”Harry!” Hermione yelled from across the road. She proceeded to wave her arms in the air to get his attention, but it didn’t seem to be working. Harry continued to walk in the opposite direction, not paying her any attention.
She began to run to where she had seen Harry, and she didn’t even take one look behind her to see if Ron was following. She knew that if he really wanted to see Harry then he would, but it was up to him to do so. They weren’t teenagers anymore; she shouldn’t have to tell Ron when something would be best for him.
“Hey! Harry! Over here,” she yelled again, this time she was much closer, and Harry turned around.
“There you are! I was looking all over for you and Ron,” Harry said. He smiled at her and gave her a quick hug. “Where’s Ron?”
Hermione muttered under her breath a few choice words, but to Harry she said, “He was behind me a few minutes ago. Maybe he didn’t realise that I had run after you.” She shrugged and turned around to see where Ron was. She could have sworn she heard him running along behind her, but she guessed that maybe she had been wrong.
“There he is. Let’s go.”
Harry nodded in Ron’s direction and started walking towards his best mate. Hermione sighed and followed along behind him. She was much more tired after running than she had been when she and Ron got to The Leaky Cauldron.
As Harry and Ron began to converse about work and other guy things, Hermione was looking around at the many shops that lined the street. She spotted the bookstore and decided that she would have a look to see if there were any new releases that she hadn’t had a chance to buy. She told Harry and Ron that she would meet up with them a little later and then headed off towards the store.
Before she reached the door, she heard a familiar laugh come from behind her. For some reason she couldn’t place a name or a face to it, but she knew that she had heard it many times before.
She turned around and was face to face with the one boy she had really hated in her lifetime.
“Malfoy,” Hermione said through clenched teeth. “What do you want?”
Draco smiled and laughed again. “Well, that’s not really a warm welcome after not seeing someone for four years!” He took a step towards her and tried to force himself to stop laughing.
“I’m not in the mood, Malfoy. Now, go away,” Hermione replied. She turned around to walk through the door of the bookshop, but as she lifted her arm up to push the door open, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Goose bumps erupted down her arm, and her heart began to race. She didn’t have to look to see whose hand it was. She knew it was Draco’s, and although she hated him with a deep passion, she unconsciously hoped that he wouldn’t move his hand from her skin.
“Wait, I just wanted to ask you how you were. Honest,” he said as she slowly turned her head to look at him.
For the first time, Hermione thought she saw a hint of sincerity on Draco’s face. She knew that she should have shrugged his hand from her shoulder and gone into the bookstore, but she couldn’t. The way he was looking at her made her realise that he really was being honest. If she looked hard enough, she could see a small flicker of pain in his face. For once, that pain wasn’t directed towards her. She didn’t know how she knew that, but it was a feeling that she had. She was never one to go solely by her feelings, but she could read people fairly well and her judgment was rarely wrong.
“Oh, well, I’m fine,” Hermione replied, but the tone of her voice gave her away.
“No, you’re not. Something’s wrong,” Draco said. He stared her in the eyes, and after a few minutes, he sighed. “This may sound strange, but ““
“But what?” Hermione interrupted. Her heart started racing again, and she could feel her cheeks growing red. “Sorry, continue.”
Draco laughed. “Do you want to go get a drink at The Leaky Cauldron?”
Hermione smiled. Even though she had just been to The Leaky Cauldron, she decided that a drink would probably make her feel at least a little better. She was not one to drink a lot, but every once in a while she enjoyed having a couple Fire Whiskeys to clear her mind and to help her relax.
“Sure, I could really use a drink right about now.”
Draco smiled and turned around to walk towards the pub. Hermione hesitated for a moment, but when Draco looked over his shoulder at her, she followed him. She knew that Harry and Ron would be furious with her for going anywhere with Draco, but she wanted to find out what was bothering him. They were never friends, and she didn’t expect that to happen. She still had a deep hatred for him, but she was never one to turn down a person in need. It seemed as though Draco was feeling much worse than she was at that moment.
The walk to the pub was a silent one, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. For some reason, Hermione felt comfortable walking with him. She made sure she stayed a few paces behind him so that the fact that they were walking together wouldn’t bring any attention to them.
When they reached the door to The Leaky Cauldron, Draco pushed it open and allowed Hermione to walk in ahead of him. She went over to the same stool that she had occupied earlier that day and sat down. The bartender smiled at her and walked over.
“Another Butter Beer, love?” the bartender asked.
Hermione shook her head. “No, I’d like a Fire Whiskey this time, please.”
Draco slid onto the stool on her right side and asked the bartender for a Fire Whiskey himself. He looked around the room, and, slowly, his eyes fell upon the woman sitting next to him. He knew that she must still hate him for all of the nasty things he had done to her when they had been in Hogwarts, but he hoped that she would see the change in him. Maybe they couldn’t be friends, but acquaintances were better than nothing. After the war had ended, Draco severed all ties with his friends. He didn’t want to have any memories of his past life, and the only way he could do that was to be left alone.
“So, um, what have you been doing with yourself?” Hermione asked. She nodded a “thank you” to the bartender, gave him a smile, and then turned back to Draco.
“Well, to be honest, I haven’t been doing much. I sort of . . . moved out of my parents’ house, and I have my own small apartment near Muggle London,” he replied, taking a sip of his drink.
“Oh, wow. Do you still talk to your parents?” Hermione said. The news of Draco living alone shocked her. She never would have thought that he would live anywhere close to Muggles, and she never would have thought that he would actually move out of his parents’ house. She always thought that he would stay at home just so he wouldn’t have to do anything with his life. He wouldn’t have to work or buy his own things. She was sure that his mother would have supplied him with everything, just so he would stay.
“I talk to my mother, but not so much with my father. He’s still in Azkaban, you know.”
Hermione’s face grew red, and she nodded her head. She had almost forgotten that Lucius Malfoy had been put in Azkaban after the war for being a Death Eater. Draco was able to escape the same fate as his father because the Ministry officials could tell that he had been brainwashed. It happened to a lot of Pureblood children whose parents were working for Voldemort. Draco was no different from any of the rest of them.
“I’m sorry. I forgot that he was imprisoned,” Hermione said. She took a large gulp of her drink and folded her hands in her lap. “Why did you move out of your parents’ house?”
“Mainly to try and forget all of the things that had happened. It was hard staying there when all of the memories still flooded the house. Almost every meeting happened there and . . . other terrible things,” Draco said, his voice becoming a quiet whisper.
Hermione nodded. She knew of some of the meetings that had been held there, and she had a feeling that everything probably happened in that house. She would have moved out, too, if those things had happened in her own home. She knew that they never would have, but if she were Draco, she knew that she would have done exactly what he had.
“Hermione, what the bloody hell are you doing?” a voice shouted from behind her. Her eyes grew wide, and she felt Draco tense beside her even though only their knees were touching because of the way the stools where set up. She slowly turned her head to look at the two people standing behind her. Hermione knew that she should have been worried about Harry and Ron coming to The Leaky Cauldron for a drink. She also knew that she should have been scared at that moment for what they were going to say (or do), but she wasn’t.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m having a drink with an old classmate; that’s what I’m doing.” She looked at Draco from the corner of her eye, and she noticed a slight smile on his face. She couldn’t help but laugh, and her two best friends stared at her as if she were insane.
“Now, if you don’t mind, we were having a conversation before you two so rudely interrupted,” Hermione snapped, turning around to face the counter. She lifted her glass to her lips and took a long gulp to calm her nerves. Although she wasn’t scared, the fact that she had just snapped at her two best friends all because she was having a drink with Draco Malfoy confused her a little, and it made her adrenaline start rushing.
After a few minutes she heard the sound of footsteps leaving the pub, and then the loud slam of the door. She knew that it wasn’t the end of the situation and that as soon as she got back to the Burrow later, all hell was going to break loose.
She knew that she should have been nervous about what was going to happen, but if she was honest with herself, she couldn’t care less about what Ron or Harry thought. For the first time in a long while, she felt a little happy. The fact that it was Draco Malfoy who was making her happy at that moment didn’t phase her anymore. She enjoyed getting Ron angry because of this, but she also hoped that it would make him realise how easily he could lose her. She had a feeling that he thought she would always be with him. She wanted him to finally see that she was her own person and that she could decide to do something else in life that didn’t involve him. Now, he would see that she could be happy without him, and maybe he’d even see that she could be happy just having a drink with an old classmate, even if that classmate happened to be Draco.
Hermione sighed and looked over at Draco, who was staring at her in awe.
“What?” she asked, raising her glass as a signal to the bartender for another one.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Draco laughed. He shook his head and continued to stare at her. “You do know that that’s going to cause one major argument when you see them later, right?”
“Yes, I do. Thanks for pointing that out to me,” Hermione said. “But, I don’t care. I’m my own person, and I can make my own decisions whether those two agree with them or not.”
Draco smiled, lifted his glass, and tapped it against Hermione’s. She smiled back, and the two sipped happily from their glasses.
Seen In a Different Light by TCole
Chapter Notes: Again, another thanks to my amazing betas! =D
Chapter Endnotes: So, what did you think? =) Thanks for reading, my dears.