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All of This	By : Hypersomniac Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 6266 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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All of This

Hypersomniac

Chapter Three: Who We Are, Who We Were

AN: Ah, I’m so glad that people seemed to enjoy the last chapter! So many hits, and even some more reviews. :D Replies to those will be below the chapter, but for now, kisses to all of you!

As a side note, I had been all gung-ho about updating quickly, but I was smack in the center of the large region that lost power a few weeks ago, and something about the surge shorted my laptop charger, so even after the power came on a week later jeez, my computer never did come back on. But I have a new charger again so here we go! Sorry for the delay!

“We could just rent a car,” Draco said as he and Hermione made their way down the escalators to the underground for the fourth day that week. Each day he came up with a new option, and each day Hermione had a difficult time explaining why it wouldn’t work. Draco was becoming more at-ease with muggle transportation, but he still did not enjoy the bustling, overcrowded stations.

“It’s not that simple,” Hermione sighed. Draco really understood very little about what it meant to leave the muggle world for the wizarding one.

“Sure, they have all sorts of businesses for it,” Draco argued. “It’s not like cars are in short supply, how expensive could it be?”

“It’s not that,” Hermione said, making her way through the turnstile and then waiting for Draco to do the same. “First, I was never allowed to learn to drive.”

“Your parents wouldn’t let you?” Draco guessed and Hermione shook her head.

“Not exactly,” she sighed. “Look, renting cars, and even driving them, they all require licensing, like Apparition.”

“So?”

“So… licensing requires identification, and as far as the muggle world is concerned, I’m deceased. It makes it a little hard to get identification,” she said darkly. Draco’s eyebrows shot up at this and Hermione sighed once more, realizing that this was going to require further explanation.

“Look,” she said as their train pulled up and they boarded, ignored by the bustling crowd, “there are truancy laws here. Children are actually required to go to school until they are of age, and parents can get into a lot of trouble if they don’t enforce it.” She didn’t delve to explain the subtle nuances of home schooling. “So when a child up and disappears to go to our school, they have to be completely off of the radar. Sure, the neighbours know we’re alive because we’re home on vacations and stuff, and our ‘deaths’ aren’t publicized or reported, but in all official records and such, we’re deceased.”

Draco took a second to absorb that fact. He had no idea what these kids went through to go to the wizarding world.

“That’s sad,” he said finally. Hermione scoffed.

“It’s not like I have a headstone,” she said. “It’s just on paper, and it makes getting identification absolutely impossible. Occasionally, when someone decides to return, the ministry reverses it all, but it takes a lot of work and a whole team of Obliviators to do the job, and you’re left with an education you never received and a bunch of people you’ve never met who remember you. That seems sadder to me,” she finished, half musing to herself now.

“You know a lot about it,” Draco said, impressed in spite of himself. Everything in his life, until recently, had pretty much been a given; easy and familiar in comparison to Hermione’s story.

“I considered it,” Hermione admitted, her voice almost a whisper. “Right after the war, I considered leaving and going back, but then I found out what it entails…”

She trailed off, her throat tight, but she was not upset over the hypothetical question of what her life would have become. She was thinking about her parents, how she had given them that same half-life that she had decided against for herself, without their knowledge or consent. How she had failed to locate them since. She wondered, not since the first time, if she had done the right thing, and if she would ever be able to set things right again.

Draco, for his part, gazed pointedly away as she took a minute to compose herself. When she spoke again her voice was strong and steady.

“So,” she said, pulling a file from her bag, “Anna Marks. Faint, fight, or flee?”

Anna Marks was their farthest prospective student in England, and it was lunchtime before they had even boarded their last bus to her town.

“Next bus is in five minutes,” Draco observed, gazing thoughtfully at the posted bus schedule. “The next one after that isn’t for an hour and a half. Might make for a longer day than usual, but I think we should take the second and grab some lunch.”

Hermione thought about the packed lunch, courtesy of Kreacher, stowed in her bag, but nodded anyway. Draco never brought a lunch, and he had to be getting tired of vending machine substitutes every day. She looked around, spotting a small diner.

“We could try there,” she said, pointing. Draco nodded in agreement and together they made their way across the street and inside.

“Sit anywhere,” a bored voice called out and they spotted a young woman seated on a stool flipping through a glossy magazine. She didn’t look up. “Be with you in a moment,” she added without much interest.

“I get the feeling we’re going to get excellent service here,” Draco said dryly. Hermione bit back a laugh as he led her to a booth at the back corner of the shop.

They slid into it and picked up the menus, which were sticky with syrup. Pictures of standard greasy diner fare were scattered across the laminated pages, and Hermione felt herself become a bit queasy looking at it. She had apparently been spoiled by Kreacher’s cooking for too long, which consisted of nothing deep-fried or heavy.

Hermione was puzzled by Draco’s consistent lack of lunch. Surely he had a whole army of house elves at his disposal, or at the very least a girlfriend or someone to cook for him.

She pushed these thoughts out of her mind. It wasn’t her business or her concern.

“What can I get you two to drink?” The waitress had finally pulled herself out of her magazine and was at their table, looking expectantly at them.

“Coffee,” Hermione said. The waitress nodded and turned to Draco.

“Same here,” he said, looking up at the woman. Hermione saw her go bright red and raised her eyebrows.

“Of course,” the girl said with a slight giggle. “Be right back.” She scuttled off, throwing back a glance at Draco as she rounded the counter.

Hermione, taken aback, watched as the girl poured their coffee and hurried back, setting Hermione’s cup down with more force than she probably intended. She set Draco’s down more carefully, her hands shaking slightly.

“Have you decided what you’d like to order?” she asked, now speaking directly to Draco.

“I’ll have the cheeseburger,” he said. The girl nodded and turned to Hermione.

“I’m not eating, thanks,” Hermione said, casting a glance at the sticky menu of grease-soaked foods. She swore she saw the girl roll her eyes but before she could be sure she hurried off again.

Hermione surveyed Draco, wondering what about him had their waitress all worked up. She supposed he might be attractive, with his platinum hair, which he had let grow out since school, and his steel gray eyes. He had filled out as well with age, his plain tee shirt stretched over broad shoulders. Yes, he might be exactly what a girl who spent her days flipping through glossy magazines looked for in a guy. In fact, Hermione could remember many girls who had fancied him in school. She had never really looked at him, though, and she was surprised to find that, had he not been Draco Malfoy, she might have found him attractive.

“What, Granger?” Draco asked suddenly, and Hermione realized she had been staring.

“I think the waitress fancies you,” she said evenly. Draco’s eyes flitted to the counter. His mouth was set in a hard line.

“She doesn’t know me,” he said, sounding angry, surprising Hermione. “If she had any idea, she wouldn’t look twice.”

The bitterness in his voice left Hermione at a loss for words. Did Draco really have no one? She imagined him alone in that manor house, with all of its demons, and she wanted suddenly and desperately to know that he had someone. But that question was just too personal, too much to ask of this man that she had met as a young boy, but had never really known at all.

Draco had been right in his prediction that taking the second bus would make for a particularly long day. By the time they arrived back in London the sun was low in the sky. Just a couple of hours more, if that, and it would be dark.

They parted ways and Draco headed towards the Leaky Cauldron, the designated Apparition point for this part of muggle London. Tom eyed him warily when he entered. A few people cast him furtive glances as he passed, but most ignored him pointedly.

“Something to drink, Malfoy?” Tom asked.

“Just Apparating,” Malfoy answered, noting that Tom looked exceptionally relieved.

Outside by the entrance to Diagon Alley, Draco turned on the spot. It was odd, he mused as he arrived at the manor. After a day with Granger, he always seemed to forget how people usually treated him.

Hermione came home to the sounds of a bustling kitchen and many overzealous voices. Ginny’s voice rang above the others, teasingly berating Harry, and Hermione had to grin.

“Well, really, you should have known it wouldn’t work,” Ginny was saying as Hermione entered the kitchen. She was seated on the long scrubbed wooden table, at a vantage point as she leaned over Harry, her wand pointed at his face.

“What happened now?” Hermione asked, used to coming home to find Harry and Ron in various states of disorder.

“He tried to hex someone,” Ginny explained, prodding at Harry’s face and making him wince. “Couldn’t think of anything by my bat-bogey hex, for some reason. Never had a flair for it. Clearly lost his head.”

She clucked her tongue in a way that strongly reminded Hermione of Molly, although she knew better than to say so, patted Harry on the shoulder, and then turned her attention to his glasses and her explanation.

“Anyway, of course it completely panicked the poor fool, who as it turns out was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, not even involved in the incident, and he fired a stunner over his shoulder and smacked Harry right in the face,” she said. “Broke his glasses and his nose, nothing serious.”

“Anyway, enough of that mess,” Ginny finished briskly, handing Harry his repaired glasses. “How was your day?”

“Uneventful, in comparison,” Hermione said as Kreacher set a cup of tea in front of her.

“The ferret’s not being too hard on you is he?” Ron chimed in.

“Please, Ron,” Hermione said, already exasperated. This sort of attitude was what she faced every time the subject of her job came up nowadays.

“All I’m saying is he’s still on probation, so if he’s making an arse of himself we could just—”

“Being an arse isn’t a crime,” Ginny interrupted. “If it was, we would have had you carted off years ago.”

“I don’t know why you’re sticking up for him!” Ron exclaimed. “He’s an evil git, right Harry?”

“No one said—” Harry tried, but Ginny cut him off.

“We’re all supposed to be moving on and trying for complete magical cooperation,” she pointed out. “Besides, it’s not like you have to work with him, and you don’t hear Hermione pitching a fit, do you?”

“No,” Ron admitted, his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Hermione, like he was trying to solve a rather difficult arithmetic problem. “You’re right, I haven’t.”

“What are you trying to say?” Hermione asked, her eyes narrowing to match his. Harry squirmed uncomfortably beside her.

“I’m just thinking that you seem awfully comfortable with the whole thing.”

“Is that a problem? It’s a job Ron,” Hermione’s voice was dangerously quiet, daring him to go where she thought he was going. Ginny cleared her throat uncomfortably, as though regretting bringing up Hermione’s feelings on the subject, or even her job at all.

“I didn’t mean…” she began warily.

“No, Ginny, let’s hear what the all-knowing Ron has to say,” Hermione said. The kitchen had gotten so quiet that they could hear Kreacher’s stew simmering at the far end of the room.

“I just mean you have to look at how it seems – you, part of the good side, and my girlfriend, off gallivanting with him, the poster child of the Death Eaters!” Ron said, seeming to gain certainty as he spoke.

“Gallivanting? Ron, I’m working!”

“Right, because that’s how people see it. And why did it have to be you, anyway? Surely there’s something more important for you to do.”

Hermione’s hand slapped the scrubbed tabletop hard, upsetting her tea and making Ginny jump.

“I’m sick of ‘important things to do’, and ‘Hermione Granger, war hero’, and ‘part of the good side’, and ‘Ron Weasley’s girlfriend’. I just want to be Hermione Granger, and that’s it!”

Hermione could barely breathe by the time she was finished with her rant. She had finally let it all out, gotten it off of her chest, so why did she feel like she was being suffocated by it all of a sudden?

Ron, for his part, looked absolutely livid. Harry and Ginny were looking determinedly into their teacups. Kreacher was nowhere to be seen.

“Well,” Ron said finally, seeming to be struggling to keep his voice even, “there you have it, Hermione Granger. That’s all you have to be, then.”

And with that he pushed his chair back from the table and stalked from the room, leaving the others, including Hermione, in shock at what had just transpired.

Draco was already peeling off his tee shirt when he entered his bedroom to find Pansy stretched out on his bed, flipping through an old photo album.

“Merlin, Draco, don’t you ever knock?” she asked, smirking.

“Since it’s my room, I’d say not,” he answered evenly, disappearing into his closet.

“You’re awfully late tonight,” Pansy called after him. “The mudblood keeping your nose hard to the grindstone, then?”

Draco flinched, thankful that Pansy couldn’t see him. He puzzled at his strange involuntary reaction to Pansy’s slight, but then brushed it off as a side-effect of spending a week with Granger.

“A bus ran late,” he said in answer to Pansy’s question. He pulled a clean shirt from a hanger and emerged from the closet, pulling it over his head.

“I didn’t know you could dance,” Pansy said, grinning as she held up a photograph of him at fifteen years old, dancing with his mother in the living room. He kept looking down at his feet, she kept raising his chin to look up.

“Clearly I can’t,” Draco said pointedly.

“Dancing lessons,” Pansy read from the back of the photo. “You must have gotten better.”

Draco didn’t answer. His mother had, like most pureblooded socialites, considered dancing to be a vitally important skill, so of course he had become proficient in it.

“Let’s go out for once, Draco,” Pansy sighed, flopping back on the bed and replacing the photo in the album. “Let’s go dancing.”

“You know I’m not going out,” Draco said in answer. “I don’t feel like dealing with people. Maybe Blaise will take you out. He’s a better dancer anyway.”

“What if I said I knew of a place where no one would know you?” Pansy wheedled. Draco sighed.

“Fine. You find a magical place like that and I’ll take you dancing,” he said skeptically.

“Not magical, Draco,” Pansy said with a wicked grin. “In fact, you may want to keep those muggle clothes on.”

AN: This isn’t where I really wanted to end this chapter, but the next part is pretty long, so short of writing like a twenty page chapter I had no choice but to split it in two.

Thanks for reading, and as always I’d love to hear what you thought! And now, replies from the last chapter!

Lydia: I would love to write about more of the parents, but I wonder if that wouldn’t take away from the main story? Hmm. There must be some way to integrate it and not lose focus. It’s a lot of fun to write. Glad you enjoyed it! :D

Amelia: Thank you! And don’t worry, this wasn’t the easy-out approach to Ron. We’re not done with him yet.

SharahWhitman: Oh thank you! I don’t use a beta, so it’s good to know that I’m doing well enough on my own. I’d hate for someone to be turned off to my story because of grammar, mechanics, capitalization, spelling, etc. It’s such a bummer of a reason for a story to go downhill. I’m glad you’re enjoying it, and hope that I continue to meet expectations! :D

Also thanks so much to sheedy for reviewing.

See you all next chapter!
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All of This