Monuments and Melodies | By : pepperdoc Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 4942 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise, book, or characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
He sat on the other side of the room from her in every class. Most people with whom they had always shared classes with them thought it was because he hated her and wanted to get as far from her as possible. They never realized, he had followed her to the university she had chosen. That the reason he sat across the room from her was to watch her gently touch her own lips during lecture.
Years had passed since she had last bitten her nails, and now she had beautifully manicured hands which she was immensely proud of. But she still had an oral fixation. She refused to bite on pens as most people do absently, when she was thinking very hard she started biting on her lips. But when she was simply listening to lectures, her left hand would gently rest on her lips. Draco had to figure out how to use a Muggles’ recording device (since magic was never allowed in lecture courses) otherwise he would have already flunked out. His eyes were consistently focused on her. He would turn his head toward the instructor and look at Hermione.
Today, Hermione seemed very distracted. She was sitting far straighter in her chair than she normally did, and Draco could see that rather than simply resting her fingers on her lips, she was digging her knuckles in to her face. Draco looked at her carefully and determined she looked extraordinarily stressed. She was barely taking notes. He looked down at the red light next to his own paper and realized how he might be able to finally shed the view she held of him.
“Class dismissed, read Dewhurst for Monday and be prepared for a quiz over it!” The professor shouted over books being collected and talking.
Draco watched Hermione slowly gathering everything of hers and slowly standing after the general exodus was finished. He sauntered over to her, “Everything alright, Granger?” He drawled in his usual tone.
She sighed then looked up at him, “I had a very bad night, and I don’t really feel up to this. Could we maybe try being nice to one another for once?”
He softened his face and gently said, “Yes Hermione, I will be nice. Did you get any notes down? Want to borrow my recorder?”
She looked at him gratefully, “That would be very nice Draco, but I don’t have anything to play it on. Maybe I can just copy your notes?”
Draco looked around and saw the next class was beginning to shuffle in, “Come on, let’s walk and talk,” He said gesturing for her to go ahead of him.
They walked through the busy halls to one of several smoking areas on campus. “Do you mind?” She asked him.
He chuckled, “No,” as he pulled out a pack of his own. They lit up, alone for a moment with the student body surging nearby. Most of the cigarette passed in silence, both thinking of many, many bad past experiences.
Draco suddenly dropped his bag on the ground with an unceremonious thump, and began rubbing the shoulder it rested on, and looking out over the quad. Hermione watched him, then asked, “Are the muscles sore or is it just been rubbed too much?”
He breathed out smoke and glanced at her, “Muscles.”
She put out her cigarette, and then pointed at the bench neither of them had sat on and told him to sit.
He sighed, “I know better than to argue with you, I think.”
“Finally you learn,” she said dryly. He sat and she gently probed his shoulder to find the knots under the surface.
“Really, it’s not that bad, you don’t have to- oooh,” he groaned as she slowly started increasing the pressure, working on the worst of the knots first. His eyes closed, and suddenly he was imagining a much more intimate encounter. His eyes flew open, and Hermione could feel his shoulder suddenly tense under her skilled fingers.
“Aw, Draco, I had just gotten it loosened. Whatever you just thought of that made you jump is causing a lot of stress on your muscles,” She said.
He gently placed his hand over hers and looked over his shoulder at her, “Tell me why you had such a bad night.”
She looked at him, surprised. “I, uh, well, I lost my apartment to a fire last night.” She came around and sat next to him on the bench. “I lost everything,” She started crying soundlessly, her face in her hands.
He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. She didn’t appear to hesitate; she just buried her head in the hollow of his shoulder and cried.
Once she had started sniffling, he offered her his handkerchief to clean her face and patiently waited for her to compose herself. “Do you have any ideas what you’re going to do?” He asked as gently as possible.
She sighed and looked at the mostly empty courtyard in front of them. “Well, since I live in a Muggle side of town, I can’t simply reconstruct everything. Harry is impossible to get a hold of since he took the position with the Ministry, and… well Ron is out of the question,” she sniffled again, tears beginning again, “And those are the only two people who still talk to me since the war is over now, so I’m all alone,” she buried her head in her hands, sobbing.
He pulled her to his chest again, and began slowly rubbing her back up and down saying, “Look I know we have had our differences, but I think that in this time of adversity, we might be able to forget about it. I have an extra bedroom at my flat, you could come stay with me.”
She gasped, “Oh no, Draco that’s so very kind of you but I can just….”
She tapered off and he let her think through what she had been considering. He gave her about 30 seconds, then told her, “I don’t live with anyone. Regardless of those crazy women who keep reporting to the Daily Prophet I slept with them, I don’t date, and I don’t bring anyone to the flat unless I trust them completely. You don’t have anything to worry about, Hermione.”
She sighed, “You don’t mind cats do you? Crookshanks will have to come with, you see.”
“Ugh, cats, what vile creatures,” he winked at her and smiled, “Of course he can come.”
***THREE WEEKS LATER***
It was just at daybreak on a Sunday and Hermione was pondering the things which had woken her. She was holding a cup of coffee- the cup comically large in her small hands- and still in her pajamas. She had been woken by screams from Draco’s room. Frightened, she ran to his room and burst through the door, wand at the ready and adrenaline coursing through her body. She saw Draco was sleeping heavily; his bedclothes were strewn all over the room as though he had been fighting with his sheets. In his dreams, the enemies were much less benign than his sheets.
Hermione had heard him yelling out in his sleep, screaming at times for his father to stop hurting him. It hurt her deep down where the scars on her own soul had just begun to finally mend. The scars on her own body- some from Lucius Malfoy himself- were mended and scarred over but the emotional ones inflicted on her from both sides of the war were much slower at healing.
Her trust issues were the worst. She could not get herself to trust anyone. Draco was slowly growing on her, and she felt he may be trustworthy. Finding that he still had nightmares about the war- as she did- even 4 years later was somehow comforting. She took a sip of coffee and gloomily thought of all the terrible things that had happened to her. When her mind started to shift to the things done in the dungeon of Malfoy Manor, she physically shook herself out of the memories. “That will be just about enough of that, miss,” she said aloud. She turned to the fridge and started pulling out bacon and eggs.
**
Draco was awakened by a wonderful smell filling his whole mind with the idea of food. The caveman in his stomach was talking and he needed to satisfy him. MEAT! His stomach cried out. Draco stood and looked around him seeing his sheets and blanket strewn across the room. He groggily wondered what the hell he had been dreaming. He pulled on some pajama bottoms and suddenly remembered the dream he’d had he mentally pushed it out and replaced it with the happy thoughts of Hermione cooking breakfast for him. He smiled to himself and opened the door. He was overloaded with the smell of every good breakfast thing bombarding his nose. He stopped off in the toilet before heading down the hall to the common area and kitchen of his -their- flat.
Hermione was washing her hands in the sink. When Draco walked around the corner, he saw her immediately- as the sink faced the common room. She glanced up, her bangs in her eyes, and asked, “Coffee?” He grunted and nodded. She poured him a cup as he walked around the room divider into the kitchen. “Breakfast?” She asked him, looking up at him.
He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. While he straightened, he said, “You are the best, yes breakfast, please.”
She smiled, blushing slightly and turned to fix him a plate.
He sat at the table, watching her. She was wearing shorts and a tank top. When she wasn’t looking, he greatly appreciated the view.
She came over to the table with their plates and sat across from him. He immediately dug in to the bacon. “Draco?” He glanced up at her in answer. “Were you having nightmares last night?”
He chewed thoughtfully, watching her emotions playing across her face. He was debating lying, maybe telling her he couldn’t remember. He swallowed, and said, “Why?”
“You woke me up this morning screaming in your sleep.”
He looked down, “They’re just bad memories.”
“Do you not want to talk about it?”
He sighed, “Not right now,” he took a bite of pancake, his face lighting up, “What I do want to talk about is why in the world you have never cooked for me before?! This is delicious!”
She laughed, “My mother always said, when your man is upset, pancakes and bacon are the best thing. Guess she was right.”
He raised an eyebrow at her over his cup as he took a drink of coffee. He put his cup down and mentally bit the bullet, “Hermione, why have we never tried to date each other?”
A/N I am currently working on Chapter 2...
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