Snow in June
Chapter Six
“What is it? Why are you holding yourself like that? Where are you hurt? Let me see.”
Hermione let her mother see, and Helen huffed, none too gently tugging Hermione’s nightdress back in place. “Serves you right, if you ask my opinion.”
Hermione felt tears rush to her eyes and nose. When angry, Helen never failed to make Hermione feel small. Edrina had the same effect on Helen. Perhaps it was only natural. Hermione wanted to hide in her mother’s bosom, to say sorry, to be petted. She realized she missed her mother. She’d been so preoccupied with her guilt and shame that she hadn’t really been with her mother all these years.
“What right do you have to look at me like that, like a lost kitten?” said her mother, stoking the fire with a long piece of wood that looked like it had once been part of a familiar door. “I’m the one who was hurt here, Hermione. I’ve been hurting for quite some time, as a matter of fact. And then tonight, you” Were you only drunk? Was any of that rubbish you said back in the house even true?”
Hermione nodded timidly, plucking at the blanket.
“So that’s the reason why you’ve been distant, is it? All those presents, all those visits, but you were hardly ever really there. I felt like you were begrudging me my new”if you didn’t want me to remarry, you need only have said so. It would be unfair for me and very selfish of you, but I would have heeded you and not said a word. Do you know that?”
Hermione sobbed into her hands. “No, Mum, it’s not that I didn’t want you to remar””
Helen cut her off and made the same sound she uttered when there was a hint of vermin in her kitchen. “You really think you killed your father? You never once told me. And why should you? I’d have laughed at you! Who blames you aside from your own stupid self, I want to know?”
Hermione’s tears had waited long and hard. They seemed determined to take what was due them. Hermione let them wring sobs from her, only impatiently swiping them away. She spoke past the giant lump in her throat. “You did, Mummy!”
She hadn’t called her mother that since she was eight. And her mother hadn’t looked that horrified since Hermione was eight, too, when Hermione had fallen off her horse on a jump.
“Hermione, I never””
“Right after I returned your memories and explained, you said I killed Daddy.”
“Darling.” Helen was shaking her head, first reaching out with an arm across the fire, and then moving to place herself beside Hermione. With a soft whine, Hermione curled into her mum’s side. Helen rocked her gently, mindful of Hermione’s wound.
“Did I really say that? I was grieving, honey, and angry. I was furious with you for using your magic on your parents for what you deemed was the greater good”for using your magic on your parents, period. We’re all beasts when grieving and furious, Hermione. We say things we don’t mean. Just as we do things other people might not approve of when anxious and fearful. I’ve forgiven you almost instantly. After I’d had my rant, that is.” Helen peered down at Hermione. “Why couldn’t you have forgiven me those words I don’t even remember saying? I suspect I was drunk then. The minister kept plying me with sherry. Whatever did I say that’s made you suffer all these years?”
Her mother was drunk? Hermione wanted to slap herself. “You said something about a bypass surgery, Mum, and two heart attacks and””
“Shite! I mean”goodness, Hermione.” Her mother forgot her wound and squeezed her frantically. Hermione winced but loved the squeeze. It put out the conflagration consuming her insides. “I’m so sorry. Oh darling. I’m going to strangle that minister if I see him again. I blamed you because we ‘forgot’ about the surgery and the two heart attacks we didn’t even tell you about? That is what I did, isn't it?”
Hermione nodded, though she could so easily have said no, now that her mother was cancelling those words more convincingly than the cold was warning of snow.
“Isn’t that just insane?” said her mother, stroking Hermione’s hair now. “Because the reason I forgave you” aside from you being my only darling child and I love you to bits even when you’re being intractable”is that what you did had been ultimately good for us.”
Helen hesitated. Hermione looked up to find her mother wiping her eyes. “We were being caged by our fear, Hermione. We were at that stage when we haven’t accepted and become philosophical yet about what may come any day. Sure, we were being nice and careful, but that’s just it. We didn’t want to be. What a lovely time we had in Australia. And you made that possible. Look, I get gooseflesh just remembering the things we did, which we didn’t know had been big risks while we were doing them. Your father ran around with the guide in one safari, for goodness’ sake. And we went sky diving and rock climbing!”
Hermione cringed. She had never inherited her parents’ love for adrenaline. “Merlin, Mum.”
Her mother chuckled. “You should have been with us. But you were having your own adrenaline fix, weren’t you? Did I ever tell you your father and I were proud of you, a big contributor to your beloved wizarding world?”
“Oh, Mum.” Hermione sighed into her mother’s coat.
“My little punkin. So you see, your father had the greatest fun, and he wouldn’t have had it if it wasn’t for your doggone meddling with our heads. You’ve been beating yourself up for nothing. All these years. Really, Hermione.”
Yes, really. Hermione buried her face in her mother’s side and breathed her in some more, tightening her arms around her mother’s waist. It felt so good. Almost as good as”
“You and Draco looked so sweet earlier. If I hadn’t been so irate with you, I’d have giggled.”
Hermione felt her cheeks tingling and grumbled, “You’re giggling now.”
Helen laughed more.
Hermione listened to it and let it sluice over her like perfume, washing away the scent of her guilt, resentment, and puke. She sighed contentedly. Things would be so much better now. After her dose of Hellaway Potion”and after this ridiculous cold spell leaves”life would be just about perfect.
_________________
Draco sneered at the bush. In the end, he had won over the stubborn bugger. Now, on to the next. He brandished his clippers and flexed his hands. The dragon-hide gloves had been a wise decision. The shrubs looked like dead and shrunken biddies, but how they clawed with indignation at Draco’s campaign to restore their dignity, the ingrates.
It didn’t help that he’d already been a little winded from baking. Helen made it seem so easy. Draco hadn’t thought cinnamon rolls and pizza were that complicated and profanity-inducing.
“Need some help?”
The clipper blades clanged together on empty air; Draco’s knuckles were far less resonant but hurt like the devil. “Merlin’s balls. Sneak up on me one more time and I swear I’ll hurl you arse first down that well.”
She had the nerve to laugh. “It’s not my fault that you’ve done away with that squeaky sentinel over there. You didn’t have to blast down that poor door. It had character. My mother used one of its splinters last night as a poker. Now we can’t put it back together.”
“Are you rhyming on purpose to annoy me?”
She laughed again, plucking a twig from his hair-- how did it bloody get there? Right, now he was rhyming.
“I ate everything in the warming oven except the plates. I hope you’ve already eaten?”
“I have.” He turned back to the Australian tea shrub and hacked away. He’d see how long he can last before looking at Hermione again. She had on a red jacket that looked like he could wear it with only a little struggle and strain at the shoulders. Too big for her, shrouding the curves that another far more flattering red thing had displayed last night. There he went. He looked.
“Where’s my mother and your father?” she said, kicking at the foliage and twigs around their feet.
“Gone. Trip to Autun, remember? They hope it’s warmer across the channel. So that you won’t have another foolish notion of your mother not loving you, she left you food.”
She raised her eyebrows. He squirmed under his cashmere. “Yes, I saw the note. It says, ‘I love you, you stupid cow.’ Maybe she got sick of endearments after her long cuddle with me last night.” Something in her tone made Draco chop off a branch he hadn’t meant to cut at all. The bordering shrubbery he’d been working on all morning now had a dimple. “Look what you did.”
“I was getting annoyed with this eyesore.”
“You know about gardening?” She eyed the dimple doubtfully.
“I know a thing or two. I didn’t spend my summers stuffing myself and playing Quidditch, unlike some people I think I can correctly name.”
She ignored his first Potty-Weasel barb for the day. “Can you put the clippers down for a minute? I want to talk to you and I don’t want you stabbing either of us accidentally on purpose.”
He rolled his eyes. His stomach rolled, too. He slowly and carefully put the clippers down. He had the funny foreboding that if he didn’t keep his eyes on his hands while doing that action, he’d dismember himself.
When he’d straightened again at last, her face was contorted from holding in laughter. If she kept that up, he’d grab her and smear dirt on her face and kiss her.
She made to go to the well, but he was not having that. Since there was no place else to sit, what with the grass wet and cold, they’d just have to remain standing. He wouldn’t let her sit at that old well again. “What did you want to talk about? How’s your head and stomach?”
“All healed, thanks to Hellaway and dittany.”
“And me.”
“Yes. And you, Draco.”
She’d smiled at him loads of times before. But he never got used to the jolt it gave him. It even made him fly miles away and stay there for months at a time, didn’t it? Now that he had no reason to flee any more, it just made him stupid. He bent and picked up the clippers again and clacked it an inch in front of her nose.
“You said something about helping?”
“You said something about me being dim?”
Oh. Last night. Draco took a deep breath and pocketed his hands. He jumped and cursed when the clippers-- which were still in his hand-- ripped the bottom of his pocket and slithered down his leg.
“What on earth! Are you all right? Did you cut yourself?”
Hermione was on her haunches in an instant, removing the bedamned clippers and lifting his right trouser leg.
“I’m fine. Come back up here.” He didn’t want to be crude, but his lower regions were crude by nature, exacerbated by Hermione being near them. “It was just cold, that’s all.” That’s right. Think of the cold. When she was standing again beside him, he sighed in relief and said, “Where were we?”
Her cheeks went slightly pink and she waved her hand in nonchalance. “I wanted to thank you for last night, Draco.”
“What last night? For being your bed, your sink, your tissue and for making you realize you’ve been monumentally stupid?”
She grinned, leaning into his side and gently digging her elbow there before sliding her arm around his waist. “For being my bed, my sink, my tissue and for making me realize I’ve been monumentally stupid.” She looked up at him curiously. “You’ve been my bed?”
He put her arm around her shoulders and returned her squeeze. He loved this about her. She wasn’t the type to hold back affection when she felt it. Did she feel it when she’d given him her cheek at Le Gavroche that first dinner ages ago? Bewildering. “In the taxi before we met Helen and Lucius toward Canterbury, you twit. Do you always pound and mutilate your bed in your sleep?”
She grimaced and withdrew her arm to hug herself around the middle. “I guess I was having my bad dream. And it probably knew it was saying goodbye so it really went nasty as a last hurrah.”
He frowned down at her as he pulled her in closer beside him. She was probably having a guilt nightmare, something he’d been also familiar about, triggered by Helen’s flighty request for a memory-modification. Well, he was glad she wouldn’t have those nightmares any longer. She’d said so herself. And he could see the evidence of her good sleep. She smiled up at him and he returned it.
“I can’t stand it,” she suddenly said.
“Pardon?”
“You’ve sort of conditioned me to it. Tell me once and for all, are you leaving again tomorrow or maybe next week after Mum and Lucius gets back?”
Draco smirked to himself, masked it with a somber expression, and turned her to face him. “Why would I leave?”
“You always do. After being nice and dancing with me, you left. After tuning Daddy’s piano and giving me something to play, you left. After having a nice tea with me and your friends and giving me those wonderful presents which I’ve used and worn ever since, you left. What do you do now after you’ve kissed me and comforted me better than Harry and Ron have ever done?”
“You tell me.”
“What?”
She looked so woebegone and wary he had to laugh. So this was what she’d been ranting about last night. He hadn’t dreamed she even noticed him leaving. Merlin. He tugged her none too gently to him and finally did what he’d wanted to do the second he’d gotten over his annoyance at her sneakiness. She tasted heavenly. She’d lied. She’d skipped the pizza and went only for the cinnamon rolls.
That she looked disorientated when they parted for breath pleased him immensely. He pecked her lips again and whispered, “You stupid, stupid cow. You know why I left. I told you last night. You were with Weasley and gave every impression that you were determined to be with him until you were wrinkled and grey.”
Her eyebrows twitched together. “I don’t””
He rolled his eyes again. “You want me to spell it out for you? All right. Maybe I loved you the moment you gave me your cheek at Le Gavroche. But I didn’t notice it until I saw you dancing. I don’t know. I saw you dancing at the wedding, but that dancing you did while alone in the kitchen was different. It stirred me. But you were with Weasley. So I left and snapped up Margaret, who was every bit your clone, brown hair and bookishness and all, but she doesn’t dance, doesn’t even know music. And then I saw you looking and touching that piano like it was your best friend, and I noticed again, but you were still with Weasley, weren’t you, and you even said you two were lovely, for Merlin’s sake. Eleanora knew music and she did good things, like you did, but it was all for show, she only looked or touched anything or anyone at all if it served her a purpose.”
Her eyes were sparkling now, though she still looked bemused and confounded. For goodness’ sake, couldn’t she accept that someone who hadn’t been receiving homework help from her for years could adore her? “And Julia?”
Draco shrugged, turning away to hide the fact that his cheeks were heating up. “That one’s embarrassing. Let’s not talk of her.”
“Oh, yes, let’s.” She sidestepped so she could see his face again. She was grinning. She slid both arms around her waist. “Come on, tell me.”
Well, she was being persuasive, damn her. “She was a clumsy bint, wasn’t she? You saw that.”
“I’m not clumsy! I thought you””
“Merlin, I only asked her out because she reminded me of you when you upended that vase that one time when I finally managed to get Blaise and Pansy together. There. Yes, idiotic of me. Happy now?”
“You were abominably rude to that poor girl.”
“In contrast to your being lovingly rude to her? And my being lovingly rude to you?”
“Ew, Malfoy.” She laughed. So she probably was happy. Hang it all if he wasn’t ecstatic, too. But he had to ask something first.
“You’re acting like you’re dismissing all those times I left. I don’t mean you shouldn’t. But what’s behind this complacency, Hermione dearest? You’re willing to risk it with me? I wasn’t your best friend, you know, nor am I a blundering Bulgarian with no””
“I don’t know, Draco darling.” She transferred her arms from his waist to his neck and pulled herself up, whispering to him now the same way he did to her earlier. “I think I might love you, too. It doesn’t have to be because you dance, play the piano, or upend vases. And you weren’t my best friend. You are. Wonders never cease, do they?”
It sure didn’t. He crossed the small distance between them so they could taste wonder some more rather than talk about it, but she leaned back.
“For instance, for the first time, my mother’s cinnamon rolls were a bit on the chewy side. And also for the first time, she wrote instead of typing or using magnabets. She’d always been ridiculously ashamed of her doctor’s scrawl, you know. But even that seemed to have been replaced with spiky script. Or maybe Lucius was the one who wanted me to know he loves me?”
He smirked. “Has he ever called you a stupid cow before?”
She laughed. And as she finally kissed him, snow fell.