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Songs of Regret	By : RavieSnake Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 76454 -:- Recommendations : 5 -:- Currently Reading : 17
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters from it. I also hold no rights to any of the songs mentioned. I make no money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Mr. Borgin stood hunched over his shop counter attempting to sort through clumps of Kelpie hair he had in a squat black box before him. His eyes casually drifted about his empty shop, and he wondered to himself if his current task was even worth the trouble as he cracked his stiff neck. Why had he bothered to buy this rubbish off of a grizzled old merchant wizard in the first place?

‘I must be getting soft,’ he grumbled to himself.

As he began to work at a particularly nasty knot of hair, the door chime to his shop rang-out alerting him to the presence of a new customer. Borgin glanced down to the old parchment plastered to the dirty cabinet behind his counter and read the words that had suddenly appeared. His lips curled back over his yellow teeth and he raised his eyebrows in delight.

“Longing and regret,” he said to himself, “two of the highest paying emotions. Today might not be a total loss.”

Borgin was not a terribly gifted man, but he had surprised and pleased himself when he had come up with his little door charm some decades ago. Whenever anyone walked through the door of Borgin and Burkes the parchment behind the counter would instantly reveal their most prominent emotions or intentions. This proved to be a grand business tool as it gave the shop employees a heads-up as to the needs of their clients as well as to weed-out the rats and Ministry cronies.

The greasy shop keeper pushed the box of hair to the side and wiped his gnarled hands on a dingy rag in preparation to assist his new miserable patron. Borgin swept his gaze out among the shelves of his dimly lit store and squinted to take in the form of the man browsing his wares.

“Wonderful,” he sighed dryly to himself as he recognized the pale blond before him.

Borgin pursed his lips as he regarded Draco Malfoy. He remembered all too well the emotions and intent that this man had had when he entered his store twenty years prior. Fear, desperation…determination. “High-paying emotions,” he had thought shrewdly to himself at the time. But Draco hadn’t been interested in buying, and that day of demands involving an old vanishing cabinet marked only the beginning of nearly a year’s worth of hassle and unwelcomed Death Eater congregations in his small shop at all hours of the day. At least he had later managed to sell the teen an expensive cursed opal necklace.

“Why if it isn’t young Mr. Malfoy? You honor my humble shop with your presence,” Borgin groveled in an oily voice. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The tall blond shifted to face the old man. “You may cease with the false pleasantries, Borgin. I am merely here to browse. And I think we both know that I am not so young anymore,” Draco said in a cool, steady voice. He stood to his full height, showing off years of proper posture and looked down at the short, dirty shop owner with a look of complete indifference.

“Merlin, he looks like his father,” Borgin thought to himself. The Malfoy men had always been good at masking themselves. But the parchment never lied. He would have to approach this sale carefully.

“Yes, well, you are still young compared to me. I am but an ancient old wizard living out his last days hoping to better the lives of his faithful clients with his services,” he bowed dramatically. “Besides it is a shame to cast off one’s youth too quickly. In my years, I’ve found that those who do suffer quite the sense of… longing,” he drawled significantly. “Though surely you are young enough yet that you have nothing to regret.” Borgin suppressed a grin of glee as he noticed Draco’s breath hitch minutely.

“And what would you know of regrets old man?” Draco retorted coldly.

Borgin looked pointedly to the left arm that Draco had resting on the counter and said, without looking up, “I know that if a man does happen to have regrets, that there are certain means to eliminate them. For instance...” He broke his gaze and reached down beside himself into a cabinet and retrieved a small black box that he placed cautiously on the counter.

“This,” he began, “is a Paenitentia Pearl.”

He lifted the hinged lid of the box gently with his bony finger to reveal a brilliant green pearl. It was slightly larger than a quail’s egg and rested in the box atop a small, blood-red satin cushion. Draco’s mask of disinterest held as he peered down at the box. He looked back up at the shopkeep and raised one sculpted eyebrow. The edge of the old man’s lips curled slightly and he continued.

“This pearl is rare. It is quite possibly the last of its kind. Rumored to have been created by Hades himself, this tiny orb has the power to erase one’s regrets. One simply has to take it in hand," he demonstrated, picking up the pearl between two fingers and holding it at eye level, "and concentrate hard on the regret they wish to be no more.”

Borgin was now forcing his best poker face to hide his excitement. Draco’s mask had slipped and he was eyeing the pearl greedily. He almost had him.

“Now, though my store is small,” the old man went on, “I have been most successful in this life and, therefore, have no real regrets. Except maybe having to deal with that disgusting clump of Kelpie hair,” he chuckled mirthlessly while inclining his head towards the end of the counter where he had pushed the box of hair earlier.

He replaced the pearl lovingly in its box and closed the lid. He looked the pale man before him straight in the face then and asked, “Perhaps you know someone that could use it?”

Draco sucked in a deep breath and merely replied, “How much?”

Got him.

“A trinket as rare and powerful as this does not come easy,” Borgin stalled as he calculated in his head how much he thought he could get the rich man in front of him to pay.

“How much?” Draco simply repeated.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t part with it for less than 200 galleons,” Borgin stated plainly.

“Done,” Draco said and he took the box from the counter. He reached into his inner robe pocket and pulled out a small leather bag that jingled with coins. He tossed it on the counter and, without another glance or word, turned and strode out of the shop.

Borgin gaped at the bag on the counter and frowned. “Damn, I could have gotten more,” he voiced out loud to himself. He sighed. Oh, well. He had made a 190 galleon profit off the stupid thing. He hadn’t expected to be rid of it so soon either.

He had bought it just the day before off an old, blind hag. When he had laughed in her face when she told him that it was an ancient Paenitentia Pearl, she became quite enraged and insisted that it was genuine. Borgin had taken her anger as a reaction of desperation to make the sale. In one of his fits of ‘softness’ he took pity on the wretch and agreed to give her 10 galleons for it.

“If nothing else I can just sell it as a gem,” he had mused.

He knew it was a fake. No one would have sold a real Paenitentia Pearl for only 10 galleons, and they were a myth anyway. He smiled at his salesmanship as he counted out the galleons from the bag Draco had left. He had succeeded in selling a useless bauble for a decent profit. He wasn’t worried about what the Malfoy boy would do when he realized it was worthless. He really didn’t fancy having him as a repeat customer anyway after what he and his father had put him through all those years ago. He’d be just as successful without their filthy fortune.

Borgin finished counting the coins and placed them in his till. With his spirits high, the old man decided he’d gladly tackle that Kelpie hair and set about making a plan to profit off of it as well. He pulled the box back in front of him on the counter and looked down.

“Fucking hell!” he exclaimed out loud.

The box was empty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having just lowered the hood of his cloak, Draco squinted his eyes against the bright sunshine that poured down on him as he came to Diagon Alley, leaving the perpetually darkened Knockturn Alley behind. What had possessed him to venture into Borgin and Burkes that day he’d never know for sure. He had spent a good portion of the late morning just walking by himself with no particular destination. After seeing Scorpius off to school, he had had no desire to return to the empty Manor as his mother was in Italy and he knew Astoria was out. Not that he wanted to be there with her anyway.

Thoughts of his impending divorce weighed heavily on his mind. Divorces in the Wizarding World were rare and rarer still amongst the wealthy. The Malfoy name had already been marred by the events of the war and the media was sure to send it through the ringer again with this…and with enthusiasm. Astoria surely wouldn’t make it easy for him either. It hadn’t yet been a full day and she was already seeking a solicitor. Gods, how much of his fortune was this going to cost him?

He wondered now, as he strolled along the store fronts of Diagon Alley, if this hadn’t been Astoria’s plan all along. She had married him and given him his heir and was thus ensured access to his money, even if they parted, as the law guaranteed her at least part of his estate as alimony. She’d win either way. What a fool he had been! And now he was an even bigger fool having reduced himself to buying junk from old con-man Borgin.

Draco stopped walking suddenly and ripped the black box containing the Paenitentia Pearl out of his robe pocket and growled at himself in fury. The old man had played him like a fiddle. That greasy git was probably laughing all the way to the bank, delighted with himself for having pulled one over on a Malfoy.

“I might just as well have dumped those galleons in the sewer,” Draco thought bitterly.

His fist clenched around the box and, as his anger and shame mounted, he prepared to throw the blasted thing somewhere off into the distance. But just as he made to raise his arm, a tiny voice whispered to him in the back of his mind. “What if it’s real?”

He looked down at the box in his hand and opened it slowly. The pearl shone gorgeously in the sunlight and Draco was overcome with curiosity. He plucked the pearl from its tiny cushion and placed the box back in his pocket. He began walking again while he rolled the orb between his fingers, marveling at its smoothness. It was like solid silk. The world around him faded away as he walked and mulled over the pearl in his hands.

What was his biggest regret? What would he choose to erase if this thing was real? When had his life turned into a joke? What if…

**WHAM!**

Whatever his next thought would have been it was lost to him as he fell crashing to the ground.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hermione had just left Flourish and Blotts and attempted to shift the heavy shopping bags over her shoulder to make them easier to carry as she walked.

She had cried for nearly forty minutes by herself in the alley near Kings Cross after Ron’s revelation. Some part of her subconscious had known that it was coming, but it hadn’t made it any easier to actually hear. The crushing grief she felt over the loss of her marriage warred with her intellect as it attempted to rationalize her situation. She had not been able to think properly at all and her jumbled mind did nothing but intensify her emotions. Hermione knew there was only one thing that could calm herself enough to come to terms with her circumstances and figure out what to do next.

Books.

After she had composed herself enough in the alley, she made her way down to Diagon Alley and into Flourish and Blotts to peruse the books in hopes of finding something new to distract, and in turn, calm her overwhelmed brain. She spent the better part of the day loitering about the many shelves of books and lounging in the corners reading through the ones she found to be of interest. In the end, she decided to buy six of them. Two of them were rather weighty tomes that she discovered contained much information that she believed would be useful for her work at the Ministry. They would surely serve as great distractions in the hard, painful days to come.

As she shuffled down the street under the weight of her purchases, Hermione sighed and furrowed her brow as she thought about where she was actually headed to next. She wanted nothing more than to go home and curl-up with one of her new treasures, but the thought of watching Ron pack his things made her stomach ache. She couldn’t go to her parents’ home either, as an unannounced arrival would rouse suspicion and she didn’t have it in her to explain anything to them just yet. Harry and Ginny were probably still out with the children somewhere, so their place was out, and at that moment she simply didn’t feel comfortable going anywhere near any of the other Weasley family members. A rented room at The Leaky Cauldron was probably best.

Hermione huffed with the burden of the bags as she changed direction to head to The Leaky Cauldron, and felt her strength diminishing. She shifted the bags again as she walked and looked down to search for her wand amongst her robes so that she could spell the bags to levitate. Just as her hand was about to curl around her wand…

**WHAM!**

She collided full force into what she assumed was another human being. She saw stars momentarily as she fell back hard on her butt and her bags fell from her arms. She tried to sit up and brought a hand to her head with a groan only to hear a similar groan from the man on the ground in front of her.

Draco winced at the pain in his tailbone as he made to get-up off the sidewalk. He shook his head slightly and blinked his eyes several times in the direction of the woman that had run into him. Her face was obscured by her hand and a small strand of her curly brown hair that had come loose from her up-do. He got to his feet and offered her his hand to help her up off the ground. He realized too late that he still had the Paenitentia Pearl in that hand as she clasped her soft hand into it.

As she hoisted herself up, Hermione felt that the man had something in his hand, but she didn’t think on it. She pushed her hair out of her face with her other hand as she steadied her feet and looked up at the man that she had run into. She gasped as she looked into the widening silver eyes of Draco Malfoy.

Ron’s scathing insinuation that she and Draco were having an affair burst forth in her mind and the shock of it caused her knees to go weak.

As she began to slump, Draco shot out his other arm to steady her and she grabbed out for it reflexively. Her hand pushed back his sleeve as she took hold of him and revealed the snaking pattern of his Dark Mark. She stiffened at the sight of it and looked back up at him apologetically.

He looked down and pure horror and humiliation tore through him as he took in the sight of a frightened Hermione Granger clinging to him with her delicate hand over the ugly mark on his left arm. He stared into her big, brown eyes and the glassy tears he saw in them crushed any doubt he had about what his biggest regret was.

“I regret that I ever got that fucking Dark Mark,” he thought savagely.

Unbeknownst to Draco, at that very same moment Hermione had had her own thought. She could see the pain in his eyes as he stared at her hand touching his arm and she felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and pity for him.

“I regret that he ever had to receive that horrid Dark Mark.”
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Songs of Regret