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“You’re here about my alleged daughter.” Mr. Granger says.
“Yes," Draco breathes.
“Have you met her?” Draco doesn’t know how to respond, just nods. “What is it?”
When the man across from him resolutely waits for him to respond, Draco swallows hard. “I bullied her. Extensively.”
"What, you've seen the error of your ways?"
"Something like that," Draco croaks.
"Or is this a continuation of them? I've already lost my wife. If these mages are to be believed -- my daughter did this to me."
"To protect you," Draco defends. It's the most assertive Draco's been in months -- years, even -- driven by the certainty that her actions were worth it.
Draco's defensive statement seems to pique her father's curiosity.
“If you treated her the way you say you did, why are you here?”
“I’m trying to earn what she has given me."
“What would that be?” Draco takes a deep breath,
“... Forgiveness.”
Her father examines him for a long, long moment.
“You’re scared," he finally says.
“She’s the brave one.”
“Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It is action in spite of it.” Draco's not sure he agrees, knowing her as he does. He doesn't think she's ever been afraid of anything.
When the man extends his hand across the table, Draco releases the breath he’d been holding since he entered the room. He collects himself and places his own hand onto Mr. Granger’s. They’re calloused and warm and far more comforting than his own father's had ever been.
Draco turns inward, diving deep into his memories. Traversing them is terrifying, but the steady hand under his braces him in a way he didn’t expect.
Draco starts at their first meeting: Flourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley.
He was barely eleven and had thought she was the prettiest girl in the entire world. Even, he admitted later to his father, prettier than mum. Unfortunately, his father didn’t approve of that opinion. That was the first time Lucius had struck Draco with his cane.
Draco shares everything. From his enchantment at their first meeting in Flourish and Blotts, to his disappointment in the results of her sorting, to when he first called her the slur that is now carved into her arm.
Draco shares everything – no matter how awful the memories paint himself.
He shows her father how she raised her hand in class.
How thorough her answers were.
How dedicated she was to her studies.
He shows her father how indomitable her spirit was.
How she always always stood up for what was right.
How the insults and injuries never slowed her down.
He shows her father the instance when Draco wished she would be petrified -- killed.
How he then visited her impossibly still form every night, crying that he didn’t mean it and begging her to wake up.
Draco feels a fissure begin to form in the magic saturating Mr. Granger’s mind when he shows the moment she broke Draco’s nose. He lets the memory repeat.
He shows her father every moment in which she directly caused Draco to question Lucius's preaching.
How despite a lifetime of indoctrination, this one small girl was enough to tilt his entire universe on edge.
The fissure branches out and splinters when he shows her father the moment Draco first saw her in her Yule Ball dress. He focuses on how lovely she looked when Viktor Krum twirled her around the room. How brilliant her smile was.
He shows her father how awful he felt when he saw her crying on the staircase.
How he offered her a handkerchief and escorted her all the way up to Gryffindor tower.
How she looked at him when he kissed her hand.
He shows her father how he covered for her when she and Potter were running a fight club behind Umbridge's back.
How she'd grin at him when disappearing around corners -- always three steps ahead.
He shows her father how irate she was at Potter for casting that curse on Draco.
How she sat next to him in the hospital wing every night and did months of his missing homework.
He tentatively tries to show her father what happened in his home, but the memory is covered in static. He knows what’s there — he sees it every night in his nightmares. Draco focuses on small details: her lying straight to Bella’s face, her swiping both his and Bella’s wands, his full body tremble of relief when she disappeared.
The magic in her father's mind is shaking so hard, Draco's teeth rattle.
It’s her scream that shatters the memory block. From the moment Draco felt that the world had ended.
The shattering is a beautiful thing -- fractals of her magic swirling around Draco's mind.
Her father's grip on Draco's hands tightens.
They're both trembling.
When the magic settles, Draco is quick to show that the world had continued. How the light prevailed.
He shows her father how Lucius had summoned him from across the battlefield.
How despite the tears streaming down her face, she found his eyes in the crowd.
How he walked forward, not to Lucius -- to her.
He shows her father Longbottom’s speech, Potter’s revival, and her renewed determination.
How they fought side-by-side, back-to-back, as she tore through the Death Eater's.
How she spared Lucius’s life, despite his attempt on hers.
How Draco nearly died several times over because he was too distracted watching her to defend himself.
Her look of exasperation after the third time makes her father laugh.
When all has been stripped bare, Draco shares his favorite memories again.
Her wide smile after being woken from petrification.
Her impressive right hook.
Her curious examination of him at the entrance to Gryffindor tower.
Her smirk as she evades him over and over again.
Her arms wrapped around his neck in the aftermath.
Her father figures out the memory sharing impressively quick. Like daughter, like father.
Her father’s memories rush at Draco in dizzying colors and flashes of her smile.
Her father shares her as a toddler being scolded for digging holes in her mother’s garden. She’s wearing green boots and a yellow raincoat. Her grinning face is smeared in dirt.
Her father shares her reading. At every age and every place, her nose is buried in a book.
Her father shares her happiness. She smiles when he comes to her room early in the morning, not so quietly shushing each other as her mother watches from the crack in a door. She laughs and laughs when he picks her up and swings her around.
Her father shares her as a child being scolded for digging holes in her mother’s garden. She wears denims that strap over her shoulders and a pink hat. Her hands are full of frogs and worms.
Her father shares her first glimpse of Diagon Alley. She takes every detail in, cataloging it with wide eyes and enormous heart. She cries when her wand lights up with golden sparks.
Her father shares her mother, outside Flourish and Blotts, teasing her about meeting a cute boy before even getting on the train. Her face flushes pink and her nose scrunches tight.
Her father shares her cooing at a fluffy orange beast.
Her father shares her as an early teen being scolded for digging holes in her mother’s garden. She’s wearing more denims and a blue jumper with an ‘H’. Her smirk is the same as the one she gave him. She’s still covered in dirt.
Her father shares her determined expression while playing some trivia game with her parents.
Her father shares her talking.
Her father shares her.
Her at all ages.
Her everywhere.
Her.
Her.
Her.
Draco shivers when he hears her shouting in the hall. Breaking the link, he stands and rushes to the door.
It won’t open.
He tries charm after charm, but nothing works.
He gasps in air, only realizing he’d been crying when a hand squeezes his shoulder.
When she screams for her father, he all but shoves Draco aside and dislodges the door from its frame with one well-aimed kick.
Following him out into the hall, Draco doesn’t need to think before raising his wand and knocking back the ministry worker pinning her hard against the wall.
She launches forward into her father’s waiting arms.
He’s quick to place her behind him, in between himself and Draco, who turns to watch their backs.
Draco barely has time to register the incoming staff when he’s being shoved against the wall.
Her father placed himself in between them and the ministry workers.
Her father – a muggle – was protecting Draco and his daughter against several magical government officials.
When she draws her knife the air in the hall stills.
She slices both of her palms open before sheathing it at her waist. She wraps one arm around her father’s waist, and loops the other around Draco’s arm, threading their fingers together and gripping tight.
She looks at Draco,
“Don’t stray.”
He steps closer to her, lifting their connected hands up to wrap his arm around her neck.
She breathes deep, presses her face against her father's back as Draco steadies himself for whatever insanely difficult magical feat she was going to display.
Draco's body is squeezed and stretched. His body bends until he's scared it will break.
All of a sudden it’s over. They’re standing in the foyer of some horribly dark and cramped house.
Her father leans over, hurling. She keeps him upright before vanishing the mess and helping him sit down.
Draco’s ears pop and he hears a horrible screech from down the hall. It’s coming from a portrait. It looks an awful lot like his great aunt. But that would mean they were in a Black Estate and there were none farther southeast than Italy. And they were in Australia seconds ago.
The portrait is screaming about her house being defiled by filth and how the good Black name was desecrated. The girl at Draco’s side pulls her knife again and throws it at the portrait without so much as a grunt of exertion.
The knife barely misses Potter’s head before embedding deep through the hag’s face.
The portrait stills.
“What the fuck!? It is three in the goddamn morning, what is going on?” Potter exclaims.
They were in London.
Potter looks at his best friend for an explanation. She looks at her father, at Draco, at her father again, and back to Potter. She shrugs,
“The memory block broke.”
Potter’s face immediately switches from exhausted grump to surprise.
“Oh shit, really?”
“I felt it shatter,” she says. “The Australian Ministry wouldn’t let me near him.”
“And him?” Potter asks, nodding his head towards Draco. She looks at Draco, an eyebrow raised. He opens and closes his mouth several times, but doesn’t land on anything concrete before her father speaks,
“He broke it.” Having knelt in front of her father, she looks up at Draco again.
“Legilimency,” he croaks out.
“How?” Potter asks – ever the nosy arsehole.
“I shared memories,” he admits. He stumbles a bit, trying to find the right words, “Of her.”
“What cracked the block?” She asks.
“When you broke my nose.”
Potter laughs. So does Mr. Granger.
“And when you walked into the big hall in the blue dress. Although, I’m not quite sure why you look so sweet and innocent from his point of view – you are the furthest thing from an angel. And who was that older boy escorting you? I hope he kept his hands to himself.” Potter laughs again as she smiles wide.
Later that night -- well morning -- she corners him in the hall. Walks right up into his space and peers up at him.
“I felt two cracks and then the shatter.” His heart drops into his stomach.
“It wasn’t... that,” Draco says. “I didn't really try to show him. It won’t focus when I ask, anyway.”
“What did he see?”
“You lying. That you took hers and my wand.”
“What shattered it?” Draco chews on his lip,
“When you heard Potter was gone.”
“I screamed,” she says. Draco nods once.
“I showed the rest. How he wasn’t really dead. And how you carved through them. How I slowed you down.”
“You helped too.” She’s moved close enough they’re sharing the same air.
“He figured out how to share memories with me,” Draco mumbles. Her eyes brighten and refocus on his gaze from where they were wandering his face.
“Really?”
“You talked and you read and you never learned not to dig in your mum’s garden." She grins and Draco’s stomach drops down to his feet.
“Why did you go?”
“I’m trying to be worthy of the chance you gave me,” Draco whispers.
“You forged your own path. I just made sure you got to walk it.” Swallowing the lump in his throat, he changes the topic,
“I disagree with your father.” She raises a brow. “That you’re not angelic,” he adds.
When she just tilts her head -- just like her father -- he continues,
“Angels aren’t some romanticized cherub of innocence and purity. They’re true power. All-seeing, all-knowing, raw magic. The kind that takes your breath when you try something new. That blisters when you use too much. That-"
Pressing up on her toes and gripping the collar of his shirt, she drags him down to press her mouth to his.
He freezes, doesn’t move until she whines his name against his mouth.
He wraps an arm around her waist, the other gently grasping the back of her neck in hand. She arches backward, forcing him to follow.
Draco understands now – why people die of heartbreak. Because he’s had her less than a minute and with how close they’re pressed, Draco will never feel whole without her.
Against her lips, with her own breath, he confesses to every thought, every emotion, every purpose coursing through his veins,
“Hermione.”