think you’d put a spell on happiness itself if you could.”

I smirked, watching her organize her enchanted wardrobe with practiced ease. “Maybe I already have.”

She raised an eyebrow, pretending not to notice the glimmer in my tone, and I settled back, letting the soft warmth of the flat and her laughter make the morning feel… impossibly light.

Ginny’s laughter echoed down the hall. A moment later, she reappeared, her hair still damp from a quick shower, shimmering faintly with the leftover traces of a charm she’d used to speed-dry it. She grabbed a pair of sneakers from beneath the enchanted coffee table and plopped down on the couch beside me.

“You look surprisingly put together for someone who apparently spent the evening late last night,” she said, raising an amused eyebrow.

“Thanks. The wine helped,” I replied, grinning. “And the ginger-and-lemon tonic, naturally.”

She rolled her eyes as she laced her sneakers, muttering something about “modern witch remedies” under her breath. I couldn’t help but chuckle at her expression, the little quirk that made her impossible to read sometimes.

Ginny stood up and grabbed her satchel. “Alright, let’s go before you change your mind and decide you should just stay home reading all day.”

I followed her out the door, bracing myself for the chaos that always came with thrift shopping with her: the flurry of colors, fabrics, and her insistence that everything was “perfect for someone.”

The store wasn’t far, a quaint little shop tucked between two enchanted apothecaries, its door jingling with a cheerful chime as we entered. Shelves and racks were packed so tightly that even walking down the aisles felt like navigating a labyrinth of charms and stacked clothing. A faint scent of lavender and old parchment drifted in the air, mingling with the faint hum of a levitation charm keeping several hats floating lazily above the racks.

Ginny wasted no time, grabbing a wicker basket that seemed to grow slightly to accommodate her finds, and dove headfirst into the nearest rack.

“Oh, look at this!” she exclaimed, holding up a sequined jacket that shimmered with tiny flickers of enchanted light. “Totally you.” She slung it over her arm without waiting for a reply, already disappearing toward another section.

I followed at a slower pace, scanning the racks with a half-hearted sense of purpose. Technically, I didn’t need anything. My wardrobe already had all the professional robes, blazers, and practical boots a witch consulting in magical London could want. But something about the hunt, the possibility of finding a piece that felt… different, that hinted at a version of me I didn’t often allow to exist, made me pick through the fabrics anyway.

Even if I didn’t need it, it felt nice to pretend I was looking for something that could remind me who I was beyond schedules, spreadsheets, and enchanted meeting reminders. Together, Ginny and I started hunting through the racks. She gravitated toward bright blazers and trousers with bold, swirling patterns, while I found myself reaching for rich jewel tones and deep emeralds that seemed to shimmer even without a charm. We held up pieces for each other’s approval, sometimes laughing so hard that a few enchanted scarves floated off the shelves in protest, sometimes nodding with genuine consideration.

“How about this?” Ginny asked, holding up a structured black blazer lined with a fabric that sparkled faintly as if it remembered sunlight.

“Now that,” I said, taking it from her, “could work. It’s classic, but the inside’s got personality.”

“See? Professional and edgy,” Ginny said, grinning. “Stick with me, and you’ll be running the boardroom in no time.”

I laughed, draping the blazer over my arm. “Alright, let’s keep going. But if you try to make me buy one of those glitter tops, we’re done here.”

“Oh, you’re buying at least one glitter top,” Ginny shot back, already snagging something absurdly sparkly that hummed with a faint enchantment, tugging slightly at her fingers like it was alive.

Arms full of an eclectic mix of clothes (some levitating slightly thanks to the store’s minor charms) we made our way to the changing rooms. Ginny claimed the stall closest to the mirror, while I took one a few spots down, the enchanted curtains swishing closed behind me. I glanced at my pile of potential outfits, feeling a mix of amusement and mild overwhelm. It was oddly satisfying to consider how these magical fabrics and subtle charms could transform not just a look, but a sense of self.

“This dress makes me look like I wandered off the set of Little House on the Prairie,” Ginny called out from her stall, stepping into view in a puffed-sleeve floral dress that seemed two sizes too big, the sleeves swishing like they had a mind of their own.

I was halfway through tugging on a pair of high-waisted trousers that had a faint shimmer of protective charm in the seams. I stifled a laugh. “You do look ready to churn butter,” I teased. “Very wholesome.”

Ginny snorted and ducked back behind her curtain. “Speaking of wholesome… you and Ron, have you been fine since that… evening? No awkwardness?”

I froze for a moment, pulling the trousers up fully and adjusting the waistband with a small flick of magic. My expression went neutral. “We’re fine. No awkwardness.”

Ginny peeked around her curtain, eyes narrowed, clearly suspicious. “Really? Because you spent the night at his place and then you said you weren’t going to try again. I just want to make sure that won’t be… weird.”

I stepped out of my stall, letting the trousers settle into place, the faint glimmer of the charms catching the light. “Nothing happened. I slept on the couch. It won’t be weird,” I said firmly. “I’ll still see him around, but that’s it. It’s over. It’s been over for a long time.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow but didn’t press further, instead holding up another blouse that shimmered faintly with an enchantment meant to resist wrinkles. “Suit yourself,” she said, flopping the blouse over her arm. I gave a small, amused smile, shaking my head. Even in a magical world full of endless possibilities, some things were still tricky.

I turned to the mirror, adjusting the waistband of the trousers with a flick of my wand to make them sit just right. “We’re just better off as friends. Or… acquaintances, I guess. Honestly, it’s fine.”

“Acquaintances? Harsh,” Ginny said from her stall, tugging on a cropped green jacket that shimmered faintly with a protective charm. “Are you sure you don’t have someone else? Is that why?”

I froze, avoiding her gaze in the mirror’s reflection. “It’s not like that.”

Ginny’s eyes narrowed, clearly unimpressed. “That wasn’t a no.”

I exhaled and stepped back into my stall, letting the curtain fall with a soft swish. “There’s no one else, okay?”

“You hesitated,” she said triumphantly, leaning against the thin enchanted divider that separated our changing rooms. “Classic guilty behavior.”

“It’s not,” I shot back, fumbling with the zipper of a new skirt, muttering under my breath as the charm on the fabric resisted a bit too much.

“It absolutely is. Come on, who is it? Someone from work? A client?”

I emerged from the stall holding up a sequined dress I’d grabbed as a joke. “I swear, Ginny, if you don’t drop this, I’m going to wear this to the next dinner party.”

She gasped dramatically. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” I said with a smirk, letting the blazer I’d picked up levitate itself back onto the rack with a gentle puff of magic.

By the time we finished sorting through the racks and navigating the small throngs of other magical shoppers, the early afternoon sun poured in through the enchanted glass windows, sending prismatic streaks across the street outside. After parting ways with Ginny, I climbed the narrow staircase back to my flat, balancing the magically lightened shopping bags on my hip as I whispered the charm to unlock the door.

Inside, I kicked off my shoes and let the bags settle themselves on the kitchen counter, as if they knew their place. One by one, I lifted the garments out, running my fingers over the fabric of my favorite find: a sleek black jumpsuit with tailored lines and enough stretch to move freely. Perfect for the upcoming fundraiser: elegant enough to blend in, functional enough to dart between tables and solve last-minute crises with a flick of my wand.

It wasn’t exactly daring or flashy, but it was me. I cast a small warming charm over the other pieces before dropping them into the laundry basket, then leaned back against the counter, already imagining the evening ahead. Prepared, poised, and ready. Exactly how I liked to be.

Chapter Text

Draco's POV

The wind shrieked along the rooftops, rain lashing the tall windows of my office with a fury only winter could summon. I sat behind my desk, everything arranged with precision. Stacks of parchment aligned by color-coded ribbons, enchanted quills hovering in midair beside inkpots, and the magically enchanted documents for the board meeting later that evening flickering faintly with protective charms. Order was my only defense against the chaos that seemed to lurk outside these walls.

I was reviewing my notes, murmuring spells to animate certain charts so they’d shimmer in time with my explanations, when there came a polite tap at the doorframe. Kate appeared, rain-slick hair tucked neatly behind her ears, and that familiar air of efficiency that seemed impervious to the storm.

“Got a minute?” she asked, her voice calm but carrying that unmistakable weight of purpose.

“Always,” I said, placing the final folder in its place on the desk. “What’s up?”

She stepped fully into the office, arms folded. “I need a favor. It’s about the rental for Hermione’s fundraiser in two weeks.”

“Of course. What’s going on?” I gestured toward a levitating chair, but she remained standing, surveying the papers on my desk as if deciding whether they were satisfactory.

“I can handle the setup the day before,” she said, eyes flicking to the window as a streak of lightning illuminated the city. “But I have an unavoidable appointment on the day of the event. I can’t be there. So… I was hoping you could oversee it. Make sure everything runs smoothly, that no one trips over enchanted decorations or knocks over the wine bottles.”

I paused, weighing the request. I could feel the subtle tension in her posture, the pressure of someone trying to do everything perfectly without revealing vulnerability.

“Consider it done,” I said, letting my tone convey more than words. “I’ll be there. Just send me the invitation. I’ll add it to my schedule.”

Kate’s shoulders relaxed, the faintest of smiles crossing her face. “Thanks, Draco.”

She left as quietly as she had come, the door’s charm humming softly behind her. I turned back to my notes, listening to the rain patter against the glass, and allowed myself a small smirk. Somehow, inside of me, I was happy to be the one managing the event with Granger. The truth was, I enjoyed the time we ended up sharing. Those brief crossings in staircases, the work meetings, the way her gaze would catch mine for a second too long before she moved on. We always seemed to orbit each other, as if by some unspoken pattern neither of us acknowledged. And I didn’t mind it. If anything, I found myself stretching those moments whenever I could.

She was striking in ways I preferred not to think about too closely. She was all sharp wit and stubborn spark and I wasn’t particularly interested in talking myself out of noticing. Not when being around her felt… good. I doubted she felt anything similar; whatever thread existed between us was probably thin. Still, I didn’t want to let go of it. Not yet. Not when working with her meant I had one more reason to be around her.

The board meeting had drained me more than I expected. Even though everything went smoothly: detailed presentations, seamless discussions, and decisions made without a hitch, I could feel the exhaustion settling in my bones the moment I stepped out of the conference room. By the time I got home, the wind had picked up again, the rain still relentless against the windows. I didn’t bother to change out of my suit; I just kicked off my shoes and collapsed on the couch. The apartment was silent, a calm that felt almost suffocating after the buzz of the meeting. Sleep was pulling at my mind, and I didn’t fight it.

Within minutes, I was out, drifting into a heavy, almost dreamless sleep, my body finally surrendering to the exhaustion of the day.

The next few days passed in a blur. Friday came and went, the hours slipping away between meetings and unexpected tasks. The weather didn’t let up; the skies remained overcast, and the cold seemed to seep into everything. Before I knew it, it was Sunday morning. Theo and Sylviana had invited me for brunch, a welcome break from the constant pace of the week. I made my way over, the rain making the sidewalks slick beneath my shoes.

When I opened the door to Theo and Sylviana's place, the first thing I noticed was the frantic jingling of enchanted feather dusters floating in the air, chasing each other in dizzying loops. From the kitchen came two very loud voices, arguing over something important, while in the living room, the four-year-old twins were attempting to direct the flying dusters with wands like junior conductors.

“You can’t dust with the cat in the way!” one twin shouted, waving her wand wildly. Charlie, their sleek black cat, was leaping and twisting midair, magically avoiding the dusters with the kind of grace that only a slightly exasperated magical feline could pull off.

“She scared him first!” the other twin countered, sending a particularly speedy duster zooming toward the ceiling.

Theo looked like a man balancing between laughter and defeat. “Sorry, they’ve been trying to help,” he said, motioning to the dusters now whizzing in unpredictable orbits. “Mostly it’s scaring the cat, though.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as Salem, clearly done with the chaos, let out a sharp hiss and flicked a paw, sending one duster spinning into the hallway with a dramatic whoosh.

“Maybe you need to find a less… confrontational way to get them involved?” I suggested, stepping carefully through the chaos.

Theo gave me a rueful grin. “Yeah, I was thinking something simpler… maybe feather dusting on shelves. Safe distance, no felines involved.”

Before I knew it, Sylviana came down the stairs, hands on her hips. Her gaze locked on me, and I instantly knew what was coming.

Sylviana crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing. “Draco Malfoy… you just went and broke up with Claire?” Her voice was sharp, carrying the weight of genuine disappointment. “No warning, no conversation with anyone who actually cares about her. You just… left?”

I raised my hands, trying to keep my tone light, but I could feel the tension creeping in. “It wasn’t like that. We talked. No shouting, no drama…”

Sylviana didn’t let up. “No drama? Really, Draco? Because Claire’s heart is apparently not equipped to handle your version of ‘no drama.’ You just… dumped her. That’s not nothing.”

I felt my patience fray, the rain outside thrumming against the windows like a drumbeat matching my irritation. “Why do you care so much who I’m sleeping with anyway?” I said, the words sharper than I intended.

Her face twisted in disbelief and fury. “Because she’s my best friend, you prat! Because I’ve seen her care about someone, and I won’t let you treat her like an object!”

I swallowed. She wasn’t just angry. She was hurt, protective, and furious all at once. My usual arrogance felt hollow here.

“I did the right thing, Syl” I said, my voice quieter, grudgingly. “I tried, but I wasn’t in love with her. I couldn’t know the very moment I met her… I had to actually go out with her to realize that she wasn’t the one for me.”

Sylviana’s shoulders rose with another sharp breath. Some of the fire in her eyes dimmed, her stance losing that rigid, ready-to-fight edge.

“I just…” Her voice dropped a notch. “I hate seeing her feel like she wasn’t worth more than a few months of your time. She deserved honesty. And so did you.”

I swallowed, the knot in my chest loosening slightly.

Sylviana looked at me and her expression eased even further, the frustration melting into something almost sympathetic. A faint smile tugged at her lips, weary but genuine. “You’re not a bad guy, Draco. You’re just… dense sometimes.”

She nudged my arm with the back of her hand. Not quite forgiveness, but close enough.

“But next time,” she added, voice regaining a spark of that familiar bite, “try not to break the heart of someone who comes to me crying about it. It’s exhausting, and I’ve got better things to do.”
Her tone was teasing again, thank Merlin.

The chaos in the living room was beginning to subside as Theo finally managed to wrangle the enchanted duster away from his daughters. The thing had been zipping around like a drunk snitch, shedding sparks of gold every time a tiny hand tried to grab it. Now it sputtered in defeat, hovering sulkily above Theo’s palm as he muttered a containment charm. The twins, glitter sticking to their cheeks like war paint, flopped dramatically onto the couch, arms crossed and lower lips trembling in identical indignation.

Theo gave the duster a triumphant shake (somewhere between I win and please don’t explode again) before glancing back at Sylviana and me. My friend raised an eyebrow, shooting me a knowing look before turning to his wife.

He leaned casually against the armrest of the couch, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you,” he said to her, his voice light but with that familiar teasing edge. “I told you Draco didn’t like easy.”

Sylviana rolled her eyes, but there was a flicker of amusement tugging at her expression. Theo grinned wider, clearly pleased with himself, and gestured vaguely in my direction as if I were Exhibit A in a case he’d been presenting for years.

“I mean, come on,” he added, tone conspiratorial. “This guy? He thrives on overcomplicating things. Give him two options, one easy and one a nightmare, and he’ll pick the nightmare every time. It’s like clockwork.”

“Thanks for the insight, mate,” I said dryly, crossing my arms, though the traitorous corner of my mouth insisted on curling upward.

Sylviana let out a breath, shaking her head. “Well, I’d hope he could figure out what he does like sometime before we’re all too old to care.”

“Maybe I just haven’t found it yet,” I offered with a shrug.

Theo chuckled and straightened up, tossing the shimmering duster’s containment orb from hand to hand like it were some sort of magical grenade. “Well, whenever you do, just make sure it doesn’t involve terrorizing the cat with this thing.”

As if on cue, Salem the cat peeked from behind a bookshelf, fur still standing on end and little sparks of residual enchantment drifting off his tail. He meowed once before vanishing under the sofa.

Chapter Text

Hermione's POV

Everything was perfectly set up from the day before.

Kate and I had worked well past dinnertime to make sure the gallery would be impeccable for the Ministry’s charity fundraiser I’d agreed to coordinate. I treated it like any other important project. Optional planning session or not, it received the same relentless attention I gave a legislative reform. There was a certain satisfaction in getting every detail just right.

The transformation still surprised me when I stepped inside. The old stone gallery, usually echoing and slightly cold, had turned warm and welcoming. Soft lantern charms floated near the ceiling beams, casting a slow-moving golden glow that mimicked candlelight. Round cocktail tables, draped in deep navy linens, dotted the room. Each held a frost-white bloom enchanted to shimmer as though dusted with fresh snow.

Even the artwork looked livelier than usual. The moving canvases adjusted their tones to match the energy of the room. A stormy seascape calmed its waves, an enchanted forest softened its shadows with flickers of fireflies. I hadn’t technically altered any of them, though I suspected the ambient magic had taken the hint from the atmosphere I’d created.
Near the entrance, the registration table stood perfectly prepared. Donation forms quivered in neat stacks, and the quills were lined up so precisely that anyone who nudged one out of place would pay for it emotionally. (Draco insisted they were sentient. Honestly.)

The bar to the left was stocked with wine, cider, and the seasonal cocktail I had devised: spiced apple elixir with a dash of oak-aged Firewhisky. Warm, smooth, and just dangerous enough that I’d considered watering it down. Briefly.

In the far corner, a string quartet tuned their instruments, the acoustics bending around them in a way only magic could manage.

I took a step back, hands on my hips, evaluating the hall. A floating lantern hovered slightly too low, so I nudged it up three inches with a flick of my wand. Better.

I slipped my wand into my sleeve and headed toward the administrative wing to find Kate. Oddly, she hadn’t left a note or any instructions… unusual for her, which made my stomach tighten. My footsteps echoed softly at first, then stopped. Something felt off. Then I resumed, faster this time. If Kate wasn’t in her office, there was only one other person who would know what was going on, even if he acted like he didn’t care half the time.

I marched straight toward Draco’s office. He was at his desk when I arrived, watching the rain trail down the charms-reinforced window. London looked muted and silver-toned behind him, and he looked… thoughtful and... handsome.

When he finally raised his eyes toward me, he found me standing in the doorway, arms crossed, frown firmly in place.

“Where is Kate?” I asked, not bothering with pleasantries. Whatever was going on, I intended to find out.

He raised an eyebrow at my question, looking composed. “She told me she wouldn’t be here tonight,” he said. “Something came up. I told her I’d cover for her. Didn’t she tell you?”

“No,” I replied, far too flatly. My lips pressed together before I could soften them. “Of course she didn’t.” A sigh slipped out despite my best effort to restrain it. “It’s fine. Truly. I just wish I’d known sooner.”

Draco nodded once. “If you need help with anything, I’m here.”

“Thanks. But everything’s under control.”

“Of course it is,” he said, kindly. Irritatingly kindly. I turned to leave, ready to return to the hall and stop thinking about him entirely.

“Hermione.”

I stopped.

My name hung in the air with a weight it had no business carrying. Not Granger. Not Miss Granger. Not the polite, careful distance he usually maintained. And I loved the way it sounded when he said my name.

Hermione.

I glanced back at him.

“I’ll join you in about fifteen minutes,” he said simply. “I just need to finish the payroll.”

It was an innocuous statement. Practical. And yet the way he said my name…

“Alright,” I managed, keeping my voice light, deliberately steady. Then I turned and headed back down the corridor, steps brisker than necessary.

I told myself I wasn’t going to dwell on it. I told myself it was nothing. Just a name.

Except it wasn’t lost on me… not even a little.

***

Draco's POV

It was close to 11 p.m. when the last guests filtered out into the damp London night, and Hermione and I were left alone to take down what was left of the event. There was far more work than I cared to admit, but I wanted it done tonight instead of handing Tomorrow-Draco a flaming disaster. I already knew I’d be tired all weekend; I was simply negotiating with the degree of misery. The gallery had transformed into a battlefield, strewn with empty glasses, crumpled napkins, abandoned programs. The tablecloths were blotched with the soft ghosts of red wine circles, and the floral arrangements had surrendered completely, shedding petals across the tables like confetti at a wedding no one remembered agreeing to attend.

Hermione grabbed a black garbage bag and started clearing the worst of it: plates left on window sills, napkins stuffed between chairs, a champagne flute that had somehow found its way onto a stack of brochures. Meanwhile, I began collapsing the tables, careful to muffle the sharp snap of the folding legs.

I saw her pause as she crossed the room, her heels soft against the polished floor. With a flick of her wand, several dishes rose into the air and swooped neatly into the bag she held open with her other hand. Efficient, precise. Very her.

“I can grab another bag,” I offered, setting down the table I’d been folding.

“It’s fine,” she said, distracted, already walking toward the supply closet. A ribbon of blue light trailed from her wand, guiding her path in the dimmed gallery.

By the time she returned, I’d stacked a dozen chairs and floated them toward the storage room, and she’d already cleared two of the four tables. Another wave of her wand sent half the glassware gliding toward the catering crates, clinking softly like polite applause. It was almost… pleasant, watching her magic unfurl so naturally around her. Unaffected. Beautiful, even.

She passed near me again, absently rubbing her stomach, and I remembered that neither of us had eaten anything substantial. I hadn’t had time to snag a canapé, let alone one of those tiny sliders that looked like food and disappointment in equal measure.

“You alright?” I asked before I could think better of it.

She nodded, though she didn’t quite look at me. “Just hungry. Didn’t really stop all evening.”

“Let’s order something. No way we’re getting out of here before midnight, and I doubt either of us will survive on an empty stomach.” I dusted my hands on my trousers and glanced toward the main door. “There’s a late-night Floo-delivery service a block away. I’ll pop out and be back in ten minutes.”

Hermione didn’t even look up from the stack of napkins she was Vanishing. “Anything. Just carbs. Lots of carbs.”

That, at least, was easy.

I shrugged on my coat, stepped into the charmingly creaky employees’ Floo (the owners insisted it added ‘historic character’), and vanished into green flames. By the time I returned, barely eight minutes later, I had two steaming pizza boxes hovering obediently beside me and a paper bag enchanted to keep the garlic knots warm.

The gallery filled instantly with the intoxicating smell of melted cheese and roasted garlic. It was a blessed contrast to cleaning charms and old stone.

Hermione appeared from behind a tall display case with three half-full bottles of wine cradled in her arms, the glass clinking together with a perilous wobble as she set them beside the food.

“Before you say anything, it’s not cheap happy-hour wine,” she said quickly, an unmistakable spark of mischief in her eyes. “It’s privately imported for the event. A really good bottle of Prosecco and two reds actually worth drinking.”

I raised an eyebrow, lifting the lid of the top pizza box. “I’m not convinced this is… health-and-safety appropriate.”

“Oh, come on,” she said, already pouring us each a glass of Prosecco with a neat flick of her wand. The bubbles rose in delicate spirals, catching the soft glow of the lantern-charms overhead. “It’s not like we’re taming a rogue levitation charm. Unless you count stacking chairs as a workplace hazard.”

Her delivery was so matter-of-fact, yet so completely unserious, that I couldn’t stop the corner of my mouth from twitching upward. She was quick and her playful tone had a way of softening the edges of what had undeniably been a very long day.

I folded my arms, narrowing my eyes in mock disapproval. “You know, I’m fairly certain the Ministry wouldn’t agree with your definition of workplace hazards.”

She tilted her head, utterly unbothered, wand still poised over the Prosecco. “Draco, live a little. You just worked a seventeen-hour day, cleaned up after a hundred people, and you’re not leaving for at least another hour. I think we deserve this.”

Her logic was impeccable, infuriatingly so. With a resigned sigh, I sat down across from her, muttering, “This better not end up in the minutes of some HR meeting between Sabrienne and Richard.”

Her grin widened as she handed me the glass. “I promise, your secret’s safe with me.”

She clinked her glass lightly against mine.

And as the sound chimed through the half-lit gallery, I had the distinctly dangerous thought that I didn’t really want this night to end.

The bubbles fizzed softly as we toasted over the pizzas, and for a moment, the gallery felt less like a worksite and more like an impromptu, cozy dinner. The lantern-charms overhead flickered gently. I watched her take a sip of the Prosecco, her expression lighting up as though she’d just uncovered a hidden trove of galleons. There was something disarmingly magnetic about her… how she could turn a late-night cleanup into an occasion, how the mundane suddenly shimmered when she was around.

Outside, the rain drummed in gentle percussion against the glass, but inside the warmth and the soft glow of floating lanterns, it might as well have been summer. The chaos of the fundraiser felt distant as she laughed at some minor observation I made.

By the time we were finishing the last of the cleanup, I could feel the wine loosening the edges of my usual control. Not enough to be reckless, but just enough to allow my thoughts to wander. Conversation had drifted into easy territory: anecdotes from the day, small observations about the enchanted decorations, the harmless teasing that, somehow, felt far too natural between us. Hermione leaned back in her chair, swirling the last of her Prosecco gently. For a moment, she seemed to hesitate, as though weighing her words.

“So… do you still see your mother?” she asked softly. “Even though you’ve said you don’t want anything to do with the rest of the Malfoy family?”

I let out a quiet, almost humorless laugh. “Occasionally,” I said. “She remarried a few years ago and moved to France. I visit when I can, but… it’s not frequent. We keep in touch, but it’s… complicated.” My fingers drummed against the table, restless. “And as for my father… we don’t speak. Haven’t in years.”

Hermione’s eyes softened, the way they did when she looked at someone she trusted. “I see,” she said quietly, her voice gentle. “I can’t imagine it’s easy to balance all of that.”

I shrugged, leaning back in my chair, feeling the warmth of the wine and the exhaustion of the night settle over me. “It’s manageable. Not perfect, but… life rarely is.”

There was a pause, and then Hermione spoke again, her tone measured but kind. “For what it’s worth… you’ve become a really decent man, Draco. Thoughtful, careful, and… far better than I would have expected, given everything. You’re nothing like your father.”

Her words caught me slightly off guard. I felt a flicker of something in my chest. Surprise, gratitude, maybe even something warmer. I wanted to say something clever in reply, but instead I just nodded, letting her sentiment sink in.

For the first time that evening, I felt like the weight of my family’s history could be put aside, at least for a little while.

Her smile softened, something warm flickering behind her eyes as she nudged the bottle toward me. “Now, sit.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You’re about to keel over, and I refuse to drink this entire bottle alone,” she said. “Floor. Now.”

A quiet breath of laughter escaped me (Merlin, she was insufferable) and I slid down beside her until my back hit the stone wall. She refilled our glasses with an air of triumph.

“To… complicated family situations” she said, lifting her glass toward the enchanted string above us. One of the bulbs flickered indignantly, as if protesting.

I touched my glass to hers.

The wine warmed pleasantly through me, loosening the tension coiled in my shoulders. The room felt smaller, gentler, as if the magic buzzing faintly through the rafters softened itself just for us. We talked, or rather drifted through conversation: old cases, ridiculous coworkers and their carrots (literal carrots, no metaphor). Nothing grand, but every word felt strangely anchored.

After a while, she paused, her eyes tracing my face with a care that made my pulse tighten, probably noticing I was still only half present with her. “Draco,” she said quietly, “you’re not him. Not even close.”

My breath stalled. I looked down at my glass, watching the liquid ripple as though it too felt exposed.

“You’re the kind of man who stays late to fix a mess no one will thank him for,” she continued. “And the kind of man who still makes time to sit on the floor with someone who… needed the company more than she wanted to admit.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Her words pressed against something long shuttered in me.

I cleared my throat, aiming for levity, but the sound came out far too soft. “You’re welcome,” I murmured.

She smiled in a way I wasn’t prepared for. The kind of smile that could undo a man if he let it.

The fairy lights above us hummed gently, casting her in gold. And in that quiet, enchanted glow, I realised with a jolt we’d crossed some invisible line. We were no longer just colleagues who tolerated each other at ungodly hours.

We were something beginning.

Hermione let out a long, weary sigh and, before I could make sense of what was happening, her head tipped softly against my shoulder. I went rigid. She didn’t seem to notice or she was far too tired to care.

“Sorry,” she murmured, not moving an inch. “I’m… completely done. If I close my eyes, I’m sleeping right here on this floor next to you.”

A few curls brushed my jaw, carrying with them the faintest trace of something warm and subtle… chamomile, maybe, or some botanical thing she probably brewed herself. I stared very hard at my wine, as though the glass might rescue me from the sudden awareness curling low in my stomach. I wanted to place my arm around her to bring her closer to me, but I didn’t.

“You earned it,” I said quietly. “Tonight took a ridiculous amount of work.”

She hummed, the sound soft and content, still resting against me as though it was the most natural thing in the world. And Merlin help me… it felt nice. Too nice.

Comfortable, even.

Dangerously comfortable.

After a moment, I cleared my throat, trying to reassemble some shred of dignity.

“How are you getting home?” I asked, keeping my voice steady.

“Cab,” she replied, her voice muffled. “I wasn’t about to apparate home tonight.”

“Good,” I said. “After all this wine, I’m surprised you’re still upright.”

“Barely,” she muttered, smiling faintly. “What about you?” she asked, finally lifting her head to look at me. Her face was curiously close to mine.

“I’m walking,” I said. “It’s only about fifteen minutes.”

Her brows furrowed. “In this weather? It’s pouring rain.”

“I’ll survive,” I said with a small shrug.

“You’re ridiculous.” She shook her head, but her tone was light, teasing.

For a moment, she stayed sitting there, studying me like she was weighing whether or not to say something more. Then she leaned back against the wall again, letting out another sigh. “I guess we’re both ridiculous,” she said softly, closing her eyes.

I glanced at her, half-smiling despite myself. Ridiculous didn’t feel so bad tonight. Her cab pulled up a few minutes later, headlights slicing through the darkness outside the gallery’s glass doors. Hermione grabbed her bag and stood, wobbling slightly before steadying herself.

“Well,” she said, giving me a small, tired smile. “Thanks for… everything. Tonight was a success, right?”

“Definitely,” I replied, holding the door open for her. The cool November air rushed in, and she tucked her coat tighter around herself.

“Goodnight, Draco,” she said softly before stepping out into the rain.

“Goodnight, Hermione.”

I waited until the green flames swallowed her silhouette and the hearth went dark before I exhaled and closed the gallery doors. The space felt truly empty now, the kind of quiet that settles only after the last trace of magic fades from the air.

I moved through the room on instinct: extinguishing the sconces with a flick of my wand, dimming the enchanted lanterns, resetting the wards one by one until the familiar shimmer ran across the doorframes. Each soft hum and click grounded me. Routine meant the night was officially over.

Outside, the rain was steady but not punishing, a cool sheet that blurred the streetlamps into streaks of light. I tapped my wand to my umbrella, Impervius, and stepped out onto the glistening pavement. The street was empty, London quieter than usual, puddles rippling under the drizzle.

As I walked, my thoughts drifted back to Hermione.

Tonight had been… different. She had that maddening knack for catching me off guard, for being both startlingly competent and endearingly chaotic in the same breath. I kept replaying the way she’d insisted we finish those bottles of wine, her laughter bouncing off the gallery walls, her head resting against my shoulder as though it belonged there.

It had been comfortable. Too comfortable.

I tightened my grip on the umbrella as I rounded a corner, the cold air weaving its way through my coat. I wasn’t blind to how much I’d enjoyed her company, far more than I probably should have. There was something about her. Something that had lingered long after the wine.

A sharp gust of wind pushed against me as I neared my building, and I forced the thought aside. No point dwelling on it. It had been a long day, too much wine, too late an hour. Anyone would’ve felt a little… tangled. That’s all it was. Was it?

Still, as I stepped into the foyer of my building and waited for the lift, the image of her leaning into me tugged at me harder than I wanted to admit.

By the time I unlocked my flat and pushed the door shut behind me, I’d promised myself not to think about it anymore. But as I set down my umbrella and shrugged off my coat, the faint scent of flowers drifted back into memory, stubborn and impossible to ignore.